Feed a family of four for £20 a week challenge

joedenise

That's a better Super Six than the last lot!

Denise

Effyb4

I don't post on this thread much, but I do lurk here frequently. Budgets are quite tight at the moment and it's good to get some ideas for meal plans. There are 5 of us 2 adults and 3 teenage boys, who don't seem to stop eating. They seem to crave calcium (milk and cheese especially).

It's a much better super six for us as well. We don't really eat salad, but parsnip soup will go down well and we use swede and sweet potatoes in a lot of casseroles. I can see baked potatoes being on the menu next week too.

Fruball

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Had an awful night coughing all through and can hardly talk today, so the meal plan is going to be a little later than I thought
I went straight back to bed when we got in from shopping and slept until DD woke me up at 4pm

Went into Aldi this morning and got 6 bags of short grain pudding rice for 49p for 500g normally 99p a saving of 50p a bag I might pop in tomorrow and get some more

The new super six is much more seasonal

1 Swede
500g Chantenay carrots
1kg Red onions
4 pack baking potatoes
600g parsnips
750g sweet potatoes

All at 59p

Hope you feel better soon x

That is a very nice super six for those on a tight budget. Lots of filling veg. I will be making casseroles with jackets on the side, roasts and soups with that lovely lot!

The nice thing about those veg is also that they tend to keep well (although Aldi produce doesn't keep as well as other superm's I find) so you could, in theory, stock up at least a little with those items. Or even chop and freeze

Butterfly_Brain

Frubal thanks hun x

It looks like no sleep tonight again I am coughing for England.
DH came home from work saying he felt ill as well well he is not running a temperature or coughing like I am but expected me to get up and cook him dinner :mad::mad::mad: Guess where he got told to go in pure Anglo Saxon language

As for Aldi veg I usually freeze it on the day of purchase and things like root veg keep quite well.

The rice was a great find because you can make a risotto or rice pudding with it. I find that half a bag/250g is plenty for four people.

A chicken and mushroom risotto will cost 50p for mushrooms from the market, 25p for a bulb of garlic, but you only need one or two cloves which works out to 5p, use left over chicken from a Sunday roast and some good home made chicken or vegetable stock or you can use stock cubes 10 in Aldi are 39p so max 8p for stock cubes.
Really cheap, tasty and filling meal
25p rice
50p mushrooms
8p stock cubes
5p garlic

A dinner for 88p that fills up four adults can't be bad Oh and I don't add the chicken until I have served up DD's because she is a vegetarian.

If you have no chicken, mushroom risotto on its own is great.

Any left overs can be formed into balls dipped in batter and fried the next day, I serve them with salad

Tammy2

Fruball wrote: »

Vegetable oils are not good for you (except olive oil and never to be cooked with at high temps). We have moved back to lard, dripping and butter as these have now been proven NOT to cause issues with cholesterol or thickening of the arteries and can actually reduce bad cholesterol in the blood over time.

Processed carbs, such as pasta, bread and cereals are bad for you too. This is why Paleo/Primal diets have such an upsurgence.

We stick to everything in moderation but have binned all oils/marg in our cooking.

We've been primal for just over a year now. Never been fitter, leaner (not inc. skinny fat times) or healthier in years. The kids are thriving on it too. Would never go back (even though we never ate junk anyway).

Soworried

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Any left overs can be formed into balls dipped in batter and fried the next day, I serve them with salad

I've never thought to do that BB, great idea :j

I hope your feeling better soon x :A

Butterfly_Brain

On the subject of calories on a tight budget, our parents and grandparents filled bellies with pies and puddings, lard and real butter

Bobarella

Interesting thread. We have had a very tight January. And I have been using every tip & trick to make 5 weeks cash stretch to 6 weeks (husbands employer changed his pay date)
I managed this week to feed us Monday to Saturday on £15. Then did a shop of £30 for the coming week. I was also lucky this week that last Sunday I found and cooked 2 whole YS chickens for £2.60 each which was how I got through this week on £15.
When the watchdog programme was on the other night and they had the average family spending £165 per week, they had Jack Monroe on talking about how she fed her family of 2 on £10 per week. My husband said how hard would that be? I said you could do it once. Like our £15 week. But when your staples run out like rice, pasta, potatoes, spices, condiments, that is when you will seriously struggle if your budget is low. In the government food plan on that link that is one of the several issues. £20 only per week makes it impossible to lay in any stores. I would seriously feel for anyone living on that for long.

gayleygoo

Bobarella wrote: »

Interesting thread. We have had a very tight January. And I have been using every tip & trick to make 5 weeks cash stretch to 6 weeks (husbands employer changed his pay date)
I managed this week to feed us Monday to Saturday on £15. Then did a shop of £30 for the coming week. I was also lucky this week that last Sunday I found and cooked 2 whole YS chickens for £2.60 each which was how I got through this week on £15.
When the watchdog programme was on the other night and they had the average family spending £165 per week, they had Jack Monroe on talking about how she fed her family of 2 on £10 per week. My husband said how hard would that be? I said you could do it once. Like our £15 week. But when your staples run out like rice, pasta, potatoes, spices, condiments, that is when you will seriously struggle if your budget is low. In the government food plan on that link that is one of the several issues. £20 only per week makes it impossible to lay in any stores. I would seriously feel for anyone living on that for long.

My OH said a similar thing once - when we'd spent £60 or £70 in Tesco and he thought it was a ridiculous amount (we didn't even go there every week), and thought if he did the shopping it would be £30 for the week. Maybe do-able if we never had meat or any treats, and very little dairy, but I did have to explain to him about the real cost of feeding a family for a week!

NewShadow

It's one of those things - If you have to, you do.

Even Jack though - when she got a bit more money - didn't keep things that tight. There are some great really cheap favourites, but long term a very struck budget requires a significant amour of repetition.

Extra cash lets you have more freedom to take advantage of offers, build up stocks by bulk buying, risk experiments that might not work, and enjoy more variety.

November and december last year I spent maybe £50 in total on food - I could have spent less, as I've got huge stocks. This month I've spent c.£95 - but only because I was offered codes for Ocado that meant I got £140 of food for that £95 (25 off 60 and 20 off 80).

Other than the fruit, I've not touched any of it and its all stored away for later months. I think I could happily go 3 or 4 months on £20 a month (for eggs and bananas) if I needed to because I've stocked up when I could.

I know why, but I'm always horrified when people come on here with no cash and no stocks - because they've had to run them down or never had the cash to build them up. That would be my worst nightmare.

Today I'm cooking chilli - In the slow cooker goes

• 200g TVP,
• 200g red lentils,
• 1 tin toms,
• 1 carton passata,
• 1 pack dried onions,
• 2 tins kidney beans,
• 1 chunk of frozen garlic,
• 1tbsp beef stock powder
• 1tsp cumin seed,
• 1tsp coriander,
• 1tsp paprika;
• 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper,
• Slow cooker then topped off with boiling water.

All from the dry goods store, the spices all bought from the internet in 1kilo bags, and will feed me until thurs.

I've also thrown in about 400g of elderly spinach. It will break down over the next 8 hours or so, and might make it a funny colour, but will add vits and not effect the taste (I do the same with curry).