Cheap budget meals to feed 7! Any ideas?

Peggybabcot

We're a family of four adults as far as food is concerned (2 adults & 2 teenagers with bottomless pits for stomachs!) and we spend around £70 per week (so £18.50 pppw) this includes all food, toiletries and cleaning products. We don't drink or smoke.
I make all our meals from scratch and provide a packed lunch x3 5 days a week.
We were spending around £170 per week (yes I know!!!) when I was working but like you our circumstances changed.
The first thing we did was changed our choice of shops. Instead of just going to Sainsbury's for the whole lot we now go to Homebargains first, then Aldi and only then will we go to Sainsbury's. it's good to know what the prices of your regular items are so you can tell if its cheaper in one shop over another. This technique alone reduced our weekly shop by over £30.
Next, with lots of advice gleaned on this forum, I decided to meal plan. We don't do rigid meal planning but we have a selection of meal options in the freezer/fridge/cupboards and are mindful of sell by dates and so on. Also because I gave up work due to a serious illness I can't be rigid in meal planning because some nights I'm too ill to cook.
I also found that by using, say 500g extra lean mince, which would do us one meal, I now bulk it out with oodles of veg and freeze enough for a "free" meal. This has helped two fold as not only are we getting double the amount out of one lot of meat we also have standby meals in the freezer for those nights I can't cook whereas before it'd have been a phone call to the local takeaway! More money saved!
To give you an idea what we eat here are some examples. We eat pasta bakes (either with roasted veg, chorizo or leftover chicken from the roast) chicken fried rice (again leftover chicken) spag bol, chilli, HM pies with stewing steak or once again lol that leftover chicken! Lasagne, fish pie (using 2 salmon fillets from lidl @ £2.49 but again this'll serve 6 portions because I bulk it out with broccoli & carrots in a parsley sauce then top with cheesy mash) The afore mentioned roast chicken of course with fillers such as yorkies and loads of veg.
Once or twice a week we'll have something like beans on toast (the kids LOVE this made with HM bread and consider it one of their fave meals) or jacket spuds and salad.
We always have a HM pudding which fills everyone up. I make sponges, flapjacks, jam roly poly, rice pud etc
Now I'm sure we're not the healthiest of eaters but we do eat well, regularly have our five a day and come in on budget (although others may consider our £70 a week excessive its a figure we're comfortable with and a long way from the £170 per week we were once spending! It's all about balance. Spending what you can afford on what is good for you and enjoy eating. Yes we could probably cut our budget further but we are foodies and want to enjoy our food. Whilst there's a place for feeding a family on £20 per week (ie necessity) you have to strike the balance between what you can afford and enjoy eating. X

jackyann

Regarding the fruit etc. I would take advice from the team caring for the patient. I understand that organic fruit & veg isn't really a necessity, that ordinary fruit & veg is as helpful in these circumstances.
Going seasonal is best - and I would definitely look at your local market rather than any supermarket (though it does depend on transport). Obviously this is the "hungry season" but apples from cold stores are still a reasonable price, and most root veg. The nutritional advantages of root vegetables are often overlooked, but they are a very good source of vitamins, can bulk out any casserole; or grate into a home-made coleslaw (red cabbage is still on the market stalls, makes a lovely coleslaw). Also root veges make fantastic soups - our standard lunch, except in summer, is a root veg soup.
Bulk out mince, stews, casseroles, with the appropriate pulses or beans. Buy in packs and soak & cook them - much cheaper. Kidney beans with chilli, chick peas with spicy lamb, and make a tasty casserole with root veg, haricot beans and sausages (smoked kind especially tasty)
Back to fruit - a fruit salad makes use of fruit that needs bits removing, and something like an orange goes a lot further (and is more appetising) when cut up.
Also in this weather, dried fruit salad, gently cooked with water or dilute juice and served warm is lovely.

Good luck, your family are lucky to have such support

FairyPrincessk

I would definitely institute a soups for starters policy! My host mother in Belgium (years ago) was adamant that we all have our soup about 20-30 minutes before dinner was on the table. She was pretty casual about where we had it, would bring it to us doing homework or watching TV, but it had to be finished! She often poured it in a mug so we could drink it. Not only does it help fill you up (particularly if you eat it 20ish minutes before hand so your digestive system has a chance to realize it is there) but it means you're getting in an extra serving (sometimes two) of veg. You can make it with whatever is cheap and freeze in batches if necessary.

