Feed a family of four for £20 a week challenge

ariarnia

determined_new_ms wrote: »

It's been bugging me I went over budget! So I have gone back and made some changes and it is now 89p over. Honestly I don't think I could do it for less, unless say I did a fortnightly shop then I could probably do it for £50. Jeez it must be so hard if you really have such a low budget. I could see being able to do this in a very short term but long term would be very hard going

It's really frustrating isn't it?

I really like some of your ideas - plus you managed a range of tastes - I just ended up with different flavoured lentil mush... healthy, but not exciting.

Butterfly_Brain

That is it Ari, it is a daily drudge with no way out, that is why I tend use the local butcher because I can buy a small amount of meat (Just add lentils or beans to bulk meat out to make it stretch further) or shop late at the local market as they start closing when they reduce things.

Pensioners struggle as well and far too many have to worry about heating or eating

In the first month If you have a £25 budget but only spend £20 a week, over a month you will have an extra £20 to spend on building a good stock cupboard up of lentils, beans, tinned fruit, flour, yeast, sugar, fresh meat, butter, oil etc.

So aim for £20 and save the rest
Always do a meal plan and write a list, only use cash......it keeps you to what you need and not what you are tempted to buy, have a penny jar to put all change into to save towards bills etc ( I just cashed in over £300 which paid for the car insurance and another bill, saving me £10 a month on car insurance if I were to pay it monthly, now saving for car tax and MOT in March, it is surprising how quickly it mounts up.

I have been saving £2 a week in farmfoods that will give me £104 by Christmas plus £8 bonus so £112.00 and I will use their coupons as well (spend £25 get £2.50 off, spend £50 and get £5 off, spend £100 and get £10 off)

So I will end up with £112 plus £10 in coupons = £122 of food for the initial saving of £104, that is a whopping £18 of free food :j

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Butterfly_Brain

That is it Ari, it is a daily drudge with no way out, that is why I tend use the local butcher because I can buy a small amount of meat (Just add lentils or beans to bulk meat out to make it stretch further) or shop late at the local market as they start closing when they reduce things.

Pensioners struggle as well and far too many have to worry about heating or eating

In the first month If you have a £25 budget but only spend £20 a week, over a month you will have an extra £20 to spend on building a good stock cupboard up of lentils, beans, tinned fruit, flour, yeast, sugar, fresh meat, butter, oil etc.

So aim for £20 and save the rest
Always do a meal plan and write a list, only use cash......it keeps you to what you need and not what you are tempted to buy, have a penny jar to put all change into to save towards bills etc ( I just cashed in over £300 which paid for the car insurance and another bill, saving me £10 a month on car insurance if I were to pay it monthly, now saving for car tax and MOT in March, it is surprising how quickly it mounts up.

I have been saving £2 a week in farmfoods that will give me £104 by Christmas plus £8 bonus so £112.00 and I will use their coupons as well (spend £25 get £2.50 off, spend £50 and get £5 off, spend £100 and get £10 off)

So I will end up with £112 plus £10 in coupons = £122 of food for the initial saving of £104, that is a whopping £18 of free food :j
So if you save £4 a week that would be £36 of free food by Christmas, soplenty to fill freezers and cupboards to start the year with.

Just a few strategies to stretch a meagre income out.

I HTH those who are struggling xx

SaveSave

Butterfly_Brain

I honestly don't know how I managed to double post :eek::eek:

donnajt

PhGage wrote: »

and Weezl and friends' Cheap Family Recipes site.

Cheap Family Recipes is designed to meet most people's nutrition needs and is an excellent resource for budget, shopping lists and menu plans.

This link doesn't work has the web address changed?

Upsidedown_Bear

donnajt wrote: »

This link doesn't work has the web address changed?

