£12.50 per week - healthy menu ideas for 2 + 1 please :-)

HappyMJ

lizzyshep wrote: »

HappyMJ, I don't know if you misread my post, but we don't buy free range organic meat, as much as we would love to :-) We buy free range eggs, but our meat is the Waitrose Essentials range which we bulk buy from Ocado. I just can't bring myself to buy the very cheap stuff, I would rather not eat it at all. The Essentials range is reasonably priced, especially if you get the cheaper cuts, and I'm happy with the welfare standards - not as high as free range organic, but not cruel IMO. Also, we don't eat meat every day, just once or twice a week.

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I do realise £12.50 is very little to budget, especially with food prices as they are - it was the £7 a week thread that made me wonder if it could be done. I know we're not poor, we are lucky that we have some money, it's just that things are tighter than usual at the moment and we need to find ways to cut back.

What do you mean by ethical meat then? Indoor raised meat will rarely be ethical. If you don't want to spend too much on meat and don't want the cheapmeat from animals raised in barns then replace your protein with lentils, beans and nuts which are much cheaper.

The £7 a week thread is a short term menu plan for people who are very short for a few weeks. It can't work long term and be healthy.

chickywiggle

personally I think if you want to eat for 3 for £12.50 a week you need to start eating value stuff.
Most of it there is nothing wrong with (anyone watch this weeks repeat of superscrimpers?)

Yes in an ideal world I would eat free range eggs but they simply don't fall into my budget.
I always buy value meat (or the cheapest they have) when I get it and there is NOTHING wrong with it.

You do realise you should phone tax credits as soon as your mat pay stopped as they would have given you the money you are owed on a review then. Even if you tell them in April they are only obliged to pay you 3 month back payment.

I'm also struggling with a SAHM having no time. It really winds me up when people say this. i manage to look after 2 children, keep a clean organised (ish) house and work 30h a week. Yes my children may not have fresh home cooked food every night but for the 3 days a week I am at home they do.

Yes I've had 2 children both at 9month old so I DO know what it's like.

SailorSam

I know babies take a lot of looking after but you need to take tips from other ladies on here who have had more than one child and organise a timetable around the time the baby is asleep.

lizzyshep

I get the feeling I have somehow wound up a couple of people by posting this. That wasn't my intention.

I admire people who manage to work, keep a house clean, cook, and look after more than one child. I don't seem able to do it myself, but I guess we're all different. My son has never been a napper, so I don't get a lot of time during the day - when he does nap, that is when I cook and clean. I'm not looking for sympathy, just ideas for cheap and easy meals :-)

Ethical meat - maybe ethical was the wrong word, I just meant I don't want to eat food from animals that are kept in terrible conditions, i.e. battery hens. I appreciate some people don't have a choice. We are lucky that we do.

I would still appreciate useful tips on how we can eat for less. That really is the only advice I'm looking for :-)

babyblooz

Lizzyshep, don't feel bad, some babies are easier than others, some mums recover more quickly etc. just start with what feel do-able and go on from there, its new to a lot of young people because their life has been easier than us oldies, but it does get easier. Don;t forget to enjoy your baby, this time wont come around again, just tackle one thing at a time, and the garden will be a boon once you get around to it. Baby steps xxx

Butterfly_Brain

Use your local butcher for meat, it works out cheaper than the supermarket and you can buy exactly what you need, with the added bonus that the butcher will give advice on what is cheap and how to cook it. He might have chicken carcasses and meat bones that you can use to make stock and soup.
Ham hocks are cheap and go a long way, liver is full of iron and ideal for growing children, kidneys are cheap and tasty. (I only use lambs liver and kidneys, they have a better taste and are more tender than pigs).Chicken livers are 50p a tub and if you stir in some sherry and cream and serve with rice are very tasty.
The same goes for fruit and veg, I use the local market or greengrocer and keep an eye on the Aldi super six deals.
Free-range and organic are an expensive luxury, that you can't afford on such a small budget.
Grow as much of your own fruit and veg as you can, there is plenty of advice on the web.
I have just bought a blueberry bush, a blackcurrant bush, a raspberry bush, mushroom growing kit, seed potatoes and onion sets in poundland. I have strawberry plants that I split every year (basically just layer the long tendrils under soil until it roots, then cut from the mother plant) You can grow strawberries in hanging baskets as well as pots.

