Need help this month - £46 for food for 2 adults, 3 pets and toddler

Yorkshirechick

Hi All,

I only have £46.15 left this month for food, as I'm trying to get us out of our overdraft by sticking to an extremely tight food budget.
We got married on 27th December and the costs crept up and got us into our overdraft by quite a large amount... Also, we had to buy a new boiler in December too (which we had to get on credit) so we need to pay £2000 by September :eek: In order to do this I've had to drastically alter our budget, and was hoping that you guys could give me some tips on how to make the money for groceries see us through this month.
We have loads in the cupboards, and I'm going to list it all on here. I think my problem is I'm not very adventurous, and don' think of putting things together to make a meal, so if anyone could provide any inspiration I would really appreciate it.
We also need to buy dog food (enough to last a German Shepherd) a month, and some cat food (enough for 2 cats), and DS still has about 5-600ml of whole milk a day.
I'll get started on the food inventory now.
Any ideas anyone????

Cat72

Firstily big hugs, its hard trying to survive on little money.
However the good news is you have food in your cupboards- great start .
What stores do you have local to you ?
Aldis are doing specials on fruit & veg , as are some of the other stores like asda at the moment.
As for your cat and dog -if possable I would stick to the food they are used if financially possable, as they might get diarrohea if you change their food to quickily.
The best idea for them is dried food, which I find works out much cheaper.Again Aldi do cheap dried food for cats & dogs ,but you might be able to get a cheap multi-buy on their regular food.
Once you have posted your cupboard inventory im sure everyone will help the best they can.

Gigervamp

Congratulations on your wedding!

Do you have a Countrywide near you? We buy our labrador food from there. We get a big 15 kilo bag of working dog crunch which costs around £13 and that lasts the whole month. I've also seen large bags of dry cat food in there, but our two like the expensive pouches! (They cost more to feed each month than our dog!)

westcountrymaid_2

There is a thread here on feeding a family of four on twenty pounds a month, hope this helps, good luck.

http://http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1129333

westcountrymaid_2

westcountrymaid wrote: »

There is a thread here on feeding a family of four on twenty pounds a month, hope this helps, good luck.

http://http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1129333

Sorry don't think the link is working, maybe someone else can help with the link.

taplady

Gigervamp wrote: »

Congratulations on your wedding!

Do you have a Countrywide near you? We buy our labrador food from there. We get a big 15 kilo bag of working dog crunch which costs around £13 and that lasts the whole month. I've also seen large bags of dry cat food in there, but our two like the expensive pouches! (They cost more to feed each month than our dog!)

this is where we get our dog food from too and they quite often have special offers on. Dried food is much better for thier digestion too.
I agree with the other posters about Aldis fruit and veg, see whats on offer and then base your meals around that plus what you've already got in.
We can offer more advice when we see what's in your cupboards. Good luck and congratulations on the wedding!

Auntie_Noo

If you don't have a Countrywide, try searching the yellow pages for animal feed merchants (the kind that sell horse feed and bales of straw etc!) I get 15kg dry food for my springer for £8.99 and it lasts a good 6 weeks. If changing your pets food buy your usual and start mixing in the new in increasing percentages.... 90%old to 10% new, 80/20 etc a few days each change. If there are any tummy reactions go back a stage, when you get to 50/50 leave for a week at each stage just to be sure. If you don't normally feed dry and swap to dry feed make sure your pets have a lot more water available than they usually do, especially around the time of feeding.

Congrats on the wedding too

Auntie_Noo

p.s. I " think" the main thing about dog food is protein content, the higher the protein the more energy the dog has (I cut down to a lower protein content food in the summer for example) Working springers are usually on 20 - 22% protein in the winter I think, so try to find a similar protein content to what you are using currently so your dog doesn't go mad!! LOL

Hawthorn

Lets try again with that link!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1129333

Edit - yay it works.

freebiequennie

also try www.approvedfood.co.uk

they sell all sorts of food and there is a thread on shop dont drop, excellent reputation, excellent customer service and from my experience excellent products.

Yorkshirechick

Thanks everyone for your replies so far.

Having looked at the food we have, we seem to have loads, so it's just a matter of making it into meals.

Here's what is in the outside freezer: (these are usually things I've bought on offer from the supermarket)

2 x flat cakes (big bread buns)
15 x teeny pots of frozen veg mush (from when I was weaning DS - so roughly about 5-6 months old)
1 x Giant Yorkshire Pudding
2 x Chinese Ready meals
12 x small Yorkshire Puddings
2 x Cheese and Onion slices
Mince x 2 (450g portion)
Chicken (2 breasts)
2 x Fish in breadcrumbs
8 x sausages
1 x Carbonara meady meal
1 x fish with Parsley sauce
4 x bagels
6 x crumpets
1 x mince surprise (something previously frozen, not sure what it is)