How do people feed families on £40 a week?

OrkneyStar

No Aldi here, need to go the mainland for that, and Asda, and Sainsbury's and Morrisons and anything else but Lidl, Tesco and the Coop! 'sigh'.

ScarletRaven

My partner (who has a huge appetite) my (pregnant) self and my stepson (who is with us 3 days a week) spend around £40 a week on food/grocery shopping, although we could definitely reduce this further if we tried (sometimes treats end up in the trolley though - mostly due to my partner!). Our shopping includes household/toiletry bits as well.

We spent just under £39 today, and this is our meal plan for the week's dinners:

Mon - Potato salad
Tues - Cheese and onion omelette with beans
Weds - Vegetarian roast dinner
Thurs - Minestrone Stew
Fri - Leftover minestrone stew with bread
Sat - Hotdogs and corn on the cob
Sun - Lasagne and garlic bread

Lunches will be cheese, tuna or egg sandwiches with salad. Breakfasts will be toast, cereal or porridge with fruit.

Meal planning has helped us save. Also cooking from scratch as often as possible rather than using ready meals etc. We get a veg box once a fortnight that costs just £4 a time.

Growing some of your own bits helps too - we got cherry tomatoes all summer last year (too many in fact - kept donating some to my mum!) all from one plant in a hanging basket - the plant cost me just £1.50. Had chives all summer from a small cutting, as well as mint (which grew in abundance!), parsley and a few other herbs. Great for adding to many homemade dishes and cost practically nothing to grow all summer (and sometimes longer!).

Buy yellow stickered items if it's something that you will use. I buy things on special offer as well, like toilet rolls etc, to stock up while they are cheaper and save money later on. We do most of our shopping at Lidl, then pop over to Morrisons for any bits we can't get at Lidl. We get as many of the Morrisons bits from their value range as possible.

This lady managed for well over a year to feed herself and her toddler son on just £10 a week out of necessity, and still managed to eat a very healthy diet with many vegetables etc included. She did this by buying only value range items, growing her own herbs on the kitchen windowsill and cooking everything from scratch. She even managed to give her son the odd treat of a yummy cheap dessert on occasion. She now publishes her recipes (including prices per serving and a shopping list) on her blog: http://agirlcalledjack.com/

Very worth a read! I've found some great recipes on there and she really does know how to eat healthy on a very tight budget

Edited to add: I'm not afraid of doing a bit of foraging when things are in season too - have gotten some good blackberries for free doing this in the past!

Compey

paulineb wrote: »

Aldi's food is good quality, Id much prefer that over value brands.

I prefer Aldi and Lidl food as well but haven't been into either since I had my baby as they didn't have baby formula stocked, does anyone know whether they have started to stock formula?

Alphamare

SandA wrote: »

He does usually. Unless were eating junk I will make him something else up. He will have risotto, roast, casserole, quiche, sausage casserole and sausage and pasta. Only thing he wont have this week is korma because to much salt and sugar in the jar, i'll do him some steamed veg with chicken or something instead.

I definitely want to cut down the meat. I may just not buy sausages and use the left over bacon in the dishes I was going to use sausages in?

xx


My other option is to just cook without meat and buy some frozen dippers for him. I can certainly go without meat everynight, I barely eat my meat anyway. x

A serving of meat is 100g per person. You currently consume three times this at least! Just work out per the amount you are buying how many meals it should make!

Bublin1

Compey wrote: »

I prefer Aldi and Lidl food as well but haven't been into either since I had my baby as they didn't have baby formula stocked, does anyone know whether they have started to stock formula?

I was in my local Aldi on Monday and I happened to notice that they had baby formula.

Compey

Bublin1 wrote: »

I was in my local Aldi on Monday and I happened to notice that they had baby formula.

Thanks I will pop down this weekend xx

freyasmum

SandA wrote: »

Yes thats definitely the issue.

Problem is my OH does not realise the financial situation we are in. He doesn't seem to understand that overdrafts won't pay themselves, and when it comes to my little ones first birthday, it breaks my heart that as it stands I can offer him no party, and nothing memorable.

Please don't stress about your little one's birthday party, at a year old, he wouldn't remember if you spent thousands and thousands of pounds... now, wouldn't that be more upsetting

Have a little day together, take him to the park, play with him. He'll enjoy that far more than countless toys and sausage rolls. Save the bigger parties (if you decide to have them) till he's older.

