£50 per week, family of 4?

mrshaz

hello

im in desperate need of some help and motivation!
we have a budget of £50 per week for food and toiletries (plus food for hamster, fish and cat)

i've tried to keep to it but can never seem to succeed, i've tried buying food daily for what we need but that seems to work out more expensive.

we ideally wanted to bulk buy but dont have the initial £200 we'd need for the 1st months worth, we live week by week.

we have 2 freezers so space for batch cooking, i have a bread maker (does it actually work out cheaper) and slow cooker. we are thinking about a yogurtmaker but is it worth it?
next year we aim to grow veg in the garden. but until then we havbe to buy it all we do get sacks of spuds though when needed.

so what can we do to stick to this £50?
any cheap batch cooking recipes? cheap versitile sauces (made from scratch) that again can be bulk made and frozen ready to add stuff tooand does doing all that make it cheaper really? and preferably low fat we are trying to stick (whithin reason) to the slimming world
diet.

i think its the fruit and veg that always gets me with the price, id rather my kids athe fruit then chocolate and biscuits etc but they work out more expensive, which shouldnt really be a factor seeing as i want the best for my kids but unfortunatly cost is always an issue!!

sorry for the ramble but i really want to start saving money and at the minute it just isnt happening because we waste so much on food!

thank you

xxlouisexx56

when sainsburys are reducing meat i buy as much as i can that i know we will eat and i have space in the freezer. just yesterday i bought 20 pounds worth of meat for just 8 pounds.
I tend to only buy fruit and veg on offer, like when apples are on offer for 1 pound etc

santer_2

Some options

Tick the shops near enough to you, tick to add tasting notes, tick any dietary requirements, set the score to at least 8+

http://supermarketownbrandguide.co.uk/search.php?table=all

Enter a search item and see if any are suitable

For example, cornflakes returns this

http://supermarketownbrandguide.co.uk/search.php?SearchString=cornflakes&Search.x=27&Search.y=20&score=8%2B&price=0&pricevalue=0.00&aldi=1&asda=1&coop=1&lidl=1&marks=1&morrisons=1&sainsburys=1&tesco=1&waitrose=1&branded=1&tastingnote=1

Also check any shops you intend to visit here for half price or better and buy one get one free offers

http://www.madaboutbargains.co.uk/offers/Off-Your-Trolley.htm

You can search for an item on mad about bargains and here

https://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/FirstTimerWizard/Step1c.aspx

Cravendale Milk is more expensive but it lasts longer and if it stops you going to the shops for something and getting other things as well, then it can be a money saver, likewise if making your own bread saves a visit to the shops. Aldi and Lidl have good reviews of their breadmaking ingredients

Asda smart price products can be good, I like their baked beans and soups

ALittleInLove

You could use discount coupons and vouchers to get money off/items free but don't get seduced into buying things you don't need and double check that they are the cheapest as sometimes even with the voucher there are cheaper versions.

Also going to the shops just before they close to get reduced items. Items on the oven fresh and bakery departments are usually good and cheap too and i often freeze bread (29p-9p), rolls (5/6 for 9p), cooked chickens (1.99 - 99p) etc. It helps to learn when your local stores reduce items. Fresh veg in the supermarket can often be frozen at home too (i had trouble with carrots once but broccoli and cauliflour, peppers and mushrooms always work well if you peel and chop them before freezing then you can take out exactly what you need without defrosting the rest.)

Car boot sales and markets are good for fruit and veg too. Our local one sells medium boxes of mushrooms etc for £2-£3.

If you want to treat your cats i know mine love liver and even bacon offcuts that i get reduced (although cooking liver does tend to make the house smell!)

Meals like toad-in-the hole can be quite cheap if you use 9p batter and cheap/reduced sausages (another thing you can freeze).

I try to always make one extra meal to freeze with every meal for example if i'm making a shepherd's pie I try to put extra veg in and make an extra portion to put in the freezer.

Have you tried the website approved foods? It sells close to and out of best before date foods and can work out cheap if you bulk buy.

I have to agree with Santer about asda's smartprice stuff it's great. They have a cheese and broccoli pasta mix which i add a few slices of ham or a chicken breast to and it's a tasty meal.
Hope this has helped

BitterAndTwisted

Yes, a breadmaker is cheaper than buying fresh.

Batch-cooking for the freezer, meal-planning and checking when your local supermarkets do their mark-downs will help you a lot. So should popping over to the Old-Style part of the forum for tips, especially the Grocery Challenge threads.

If it's possible to feed a family of four on a £100 a month you can feed yours easily for double that amount. The cheap-family-recipes.org website should help you with meal-plans and recipes.

