Having trouble making groceries stretch

sophistica

Really sorry to hear that your food is not stretching and I am hoping that these ideas may help you.

1. Don't pay retail. Find out when each of your local supermarkets do their price reductions and then buy according to a "price per head, per meal" e.g. if you find some meat that would feed 4 and it is £2 that means 50p each etc.
2. Invest in a freezer and when you see very good reductions e.g. 30p for a Ib of sausages, buy several packs and freeze them. Look of freecycle if you need a free freezer.
3. Shop the Value ranges (they are putting up prices) but you can get a lot of food very cheaply.
4. Look at Approved Food - I think it is https://www.approvedfood.co.uk they sell clearance food products and it is much cheaper than the supermarkets if you can buy in bulk (but there is a delivery charge).
5. Grow some of your own foods if you have a garden or sign up for an allotment.
6. Learn to cook, as raw ingredients are much cheaper than ready processed foods. The library has recipe books or build a collection of books from the charity shops.
7. A slow cooker or pressure cooker will save you time in the kitchen (car boot sales/freecycle).
8. Plan your meals in advance i.e if a recipe calls for 1 onion, just buy 1 onion. https://www.mysupermarket.com (I think it is .com) will give you prices for raw ingredients so you can plan and then you will need to work it all out with a calculator
9. Finally and not for the faint hearted (and I have never tried this) but what about becoming a freegan! Supermarkets throw out a large quantity of food at the end of the day and normally you can just lift it out of the bins. (it may not be legal but that is another issue to explore...try googling+your area).


However, you do need to realise that your food bill for 4 people is only just above the international poverty line (which is £1 per person per day), so it is going to be tough. Recently I lived for 5 days as a single person on £5 as part of a charity campaign. I ate very well because I did all of the above (except freeganism), I even cooked a dinner party for 60p per head but the success is all in the shopping, cooking and planning. Good luck to you!

schmucker

Thanks everyone for you in put, had a brief read over everything but will go into detail over the weekend.

PS We already have a slow cooker brand new in the box, we never got around to using it, so maybe will have a look at the weekend.

salome

Do use the slow cooker, it's the best bit of kitchen equipment ever :-)
I to know how it feels when all the food in the larder is gone especially due to hungry children. I was having to feed 12 of us at one time, and it was difficult to keep up with it. Still providing meals for 7 of us, so although a lot smaller in number, still more than the average. I don't have rent from my older ones either, their pay isn't enough, so they 'pay' by helping with cleaning etc, I'm also a SAHM so it's only my husbands wage coming in, which isn't terrific, and is at the lower end of the average pay rate. I also homeschool.
One advantage is I do have the time to bake, which saves a bomb, and fills extra tummy space :-)
I stretch my meat. We don't have decent butchers, so most of the time I have to use supermarket meat, same with veg. There are places I can drive out to, but nothing close and conveinient, and I hate having to drive, as I much prefer to walk.
Stews and casseroles are wonderful. You can use a small amount of meat, and bulk with veg, and it might have to take a gentle reminder to the fussy ones, that as money is short, they either get a taste for veg, and start to enjoy it, or go hungry ???? You can always spice a casserole up with chilli powder or make more like a curry, the veg won't be so bad then maybe ?? Dumplings, or scones can be good filling add ons to these, or some nice crusty bread.
Pasta based dish are good as well. Very filling. Add cooked mince meat, a tin of baked beans, some cheese etc, spice it up. Very tasty. have some basic brand garlic bread with it, and perhaps a bag of the basic labeled doritito type crisps :-) Or tuna with pasta, that's nice :-)
For a roast, I buy slightly bigger than I need, and then use the rest up cold the next day, with a tin of corned beef that has been chilled (out of the tin) for seveal hours, so that it can sliced not squished lol. Have with baked beans and chips, sometimes I make cheese scones to go with it as well.
Potato based meals are brill. Shepherds pie. Again the mince meat can be bulked out by adding cooked lentils, or veg, or baked beans. Some people I think add oats. I make a very basic, easy corned beef hash. Just mash up slightly more potato than normal, having cooked them with onilon and garlic. Add a tin of corned beef hash, some worcestershire sauce, bung into a casserole dish, top with bread crumbs, cheese if you like. My mum used to put some cooked bacon bits on top as well, brown the top off, and serve with beans, and again, my lot love cheese scones with it. Cheese and potato pie, made the same way as the hash, only it's cheese and not corned beef. Both meals, if using potatoes from a sack (which I recommend) are very economical, and filling :-)
Homemade beef burgers. The mince can be stretched by adding some fine breadcrumbs. They are tons more filling than bought ones. Of course, jacket potatoes are a cheap and easy meal. Filling and healthy :-)
And so on.
I think though, it may take you having to be firm with the fussy ones. Explain that at the moment, you can't afford to be fussy, and it's a case of eating whats provided, and making the best of it. Apart from one or two minor dislikes my lot had/have, they had to and still do, eat what is provided, there was no way we could cater for fussy eaters :-) Sounds harsh, sorry, but sometimes we have to set a boundary.

x

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi

I also think £40 is too low for a family of four - unless maybe you dont eat meat which reduces the budget a lot. My budget is £60 a week for 2 adults and 2 children, this includes all food, toiletries and cleaning, but I am even finding this hard at the moment.

