Feed A Family Of Four Only £29.99 Week All In !

cupid_s

Yategirl wrote: »

cupid_s - is your £48 just for food or does that include any cleaning stuff (I get the impression it doesn't)? Have you allowed for any snacks, tea/coffee etc?

Just trying to figure it out in my head!

Have allowed for no snacks apart from fruit as DH normally bakes most of our snacks from storecupboard ingredients! Chocolate (which we dont have much off) wouldn't come out of our shopping budget as it's a treat.

I haven't allowed for coffee and tea because they aren't regular buys for us. I will only drink proper coffee and so stock up when on offer and it lasts me forever. My last bulk buy cost me £20 when asda had a BOGOF on their extra special ground stuff. So far I've got through about half of the 20 bags in about 5 months so it's a small cost per week. Though I suppose it does all add up and many people cannot afford to spend lots in one go even if it will last forever.

Tea I dont drink and OH has less than a cup a day so a pack of tea bags (always tetley on BOGOF) lasts almost forever.

Cleaning stuff is bought separately but I spend virtually nothing. I buy washing up liquid on BOGOF, whatever they have and so it costs me about 70p a fortnight. Cleaning products is a bottle of stardrops and starclen once a month. That is all i buy apart from value bleach. So my cleaning spend every month is less than £4.

MrsBartolozzi

Cupid
I found your meal planner very interesting as there several fish dishes in it which as a family we love -could you post your recipe for Pad Thai please OH loves it.
Also where do you buy your seafood and salmon from? I usually get frozen salmon from lidl when its reduced and stock up, but would love to know if there is a cheaper place to buy on a regular basis.

Thanks
MrsB
Thanks

cupid_s

This is the pad thai recipe we use. It is basically the one from south east asian food by rosemary brissenden (great book). We had it tonight for dinner actually and it does taste quite similar to what we ate in thailand.
we use straight to wok noodles (150g pack for 2 people) cos they are so much easier. We like sharwoods pad thai ones but any will do and they're always on BOGOF somewhere or another.
chicken cut into pieces (a couple of thighs or 1 breast is enough for 2 people)
1 large carrot grated
1 pak choi
1 bag beansprouts
2 eggs lightly beaten
handful of peanuts chopped
1 dessertspoon each of lime juice, fish sauce (nam pla), dark brown sugar and soy sauce

Heat some oil and garlic in a wok (I just use garlic oil) and add the chicken. Cook for a couple of minutes then add the carrot and cook for another 2 mins. Then add the pak choi, noodles and beansprouts for a couple of minutes. Push all the stuff to one side of the wok and add some oil and then add the egg. When it starts to set mix it vigourously around and then stir it all together with the other stuff in the wok. Add the sugar, lime, soy and fish sauces. Heat for 1 minute and serve with the nuts on top.

You can add anything extra you want. If we have spinach leftover we sometimes use that instead of pak choi and it's still nice. Spring onion or shallot are nice in it too. You can add tofu and less meat or use prawns instead of chicken.

Seafood we just get from tesco. In fact almost everything we buy is from tesco. Except the fresh mussel meat which is from asda as you can freeze theirs and we never use a whole pack at once. All seafood we just buy off the fish counter so we get exactly the amount we want and that works out cheaper. Their shell on prawns are prefrozen but so so cheap. And their baby squid cost about 14p each!

I have fish/seafood at least once a week, usually twice but at our local supermarket they always have it yellow stickered which really helps. My actual weekly spend would therefore be less than I've estimated above as we always seem to be in the supermarket at the right time and I too always stock up when it's reduced. I'm still using up the frozen stuff from when we bought 12 fresh salmon fillets and 4 tuna fillets for £2.40.

Penny-Pincher!!

Pink-winged wrote: »

Hi Penny Pincher,

There are a couple of meal plans that you posted on BS's thread here and here. Are these the ones you were looking for?

Pink

Their the ones...thanks!!

PP
xx

Frugal_Fox

I'd like to give this a try too - however I currently shop fortnightly and I'm not due to shop again until Friday week. I'll stay on watch duty this week - but join in the following week. Great idea - would love to drastically reduce my shopping bill - I typically spend £100 every fotnight for a family of 4 with milk deliveries.

Ta !

Jet

Frugal_Fox wrote: »

I'd like to give this a try too - however I currently shop fortnightly and I'm not due to shop again until Friday week. I'll stay on watch duty this week - but join in the following week. Great idea - would love to drastically reduce my shopping bill - I typically spend £100 every fotnight for a family of 4 with milk deliveries.

Ta !

If my maths is right - you're spending £25 per week for 2 people - so you're already doing better than £29.99 per week.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Jet wrote: »

If my maths is right - you're spending £25 per week for 2 people - so you're already doing better than £29.99 per week.

the challenge that bukup was going to do was for 4 people....... which i have done one weeks meal plan.. using tescos website prices ( i dont shop in shupermarkets if i can help it ) and it is hard... the only way you can do it is by using low grade food, and not much fruit and veg

rchddap1

For a start just because something is on offer it doesn't make it cheap. I'm a very careful shopper these days and always look around. Whilst the target may be very very tight it doesn't mean I can't try. In the trying I may be able to save some money somewhere.

Picked up some more bogof sausages from Somerfields yesterday. Today I've spotted a frozen fish bogof at Tescos that I'm tempted by. It works out to £1 per meal (for 2 people) so well under my target of £1.50 per meal for meat / fish.

patchwork_cat

In addition to cupid_s planner you will need toilet rolls, toiletries, soap, washing powder.

Jet

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

the challenge that bukup was going to do was for 4 people.......

Sorry, just re-read the title of this thread. Doh! :rolleyes: