How do people feed families on £40 a week?

93123

You won't have lots of treats in the cupboard but it's possible. Large bags of fruit are cheap (apples, pears, bananas, plums etc). Rice and potatoes are cheap. A whole chicken works out cheaper than fillets if you're feeding a family. Large box of eggs for under £1.50. Get the minimum vegetables you need for about £10-12.

ScarletRaven

93123 wrote: »

You won't have lots of treats in the cupboard but it's possible. Large bags of fruit are cheap (apples, pears, bananas, plums etc). Rice and potatoes are cheap. A whole chicken works out cheaper than fillets if you're feeding a family. Large box of eggs for under £1.50. Get the minimum vegetables you need for about £10-12.

If you bake them yourself it's easy enough to have treats on this budget - much cheaper to buy a bag of flour etc that'll last a while than a couple of packs of ready-made cakes or biscuits. Plus home-baked treats always taste better than shop bought

Any fruit leftover at the end of a week can be made into crumbles etc as well - bit of butter and flour and you've got a yummy crumble topping and no fruit gets wasted.

raeveth

I've just read through nearly all these msgs and was so surprised at how ppl could be spending upwards of £30-40 per week on food (not even including toiletries, prescriptions, cleaning products, etc.)!

Me and hub have £170 'household' budget per month (*12/52=£39.23 per week). Out of this we have to buy all our food, prescriptions, hand creams (aqueous cream for dry skin), toiletries, cleaning products, any other random household bits like light bulbs, toilet paper, etc.

I get the Riverford smallest organic veg box (£10.45/wk),
every other week get their small fruit bag (£3.75)

Other than that, I have a spreadsheet with a list of staples that we buy once per month and occasionally have to top up if we've had ppl round and used more than usual.

My top tips (in no particular order) for saving money are:

1. don't buy milk or bread, it's way expensive! Drink black tea or coffee instead and make your own bread (hub makes soda bread every week, dead easy, whole thing takes under an hr inc. cooking) I hate black tea so I drink black coffee or have green tea or just mostly drink water.

2. don't buy anything pre-made, unless it's on a crazy discount. and that includes NOT EVER buying branded products. only own brand. making everything yourself saves tons of money, is fun, can teach your child when old enough about what goes in food, etc. everything I cook takes 10-30mins (not counting the odd roast or slow cooker)

3. Shop when they've reduced the prices because it's going out of date that day e.g. around 5.30-6pm in tesco. that way, you can buy lots of cheap meat/fish and freeze it down. for example, what I do is batch portions of 100g or 200g (1 or 2 ppl) mince into freezer bags, write on the date and what it is and freeze it. you can cook from frozen very quickly because they bags lie flat.

4. buy food by comparing £/kg to see what's cheap e.g. meat I buy only if £7 per kilo or less. 'cheap cuts' like stewing meat you can stick in the slow cooker and are delicious. meat is usually cheaper if you buy a bigger size and batch it down or save for leftovers e.g. big packs of mince or a whole chicken (so many have commented you can get 3 days of food out of a whole chicken). also a weird thing I found is if you buy reduced meat from Waitrose and it's part of a 3 for 2 or similar deal, you get BOTH discounts!

5. make your own cereal and snacks. buy a huge pack of cheap oats and make your own flapjacks, or mix with natural yoghurt (cheap at sainsbury's and it's live) and some dried fruit for breakfast. i also make smoothies out of the cheap yoghurt and put in berries i got on discount and saved in the freezer.

6. buy as much discounted stuff as you can afford and store it or freeze it as appropriate. e.g. toilet roll on discount

7. I swap meat for beans, goat/sheep's cheese, eggs (£1 for 6 free range from Iceland) or cauldron tofu (£2/pack feeds four ppl) just for variety and health. It's also cheaper than eating meat all the time.

8. i find shopping by my spreadsheet of staples works better than shopping by meal plan, because you can be spontaneous and take advantage of offers. my spreadsheet has sections like 'proteins', 'carbs', 'fruit', 'veg', 'toiletries' etc.

9. if you have time, vary which shops/market you go to, you get to know a pattern of who's got what cheapest. e.g. waitrose is expensive, but their bulk pasta was cheapest out of all the supermarkets last time I checked. also, if you can sneak into Aldi when your boyfriend isn't with you, then buy as much from there as you can, it's not always the cheapest, but it is especially cheap for household stuff like washing up liquid and nappies (good nappies, very cheap).

10. enjoy yourself every once in a while with a little treat. I got a 4 pack of cornetto for £1 from Iceland which we ate in the sunshine last week

missflirtuk

This can be doable. It's the one thing I can control. It would cost too much to cancel the internet, the only 'luxury' I have. I work P/T and make sure DD is fed, clean and clothed. She gets good home cooked meals but sometimes if I am back late she may have a bit of 'junk' or sometimes we get a chinese takeaway (very rarely). I spent around £30 this weekend on food, but we have enough in. I like to stock up on tins of veg, etc for days when I am in a rush or get in late.

spiritwood

freyasmum wrote: »

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.

i am aware of the diet changes and agree. but i do believe this is now very old news and i question your motives for bringing it up. it was dropped and everyone moved on. maybe you could do the same?

