How do people feed families on £40 a week?

Fire_Fox

SandA wrote: »

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:

Go to a different pharmacy, they should not be recommending aqueous cream as a moisturiser. That was intended to be used as a gentler cleansing product in place of shower gel/ soap, never as a moisturiser although it did get prescribed for that. It actually contains sulphate surfactants which research shows damage the skin barrier down to a 1% concentration so has not been recommended as a moisturiser in skin disorders for several years. http://www.eczema.org/aqeous

Check your body washes/ shower gels/ shampoos/ hand soap for sulphate surfactants, they are in everything. Names include sodium lauryl sulphate and ammonium laureth sulphate and similar. It took me years to work out that shampoo bubbles running down my arm were my trigger for my elbow patch of atopic eczema/ contact dermatitis, it cleared completely within days when I switched. My mother's atopic eczema/ seborrhoeic dermatitis reduced by half in days when she did the same - she quit after a pharmacist recommended aqueous cream for a rash and it made it worse .....

The problem is once the skin barrier is damaged you can react to things you wouldn't otherwise react to, some even find chlorine in tap water a problem, so washing less helps them. The other thing that helped my eczema was pure unrefined shea butter, having researched it I do believe it contains healing compounds. However I'm quite sure the main reason it worked was forming a protective barrier against the shampoo bubbles and shower gel which contains sulphate surfactants! :rotfl:

SandA

Oh thanks for that I will avoid the cream. Had a look online it looks like it could be roseala as he did have a temp last week.

Ok heres my *healthier* meal plan. Id love anyones input into how to cut costs / better recipes.

Day 1.
Ok not the best start but only way I can get OH to eat casserole.

Chicken casserole (colmans casserole mix, chicken from a whole bird, frozen carrots I already have, onion I already have, peppers, cheatin with frozen dumplings but will make my own once I used these up *being resourceful * (will do bab the same but will do his in baby veg stock instead of colmans) served with mash and green beans.

Day 2.

Homemade shephards pie (mince, frozen carrots (got), frozen peas, use rest of mushrooms, tinned tomatoes, dob of tomato puree (got), dash of worcestershire sauce, topped with mash and cheese, served with frozen brocolli and cauli (got)

Day 3.
Chicken stir fry
Using left over chicken, will buy frozen stir fry veg for a quid, probably buy a sauce cos the cost of making it is more unless someone can throw a recipe my way, use angel hair Spagetti which I already have. (will give LO the same but with no sauce on his as to much sugar)

Day 4.
Hm pasta bake
Left ovet mince, any left over mushrooms, onion, peppers, chopped toms, dob oftomato puree, herbs, teaspoon ssugar? Pasta, cheese.

Day 5.
Sausages and mash with red onion

Day 6.
Hm chips with fish fingers and peas
Cheating with the fingers but will get 100percent fish fillet ones and take of the coating for lil one. Brush cut sized potatoes and brush with oil for chips.

Day 7.

Sausage casserole:
Sausages, onion, crushed garlic, carrot, chopped potato, low salt beef stock and some tomato puree bunged in slow cooker.

Breakfasts - I dont eat but LO will have weetabix / baby porridge / toast. For lunch me and him will have tuna sandwiches, low salt beans on toast, tuna and pasta, cheese and bean toasties, maybe jacket potatoes etc. will also buy a cucumber, chop into sticks and store in a container in the fridge for LO to snack on, already got some biscotti for snacking on to. Will also buy some apples and pears since he won't eat fruit of a spoon now, chop and steam for him.

Opinions? X

paulineb_2

Do you have stock cubes, you could use up the leftover veg in soups.
Id say dont buy a pack of stir fry veg, buy a couple of packs of beansprouts and use veg you already have. You could probably make a veg curry from some of the ingredients you have as well. I made a potato curry from a recipe I had last week, a few spices, some potatoes and a chopped up chilli (obviously not advising giving the wee one a hot curry), but its easy to create a meal from leftovers.
Your pasta bake could just be pasta and the sauce/veg, take less time to cook.

Shushannah

dandelionclock30 wrote: »

Oysters? I dont know anyone who eats these.

