6000 meals under 50p in 2010; feeding your family on a low budget

Smiley_Mum

I was thinking about the actual energy usage costs too so I've come across this site which provides a months worth of slow cooker recipes, for those that are interested. You can probably adapt them a bit to your own tastes.

http://www.momadvice.com/food/slow_cooker_recipes2.aspx

LilacPixie

Well done Mark.

I wonder if having a larger family makes it easier. IE you have a family of 6 for 50p pppm is £9 a day or £63 a week not including household stuff where as i'm a family of 4 so 50p pppm is £6 a day or £42 a week. just sounds like feeding 6 on £63 a week is alot easier than feeding 4 on £42 in my sleep addled brain.

I actually hate to think what some would make of our diet :eek: OH has a physical job and has a HUGE packed lunch. Kids have stages or eating well and times of eating not so well. Bad me I actually let them drink fruit shoots and eat biscuits etc.

Have you tried making a frittata/tortilla type thing for your veggie kids. Its a cheepie tea here 3 eggs, a little whole milk, some cheese, diced cooked potato, tomato, onion, pepper maybe some peas. I boil the potato until soft, drain and dry. Saute veg in pan with a little oil add frozen peas and sliced toms (watch out it may spit if ice hits oil) add the dried potatoes. move around a bit so pots start to colour add whisked eggs and milk cook until set sprinkle cheese and put under grill.

I serve sliced like a pizza with pot wedges and a handful of salad. Half does me OH and 2 kids (1 and 3) so half reserved for a lunch. usually I take 1 bit with salad and OH takes 2 bits in his pack up next day to eat cold.

Not costed it but i would imagine between 4/6 it wouldn't be much for a lunch.

thriftlady_2

boredofbeingathome wrote: »

I also buy sacks of spuds- similar price of £4.50 for 54kg bag. .

Wow, that's cheap! I get 20kg bags for about £4 aand consider that cheap. Are you sure that's 54kg and not 54lb (which is the same as 25kg)?

Sacks of spuds are always good value provided you have somewhere cool and dry to store them.

[Deleted User]

Sometimes if I have it left over from Christmas I bulk out a sheps pie with a handful of dried sage & onion stuffing mix insted of lentils or oats

mark55man

JackieO wrote: »

Sometimes if I have it left over from Christmas I bulk out a sheps pie with a handful of dried sage & onion stuffing mix insted of lentils or oats

Jackie

That sounds lovely - I will have to remember to buy too much stuffing next year

Kellylea

I'm enjoying this thread so much! It's really inspiring.

I've really found so far for 2010 that soup is the way forward. I can make huge vats of the stuff for ever so cheap and I seem to enjoy it so much more than a sandwhich, even my little toddler who will only eat something he can feed himself is enjoying having it poured over and stirred into mash potato (even a mashed up jacket works). I've just made cullen skink with potatos, onion, smoked haddock a bay leaf, fish stock and double cream. Not the cheapest but I mostly used leftovers from the cupboards like the double cream I bought too much of etc only had buy the haddock. Today I'm at the end of my cullen skink so I'm going to knock up a simple veg soup with anything bendy in the fridge, veg stock and a handfull of rice and whatever spices I can fish out!

I was never into sandwhiches as a child and mom used to send me with a little tupperware with rice and something ie. rice and peas or rice and sweetcorn. So much more filling too. My little one loves rice sweetcorn and flaked fish.

Also thought I'd add that my can't live without store cupboard item is cornflour because when soups, curry sauces, pasta sauces, bolognaise, chilli goes abit wrong and runny two tablespoons of this turns it to the perfect texture for us!! Where as before it'd be half eaten and then a pizza quickly called.

x x x

mark55man

LilacPixie wrote: »

Well done Mark.

I wonder if having a larger family makes it easier. IE you have a family of 6 for 50p pppm is £9 a day or £63 a week not including household stuff where as i'm a family of 4 so 50p pppm is £6 a day or £42 a week. just sounds like feeding 6 on £63 a week is alot easier than feeding 4 on £42 in my sleep addled brain.

