Where to shop for family of 6? Help and advice needed as cant afford food anymore :(

emmamed

forever.insane wrote: »

I may not help a lot (but in this case, every penny helps), you seem to have missed a certain type of milk..... and its FREE! Why not breast feed? Ok it's a little personal, but there is a reason females produce the stuff.

Why not give it a try?

Also, if you shop at Asda, have you tried the 10% challenge?

not everyone can breastfeed and as someone else has said, 13mths abit late to start trying.

as for the OP buy yr fruit n veg from aldi/lidl much cheaper. does yr child really need pull ups of a night time, could a nappy not be ok (which would be cheaper) or train them to get up at night, then nothing needed.
some special baby milks can be prescribed by the doctor. make yr own baby food. cant believe after all this time you dont get the healthy living vouchers.
make a list of all basics u need for the week and dont buy what u dont need like yogurts, have a bit of fruit instead or make a rice pudding, jelly for afters.
shop online so you only buy what u actually need and be good and resist anything else.
seems you are buying loads of food for the week with spending so much, £200 a week is alot of money. try buying cheaper brands and bulk buy, make meals and freeze.
dont travel the boards too much but i know there are threads on cutting back, sure someone will come along with the details.

MILLYMOLLY

Hi not read your thread yet but just wanted to say I have 4 'grown up' children who live at home and no it's not easy.
I also wanted to say my son is nearly 18 and was born at 23 weeks was on oxygen at home until nearly 2, so I know a lot of the problems you might be facing if you want to talk about it PM me. Oh and just to add after all his problems and being predicted to not get any GCSE's he got 13 1/2 and is at college, there is light at the end of the tunnel

recovering_spendaholic

First of all I just wanted to say that you seem to be coping wonderfully with what must be a complete nightmare of a situation. Have you determined that you are on all the benefits you are entitled to? You need to go to a welfare adviser at the CAB just to check, even if you think you are.

I personally don't think that Asda is that cheap. Do you have an Aldi or a farmfoods near to you? I find that getting all my cleaning stuff from Aldi is so much cheaper - the kitchen, bathroom and glass "Flash" type cleaners are 69p a trigger bottle which is less than half of the brand ones, plus the Aldi biological washing liquid is only £2.25 for a 28 wash bottle and I find it to be great. Their Oxy white is also £2 odd for a massive tub and is BETTER than vanish in my opinion. Their fruit and veg is substantially better value than Asda's but you have to check the quality as it can vary - when it's good its brilliant but sometimes some of the stuff is a bit iffy looking! They also sell big chickens, which are lovely quality, for £3.99 and you can get lots of meals off of that, plus you could use the carcass for soup. They do 10 eggs for 99p and even their free range ones are only 99p for 6. Their bacon and sausages are nice and also much cheaper than Asda, plus they do things like Bratwurst and hot dogs for about £1 -£1.50 which are also lovely. I hope you do have an Aldi near you as otherwise this advice is a bit daft!!

Farmfoods have some great offers, and if you are careful you can buy stuff which isn't too junkified. I buy the Youngs beer battered fish at 2 packs of 2 for £3 and that is less than half the price anywhere else. Also their oven chips are lovely and very cheap. They do 2 large Hovis brown or white loaves for £1.50 which is good and they do have offers on milk but Cravendale is the only milk I buy so I don't get the milk there.

Have you asked if you can get the formula for your milk allergic toddler on prescription?

I have found the grocery challenge brilliant at helping me reduce food spendinb but I cannot get my spending down to the levels that some people achieve - There are three of us (me and two teenagers) and I spend about £70 a week and can't get it down below that. Good luck and I hope things improve for you soon - it must be so daunting with all that you are coping with.

quintwins

i'm suprised no-one has suggested this yet but do you have a slowcooker? if not i'd get one, your clearly every buys but you can just throw everything into your slow cooker and walk off coming back a few hours later to a yummy dinner, also you can get away with cheaper cuts of meat which can save your money

you must be very busy and i do feel for you but your in the right place for help and posting is a good start £200 is alot of money to spend a week and you need to sort it out before you end up in debt which will only make your situation worse is the long run


are you using branded nappies? i would suggest you swap to own brand (Or even value i've used these on my son who has really bad exzema and there fine yet huggies and sainburys have him red raw) if you really wnat to stick with pull up style nappies for night lidl do a 20 pack for around £3.80, buy baby wipes when on offer or again value ones aren't bad (altho they feel abit odd) just remeber where all these products end up so your basicially paying good money to throw it in the bin

i switched to frozen veg around this time last yearand it saved me a fortune because theres no waste and i find it can sometimes be cheaper, i keep tinned fruit and frozen fruit salad as a back up so if we run out of fruit i don't need to run out (i have 3 kids under 5 so for me fruit is a must) i also keep bread flour in and once the shop bought loafs are gone i make my own, i make a point of trying to leave a week between supermarket visits and sometimes wait 10 days, i buy sacks of spuds from the farm shop aswell which saved us loads


i shop in tesco, the farm shop and lidl if they have good offers at the weekend

pollys

I have a close friend with MS who gets a lot of help and information from the MS support group (google for local group) but I noticed on another forum you said your husband may also have Motor Neurone Disease, who also have support groups and can provide you with information about what you are entitled to.

