How do people feed families on £40 a week?

Edwardia

OP one thing which works for me, is showing OH what I've been able to buy for the money he would normally fritter away. A good tactic is always to include stuff for him. I know that sounds like bribery but TBH if a guy is selfish and would rather spend on himself he's not going to change overnight. It doesn't necessarily have to be a big thing.

I have bought some amazing clothes in charity shops and at jumble sales. I bet you could get some really fantastic baby stuff.

SandA

Hi all

To the above posters, I agree I need to find the motivation to get out, its not fair on me or baby to be stuck in, indoors all day. I have spoken to the mother earlier a little bit and shes going to help me. Thanks for the advice.


Re: my shopping trip.

We didn't manage to get to farmfoods as I thought it closed at 9, but it was at 8

We did go to Aldi. OH did grunt and grumble, and I must admit the aldi we went into did smell badly of weed, but as I tried to explain to OH its not aldi's fault whom chooses to walk through the door. All I got was it wasn't a safe environment for bab blah blah blah. I must admit, compares to a tesco, aldi is definitely, I don't know the word, less cared for inside? Perhaps its just my local aldi so I am going to try another one. That aside, we did find some very cheap stuff. We got our rice for about 40p for 1kg!, eggs were 0.95p for 6 free range, kitchen roll was 0.79p, pasta was about 0.49p so we definitely picked up some bargains.

We then went to finish the shopping of at Tesco. All in all, I spent £56.

I listed above what my list was, I did make some tweeks. I took sausage of as I told OH that we will replace with bacon instead of wasting money on sausages. I also did not get stuffing. I did cheat and get duck fat as it was £2 in Tesco.
We spent £3 on fruit pots, £8 on baby milk and £3 on some E45 cream for LO who has dry skin. I also picked up some weetabix type cereal for LO to try from aldi, I think it was £3.

All in all if you subtract babies bits that aren't food, my bill this week comes out at £42.

I don't think I did too bad at all. Considering I bought pasta, rice, kitchen roll and kitchen cleaner, which is not something I will buy every week, I'm happy with it.

Now I know this weeks diet is poor, I am going to do some research over the week and put together a much better plan for next week with more dairy and veg, and less meat.

Thanks again all :j

Edwardia

If you have a 99p Stores near you then Flair kitchen roll is 6 for 99p.
https://www.99pstoresltd.com I think it's really good value for money and haven't ever seen anything cheaper.

You can get three packets of herbs for 99p there too and since herbs are only really useful weeds, you don't need compost to grow them in - any old soil will do.

More than once when feeling really hard up we had omelettes made with eggs, left over grated cheese, frozen mixed sliced peppers from Iceland and herbs from pots/garden.

Frozen veg are cheap for soup too and with herbs they can taste really good even though I found Farmfoods peas for example to be pretty tough when eaten as peas.

The Range has some cheap big pots of dried herbs and they do mail order too.

frosty

I managed to feed my family very cheaply because I shop later in the day so I can grab the reduced food,last night I managed to buy 3 large cabbages,2 bags of carrots,apples,oranges,a swede,bag of peppers,2 packs of stir fry veg,they were all reduced to 10p a pack there is always heaps reduced at our local Tesco.We eat lots of fruit and veg and lots go in the freezer.i know we are very lucky and a lot of people can't go to the supermarket later in the day,I buy reduced stuff for a friend and a couple of pensioners who can't get out and about.

esjw

SandA wrote: »

We spent £3 on fruit pots, £8 on baby milk and £3 on some E45 cream for LO who has dry skin.

You may be able to get the E45 on prescription from your doctor, my LO has dry skin and I'd taken her to the docs for something else and they gave us a repeat prescription for it without me needing to ask. Also, when she was going through teething stage went to chemist to buy some paracetamol for her and they gave her paracetamol and teething gel on a minor ailments prescription. I'd assumed in both cases the cost would be coming out of the housekeeping budget so was a pleasant surprise.

SandA

I did take LO to the GP, firstly they gave me thrush cream, then last time they gave me steriod cream I could only use for 1 week.

The rash flared back up again and docs isn't open till Tuesday now I dont think so going to try the E45 (the pharmisist recommended that or aquaris (or whatever it is) when I got the steriod cream.)

I will nip him back up on Tues and hopefully they give me some cream for it, I am not completely sure its dry skin to be honest, they thought it was thrush and then eczema, I have changed the washing up powder incase it was that, now I think it might be some fragranced wipes we have been using from Tesco but his bum hasn't come out in a rash :think:

sophlowe45

I don't know if you eat white potatoes but Ocado are selling 5kg of potatoes for £3.25 at the moment. Or 12kg for £8.

Food co ops can buy things in bulk and then sell in smaller portions either at cost, or only slightly marked to help cover their running costs.

You may want to purchase things like rice, porridge etc in bulk.

Tinned fish as Fire Fox always says, Sardines are around 50g for a small can, I don't know how many grams is one portion though.

Dried beans and lentils from Asian shops, chick peas, red kidney beans etc.

6kg of organic jumbo oats for £17. Please note, in no way I am suggesting to anyone they purchase anything I specifically mention or link to. There may be many other places where big bags of porridge can be purchased for less money.

http /www. ethical superstore .com /products/suma/suma-jumbo-organic-oats-1kg/

Edwardia

Some tinned fish is 50% off at Morrisons ATM, Princes and John West brands.

SandA maybe it was aqueous cream ? OH had Dermol on prescription from GP and that's great but you can buy it - expensive though.

I use Little Me baby cream as moisturiser which I got from either ASDA or Sainsbury's. My skin is hypersensitive - I bought hypoallergenic Organic Surge moisturiser and it really made my skin sting painfully.

E45 is great and very occasionally I've seen it in Poundland.

tori.k

milla_ulliel wrote: »

You should avoid cheap food anyway.. Your health is more important than the money you spend for it. Dreamwell

asda's basic apples are £1.18 KG there basic crisp's work out over £3 kg just because something is cheap doesn't mean it bad. cheaper cuts of meat, cheaper seasonal fruit& veg (if we actually have any this year) are just as healthy as there more expensive counterparts. good health is a factor of a balanced diet nothing to do with really with the cost of food, as a vegetarian that eats a huge amount of vegetables mostly due to the fact I don't really have a sweet tooth,( but confess im heavy with the salt) i've ended up with issues with my iron levels in the past's from not eating enough of a balanced diet despite it being a healthy one.

lindseykim13

Edwardia wrote: »

Some tinned fish is 50% off at Morrisons ATM, Princes and John West brands.

SandA maybe it was aqueous cream ? OH had Dermol on prescription from GP and that's great but you can buy it - expensive though.

I use Little Me baby cream as moisturiser which I got from either ASDA or Sainsbury's. My skin is hypersensitive - I bought hypoallergenic Organic Surge moisturiser and it really made my skin sting painfully.

E45 is great and very occasionally I've seen it in Poundland.

I found the little me baby cream today is the 99p store, didn't know they did organic cream! So i picked some up for my DD smells nice too, just cheked the price in boots it's nomally £4.65!