For me the key is cooking from scratch and meal planning. I am not sure how old the kids are but maybe you are going to have to take a bit of a tough stand with them. Everyone eats the same in my house and we have found plenty of meals that everyone can enjoy. The kids know that if they dont eat whats put on the table then there is nothing else.

Veg can be chopped up finely or even grated into meals (carrots/courgettes/squash are good for grating). This helps to bulk meals out too. Think of staples like bread, potatoes, pasta that are filling and cheap and serve plenty of those. Bread can be Naan, Pitta, Garlic, Homebake Rolls, whatever everyone likes.

Maybe have a go at doing some cooking over the weekend when you have a bit more time and make it fun. Get the kids involved too.

Good luck, its not easy but there is loads of good advice on here.

Going4TheDream

You dont say whether you plan your meals in advance and then buy what you need but I feel as your budget is small and there is no scope for any impulse buys that would be a great place to start. list breakfast lunch and dinner for 7 days, this will ensure that you only buy what you need and also take advantage of any deals, worth checking offers ongoing and plan around them if to your tastes. Most supermarkets do the meal planners now so it might be worth a look to get an idea of how they plan but check this site for information as there is a whole load of meal planning ideas and recipes. Your wife and children will need to come round to the idea that they will need to adapt their habits to eat a wider variety of food, including veg (bought from the market) and it is a case of needs must, and as others have said growing children need nutrition and living on processed food isnt either healthy long term. A few things that worked for me when I was looking to cut down my food bill was having porridge for breakfast, sprinkled with some cheap dried raisins or similar. It is cheap to buy, easy to make and nutritious, and now we are coming up to the colder weather again a good hearty food to start the day. Another was keeping a good store cupboard, lentils, pastas, a few tins. spices herbs, and tomato puree. A quick and easy pasta dish can be made in minutes from a store cupboard. I also now have two vegetarian meals a week, means I can afford meat the other 5 days and do buy from the butcher as its better quality. I use my slow cooker a lot more to make winter warmers, and the slow cooking is great for the cheaper cuts of meat, ie lamb scrag and stewing beef etc. I also batch cook certain things so that they are in the freezer if I dont feel like cooking. There are some great filling nutritious recipes using pulses and lentils and again mince stretches further when bulked out with a few lentils. A whole chicken now lasts two days, roast the first and maybe a curry, risotto, or similar then next. the carcass being used for stock for soup, which can be eaten for lunch.

quintwins

i personally don't think £40 is too little to feed a family of 4, but you really do need to cook from scratch, were a family of 5 and we've survived on that before we now spend around £50 a week, we spend about £50 a month on meat and the same on fruit and veg (we use quite abit of frozen veg) which leave us £100 for cereals, milk, butter, cheese,pasta,rice.... you get the point we buy very little processed stuff just the odd bag of nuggets or fishfingers for cheapy treat meals for the kids (there very useful when i'm sick) we eat very well and my kids all love fruit so we always have plenty in i buy it and my spuds from the farm shop unless tesco has great reductions, we buy bananas in tesco as we found them cheaper, and we take advantage of any online codes we usually do 1 online shop a month.

this week we've had

sheperds pie £2
pizza, and garlic bread (i'm not feeling well oh made it) £1.37
gammon with cheesy tatie bake, and sweetcorn £4
gammon chips and egg £3.50
pasta bake £0.80
baked taties with beans cheese and sausages £1.20
we get sunday dinner with mil and usually have sandwichs or toasties later on (or pizza but we've already had it this week) £1

just to give you a rough idea i put the rough cost of each meal in red so our dinners this week cost less than £14,
2 big bunchs on bananas are about £2.50
apples £2
oranges £1
2 punnets of grapes £2.50
3 loafs of bread £2 (i nearly always buy reduced bread and if not buy tesco own bread at 70p)
orange/apple juice £3 (iceland do orange/apple juice 3 for £2 aswell we used to buy it now we buy value)
eggs 15 for £1.60
butter (we always stock up on marge on offer and never pay more than £1 a tub we but 2 blocks of real butter a month which works out at nearly £5 on tight months we don't buy it, it's mine and hubbys treat)
ham/corned beef 2 for £3 lasts is 2 weeks
value noodles for cheap lunches (served with frozen peas and sweetcorn and soy sauce) 30p
we buy dishwasher tablets on offer or value so £2.50 a month
bleach, clean cleaner, multipurpose are all value so £1 max a month as they last well
laudry liquid we buy in bulk in makro it comes on bogof twice a year and 4 bottles do us the year there £8 a bottle so say 50p a week
we use 2 bottles of milk a week, we can get 2litres for 69p here but it's out of my way so i buy mine for 90p each
porridge oats are around 50p a bag (i think i havent bought any in a while cause i bought 9 bags of 3 for 2)