415SanFran

If you have a look at approved foods right now they have 5kg og pasta for about 1.50

JulieGeorgiana

Yes it is possible, I do a family of 3, 2 rabbits and 2 Cats on £50 a week, and when Baby comes along and starts eating I will not change that amount...!

Using Frozen Veg is the Best thing if you want cheap and healthy. Low Fat is much cheaper then the diet I am on (for health reasons) as i have more meat and very few carbs (ie. no potatoes, little rice and pasta) so there is no reason you should struggle.

Yes HM Bread is cheaper, when I got my Bread machine I costed a Loaf:

White 650g Sandwich Loaf:

Electrictity - 5p
Strong White Bread Flour (68p/1.5kg) - 18p
Allisons Yeast (99p/100g) - 3p
Oil (£6.50/5l) - 3p
Sugar/Salt - < 1p

TOTAL 30p

As most shop loaves are 800g, Equivalent Cost for 800g 37p, Value Bread (YUK) 47p!

I've also costed up Granary, Wholemeal, 50/50, Rolls (4p a Roll) and Pizza Dough (17p a base)

eleanor73

Most of this has been said but:

-Get whoopsies/bargain bin food when it's reduced and freeze. Do this as much as you can. Then go and buy the few little bits you need to make dinners out of these cheap items (esp meat and fish).
-If you have time got to different shops and get what is cheap in those shops.
-Making your own bread is cheaper than full price bread but I buy reduced bread and freeze and that is a lot cheaper. The last lot of loaves I picked up were 14p each.
-Batch cook. My faves are spicy sausage pasta (the sauce to add to pasta), basic tomato sauce, meatballs, curry, chilli, veggie chilli and soup.
-If you are finding fresh fruit expensive go for alternating with tinned (in juice not syrup).
-Sometimes it's ok to have beans on toast.
-Get coupons. I got the free campbells soup and used it as a sauce and added mushrooms and a little bacon and I made a massive pasta bake
-Keep toiletries cheap. Buy a couple of things if you see offers and go over to the toileties/beauty thread and they can tell you some cheap alternatives to expensive makes (Mr S has dove shower gel for less than £1 at the mo but if you're not fussy Lidl has massive bottles for about 79p I think and basics/valu can be about 9p!)

Good luck

Mrs_De_Bris

Try Home Bargains if you have one near by for toiletries and cleaning products; much cheaper than supermarket.

Have you tried switching to the supermarkets own brands or their value brands for items like pasta, rice etc?

If all else fails you could feed the hamster and fish to the cat; two less mouths to feed

Sorry couldn't resist

Best of luck

mrshaz

Mrs_De_Bris wrote: »

Try Home Bargains if you have one near by for toiletries and cleaning products; much cheaper than supermarket.

Have you tried switching to the supermarkets own brands or their value brands for items like pasta, rice etc?

If all else fails you could feed the hamster and fish to the cat; two less mouths to feed

Sorry couldn't resist

Best of luck

that made me laugh...sure the kids and hubby would be devestated lol but if things get really bad, we could do that fatten the cat up then eat him (just kidding before anyone calls the rspca...i dont plan on eating the cat lol)

tomorrow im going to make up a big batch of rolls, freeze them, same with muffins and cookies. i plan to do a big batch of tomato sauce for bases etc. freeze in seperate portions.

i have a few onions i want to freeze to then just chuck in a stew, frying pan etc (we always seem to not use the whole bag and they get wasted) i want to chop them up and freeze them, stupid question time.....how do i do that? do i have to blanch onions, or do i cut them up and open freeze them? ....im new to this whole freezing malarky!!

thank you for all your replies

COOLTRIKERCHICK

I find that i i divid my budget into catagories..

x amount for meat

x amount for fruit and veg

x amount for household items

x amount for store cupboard.

I use the meat i buy to meal plan...

so this week i am going to the local butchers to buy a large chicken and a large gammon joint..

I and trying to spend no more than £20 a week at the butchers... so what ever money i have left from buying the chicken and gammon joint i will get the butcher to weigh out some mince for me to take it to the £20. will also ave free bones for the dog;)

same with the fruit and veg no more than £15

store cupboard etc this includes bread, milk etc... £30

and household... to include loo rolls, washing powder etc £5 per week.. but this will be rolling.. one week 2 x 9 pack of loo rolls in farmfoods

so my budget is around £70 for 2 adults and 2 VERY hungry teenage boys.. this covers packed lunches drinks etc...for 7 days..

plus with the mince i will 'squirrel' that away in the freezer for a week where i need to spend more money on the store cupbaord items... so i spend a bit less at the butchers and on houshold etc...