I would go for a rainbow approach with fruit and veg--instead of worrying too much about if you can work blueberries into the budget, look to get lots of colours in. I would definitely advocate Aldi supersix. There is a thread aimed and providing meal plan inspiration based on the supersix offer although my life has been a bit upside down and I haven't been visiting. I would also check out SM vouchers. I've gotten lucky the past few months and noticed someone posting about the £5 off Aldi shop in the mirror. I think it might be either the first or the second Tuesday of the month. For a group your size I'd probably buy several papers and get several vouchers.

Someone else on here might be better placed than me, but I'd also consider growing my own Spinach and possibly strawberries in your situation. Both can be grown with fairly little space and if you don't have the thumbs of death like I do, this could be an easy way to get two excellent anti cancer foods much more cheaply.

thriftwizard

A lot depends on your situation. If you're in an inner city or deep suburban situation, then you probably have very little choice about where you shop, and if you're working FT then you can't choose when either. I'm feeding 7 (same mix, without the illness) a fair bit of the time (all the time, until very recently) and my food/petfood/household budget is about £450-£500 per month. This has been done partly by staying out of supermarkets altogether, whenever possible. But I live in the hinterland between town & country, with easy access to an excellent street market & several farm shops. We do have two small supermarkets in town but I rarely darken their doors; their idea of a "reduction" is 20p off something costing £5. And mostly their "bigger & better" packs are laughably small when you're feeding a small army.

I base my meal plans on the best value I can find at the market on a Friday - ours is open 3 days a week but Friday's best for food - which isn't necessarily the same as what's cheapest. I will probably do 3 "base" meals, i.e. roasts, bakes, etc. and 3-4 "leftover" meals - pasta, rice & baked potato-based meals from whatever didn't get eaten up the first time around. It helps to make sure you have the ingredients for these in hand & don't have to keep popping to the shops. We eat a lot of fresh seasonal veg & fruit, which is far cheaper on the market; yes, it doesn't last long but it normally doesn't have to!

Once a month I do a supermarket run (or order) for tins, packets etc. although I buy flour directly from a local mill in 8kg sacks; the girls (2 of my own and a trainee daughter-in-law) & I bake a LOT, including bread, although I do buy from the market bakers too. Spuds come in 25kg sacks (4-6 weeks worth) from the farm shop I buy my poultry feed from, and at the times of year when they sprout easily, sacks are shared with next door, who are fewer in number but vegetarian, so eat more of them per head. We do drink a little but no-one smokes; cleaning stuff comes from L1DLs (closer than A1di) & I've found it very good & quite gentle - several members of the household have sensitive skin. Stardrops &/or vinegar/bicarb, plus 2x4 & elbow grease, will clean almost anything. We keep a handful of chickens & grow a lot of fruit & herbs (hardly any work) although our garden is not big & we're in the centre of town. I don't usually have to buy any eggs & I'm afraid they do get (and vastly enjoy) kitchen scraps.

I'm self-employed & don't earn a lot by most people's standards, partly because I found out the hard way that the more hours I worked, the more I spent on food etc., and partly because running a household this size, with people coming & going at all hours, is actually a pretty FT job in its own right. OH is in an "ordinary" job (i.e. paid peanuts for the responsibility he carries) but we have paid our mortgage right down to pennies now & I've not worked FT since eldest was born, nearly 25 years ago.

70s recipe books are a good source of recipes that will "stretch" easily & can be adapted for leftovers - Mary Berry's Yorkshire TV Farmhouse series being my favourites, but Marguerite Patten's pretty sound too. Just double the quantities! A good sturdy mixer is a big help - or a trainee daughter-in-law or so - and proper catering equipment - bowls, ladles, knives etc. - rather than pretty-pretty flimsy utensils. I got a fair bit of my kitchen equipment from a language school that was closing down.

We also forage for free food; nuts, berries & leaves from the countryside half a mile away, but also knocking on doors & asking politely in town where you can see good fruit rotting on people's lawns, & keeping an eye on Freecycle. Returning a jar of any resulting preserves, along with a thank-you note, usually guarantees us getting the first offer the following year! And this food is nearly always absolutely fresh & of the highest possible quality; get hold of one of the excellent books on foraging (Richard Mabey's Food For Free and the River Cottage Hedgerow book spring to mind) and you can supplement your diet with some great stuff at no cost other than time.