If you want to have family to celebrate, quiche is the most amazingly cheap and deceiving thing. You make a pastry shell and fill it with seasoned cream and eggs and then... a handful of bacon; mushrooms (fried until all the water comes out and then evaporates), rosemary and parmesan; some fried onion and a handful of cheese

For bolognese sauce, fry off 4 onions and 3 or 4 carrots cut, cubed and then add a squeeze of garlic puree (about the equivalent of eight cloves - or 8 small squeezes ).

Add the minced beef - think they've gone done to 700/750g packs and brown. It's best to add it in maybe four bits so that it gets the chance to brown properly. I'd salt it slightly at this stage, just a pinch or so.

Add in a handful or two of lentils, a box of mushrooms, sliced, 1tbsp of dried herbs, 4x tins of tomatoes and... honestly... 4 squeezes of tomato ketchup. Rinse the tins out with perhaps about a quarter of a tin of red wine (you can freeze the wine in cubes if you don't want to drink it.) - this is key, never waste a drop of flavour If you don't want to add the wine, you could add beef stock.

This will take a while to cook down and thicken and bubble nicely. Remember to taste as it's cooking and add salt and pepper as needed.

You could add in peppers or anthing that you wanted. Serve with spaghetti for bolognese or layer with lasagne sheets, mozzarella cubes (not necessary, but nice) and white sauce (flour, butter and milk) for lasagne. Top with parmesan - it looks expensive, but it very flavoursome so you don't need loads and it gives a nice topping.

To make a minced beef bake, start off as above and before adding the tomatoes, add in: peas, corn, cubed courgettes, cubed potatoes (even the tinned baby ones are fine ), peppers - anything at all that you fancy, but those are the most basic. Omit the herbs and then add the tomatoes, etc.

To finish, put the meat sauce into an oven dish and top with a little tub of creme fraiche mixed with two eggs. Top with cheese if desired.

If you want to make it into a chilli add chilli powder in place of the mixed herbs and lots of peppers and kidney beans. Serve with rice, soured cream or yoghurt, mashed avocado, cheese - again, anything that you want but the last three will really take the heat out for the little one

freyasmum

Keep an eye out for reduced veg - my local co-op sells veggies off for about 20p per pack. I chop them up and freeze them in bags to use in the minced beef bakes, etc.

You can make lovely roast vegetables - I don't mind frozen veg for most things, but fresh is best for these. Chop up lots of mushrooms, onions, peppers, courgettes, baby tomatoes, sprinkle with a little salt and oil and bake till cooked but still with a bit of bite. You'd serve it with anything at all.

Nicky toilet rolls from farmfoods or home bargains are better (I find that andrex is so thick, it doesn't flush which looks awful ).



Finally, my personal opinion is that an oyster and a wing does not a portion make. If I served that up to my bf or my dad or my brother in law, they'd look at me like I'd gone doolally. And then want to know where their real dinner was...

Food is really quite cheap when you're not buying lots of processed and junky options - I don't buy it, but I couldn't believe just how expensive fizzy juice is :eek:

Have a look around for farm shops or colleges - our agricultural college sells chicken at around £1.50 for 10 (huge) thighs. It's all free range and organic. The shop is only open on certain days and for a certain time, but we're very lucky to have it!

It is worth bearing in mind though that, even though the cost is rising almost daily, we are still spending much, much less as a proportion of our income than our grandmothers would've spent. And the cheaper food is, the more !!!!!!!ised it becomes, the more cheap fillers are added... like horse (it's worth bearing in mind that there is nothing wrong with horse, when it comes through the proper channels!).

freyasmum

spiritwood wrote: »

i don't want to detract from the OP needing help so maybe edwardia and i can agree to differ rather than posting over the op? i just felt i had to say something. as you said there is room for all opinion yes?

It goes beyond personal opinion when you start taking the mickey by mentioning the starsign of the chicken, or that the langoustines should be born under the breath of baby angels. That's just nastiness.

And as to your question about why the 'not relevant' tangent about health; we, in this country, are so eager to throw pills down our neck that we completely overlook the fact that some conditions CAN be managed by diet. It takes some planning and getting used to and yes, in some cases it may not help COMPLETELY - some medication may still be needed - but the headway we can make with a few simple diet changes is extraordinary. So, it's either a healthy diet, full of what we are recommended to eat... or pills. I know which I'd choose.

sophlowe45

Morrisons have huge bags of lentils for £4 at the moment, and big bags of dried lentils and beans £3.49 for one pack or 2 packs for £6.

It was really busy though, I can see why Ocado price match to Tesco, Morrisons is cheaper!