Help! £40 to feed family for the month

VeLoCiTY

mummysaver wrote: »

Or tell him you're running down the cupboards or want to play ready steady cook!

Seriously have a look at what you've already got and try to think up some meals from that, then just buy the extra bits and pieces.

Cheap meals include egg and chips, soup, baked potatoes, pasta - have a look on the meal plan thread for this week.

For stretching your chicken search for the rubber chicken thread. You should be able to get a roast, curry, pie and possible a pasta/risotto dish, plus you can boil the carcass for stock for a soup.

Mince is also another easy one to stretch over a few meals, with the addition of a handful of oats/lentils/soya mince/veggies. You could make a bolognese sauce and have spag bol, leftovers could be divided in half and a lasagne made with one and a chilli with the other, just add chilli and kidney beans.

Another good thread to have a read of would be Mbaz's feed a family of 4 for £20 for a month - she listed meals and her cupboard and freezer contents plus her shopping list.

Good luck, and if you're really stuck list what you already have in stock and we'll all try and come up with some meals for you so that you don't starve!

I think that is this thread :rotfl:

I absolutely love this thread- but I always feel so guilty and ashamed of myself when I read it. As a family of 4, we spend a ridiculous amount of money each week (around £150main shop + topup during the week) just on food! I really think I should try this Downshift Challenge!

A lot of the recipes on here look delicious! I always prepare our meals fresh (soup, main and pudding) but there are a lot of things on this thread that I would never have thought of making! Thank you to everyone here for your input- I will keep you posted!

Good luck to all of those who are making their budget stretch this month :beer:

daska

i'd second the stronger cheese - you use less so it's actually cheaper overall

Soups are good, it's been proven that calorie for calorie, people who have soup feel more satisfied than those that eat a 'dry' meal, it's to do with the water content.

I can feed 5 of us for 2 meals on a loaf of home made wholemeal bread with a soup made with a kilo of carrots and a couple of onions bulked out with some lentils.

top_drawer_2

this thread is amazing!!! I have spent all evening reading it - so many ideas now i dont think i'm gonna be able to sleep! There's only me (student at uni) and I think I would struggle to feed myself for a month on just £20.

I am definitely going to try so many of these recipes.

Jen

edited to add: tommorrow im off shopping to get the ingrediants for the lentil and tomato soup and potato pie as well as the more conventional stuff, i'm gonna start slow and go from there ...

pinkie_pie

jackk wrote: »

Obviously i’m not sure what supermarkets you have access to, but every little helps

goodluck x



Tesco Sage & Onion Stuffing Mix 170g £0.58 – They sell a value version for about 20p ish

Tesco Value Whole Chicken 1.30kg £2.79 – do you have an aldi, i got a chicken for £2.20 there.


2 x Tesco Value Chopped Tomatoes 400g £0.42 – Buy whole and chop them yourself, they’re cheaper.


2 x Tesco Whole Milk 3.408ltr/6 Pints £4.24 going to freeze one and this will hopefully last us Asda are selling 4 pint cartons of cravendale for £1.00


2 x Onions Loose Class 2 £0.36 – Sainsburys are selling a bag of basic onions and carrots for 40p until tomorrow i believe, some fruit also.


Colmans Traditional Chicken Casserole Mix 40g £0.47 – supermarket own brand are cheaper, taste fine though.

I know this is months late, but instead of buying a Tesco Value chicken I'd buy one from Waitrose - same price!!!!!!!!!!!! :T :T :T :T

pinkie_pie

I have some desperate payments to make and have next to no money for the next month... I've looked at this thread with interest, the problem is I can't bulk cook as I only have a tiny undercounter fridge with a little one shelf freezer on top.

As I don't drive I try to do online shops to minimize daily 'little extras', as the only shops within walking distance are a (small and expensive co-op and waitrose.

There is a tesco next to my uni (massive one) but I'm never there at reductions time.

Any advice?

Skintmama

First of all I would like to wish you good luck in your challenge!

If you cook a piece of meat you can store it for 3 days in the fridge for further meals. Also, do things like cook up a batch of potatoes or pasta which again will last a few days and be available for adding bits of things to for your meals.

