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Daily Record

Lifestyle

Emma Gill & Ketsuda Phoutinane

'My family ate Asda's impressive budget range for one week and it cost less than £50'

Asda Manchester Family Smart Price Farm Stores

As the cost of living crisis squeezes households, families around the country are considering where they can cut corners with good reason.

Getting food on the table whilst keeping up with work and all of life's curveballs is already a challenge in itself.

That's why one writer at Manchester Evening News set out to eat nothing but Asda Smart price products and its budget Farm Stores fruit, veg and meat range for a full week.

The week's food budget kept costs down to just £50, but there of course was some clever meal planning involved.

Emma Gill bought only the cheapest items at the supermarket available and impressive results followed, so we'll let her tell you the full story.

All the Asda Smart Price tins we bought (Manchester Family / MEN)

Some of the dairy products from the Smart Price range (Manchester Family / MEN)

But with less than £50, I was able to buy breakfast, dinner and tea - I'm a Salfordian so I'm not calling it lunch and dinner - with snacks and puddings thrown in too. It was even enough to make a big breakfast and a Sunday dinner, with sponge and custard for afters (sorry, pudding).

Impressed? You should be.

Admittedly some of the products were lower quality than we'd usually eat and when it comes to buying things like meat, fish and cheese, it's hard to find healthier alternatives when you've got a tight budget to stick to. Not to mention having to sacrifice free range eggs for the caged hen variety.

When it's £1.18 for 15 mixed sized eggs compared with £1.68 for 12 medium free range, it's a big difference when you're watching every penny.

Despite buying the cheapest of everything available, I have to say that with the exception of the weak teabags and the poor quality sausages, there's nothing we wouldn't eat again - but I guess you get what you pay for with a pack of 20 bangers for £1.

Our Sunday dinner (Manchester Family / MEN)

I could have instead opted for the eight-pack of Farm Stores sausages for 80p - the Farm Stores bacon was a hit, if you like thick slices that is - but my idea was to have enough for the breakfast and to add some to the Sunday dinner (something of a habit in our house).

There were a few items we had to buy from outside the budget ranges to make the meals work - like gravy granules, stock cubes and red cabbage to go with the corned beef hash - but I bought the cheapest options and these were all still included in the final £49.95 bill.

I did use garlic and tomato puree from home for the chilli, as well as our own salt and pepper, but these could easily be factored into that weekly shop as there were items, like ketchup, brown sauce and chilli powder, that wouldn't need purchasing every week.

For breakfasts and lunches for the four of us, one thing I did need was a fair bit of bread.

A typical lunch from the Smart Price and Farm Stores ranges (Manchester Family / MEN)

With no bread other than garlic bread available in the Smart Price range, I bought three of the cheapest medium sliced white loaves for 58p each.

I also chose semi-skimmed milk over the long life skimmed milk, but it didn't make that much difference to the price.

One thing I could have done differently was to buy flour (45p for 1.5kg of plain or self raising) instead of the packet sponge cake and batter mixes, but I wanted to try as many of the Smart Price products as possible.

While both were OK, and would suit someone not wanting to buy full bags of flour or the other ingredients needed for a cake mix, there's nothing quite like the homemade versions.

That's also why I opted for the bolognese pasta sauce, at 39p, as it was slightly cheaper than using tinned tomatoes to make my own. Although I did add in some carrot to bulk it up and make it that bit healthier.

I would have added mushrooms too if the children would eat them!

It was polished off without complaint though, although we did all agree that it was no match for the fresh stuff.

Spaghetti bolognese was one of the teas (Manchester Family / MEN)

The plain packaging does nothing to entice us to pick up these budget products - we're all suckers for marketing really aren't we - but if you give some of them a go, you might just be pleasantly surprised.

With Asda promising to stock its full Smart Price and Farm Stores ranges in all 581 food stores and online from the end of this month, hopefully there will be even more choice when it comes to making cheaper family meals.

A spokesperson for Asda said: "We know that the cost of running a household is at the front of our customers’ minds at the moment, which is why we have made our full Smart Price and Farm Stores range available in all of our food stores and online.

"This includes more than 30 staple fresh fruit and vegetable products starting from just 39p to give customers a choice of affordable healthy options.'"

So here's how the week's meal times panned out.