£100 for 5 weeks food - family of 4

DebtFree2012

Deja vu I hear you thinking

I know there have been an increasing amount of threads very similar to this one over the last few weeks and months and this is more likely than not linked to the cost of food rising so much. I am more than feeling it.

I am been paying debts off for a while and initially tried to free up some money from groceries to go towards debts which worked ok for a few months until the cost of food has gone up that much that it's not freeing money up to debts anymore.

This month is my tightest yet and I have £100 to last my until August 25th. That's a 5 week month. This is what I call my grocery shop however I want to say (as I know the question always comes up) this is for washing powder, loo rolls, baby stuff too). I already have some things in and hope that for eg the washing powder will last all month and I won't need more loo rolls.

There are 4 of us. Me, hollow legged husband, 2 kids age 4 and 1. We all have packed lunched every day. The kids have porridge/weetabix for breakfast as they love them and so does DH. I have whatever there is left. I have chickens so don't buy eggs and DH gets meat reasonably cheap.

So my journey has begun, I have an attempt at a menu plan for the month plus I did my first (the biggest) shop last night which came to £52.05p. So less that half left. Next shop is planned for Sat/Sun when I will get Sunday dinner veg and next weeks salad stuff and yogs.

I'll post what I bought/what I have/what the menu plan is asap - I just wanted to get a thread started.

ixia

good luck i'll check in and see how you are doing and hopefully pick up a few tips. I'd really like to cut down my grocery shopping.

tessie_bear

good luck...have u tried aldi super 6 which is various fruit and veg every 2 weeks...they also do meat offers....lidl do weekend offers on meat fruit and veg and other essentials like taxi bars this weekend:p

have u tried markets for food ? there are threads on here like whats your cheapest meal which might be worth a look
hth

ubamother

Cleaning stuff - try not to buy any - whatever you've got now, add water to make it go further, use cheap washing up liquid, add a bit of vinegar, and plenty water - your house will not be unclean if you live without whatever products you normally buy. Everytime you have a meal, I just bet there is a scrape of something left. Don't let the washer-upper eat them (which is what happens in my house if I'm not fast) Freeze your scrapes and you'll soon have enough for a soup, or something you can add pasta too for a children's meal etc. etc. Check out if you have a good greengrocer or farm shop and see how much a large bag of potatoes is - not only can they be the main part of a meal, jackets etc. they can bulk out lots of other dinners too. Packed lunches can get quite expensive - have a think about what goes in them and if the cost of this can come down. Good luck

quintwins

are you having a roast on sunday? if so assuming you've already bought it i'd switch the rest of the months out for casarole, a chicken or a pork roast (if you have a slowcooker prk shoulder is lovely cooked in it with honey and mustard) we hardly ever have a beef roast it's far too expensive

you could make pasta/potatoe salad for in your lunch boxes or make your own sandwichs fillings (i love homemade egg mayo, or egg and bacon made with coking bacon is very cheap) which can be much cheaper than packaged ham ect, we also love homemade gammon sandwichs and it is cheaper per weight than packets however it doesn't strech as far even when i slice it in my slicer

Butterfly_Brain

• Go to your local market at the end of trading on a Saturday you can sometimes pick up some good bargains.
• Have you a garden? If so try and grow some fruit and veg for when times are tough ( I know it won't help at this moment in time but worth thinking about for the future)
• Go foraging this is the right time of year - we have loads of blackberries, wild damsons, and apples around us and even some cherry trees and sweet chesnut trees that the council have planted dotted around town - you just have to look.
• Check what you already have, you may be surprised, and maybe we could help out with a few meal plans.
• Even though it is summer - try soup and pudding night on cooler days HM soup, HM bread and a crumble made from, fresh or a tin of fruit with a basics custard (6p) is cheap and very filling, or what about a good old fashioned rice pud.
• I buy a joint of beef or pork and roast it and slice it that way it stretches to at least 2 meals. I do the same with a joint of gammon but that is used as ham for sandwiches for 2 or 3 weeks.
• You have your own chickens so frittata or quiche with salad or egg and chips, scrambled eggs, or egg and mayo open tartlets with some cress.
• old fashioned cheap meals including macaroni cheese, liver and mash with bacon ( buy the offcuts because they are cheaper) and fried onions,
• Buy a whole chicken and stretch it to 3 meals at least, i.e roast, curry, stew crumble etc and a soup from the carcass.
• Sausages for toad in the hole, sausage and mash, sliced and add to pasta sauce with some veggies for a tasty sausage pasta, sausage stew, get some sausage meat and make a sausage plait and seve with mash and baked beans or peas
• Baked bean lasagne basically a layer of beans, cheese, tomatoes and onions with a cheese sauce poured over the top.
• pancakes sweet or filled and rolled with baked beans and cheese topped with cheese sauce or mince and veg with a white sauce, left over bolognaise etc basically anything you can think of.
• savoury bread and butter pud with sausages, bacon bits, left over roast etc

HTH x

threemuttleys

Dont buy yogurts...so easy (and cheaper to make your own)

flippin36

If you can get cheap meat and have chickens I think its do-able. My advice would be to avoid meat and 3 veg meals and just go for stews, casseroles, spag bols, lasagne, homemade pizza. It makes the meat stretch a long way and you can bulk it out with whatever you have in the fridge. Consider some veggie meals, quiche, mushroom pizza, cheese and tomatoe pizza, cheese and potatoe pie. If you have a light meal you can fill up on puddings - rice pudding, bread and butter pudding, blackberry crumble. For sandwhiches I would definitely recommend buying a joint of gammon, or chicken rather than small packs of sandwhich meat - much cheaper especially if you have a slowcooker and freezer.

I would recommend buying
Flours, sugar, jam (you can make jam tarts with the kids), yeast, cheese (biggest cheapest block then freeze into portions), yoghurts (the value ones are 'ok' at 30p) , cabbage is cheap and goes a long way, frozen veg is cheaper, tins of beans, tins of tomatoes, value pasta, rice, big bags of potatoes, dried milk for cooking, my oh says the value weetabix from morrisons is ok, peanut butter is great for baking as well as sandwhiches we like the value jar (50pish), bacon is so handy and cheap, dried fruit (my kids used to like taking little pots of dried fruit to school).

Hope I'm not pointing out the obvious

Good luck with your challenge, I am on a mini challange of my own so will follow your thread with interest.

quintwins

btw tesco have half price gammon and pork shoulder joints and frozen chicken fillets

DebtFree2012

Thank you all for your responses - I am busy compiling my lists of what I have, updated menu plan and forecast of buying for next few weeks (in between work!) and will update on here as soon as I have them all.

I really appreciate these responses. Thank You.

GreenNinja

I agree, food prices have been shooting up at a ridiculous speed! My monthly food spend has increased by £50 overall in the last 4 or 5 months and seems to rise every month although I am being careful.