We fight over them in our family:):)

theGrinch

depends on taste, organisation, planning and creativity

lalapalooza

wow - want an amazing string! I spend far too much on food I am embarrassed to say I don't even know the price of things - been someone who has for years just shoved food into my trolley and paid at the tills :-(

I have just resigned from work as I am fed up with politics/ stress. I will therefore be £26,500 worse off per month as of the end of April so am on here for lots of ideas and to learn from you guys how to budget properly. I think I need to do an inventory of what food I have, then work out a menu plan as a starting point?

I get my veg off a local veg man delivered, and I do shop at Lidl as we have one locally - we like to buy UK meat, and freerange chicken & eggs ( I was veggy for 4 years so this is quite important to me). I know I will have to reduce our meat consumption but as we are both overweight this will be a good thing!

I do get some meat from Makro (again, UK only) such as pork joints and lamb steaks which I cook slice and freeze into portions which saves money. I prefer butchers meat as although it looks more expensive it isn't pumped full of water and therefore goes further. I reckon for the two of us I spend currently £500-600 per month which is outrageous (I have 5 cats and OH likes a glass of wine so not all food).

I am also dairy free so have to purchase alternatives :-).

Looking forward to reading all the hints and tips as I will need them with my non existant food budget until I get my new business established!

Going by what I have put above, what would you say is a good weekly budget? Many thanks for reading x

spbankie

lalapalooza wrote: »

I have just resigned from work as I am fed up with politics/ stress. I will therefore be £26,500 worse off per month as of the end of April so am on here for lots of ideas and to learn from you guys how to budget properly. ...............

....................

Going by what I have put above, what would you say is a good weekly budget? Many thanks for reading x

please tell me the first part is a typo!!! £26,500 per month-what job did you do - I could take that kind of stress!

Anyway to be serious- what IS your budget rather than asking what the budget should be. You will find some great ideas by reading through the threads. one word of caution though sometimes it seems highly competitive here - see the thread about feeding a family of four on £40 per week which, personally, I find incredibly difficult to believe. Mind you, my best has been feeding a family of six on £3.29 per week -beat that!

charzard

Hi, good luck with everything, there are some great ideas on this thread. When my kids were little the doctor used to give me a prescription for E45 cream and oilatum to put in the bath. Sometimes the pharmacy would give me a different make, but it all did the same thing and was free. Make an appointment, you may have to tell your GP your financial situation but I am sure they will be more than helpful. May even put a bottle of infant paracetamol on the precription for you too. Whenever my doctor recommended products to use on my kids skin I always said, "could I have a prescription for that please," HTH.

paulineb_2

Id definitely say eat less meat if you want to save money. Ive been vegetarian for over 25 years and vegan for about 18 months. Cooking from scratch wasnt something that I did for a long time, as Ive said previously, the less money I had, the more I had to cook as I didnt have the spare cash to buy micro dinners (I didnt just live on micro dinners but I bought too many of them)

Ive just finished off a pot of leek and potato soup that cost just over a pound to make, with the aldi super six. Cheap, filling and a good way of getting your veg portions.

Ive tried a few soya milks and I really like one called vive soy. Its a bit more expensive than others, but you get it in cappucino, vanilla, light, I tried aldis soya delight and didnt like it so much.

And get into the habit of using all the veg, dont throw anything away, if I make a curry, the bits of left over veg go into soup. Im not the biggest fan of pasta but I like wholemeal spaghetti and Tesco are doing organic wholemeal spaghetti for 50p a packet just now.

Yellow stickered items can be a bit hit and miss, but if something is a real bargain I'll buy it. And sites like approved foods have been a godsend for me during tough financial times.

lalapalooza

Sorry, that was a year not a month!:rotfl:

As I have a dormant business which I am hoping to start up again, my current budget is zero (you can't claim anything if you have a company not that I would be making myself out of work).

I am determined to work so I will work in some capacity - but would love to be able to work more from home and have the time to cook from scratch and get some meals prepared and in the freezer. We buy off the vegman and process all the veg on the day of reciept so all prepped and in the freezer so there is no waste. I usually also buy bread and meat for OH sandwiches and freeze them so he just grabs a pkt each day (as I work long hours sometimes I need to be a bit more organised). So my budget is up in the air as OH pays all the other bills - I do the food......