💰 Budget Nutrition Full RDIs Family Planning

The Cheapest Way to Get Complete Nutrition for Your Whole Family

Q: What does it actually cost to meet all your daily nutritional needs from food alone?

Based on real foods and current prices, a single adult can realistically hit the large majority of daily nutrient targets for under $10/day, and a family of four can be fed complete nutrition for roughly $135/week.

Q: Can you meet all your RDIs on $10 per person per day?

Very close, yes, for most nutrients — a full day of meals built from the cheapest sources comes in at $8.80 and clears the majority of targets. A small number of nutrients, notably vitamin D in winter and iodine without iodised salt, need deliberate attention even within that budget.

Most nutrition advice tells you what to eat. It rarely tells you what that actually costs. Below is a full breakdown of what it takes to hit every daily nutrient target for a household, food by food, dollar by dollar, so you can see exactly where your grocery money goes furthest.

💵 $8.80/day

Cost to clear the majority of daily nutrient targets for one adult

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 $135/week

Complete nutrition for a family of 4 — not the bare minimum, the full picture

🎯 10 foods

Do almost all of the heavy lifting across every major nutrient

📊 NHMRC-based

Targets use the adult female 19–50 NRV band — the most demanding common baseline

Nutrient Summary — Cheapest Source, Cost, % Daily Target

All targets below use the adult female 19–50 NRV band from the Australian NHMRC Nutrient Reference Values — the most demanding common baseline, since it carries the highest iron requirement of any adult group.

Nutrient	Daily target	Cheapest source	Cost per serve	% target per serve
Protein	46g	Red lentils (dry), 100g	$0.40	52%
Iron	18mg	Kangaroo mince, 100g	$1.10	18%
Calcium	1000mg	Canned sardines (with bones), 1 tin	$2.00	35%
Zinc	8mg	Kangaroo mince, 100g	$1.10	50%
Vitamin B12	2.4µg	Chicken liver, 100g	$0.50	1,250%*
Vitamin D	5µg (10µg age 51–70)	Canned sardines, 1 tin	$2.00	~125%
Iodine	150µg	Iodised salt, 1 tsp in cooking	~$0.01	~100%
Omega-3 (EPA+DHA)	~500mg suggested	Canned sardines, 1 tin	$2.00	~280%
Folate	400µg	Red lentil soup, 1 serve	$0.60	45%
Magnesium	310mg	Pumpkin seeds, 30g	$0.30	38%

*Liver is a weekly food, not a daily one — a single 100g serve covers well over a week's worth of B12, which is why it's such exceptional value even eaten only once or twice a week.

🔑 The pattern that jumps out

A handful of foods — lentils, sardines, kangaroo, liver, pumpkin seeds, iodised salt — do almost all of the heavy lifting across the entire nutrient list above, and together they cost under $10. Master those foods and the rest of a budget-nutrition diet fills in around them.

Build a Complete Day for $8.80

Here's a single day of eating that covers the large majority of daily targets across the board, built from the foods above plus supporting staples:

Meal	What	Cost
Breakfast	2 eggs + 200g Greek yoghurt + frozen berries	$2.85
Lunch	Red lentil soup (1 serve) + slice of toast	$0.85
Dinner	Kangaroo mince bolognese (1 serve, pasta + veg)	$3.00
Snack	Canned sardines on rice cakes	$2.10
Total		$8.80

✅ What this day clears

This single day comfortably clears protein, iron, zinc, B12, calcium, vitamin D, omega-3 and folate targets, and comes in under $10 — the working proof of the site's core claim: complete nutrition doesn't require a large grocery bill, it requires the right foods.

Weekly Household Cost (Family of 4)

Scaling the daily approach across a week, adjusting portion sizes down for two children (roughly 60–75% of an adult portion depending on age):

Category	Weekly cost
Proteins (kangaroo/chicken/lentils/eggs/tinned fish)	$48
Dairy (milk, yoghurt, cheese)	$22
Vegetables & fruit (fresh + frozen)	$35
Grains, bread, pantry staples	$20
Extras (oils, spices, occasional treats)	$10
Total	~$135/week

This sits between the site's existing "tight" ($107/week) and "comfortable" ($145/week) family-of-4 budget bands — see the full family-of-4 meal plan for the day-by-day breakdown. $135/week represents a realistic, non-austere target that still hits full nutrient coverage rather than the bare minimum.

How This Is Calculated

Targets are drawn from Australian NHMRC Nutrient Reference Values (NRVs), using the adult female 19–50 band as the baseline throughout this page because it carries the highest iron requirement of any common adult group and is therefore the most demanding realistic target to hit on a budget. Prices are a weighted average of Coles, Woolworths and Aldi home-brand shelf prices, checked August 2026, standardised to cost per 100g (or per standard tin/serve where that's how the food is normally bought). Cooking method is assumed not to meaningfully change total nutrient content for the purposes of these comparisons, though water-soluble vitamins (particularly vitamin C and some B vitamins) do reduce somewhat with boiling — noted where relevant on individual food pages, such as cheapest iron-rich foods, cheapest calcium foods, cheapest vitamin D foods and the iodine deficiency guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it actually cost to meet all your daily nutritional needs from food alone?

Based on the foods and prices above, a single adult can realistically hit the large majority of daily nutrient targets for under $10/day, and a family of four can be fed complete nutrition for roughly $135/week.

What is the single cheapest food that covers the most nutrients?

Canned sardines (with bones) — for around $2 a tin they contribute meaningfully to calcium, vitamin D, omega-3, B12, iodine and protein simultaneously, which is unusual for a single food.

Can you meet all your RDIs on $10 per person per day?

Very close, yes, for most nutrients — the "build a complete day" example above comes in at $8.80 and clears the majority of targets. A small number of nutrients (notably vitamin D in winter, and iodine without iodised salt) need deliberate attention even within that budget.

What nutrients are hardest to get cheaply?

Vitamin D (few cheap dietary sources outside oily fish) and iodine (absent from most food unless salt is iodised or seafood is eaten regularly) are the two that require the most deliberate planning on a budget.

What is the cheapest complete protein source in Australia?

Eggs and dairy are the cheapest complete animal proteins; among plant foods, soy products (tofu, tempeh, edamame) are complete on their own, while legumes need pairing with a grain. See the dedicated cheapest protein page for the full ranked breakdown.

How does kangaroo meat fit into a complete nutrition diet?

It's the most efficient single food on this site for iron and zinc at low fat and competitive cost — see kangaroo vs beef for the direct cost comparison against the more commonly eaten alternative.

Is it cheaper to eat plant-based or include meat to hit all your nutrient targets?

Plant foods win decisively on protein cost per gram, but a small amount of meat, fish or eggs makes B12, vitamin D and haem iron far easier and cheaper to hit — a mixed approach anchored in legumes, with modest amounts of the cheapest animal foods (liver, kangaroo, sardines, eggs), is the most cost-efficient overall pattern the site's data supports.

Build This Exact Week in the Free App

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