Minimal weekly budget for a family of 5?

Ravenlady_2

We are a family of 5 and are struggling to keep our budget at a reasonable level. I overspent on the last months shop and that made a large DD bounce so I had the fee and they tried to retake this which made another bounce and so forth and so forth. it was a £150 BT charge for moving home which is now at £170 as they added £10 admin fee.

I have £187 left in the bank, every tuesday I get £40 CB, on the 15th of each month (or there abouts I get £143 CM) my OH has just lost his job so we are waiting for JSA to come through and tax credits to be recalculated so apart from CB and CM we have no other income at the moment.

I have £150+ worth of bills to come out between the 1st and the 5th

OH does not go near the finances as he is useless.

We have nothing left to sell as we did a massive clearout before we moved. Christmas is bought for though apart from some stocking fillers, the dinner and tree

Children (10 + 6) are still on packed lunches until we get JSA come through.

Baby is 8 months, still has 3/4 milk feeds a day (hipp 1st milk) and on mashed foods, we use cloth and cloth wipes, no need to buy any clothes for a while for baby or new baby as I have a shop full of them.

I am on a staff bank at the local hospitals but its rare to get a shift thats going as there are so many bank staff, they text the bank the free shifts and the race is on to phone in and grab it.

OH doesn't drink but smokes and that cost's us £7 a week, we dont run a car, we dont have sky, we both have a mobile each that comes to £35 for the both of us, water is £42, G&E comes to £80 a month, BT is £20, my contacts are £10, internet is £10. On paper our out goings are really low but we are struggling to stop the £5 here and £5 there habbit.


The rent is £70 a week. Luckily its a council owned property.

The biggest expense is food. Im always hungry at the moment, OH and ds1 can out eat 3 hungry bears. We can do a £70 tesco shop and still pop to the shops twice a week and spend £30 each time.

I need to get it down to about £60 max!

katieowl_2

Well I think £60 is do-able, but you will have to make a menu plan.

ALL of you need to be fed...including you! Because if you are hungry you will be tired and miserable, and the last thing you need if you have to be 'on the ball' is to be coming at it from that place? KWIM

Give the hungry bears lots of stodge to fill themselves up, bread, potatoes, porridge, make gallons of soup and give them soup before dinner, or a filling pudding like rice pudding, so they are not trawling around looking for food an hour after dinner.

There's another thread on here which I'll try and direct you to, which was running recently that had lots of great tips about a minimal budget for food.... BRB

Kate

katieowl_2

Here you go it was this one:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3545131

so they were looking to spend only £25 so hopefully you will easily be able to figure out something for £60 a week...simples? Good luck.

Kate

Butterfly_Brain

Have you asked OH to try to stop smoking? I managed after being a smoker for 30 years using the fruit gum - it is better now because you can get prescriptions for the nicotene replacements and if OH is on JSA he will get prescriptions free. Or maybe he could switch to roll ups.
My motivation was that I have COPD and the fact that for every packet of ciggies you buy £5 + goes to the government in tax so that is equivalent to paying an extra £3,000 pa to the government.

Try going pay as you go on the mobile or get a sim deal O2's is top up £10.30 pm and you get 500 texts and 100 minutes.

Do you have any form of a stock cupboard?

A meal plan is a must and so is writing a list and sticking to it.

Here are some sites that are very good for cheap healthy meals

http://thirty-quid.blogspot.com/

http://shirleygoode.blogspot.com/

http://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/search/cheap%2Bmeals/

Shop around I do most of my shopping in Aldi and get the rest in Sainsbury and Asda - Sainsbury have a much better range of basics items than Asda.

Go to the market for fruit and veggies ( best when the market is between half an hour and an hour befor closing because they are usually trying to get rid off stuff cheaply - I got a bowl of bananas for 50p yesterday and have made a banana cake added a few to porridge and made a banana custard that we had for dessert last night and I still have some left that the family can grab when peckish.

Find a friendly butcher who will not only give you exactly the quantity that you need, he will give you advice on cheap cuts and how to cook them.

I buy joints of meat and roast them then slice and I can usually get 2 or 3 meals rom one joint.
for example I roasted a joint of pork on Sunday, and had enough for a pork stew yesterday and still have enough for another roast which is in the freezer and I will just warm it through with gravy when I want a quick Sunday Roast .
The same goes for any joint of meat and the same principle as rubber chicken ( Roast one day, stew, pie or stir fry the next day and a soup from the carcass)

Try eating vegetarian once or twice a week.

Porridge (Asda 1kg for 75p is great value and will do the whole week) is great his time of year for breakfast with some fruit or honey added or you can make your own museli and granola from porridge oats if you want a change.
How about boiled eggs and soldiers or a fritatta, American pancakes etc

Try making your own bread and yoghurt and if DH is home why not see if he wants to have a go at these basic skills.

Hm soups are cheap and filling again great for this time of year

Cheap forms of protein are Eggs (£1.25 for 15 medium in Aldi) hearts, liver, kidneys mince and sausages.