that all comes to under £35 so it's completely do-able but i would def stop shopping in iceland and invest in a freezer i'd be lost without mine and all the reductions we get make our spends even lower so we can afford to add in coke for me and hubby and biccys and crisps (value crisps are acually quite nice as are biscuits) we buy alot of reduced bread so pancakes or muffins are common for breakfast in this house, we also buy alot of 3 for £10 meats and pork shoulder and beefshin are common in this house, i can feed us for alot less in winter when we have stews and casaroles more

we also keep an eye on lidl some of there deals are fab (also you can nearly always get a nice big gammon for £3 reduced if you go late on in my store)

when were really skint we have alot of mince, from a £2 pack i can make sheperds pie and spag bol and chilli to feed us all, as we bulk out with veg ad we only mix it threw the pasta for our spag bol we don't heap it on

i always think kids learn fussy eating so i would encourage your wife to eat some even just a little bit to encourage them remeber it's not a case of do as i say not as i do (i hated that saying growning up i heard it alot) kids mimic there parents and people around them, and personally i think an adult saying they like no veg what so ever is very imature, all veg is different and can be lovely if cooked properly

good luck and hang in there it takes alot of planning, lists and time to survive on a small amount but it is do able

i also highly recommend a slow cooker

Chuzzle

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

Not always - it depends what you buy.
Iceland mixed peppers £1 for 750g
Mr S mixed peppers £1.5 for 2X750g (75p/ 750g)

Iceland peas £1 for 1kg
Mr S £1.70 for 1.81kg (works out as 94p/kg)

Iceland mixed veg £1 for 1kg
Mr S 65p for 1kg

Also the range at Iceland is very limited.

But Iceland peas are garden peas whereas Mr S for that price is their value range? If you compare the next level of Mr S/Mr A etc to the Iceland then Iceland are still cheaper.

EDIT: Have just re-read thread and see someon has already pointed this out:o note to oneself - READ THREAD THROUGHLY BEFORE ADDING YOUR 4 PENNETH WORTH:D

blackandwhitebunny

I think £40 a week is just about do-able but does take a lot of planning. Some suggestions I would make would be to try and not buy any processed foods as processing costs money and you could be spending a lot of your budget on paying for this. Have a look on the discount coupons thread - there're not a great number of food coupons around but there are quite a lot of laundry and cleaning product ones which might free up more money for food. There are tricks to getting them in any large quantity but the posters on there will show you how.
Also I would suggest starting to cook by learning some simple cake/pudding type recipes, apple crumble is super easy and you could then bulk out more expensive meals with a pud, if it contains fruit even better. You might need to decide what is more important to your family, eating meat every day or eating good quality meat. We have some meals each week that are 'low in meat' such as macaroni cheese with a rasher or two of bacon or bits and pieces on a pizza as this allows us to afford good quality high welfare chicken a few times a month.
Lastly as many posters have said your children will need to eat vegetables, this isn't only for economy reasons but also for their health. remember that they have to have a sound 'relationship' with food for many years to come, cutting out a whole food group isn't going to work.

patchwork_cat

£40 is low these days for 4. We went to Asda last night and spent £107, admittedly that had £30 of clothes and my 2 are 18 and 13, so will eat more than little ones, but we budget about £80/£100 per week. Some people do it for a lot less, but we don't manage it and everyone has different priorities.

I find it is not the meals that add up but the extras. For example Sainsburys had feed your family for £50, but there were no storecupboard, drinks, puddings, fruit. I also buy cleaning and household items in my budget.

ab7

Hi OP,

Realise you may not have had time to browse through this site long - have you seen MrBadExample's threads for him learning to cook

here

now I doubt he'd mind me saying that keep an hour free to read them and have some tissues ready to wipe the tears of laughter he's a natural comedian and probably now a great cook! I highly recommend the pie thread :rotfl:and his mums yoghurt cake is a firm favourite in this house.
The biggest thing you may be worried about when learning is wasting food - but dont be. Mostly everything I cooked when learning was edible and tasted good even if it looked like a dogs dinner and cooking dinners is way easier than baking as it doesnt need to be precise measurements.

You're in the best place for help and advice, even if it seems like information overload at the moment. Keep plodding along, as you've probably noticed we all have our own way to eat well but frugually you'll get there.