If you have an Aldi or Lidl close by then use them, they have lots of bargains in there and all their fresh meat comes from this country.
I got a large chicken in Aldi last week reduced to £2.72 and we are having it roasted today, in a stew tomorrow, then with hoisin sauce veg and noodles on Tuesday and cream of chicken soup made from the carcass on Wednesday.
Tinned tuna is a protein rich food as are sardines and mackerel.
Have a soup and pudding night one or two days a week which is a HM soup with crusty HM bread followed by a sponge pudding and custard or a nice filling rice pudding.
It is also a meat free night unless you are using left over meat so that saves money as well.

Make your own bread, biscuits and cakes

If you have any left overs including stock, gravy, meat etc freeze them.
Make stews and pies to stretch meat.

Borrow some wartime recipe books from your library they are a good source of cheap, healthy meals.

Even though your budget is tight, try to build a good store cupboard, so that if things get any tighter, like an unexpected bill for the car etc then at least you have something to fall back on. Even if you only have a £1 a week that isa bag of rice 40p a pack of spaghetti 24p a tin of sardines 34p = 98p (2p left for next week)Then the following week a tin of tuna chunks 57p and a tin of peaches 29p = 86p (14p + 2p from last week to carry over 16p)
Then the next week a bag of plain flour and a bag of SR flour 55p each = £1.10 so you now have 6p in reserve, The week after a bag of bread flour 70p (sainsbury) and two tins rice pudding 12p each = 94p so again add the 6p to your total in reserve 12p. The week after a packet of yeast 67p and a pack of flavoured rice 26p = 93p so you have 19p in reserve etc.

babyblooz

And I find home made, home cooked food seems to fill you up for a lot longer than the ready meals in packets. And home made biscuits that include oats, (look for Twinks home made hobnobs recipe on here) are fab for nutritious treats for littlies x

Butterfly_Brain

Have a batch cooking session when the baby is having his/her nap, that way you have plenty of home made meals in the freezer for when the baby is fretful, teething or poorly or you are just too tired to prepare a meal, all you have to do is take it out of the freezer in the morning and reheat in the evening. I used to do this when my two were little and they were both born by emergency c section, both of which had serious complications, so not only did I have a small baby to care for I was still trying to recover from major surgery and complications that took six months to recover from

smitty2702

Hi Lizzyshep, I am not a regular poster but couldn't read and run!
I think it a bit unfair people nagging you about your time and having plenty of time with a baby to do everything else but IMO they havent walked in YOUR shoes, just their own experience! I have 2 children, when I had the first I found it difficult to do everything, she was clingy, wanted feeding every 2 hrs day and night etc.. with the 2'nd much more settled, cooked from scratch, had a garden and worked p/t no problems ;-)
Concentrate on what YOU feel is achievable. I think the Slow cooker is a great idea, you can pop stuff in at your leisure when LO is settled and have food ready. Double or even triple the amount when you make soups / stews / curries in it if you can afford the ingredients as they tend to be cheaper to buy in bulk and also you have another few meals stocked away for days when things are trickier.
I can recommend growing your own, have never got round to a proper veggie plot but bung stuff in any spare hole / pot etc... try alan romans online for cheap seeds. Saves plenty of money and good fun too!
I know you do want to be ethical but I do agree in order to do this you will need to eat veggie quite a lot, try reduced sections in supermarkets/ local market at closing time and don't be afraid to use frozen as it can often be cheaper. I'm not sure where you live but is foraging an option later in the year?
Porridge makes a healthy and cheap breakfast. Soups are a filling and cheap lunch and potatoes could be worth buying by the sack.
I think £12.50 could be do-able but it will need careful planning / organisation! Also don't think of it as X per week, try shopping for the meat monthly or just when there are offers and top up with the rest. If you have any asian / other culture supermarkets some ingredients can be much cheaper so its worth costing up.

Hope you get on top of things and enjoy the LO, they are babies for such a short time.

LilacLouisa

I don't know if this will be any help, but Asda have 6 med free range eggs for £1.00. This might do a meal for two and eggs left over for baking?

I know at one time people use to make up lack of eggs by using vinegar in baking. The ones I tried were always moist and light (baked by friends Mum, not by me:-)

Good luck