How do people feed families on £40 a week?

rachbc

Shopping around, bulk buying offers, yellow stickers, market for fruit and veg, asian stores for pulses, nuts, rice etc, cooking from scratch and no junk.The only pizza is hm and no nuggets in sight!

Breakasts this week - porridge with fruit, greek yog with fresh fruit, hm choc crunch cereal

Lunches - sarnies, left over chicken drumsticks, rice salad, soup and cheese on toast all with fruit. No crisps or choc bars in pack ups.

Dinners - hm bbq chicken rice and veg, chilli with lots of beans and peppers, smoked salmon kedgeree, pork chops with gnocchi and veg, lamb and spinach curry hm naan, thai pork noodles, mushroom and pancetta pasta.

An aldi med chicken does 4 of us (2 adults, 1 teen boy and a child) 2 meals max, a roast dinner plus something like jambalaya, fried rice. I don't count boiling the carcass for stock as a meal but I will use it in risotto etc

dandelionclock30

flea72 wrote: »

Eat as roast, each adult gets a leg and a thigh

One breast for curry (being generous you wouldnt get that amount in a ready meal)

One breast for sweet and sour

2 oysters and a bit of brown meat makes a chicken/veg pie

Rest of brown meat and wings used in stir fry

4 meals, simples.

However if you shred the breasts one breast would be enough for 2meals, ie chowmein, fahitas, spring rolls, samosas, the list is endless

Oysters? I dont know anyone who eats these.
On the subject of sausages I got a big bag of quorn Leek and cheese sausages from Iceland for a £1.00 not so long back.I thought they would be horrible but was surprised as they were really nice.
Where I live there is a local farm shop and you can buy a very large chicken for £3.50, its had a good life running round outside and the legs are very fat with all the exercize.Check if there is anything like this near you.

debie_2

I think you need to keep a look out for special offers, for example Lidls Half Price Weekends and stock up for the freezer when on offer.

I personally think the meat in Aldi and Lidls is cheaper and of better quality than Tesco. Tesco have put there prices up quite significantly of recents times. I only buy meat in Tesco if it is Yellow sticky and at least 50% off original price.

I have also recently started buying meat in bulk from local market, then portioning it out and putting in freezer, for eg. 2lb minted lamb chops, 2lb pork chops, 2lb peppered rump steak, 2lb chicken breast £25.00 total, so much cheaper than supermarket full prices, and better quality.

Get a big sack of potatoes and onions from Lidls as much cheaper and stock up on Toilet Rolls etc when on offer. The same goes for Cleaning materials.

Hope this helps

Treevo

dandelionclock30 wrote: »

Oysters? I dont know anyone who eats these.

:rotfl:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chicken+oyster&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

dandelionclock30

lol:rotfl:

duchy

I'm intrigued ...what scares your husband in Aldi ????

SandA

duchy wrote: »

I'm intrigued ...what scares your husband in Aldi ????

Thank you everyone for your answers, I will definitely be taking some of your advice on board.

We went in before, and apparently it smelt and he is under the impression that it must be rubbish food because of the prices so wouldn't walk around. He is a major food snob but doesn't contribute to the shopping bill.

I am going to go to aldi / lidl and see if he notices any difference in the food!

tori.k

Look at Approved foods. that gives you the bases for loads of meals if you don't mind mixing processed with home cooked tonight's dinner for the lads will be loin chop £1 (2 for £5 at adsa gives you 10 chops) in a chilli and honey marinade 17p AF and HM wedges & coleslaw £1.16 both fed and happy for £2.33

quintwins

I'm one of those people who feed there family on £50 a week and eat well, but as someone said above i get free school dinners and i go to my inlaws for lunch oon a sunday

I also keep an eye on lidls deals, we are on a diet at the moment and lidl has lettuces, cherry tomatoes, salad tomatoes and mango's for 49p so we will be stocking up i will get enough to last 2 weeks as it will all keep in the fridge, tesco have cucumber for 2 for £1 aswell, We're low carb so eating loads of salad.

Kids are still eating carbs and normally i hate the whole cooking twice thing but until we got sick last week it was working well, they were still having things like sheperds pie for dinner.

I can't really see from your meal plan where your moneys going on our budget we squeeze in sirlion steaks, gammon roasts and cod fillet which are expensive.

We eat very little branded items except for branston beans, and pasta which i bulk buy from amazon it works out at les sthan 50p a bag and is so much nicer.

Eggs we get from the far shop or value if we're stuck our new diet seems to involve alot of eggs.

Buying cooking bacon has saved me quite abit.

Fruit i look for reduced fruit or i buy the usual apples, oranges and bananas i try not to spend more than 15p per portion of fruit, frozen fruit and veg is just as good for you, sainburys do a frozen berry mix it's the only one without cherrys as i don't like them, you can make it into a crumble or milkshake, usually i just defrost it and the kids have it with plain yogurt (which i make is my slowcooker) much better for them than yogurts aimed at kids full of sugar (not that i don't buy those either) prinkle some toasted porridge oats on top for a nice breakfast.

Breakfast cereals i buy own brand, i have a real aversion to things like cocopops for breakfast i feel it will give my kids mixed messages when i then tell them at say half 10 it's too early for chocolate, i buy value cornflakes and porridge and asda own brand 3 for £3 cheerio's, one of my kids is being asessed for autism and he decided he didn't like porridge but he will eat it toasted so i still buy it, he also decided he didn't like mushrooms after hearing someone comment "oh really does he eat mushrooms kids don't usually like mushrooms" so now i'm working on a solution to that othe rthan blending stuff.

Speaking of blending stuff i make my own pasta sauce most of the time (i do have emergency back up jars) few cartons of passata, some onions, mushrooms, garlic, carrots, peas, sweetcorn and frozen mixed peppers blitzed up costs aroudn the same as a mid range jar but it packed full of yummy stuff.

Sandwich fillings i will buy packets of ham if we are going on a picnic and i want something quick or if they are reduced, but generally it's cheaper to cook up some chicken breasts or a pork shoulder and do pulled pork(this is yummy is crusty rolls from lidl). Cheese i usually buy slices as i find them cheaper and blocks when on offer looking at the cheapest per weight.

One last thing my slowcooker is my best friend

SandA

I tried to make my own sauce but to be honest it tasted disgusting.

I added a good quality tinned tomatoes, beef stock cube, garlic clove, peppers, onion and slow cooked in my slow cooker for around 6 hours, and although it did taste bolognaisey, it was just missing something. I found that buying jars just end up being cheaper but I then have the issue of buying other food for the LO since he can't eat jar food because of the salt.

My issue is taking my OH with me I think, I go to pick up value range stuff and he throws a strop in the middle of the store. I just entered next weeks shopping on Asda groceries and I have managed to get it too £53 including £7.99 formula and kitchen towels, is that fairly good? I opted for more of Asda's range instead of brands. I am going to get myself to Aldi or Lidl and see what I can do there. I suppose those shops just have a taboo and I'm not sure why since my mother used to buy there crisps and chocolate bars and I always thought they were nice.

I have heard there fruit and veg is very nice too, and the best around claims my mother so I will go there. Can anyone vouch for there meat and staple foods? I guess I am worried that since the meat is so cheap the welfare must be poor, can anyone inform me correctly about this? am I just led to believe meat should be that expensive because of Tesco's prices? I have noticed there meat has gone up significantly. I used to get 500g of chicken breast for £4 but I can never seem to find it at that price now.

Thanks