NPowerUser

SandA wrote: »

Hello

I had family around yesterday so bought a very large chicken which was in the region of £8.50 from Tesco. I also disagree I would get 4 meals out of this. When it is just me and OH eating a £5 chicken, we can only get 2 meals out of it max

I would have to agree. I spend about £6-£7 on a large chicken, with 4 adults with healthy appetites we all get a large portion of chicken each and its gone. The post #4 cracked me up, getting 8 portions and soup from a £5 chicken, maybe if we were pygmies, unfortunately we are all six footers.

Iceland are good value on milk (£1 for 4 pints on a permanent deal), along with eggs and bread.

If you can walk into town for a £25 spend, Iceland will deliver for free.

paulineb_2

I dont buy everything value brands, I dont like some of the value stuff although I'll happily buy others, I prefer aldis stuff to Tesco value, but I appreciate that some people dont have an aldi near them. I do really like Tescos everyday value breakfast juice which I water down with sparkling spring water, its 65p for the juice and 25p for the spring water, lasts 3 days or so.

I also shop at times where there are reductions. Ive not bought a loaf at full price for ages, Ive bought 7p and 8p bread regularly recently. I also pick up other bits and pieces such as fruit and veg when the store is about to close. Morrisons near me reduces bread around 3pm to 25p a loaf, Tesco, its a bit later, 7pm or so you'll get the best bargains for bread.

Frozen spinach, you get a bag of it for a pound, I used to buy fresh but Ive started buying frozen, you can get other frozen veg cheap. Im just about to make a pot of spinach and broccoli soup, the broccoli I got reduced for 23p and the spinach, well about 20p for the amount I'll use plus the stock.

I also dont eat meat and use tofu in a lot of recipes, I dont use cauldron, its a bit more expensive, I use the silken tofu for £1.

Also as Ive said before, if you keep an eye on approved foods, you can sometimes pick up some really decent bargains. I get coconut milk there for 50p a can and I got a box of blue dragon tofu for 33p per pack.

I also bought 5kgs of macaroni for £5 from approved foods. Sometimes you can get rice at discount prices at places like B and M, I got boil in the bag john west rice for 89p for 4 sachets.

Also, Id say given that something can be eaten safely well past its best before date, dont throw something out unless its unsafe to eat.

quintwins

I just wanted to point out that the recommended portion size of meat is around the size of a deck of cards so when people say a chicken does several meals it should in theory, in practice a chicken never does us many meals either.

I recently started a diet so we have loads of fruit and veg and healthier yogurts however i'm still only spending £50 a week on the 5 of us, i havnet been able to shop at night so any reduced items are only slightly reduced. I keep any eye on lidl deals and buy value/smart price veg, i also shop around i know grapes are cheaper in tesco so i'll do without until i'm near one, and i know i can get a cabbage 3 times the size for the same price at the market so i wait til friday.

Also you really need to use up what you have, today i'm making spag bol with all the veg lurking in my fridge, we have quite abit of cauliflower and brocolli as we've been ill so i will be making caulifower and brocolli cheese for tomorrows dinner, i also have some cabbage that needs used, i will be cooking it up mixing it with mash and freezing the bubble and squeak cakes for quick teas for the kids (not very diet friendly and useful for days we are at the gym).

daveeeeed

raeveth wrote: »

I've just read through nearly all these msgs and was so surprised at how ppl could be spending upwards of £30-40 per week on food (not even including toiletries, prescriptions, cleaning products, etc.)!

Me and hub have £170 'household' budget per month (*12/52=£39.23 per week). Out of this we have to buy all our food, prescriptions, hand creams (aqueous cream for dry skin), toiletries, cleaning products, any other random household bits like light bulbs, toilet paper, etc.

I get the Riverford smallest organic veg box (£10.45/wk),
every other week get their small fruit bag (£3.75)

So over a quarter of your weekly expenditure goes on 1 small box of veg! Leaving less than £30 per week for everything - including meat, fish, cheese, bread (or ingredients for bread), toiletries....?

Shovel_Lad

daveeeeed wrote: »

So over a quarter of your weekly expenditure goes on 1 small box of veg! Leaving less than £30 per week for everything - including meat, fish, cheese, bread (or ingredients for bread), toiletries....?

I was wondering about that too as it doesn't seem a lot of veg even for 2 people.

http://www.riverford.co.uk/shop/veg-fruit-meat-boxes/veg-fruit-boxes/mini-vegbox

Or the fruit for that matter.

http://www.riverford.co.uk/shop/fruit/mini-fruit-bag