Mince can be stretched with lentils to make it go further

Make a batch of HM cakes and biscuits (twinks hobnobs are fantastic)so that you have a cheap treat yourselves in the week.

I will see what I can do about making a sample meal plan and will pop back with it later

My shopping came to a total of £50 this week and that is for four adults, one of which is a vegetarian.

Gingerbiscuit_2

Maybe time for otherhalf to go to doctors and ask for help with giving up smoking you can get it all free these days on prescription for patches and gum etc. I just find it really upsetting when you are going hungry becuase he is smoking, fair enough if he wants to smoke understand its an addiction and all but he could give up his share of the £28 in food instead of you having to be hungry. I do understand its easier to put your loved ones before youself but when you read it as a stranger it sounds awful!! Good luck

Ravenlady_2

Gingerbiscuit wrote: »

Maybe time for otherhalf to go to doctors and ask for help with giving up smoking you can get it all free these days on prescription for patches and gum etc. I just find it really upsetting when you are going hungry becuase he is smoking, fair enough if he wants to smoke understand its an addiction and all but he could give up his share of the £28 in food instead of you having to be hungry. I do understand its easier to put your loved ones before youself but when you read it as a stranger it sounds awful!! Good luck

Im not going hungry because of the lack of food, im 20 weeks pregnant and even filling up on starch and stodge im usually found sat in front of the fridge at 3am eating leftover pudding or a block of cheese.

Ravenlady_2

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Have you asked OH to try to stop smoking? I managed after being a smoker for 30 years using the fruit gum - it is better now because you can get prescriptions for the nicotene replacements and if OH is on JSA he will get prescriptions free. Or maybe he could switch to roll ups.
My motivation was that I have COPD and the fact that for every packet of ciggies you buy £5 + goes to the government in tax so that is equivalent to paying an extra £3,000 pa to the government. He buys rolling tobacco, im not exactly sure which governments gets the tax from it but it isnt the UK, he buys 50gms+25gms for £7

Try going pay as you go on the mobile or get a sim deal O2's is top up £10.30 pm and you get 500 texts and 100 minutes. Im contracted for the next year but OH has my old rolling contract at £12.50 for unlimited texts and 800mins

Do you have any form of a stock cupboard? Yes, I have bags of every type of pulse, bean or rice that you could think of, I have 3kgs of pasta in the cupboard too, some flour, yeast (might be out of date though) 10 tinned toms, other tinned fruit and veg, tins of beans and a small veg plot that gives us potato's when its feeling generous.

A meal plan is a must and so is writing a list and sticking to it.

Here are some sites that are very good for cheap healthy meals

http://thirty-quid.blogspot.com/

http://shirleygoode.blogspot.com/

http://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/search/cheap%2Bmeals/

Shop around I do most of my shopping in Aldi and get the rest in Sainsbury and Asda - Sainsbury have a much better range of basics items than Asda. I do a main shop from tesco that gets delivered but as we dont have a car we are limited to Morrisons as its 1 street away from us.

Go to the market for fruit and veggies ( best when the market is between half an hour and an hour befor closing because they are usually trying to get rid off stuff cheaply - I got a bowl of bananas for 50p yesterday and have made a banana cake added a few to porridge and made a banana custard that we had for dessert last night and I still have some left that the family can grab when peckish.

Find a friendly butcher who will not only give you exactly the quantity that you need, he will give you advice on cheap cuts and how to cook them. We dont have a butcher in town anymore

I buy joints of meat and roast them then slice and I can usually get 2 or 3 meals rom one joint.
for example I roasted a joint of pork on Sunday, and had enough for a pork stew yesterday and still have enough for another roast which is in the freezer and I will just warm it through with gravy when I want a quick Sunday Roast .
The same goes for any joint of meat and the same principle as rubber chicken ( Roast one day, stew, pie or stir fry the next day and a soup from the carcass)

Try eating vegetarian once or twice a week.

Porridge (Asda 1kg for 75p is great value and will do the whole week) is great his time of year for breakfast with some fruit or honey added or you can make your own museli and granola from porridge oats if you want a change.
How about boiled eggs and soldiers or a fritatta, American pancakes etc

Try making your own bread and yoghurt and if DH is home why not see if he wants to have a go at these basic skills.

Hm soups are cheap and filling again great for this time of year

Cheap forms of protein are Eggs (£1.25 for 15 medium in Aldi) hearts, liver, kidneys mince and sausages.

Mince can be stretched with lentils to make it go further

Make a batch of HM cakes and biscuits (twinks hobnobs are fantastic)so that you have a cheap treat yourselves in the week.

I will see what I can do about making a sample meal plan and will pop back with it later

My shopping came to a total of £50 this week and that is for four adults, one of which is a vegetarian.

Will try some of recipes

Gingerbiscuit_2

I see! Well that would make you very hungry , sorry just with being broke I assumed it was due to lack of funds

Ravenlady_2

Gingerbiscuit wrote: »

I see! Well that would make you very hungry , sorry just with being broke I assumed it was due to lack of funds

I think which ever expert said we only need 200 extra calories a day in the last trimester has never been pregnant.