I find that rather than buying lots of different vegetables and wasting them, cooking up enough for a few meals and reheating works better for me. For example I will make enough cauliflower and broccoli cheese for two meals or braised red cabbage, stirfried green cabbage etc. Choosing what is cheapest of course and still getting a reasonable variety. I am not going to pretend there is not some loss in nutrition but I feel it is better than going without because I was too tired or busy.

Lots of winter roots and greens should see you right on the veg front and maybe have a chat with your local butcher for what he is doing cheaply that week.

I too miss out on offers as I live far from a supermarket so have to do the best I can with regular prices. I do use my freezers but not extensively and more for convenience as I am not sure they actually save me much money.

pinkie_pie

So it's a case of eating same meal multiple days in a row?
I can do that

griffam

With a little ingenuity you can avoid eating the same every day. Last week I bought a very large chicken at the butchers and for dinner on sunday and boiled it. This gave me one pan of stock. Once cooled I stripped the meat and that left me loads of meat. I then boiled the carcass and that gave me another pan of stock..we then had the following meals.
Sun Chicken dinner with all the trimmings. Cooked enough veg and stored in air tight containers in fridge until tues

Mon Chicken risotto using one pan of stock a taste of chicken each, rice, onions, red kidney beans, sweetcorn and some celery

Tue Chicken dinner again

Weds large pan of broth with remainder of chicken, chunky root veg, parsley and celery

i have found that although a larger piece of meat may seem dearer with careful cooking and planning it can be as economical as a cheaper alternative on a daily basis.

greenbee

If you can't freeze stuff, then work out how long things keep for. I've been snowed in (OK, only because I didn't move my car out of the drive and now have rather a lot of snow in it!) for the last few days, so have been living out of my freezer, cupboards and the village shop. I don't really like buying fruit and veg from the shop, as it is neither local nor organic, so have been working out how to make the most of what I've got. And there's no milk in there at all!

You can make sure your cupboards are filled with

dried pulses - as well as being great for casseroles & soups, you can make your own hummous, lentil pate, cannellini bean dip etc
grains - rice, millet, quinoa (which is high in protein)
pasta - spaghetti, shaped pasta, lasagne
dried fruit - these can be soaked and cooked (dried apricots make very good crumble , and figs, prunes, apples etc can be made into a compote to eat with yogurt), eaten as snacks or stirred into porridge or muesli
UHT milk/soya/rice milk - it may not be great to drink or have on cereal, but it's cheap, and if you have porridge for breakfast the taste isn't noticeable
nuts - almonds, brazil nuts etc are great for snacks & for adding to porridge/muesli, cakes & puddings
long-live fruit juices (and tomato juice)
tins of tomatoes, sweetcorn, fruit in juice etc

I also have a yogurt maker and some sachets of powder, and a bean sprouter so that if I do find I'm stuck for a bit I can get some dairy and some fresh greens!

If you're batch cooking you don't necessarily need to eat the same thing each day. While your oven is on you could do a roast, a lasagne, a casserole, some roasted veg etc.

You could then eat the roast with some of the veg and cool the other dishes to put in the fridge. The leftovers from the roast could then do lunches for a couple of days, the roasted veg and any green veg left from lunch could be made into soup for the next evening (if you've had a chicken, then take the meat off and use the carcass for stock for the soup).

You've then still got possibly some soup & cold meat for another lunch/light supper, a lasagne & a casserole, both of which will be fine in the fridge for a couple of days, and will use less energy to reheat than to cook - as well as taking less time to prepare each day. Lasagne can be eaten with a salad if you don't want to prepare veg, and the casserole can be eaten with reheated veg from another day if you do have leftovers (cauliflower cheese & red cabbage as skintmama suggests sounds a great idea!).

So you don't have to eat the same thing every day if you're creative about doing slightly different things with similar ingredients...

Good luck!

seabright

This is brilliant, I am on the Feb Grocery Challange and am worried already about whether I'll make it. But this thread has given me great ideas!