I actually hate to think what some would make of our diet :eek: OH has a physical job and has a HUGE packed lunch. Kids have stages or eating well and times of eating not so well. Bad me I actually let them drink fruit shoots and eat biscuits etc.

Have you tried making a frittata/tortilla type thing for your veggie kids. Its a cheepie tea here 3 eggs, a little whole milk, some cheese, diced cooked potato, tomato, onion, pepper maybe some peas. I boil the potato until soft, drain and dry. Saute veg in pan with a little oil add frozen peas and sliced toms (watch out it may spit if ice hits oil) add the dried potatoes. move around a bit so pots start to colour add whisked eggs and milk cook until set sprinkle cheese and put under grill.

I serve sliced like a pizza with pot wedges and a handful of salad. Half does me OH and 2 kids (1 and 3) so half reserved for a lunch. usually I take 1 bit with salad and OH takes 2 bits in his pack up next day to eat cold.

Not costed it but i would imagine between 4/6 it wouldn't be much for a lunch.

Hi LilacP

I am only including food items so I think there are some economies of scale in doing 6 rather than 4 - but not many. For things like sprouting and home grown 6 is more problem as you need 50% more stuff and I don't have a huge garden!!

We do frittata - but not for a while, so will try that next time I get out shopping. We are a bit stranded here, but am going to try and get out today as neighbours seem to be doing it trouble free.

For Pizza we tend to split one between 3 as DS2 not that keen - if he likes it I either do 1 for 4 or 2 for 4 depending on how hungry they are (or how expensive the pizzas were)

misscousinitt

Was thinking about this thread last night and couldn't remember if all your kids ate fish or not? If they do, how about some HM tuna fish cakes? Mashed potato, value tinned tuna (2 tins for the 6 of you should be plenty), tinned sweetcorn, maybe some peas and red onion. Mix together, form into cakes, chill in the fridge if you have time then fry (couple of mins each side) or bake for 10 mins serve with extra vegetables or salad. Could also be served in a bun as a fish burger. Veggie ones could be made in much the same way and you could ring the changes with what veg you have in...just a thought...

vivaladiva

A couple of years ago someone posted a link to a site where someone was trying something similar. IIRC he was a stay-at-home dad and was building a moneysaving, menu planning website. Someone had seen it in their local paper and posted the link. I had the link bookmarked on my now defunct PC. Does anyone else remember it?
When I saw the title of this thread I thought this was it. If anyone can remember it I'm sure it might be of use here.
Sorry to be so vague. I tried the indexes and the search but I can't find it.

mark55man

misscousinitt wrote: »

Was thinking about this thread last night and couldn't remember if all your kids ate fish or not? If they do, how about some HM tuna fish cakes? Mashed potato, value tinned tuna (2 tins for the 6 of you should be plenty), tinned sweetcorn, maybe some peas and red onion. Mix together, form into cakes, chill in the fridge if you have time then fry (couple of mins each side) or bake for 10 mins serve with extra vegetables or salad. Could also be served in a bun as a fish burger. Veggie ones could be made in much the same way and you could ring the changes with what veg you have in...just a thought...

Sounds lovely - will do that tonight (lentil soup will wait for the weekend!!)- have about 4 bags of value smash and 20 tins of tuna in the cupboard - will add some peas and sweetcorn from the freezer: should be £1 for the tuna and £1 for everything else - plenty

vivaladiva wrote: »

A couple of years ago someone posted a link to a site where someone was trying something similar. IIRC he was a stay-at-home dad and was building a moneysaving, menu planning website. Someone had seen it in their local paper and posted the link. I had the link bookmarked on my now defunct PC. Does anyone else remember it?
When I saw the title of this thread I thought this was it. If anyone can remember it I'm sure it might be of use here.
Sorry to be so vague. I tried the indexes and the search but I can't find it.

Sounds Interesting - in my experience these things tend to surface - flourish and then die down. however it sounds like even if it hasn't been updated for a while it may have good content - so if anyone can help us find it - muchos kudos waiting