Help! £40 to feed family for the month

kazstevens

Well done Mbaz .. fantastic Thread x :T

Chaz25_2

This site is so inspiring, thank you everyone for sharing your recipes and ideas!

I am determined to cut back on the food bill which is around £530 a month for 4 of us (hubby, and 2 boys 1 and 3)

I cant believe how much we spend on shopping...its more than our mortgage! I have already started pulling in the purse strings and been making home made stir fry (instead of shop bought ones), home made carbonara, home made cake and cookies....got a HM pizza planned for tomorrow.

I think the biggest challenge will be keeping the frugality up...fingers crossed though, I want to reduce our food bill to about £200 a month to begin with, then hopefully reduce it even more, I am a complete novice to this though so any ideas or tips will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks everyone x :T

Shortie

donnajt wrote: »

i now have two hhhhuuuugggeee shepherds pies - i probably could have stretched to 3 but i had run out of mash and i wasn't sure what to freeze them in? any ideas? does pyrex freeze?

I'd freeze mine in the Pyrex. What I usually do though to save my dishes dissappearing into the freezer when I need them most, I freeze the excess sauce in bags to defrost and top with mash when needed

cheerfulness4

Most of my stuff gets frozen in my butter and marg tubs. Get mum to save me hers, too. They stack lovely!

jembie

I have a good selection of ice cream tubs now from Farmfoods cheap Ice cream so I am using them to freeze stuff in...certainly makes my freezer look fuller.

angie_baby

Well done on this thread.

Im going to kind of do the same this month frezzer is full and there is only me and DS to feed.

I do need some help though, i have a whole leg of lamb in the frezzer which im hoping to do a roast on sunday, but as i said there is only me and DS so there should be alot left, whats the best way to use lamb left overs so i make the most of it?

I was thinking maybe some rissoles (sp?) as that wouldnt really use that much up, but any other ideas out there??

Thanks

DianneB

Lamb curry......mmmmmmm. Don't forget that once you have defrosted and cooked the lamb you can then freeze the cooked leftovers!!

angie_baby

DianneB wrote: »

Lamb curry......mmmmmmm. Don't forget that once you have defrosted and cooked the lamb you can then freeze the cooked leftovers!!

Thanks,

Would you use the 4p tins??? Just i have 2 in the cupboard?

[Deleted User]

donnajt wrote: »

i was up v early this morning so got a head start with tonights tea - shepherds pie - as you know OH hates carrots but as i got away with introducing them into stew i have thrown caution to the wind and added them to the shep pie, i used a 800g pack of mince, used up 2 sad little asda shep pie mixes (have been on the shelf so long they thought they would end up in the bin!), onion, 1 pint stock, a splash of Mr T value brown sauce, worcester sauce and loads of oats and i am in such a good mood, everytime i went to check of the pot it had doubled in size, i feel like i have found a magic pot that just produces food lol - i am in OS heaven

i now have two hhhhuuuugggeee shepherds pies - i probably could have stretched to 3 but i had run out of mash and i wasn't sure what to freeze them in? any ideas? does pyrex freeze?

yes pyrex freezes very well and is handy as you can go from freezer to oven to table with it .

[Deleted User]

As a young skint housewife 44 years ago I would buy a leg of lamb on Saturday afternoon it cost 17/6 or in todays money about 80p and have it :

Roast on Sunday with spuds and Yorkshire and vegatables

Cold with a bit of mash and pickle on Monday

Rissoles with chips and beans on Tuesday

Curried the last on Wednesday with lots of herbs and spices and boiled rice

Thursday was sausage,egg and sauted potatoes or corned beef hash

Friday was always fish and chips

Saturday we would have a treat of either a pork or lamb chops
My joint always had to streetch to four days, but with either soup to start with or a pudding to follow it always did.
I only had a small fridge in those days, and no freezer at all. The top of the fridge had a very tiny ice box that held very little at all so all the veggies were bought every few days no frozen stuff at all. I also did my own chips in a pan with cooking fat . I am still around so it couldn't have done me too much harm. It was quite a battle at times to get through the week, but of course in those days you could only spend what you had in your purse as credit was almost unheard of .Like my late mum I seemed to spend a lot of time shopping around for the best bargains and you could pick out your joint from the butchers and often the sausages were thrown in as a present from him afterwards. The greengrocers were the next stop and i always picked out the friuit and veg that I wanted. My housekeeping for myself my OH and two children for food for a week was £7.00.But I managed quite well on that and usually had a few shillings left over if I could and used to put them away in a separate jar for 'Happy Cash ' money.This was money to splash out on treats for either myself or the family .A day out to the seaside by train from Croydon was a favorite of the children. Although we never had much spare cash we never went hungry or cold .The kids were fed and clothed and appreciated what we could give them .No designer stuff for them and only one T.V. in the house with only two channels on it.It seems like a different life by todays standards