Super Saver
Couple with 13 kids and a food bill of £632 A WEEK learn how to cook a tasty meal for just 90p a person in Save Money, Good Food
A COUPLE with 13 kids and a massive food budget of £632 a week were given a frugal cookery lesson in Save Money Good Food - that could save them £7,800 a year.
Mark and Tania Wilkinson, from North London, have a full house with one baby, one toddler, four primary school children, four teenagers and three in their twenties.
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The family is so big, the busy couple cater for three separate sittings – before sitting down to a takeaway themselves.
Tania said: “The reason we have different shifts is the age range and also convenience.
“So we do a sitting for the small ones, then a sitting for the younger teenage ones then a different sitting for the older children.
“Then after that we often order a takeaway because by the time you’ve done three sittings it’s like running your own mini-restaurant.”
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Tania claimed the couple spent around £500 on her weekly food bill but presenter Susanna Reid shocked the couple when she revealed their real spending was £632 a week – or £33,000 a year.
Tania gasped: “Wow. That’s a lot.”
Mark admitted: “We waste a lot of food through lack of planning. If we made a plan and stuck to it we wouldn’t be throwing the food away.”
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“We throw away 10 to 20 per cent of our food – which means we are throwing away about £100 a week.”
But when chef Matt Tebbutt went through the couple’s bins, he found unopened packs of potatoes, carrots, leeks and puff pastry which were all perfectly edible.
To show what they could save he used the discarded food, plus the chicken thighs he found in the fridge, to make chicken in tarragon sauce with hasselback potatoes for just 90p per person.
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Using stale bread he also whipped up a bread and butter pudding – at 40p a head.
He also revealed that the ready-made snacks Tania was buying for lunchboxes – at an average price of £1.47 each – could be replaced with homemade snacks for just 57p.
With 13 birthdays to cater for in a year, party food was also an issue.
Tania confessed to spending £120 on snacks for each celebration, so Matt showed her how to make her own at a fraction of the cost.
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Matt’s spread came to just £24, which shaved a total of £1200 off the yearly party spend.
At the end of the show, Matt and Susanna calculated Matt’s recipes would save the family £150 a week – an annual saving of £7,800.
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Tania said: “It’s been brilliant. These are real meals that I can do easily.
"You wouldn’t even want to go near a takeaway.”
Save Money, Good Food is on Tuesday night on ITV at 7.30pm.
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