Feed a family of four for £20 a week challenge

quintwins

Child benefit is £20.30 for the first and £13.40 for each child after.

https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-rates

Butterfly_Brain

quintwins wrote: »

Child benefit is £20.30 for the first and £13.40 for each child after.

https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-rates

It has been a while since I have received it so thank you for putting me right

E2006

This is going to be us for the next few weeks so thanks to some fantastic ideas and meal plans!

I know a couple of people have mentioned struggling with snacks/treats etc, so have a couple of ideas:-

Jam sponge and custard:
smart price jam 29p (will have left over for another cake/on toast/in porridge etc)
sp custard 17p
sp sponge mix 22p (I would make it up and use only half for the jam sponge and with the rest make individual small sponge cakes to be frozen and lifted out daily for packed lunches)

SP swiss roll 25p
SP 5 pack chocolate wafer biscuits 40p (these are actually lovely and my DH takes one every day in his packed lunch).
SP chocolate mousse 4 pack, 18p

I also find that making up the weeks sandwiches in one go and freezing them cuts costs because it means the bread doesn't go mouldy towards the middle of the week, and no ham (the boys always want ham!) is wasted. I buy 2 wholemeal 47p loaves from ald* and 1 pack of ham from heron for £1 and that makes enough to do DH and DS a week.

HTH x

Soworried

Tesco have their value spaghetti on for 20p, it makes it just 40p a kilo :T I thought I'd say in case people hadn't noticed.

Adorian

Soworried wrote: »

Tesco have their value spaghetti on for 20p, it makes it just 40p a kilo :T I thought I'd say in case people hadn't noticed.

Bit wary but am going to give it a go for the first time. My DH has refused to try it in the past but we are having a massive austerity drive due to no money and a cupboard full of all kinds of edible ingredients that need to be used, so he's agreed to try it. Wish me luck!!

Soworried

Adorian wrote: »

Bit wary but am going to give it a go for the first time. My DH has refused to try it in the past but we are having a massive austerity drive due to no money and a cupboard full of all kinds of edible ingredients that need to be used, so he's agreed to try it. Wish me luck!!

Goodluck and please update with how you get on

We like it.

cutestkids

I learned many years ago not to involve my OH in the decisions on what brands of groceries we used.
He had this food snobbery thing going on and would not even consider anything other than branded food so I stopped talking about it with him, went to the supermarket myself and just got on with cooking it.
At the end of the day for things like dried pasta you really cant tell the difference

Adorian

Soworried wrote: »

Goodluck and please update with how you get on

We like it.

Got giddy and also bought the 23p version from Morrisons when in there for cheap dried rice & veg packets. Will update when we use the 2 versions. I don't find a lot of difference between Tesco & Sainsburys but Morrisons can go either way, in my experience.
Heartened by the fact other people like them (no pressure Soworried!).

Adorian

cutestkids wrote: »

I learned many years ago not to involve my OH in the decisions on what brands of groceries we used.
He had this food snobbery thing going on and would not even consider anything other than branded food so I stopped talking about it with him, went to the supermarket myself and just got on with cooking it.
At the end of the day for things like dried pasta you really cant tell the difference

My OH is a trained chef and can tell the difference between different brands if you blind test him (although he doesn't always go for the branded versions and isn't particularly snobby about them) but he's always just had a thing about value pasta (no, he's never tasted it). Everything else we've tried and agreed it's either quite similar or else totally adequate - and, in some cases, just better for the purpose, like the no frills style chopped tomatoes in soup vs Napolina chopped tomatoes which have a really thick overwhelming sauce. I'll be really interested to see how we both view the cheapo pasta. The nutritional value is different from the regular own brand so there must be something different about it, even though the ingredient is the same!

Liz3yy

Adorian wrote: »

Bit wary but am going to give it a go for the first time. My DH has refused to try it in the past but we are having a massive austerity drive due to no money and a cupboard full of all kinds of edible ingredients that need to be used, so he's agreed to try it. Wish me luck!!

I always buy the value spaghetti and it's perfectly edible