Pollys

Lugh_Chronain

I just had a look to see if I could compare prices of some of the stuff they sell in Lidl and Aldi and came up with the following from Aldi, Tesco, ASDA and Sainsbury's:

ALDI Comfy Up Pants £3.49 per pack (22 pack, 15.9p each)

All Huggies Pull-Ups at Sainsbury's £2.74 (17.1p/Nappy) until 21/09/2011. Tesco are also doing 2 FOR 1 on all of these as well, e.g. Huggies Pull-Ups for Boys Medium 9-15kg (16) £5.48 or any 2 FOR 1 (offer price 17.1p/Nappy) until 02/10/2011.

ALDI Midi Nappies size 3 £4.99 per pack (54 pack 9.2p each)

Pampers Simply Dry Size 3 Midi 4-9kg (96) currently £8 (8.3p/Nappy) at ASDA

ALDI Maxi Nappies size 4/4+ £4.99 per pack (48 pack, 10.4p each)

Huggies Super Dry Size 4 7-14kg (76) £11.98 or any 2 for £14 (offer price 9.2p/Nappy) at ASDA

&

Huggies Super Dry Size 4+ 9-16kg (69) £11.98 or any 2 FOR £14 (offer price 10.1p/Nappy) at ASDA

ALDI Junior Nappies size 5 £4.99 per pack (42 pack, 11.9p each)

Huggies Super Dry Size 5 11-19kg (63) £11.98 or any 2 FOR £14 (11.1p/Nappy) at ASDA

ALDI Baby Wipes 79p per pack - available in standard or sensitive - 79p per pack (80 pack, 0.9p each)

Tesco My Baby's Ultra Soft Fragrance-Free Wipes (80 per pack x 6) currently £4.50 (0.9p/Wipe) until 02/10/2011


ASDA Little Angels Cotton Soft Baby Wipes (80) 98p or currently any 4 FOR £3 (offer price 0.9p/Wipe) (they also have fragrance free ones for same price)

&

ASDA Little Angels Cotton Soft Fragranced or Fragrance Free Wipes (80 per pack x 6) £4.50 (0.9p/Wipe)

I've not mentioned ASDA's Smartprice or Tesco's Value products as I'm assuming their quality isn't as good as the ones mentioned above.

Anyway, this kind of shows why I go armed with a shopping list that includes the prices after comparing these online.

I other words, don't always assume Aldi & Lidl [and other stores] are cheaper though in the long run most of their stuff is, you should most likely save money if you shop in these stores regardless though (Aldi & Lidl are approx. 10% cheaper than most supermarkets apparently). And I also understand that you may not have time to check the prices online what with looking after your family but if you can then it does help a big deal.

Also, the prices mentioned here may not be exactly like for like though these are the closes I could come up with when comparing prices.

hilstep2000

Please PM me if you want help on benefits. I also have MS so am in a position to help. Also look on the Old Style Board for help on reducing your grocery bilkl.

slowandsteady_2

maybe head over to the Old Style board too, there are some great threads and links on there. Please come back and let us know how you are getting on?

dottygirl

Hi if you are finding things very hard please try your local church. They may have or should know of a church that will give you food parcels (this is not charity this is a way a church can help their local community), they may also have people who can help in other ways (at my church we have a Youth and Family Matter group which helps local families). You dont have to be religious either! Keep smiling x

chunkychocky

How about washable nappies? I had two wearing nappies at the same time and it was fine. It isn't disgusting like it used to be in the olden days - now the cloth nappies are shaped like a disposable and fasten with either velcro or poppers. You can use disposable liners in them which mean solids are easy to get rid of, and are really cheap. You bung the used nappy in a lidded bucket that has a mesh bag lining it and then when you come to wash them you just throw the whole mesh bag complete with nappies inside straight into the machine, so no rehandling of dirty nappies needed. I actually have a mountain of old nappies here that I keep meaning to sort out and sell, but I need a nice sunny day to remove the last stains out of them so never get around to it!