Try this one
http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org/index.html

[Deleted User]

One of the most money saving things I make are soups.So easy to do and cheap as chips.Yesterday I made leek and potato soup as I had three y/sleeks, (cost 40p and three medium sized spuds, from my potato bag cost probably around 30p as the bag was Y/S as well, a couple of stock cubes which cost pennies so probably the total cost was about 75p.From this I made two and a half litres of thick nourishing soup which will do for around four lunches with a couple of crackers and cheese and probably as a starter for about 4 dinners (cuts down on size of evening meal and meat content) so in effect its not only a filler up for lunch , but evening meal as well.

A good extender which streetches your main meal out a bit for very little cost.

If I see veg that is Y/stickered then I usually bag it for soups throughout the winter and will also freeze it if I make a large amount as it freezes well and can be portioned up easily in those 'soup zip lock bags' that you can buy from a poundshop .These too are a good investment as they can be washed out and re-used.

I grew up with a Mum who would make soup all the time, and it was always a course of a soup starter, or a sweet pudding dessert ,but never the both either end of the meal was extended to streeetch war-time rations. Back in those far off days most food was hard to get hold off so vegetables from our garden were used to pad out the tiny amount of meat ration.

I suppose about a third of my monthly budget goes on fruit and veg, which means its not only healthy but it also means my meat bill isn't very big.I enjoy a veggie lasagne as well or a veggie chilli but I also like to streeetch say a lb of mince with the addition of lentils or grated carrot or even a handful of oats.As long as there is a good gravy made from bisto powder (I can't get on with granules) and an oxo cube or two you still get a good meaty flavour in your meals and carrots or lentils or oats vanish in the mix :):).

I think my late Mum would have loved the availability of today's foods ,especially the herbs and spices that you can buy to jazz up the simplest of meals

I also dip in egg and dried stuffing small pieces of either chicken or pork fillet and then cook on a tray in my remoska.The stuffing adds a bit of a kick to the sometimes almost bland tasting meat.

Chicken thighs are a better bet cash-wise than fillets though, and a couple of thick thighs done this way will fill anyone up with roast spuds and veg as a mid week meal.I also like to dip them in sweet chilli sauce and cook in a small dish and have cold with salad. I read somewhere that ideally the meat amount needed in a meal should be around the size of you palm or smaller, and I like to pile on the veg and rarely have less than two-three 'sides' with my evening meal.

My lunches are almost always crackers and cheese and soup or an omelette.even a salad can be made to fill you up if once you have the basic tomato,cucumber and lettuce you can add some diced beetroot,grated cheese ,a chopped up boiled egg and maybe a small jacket spud.I like to add bits to every salad and will chop up a bit of red pepper if I have it and also some grated carrots as well.

I saw in the supermarket last week a salad box that cost over £2.00 and really the contents were probably less than 50p, but because it was layered up in a pretty box it looked huge, with lots of colour. !!! and nothing that you couldn't knock up yourself with a lock'n' lock box if you needed it for work at a fraction of the price.

I like to look at the 'ready meals' that are offered and then work out how I could replicate them at at least half if not more of the cost :):) its a good way of saving those hard- earned pennies chums


JackieO xx

Butterfly_Brain

Went into Aldi today and 500g of mince is £1.49 which works out to £2.98 a kilo and their medium chickens are £2.99 :j

So if you bought a chicken and 1 kg mince (2 pks) it would cost £5.97..........oh my gawrsh I hear you cry, but let us look at it like this :

I can get four meals out of 1kg mince and two, maybe three from a medium chicken, depends if I carve or DH does, if I carve I cut it thinner and can stretch the chicken further. So that is 7 meals plus stock for soup or stews.

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jackieblack

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

I can get four meals out of 1kg mince and two, maybe three from a medium chicken, depends if I carve or DH does, if I carve I cut it thinner and can stretch the chicken further. So that is 7 meals plus stock for soup or stews.

ave

I'm guessing you mean four meals each for four people? (ie 16 meals in total)

Butterfly_Brain

Yes jackieblack, that is what I mean four meals=16 portions