Can you feed a family of 6 under £30 ??

costaerer

am struggling. on my supermarket ive got it to £166 for the month :S

Pitlanepiglet

Costaerer, it might help if you post your list with quantities, it may be that your portion sizes need adjusting?

I'd use one chicken breast per person if I was really trying to cut costs and stretch it out with veggies, pulses, carbs etc - so you'd get four meals out of two chicken breasts. You can also make soup out of the bones - I keep the used carcuses in the freezer until I have a few as I prefer to cook a couple at one time.

costaerer

yup meant four !! bones of roasting chicken doesnt make nice soup- you need a hen carcass. can get for £1 from my butchers so not too worried!

costaerer

Wow I realise what a snob I'm being! Such as I can't bring myself to swap from ribena to own brand!! Any one know which own brand tastes most like ribena.
Also decided I'm Goin to do weekly shop not monthly. I can easily eat at my parents 3 out of 7 nights that will reduce my costs by far and my parents don't mind. They often give me leftovers for OH.

mrs-stressed

I am seriously hoping that this month or at least until payday I wont have to buy any food. I have a small freezer and its full of bread and milk and chicken etc. I think 2011 I shall be tightening my belt even tighter. I cant afford fruit anymore and I always get value veg as its just that - good value. I live on my own so I dont actually have to think 'food' much. And I have loads of food in for my dog so thats OK. I would like a slowcooker though.....

mrs s

costaerer

i think you will be fine with that! i find that value veg is as good as non value veg!!

i dont no what the big deal is with the slow cooker, using the oven is exactly the same, just on a low heat for a long period of time! i make lovely braised steak in oven with meat potatoes etc on a low heat for 5-8 hrs! im sure you could do chicken and potatoes the same x

Buddingblonde

If you do decide to go down the route of monthly shopping - make OH sandwiches in one batch and freeze them - take them out of the freezer the night before and put them in the fridge for him to take with him.
I did this a while ago - making sandwiches in one go is very quick and I could make different ones - ham and pickle were good, roast beef and mustard, chicken, cheese and onion all work

Also rather than buying chicken breasts buy two or three full chickens and roast all of them. Strip all the meat off them and freeze. Then when you want to make a curry/stir fry/ chicken pie etc you have the meat already there - just take out a large handful per meal. Use some of the bones to make gravy and some to make stock and freeze Ham houghs are cheap and can be done the same way.

Buddingblonde

mrs-stressed wrote: »

I cant afford fruit anymore

Frozen bags of berries last ages and are a lot cheaper than buying fresh, also tinned fruit in fruit juice are better than no fruit at all - many value ranges carry them - also aldi and lidl have special offer fruit every week - aldi starts from 39p for their fruit and veg

MrsBartolozzi

Hi there costaerer.
The big deal with the slow cooker is the cost. They typically use around 100w an hour x say 10 hours = 1 unit of electricity. A normal electric oven is approx 2-3kw per hour that's 20 or 30x the electric. So a slow oven cooked 3 hour roast would use around 6 units of electricity. The merits of taste etc when using a slow cooker are regularly debated on here, but the cost advantage is plain.

adelight

You need to get OH to eat proper meals! Lidl's own brand choc is 39/100g, tastes like galaxy my fussy OH says.
Can you and OH eat the same but give him extra cheap carbs? Smaller portion of pasta for you, mash for him just veg for you etc