I do know that many of these options aren't open to most people. But there will be other options available to you where you are; it just needs you to get your mind out of the supermarket groove, look around you & make the most of whatever's available to you. HTH!

honeythewitch

Farm foods do a lot of things in packs of three very cheaply. Three chickens, three packs of gammon, three packs of chicken breasts, three bags of pork for ten pounds etc and three bags of vegetables for two pounds, which should all come in handy for a large family.

Penny-Pincher!!

If you're used to spending £200 per week for 7 of you, you can easily cut back and still eat very well. I think you could do this well on £80per week if your usual budget has been £200. I would do meals like:

Toad In Hole, mash, carrots and cabbage
Spagbol
Roasts with roasties, yorkies, carrots, cabbage, stuffing, gravy
Fish Pie
Chops, spuds, carrots, corn, peas etc
Egg & Chips
Stew and dumplings
Baked spuds with various toppings
Sausage Casserole
Shepherds Pie and veg

Only buy veg in season which is generally carrots, cabbage, tinned corn, frozen peas etc.

Make leftovers into bubble and squeak

Make soups, have with toastie?

Have beans or eggs on toast

Make double portions and freeze for following week?

Buy reduced items and freeze

Loads of ways to save!

PP
x

ash28

Some of the things we used to eat when we were feeding 5 or 6 adults.

Used to buy a gammon joint (Sainsburys do a kilo for £4), boil it to get some stock for soup then roast it for a while and serve with either mash, savoy cabbage and cheese sauce plus peas or whatever or mash and cauliflower cheese, or mash, peas and sweetcorn or sweetcorn fritters, or fried egg and chips. The soup I would make with yellow split peas, leeks, carrot and swede - I would grate the carrot and swede and ended up with a lovely smoothish broth, you could either have it as a starter or as a lunch the following day - or with plenty of crusty bread, a dinner.

750gms of mince can be the base for a bolognese or a chilli or mince and dumplings and should make 7 generous portions.

The same amount of stewing beef could make a beef and vegetable casserole - a bit of celery, a few carrots a couple of onions, stock and thickening - bit of tomato puree and a dash of lee and perrins......you could top it with a "pie crust". or if the dish is too big cut the pastry into rectangles and just lie them on the top....we loved a pastry topping - crispy on the top and bit doughy and gravy soaked on the bottom, or cover with thinly sliced potato for an hour or so towards the end of cooking.

Lamb casserole with a bit of rosemary or thyme and covered in thinly sliced potatoes was and is another favourite, as is lasagne (I used to make 2)

Sausage and penne pasta - 2 packs of decent sausages (skin them if you like) cut into 3 or 4 pieces and fry off in a bit of oil - along with chopped onion and a coup;e of chopped carrots add about a pint of stock or a mix of stock and red wine and a big squirt of tomato puree and simmer for about 20 to 25 mins.
Make a white sauce using about 500mils of milk and cook 600 or 700gms penne pasta - when the pasta is almost cooked you can add spinach (right near the end) or brocolli florets - then drain.
Put half the pasta in the bottom of an oven proof dish then pour over the sausage mixture and top with the remaining pasta and over the white sauce and top with 150gms or so of cheese and bake in the oven or 30 mins or so - 170 degrees. Serve with garlic bread or similar.

You can buy a decent sized chicken for a fiver - could do a roast with that - I would imagine there wouldn't be much left for anything else. When I used to do roast chicken I never had enough left to do anything with - and I didn't boil the carcass for stock...

I never made toad in the hole - I didn't have tin big enough for us to do it in one go - I used to do sausages in onion gravy and make the yorkshire pudding.

Pork shoulder is economical and so is belly pork - a big piece of belly pork (not cut in slices) slow roasted (fat in the meat all disappears and you are left with meat and crackling) is lovely - it is so tender you can't carve it but have to pull it apart and the fat that comes out of it makes delicious gravy and roast potatoes.

Rice based dishes like a jambalaya are good - plenty of rice and as much meat and/ or fish as you want - chicken and chorizo is a good combination, as is chicken and prawn.

A tagine is tasty and fairly simple and as you use chickpeas you don't need a huge amount of meat (we like lamb) in the dish. I use ras-al-hanouti as the spice mix, but you can make your own.

For a fish pie I would use frozen pollack and a bit of fresh smoked fish and a few prawns plus a pack of frozen chopped veg.

I used to base most of our meals on a 100gms or so of raw meat a serving.

pigpen

Double up quantities for recipes and add more veg .. I feed 10 on a daily basis.. 5 eat adult portions, 3 child portions and 2 toddler portions and I triple recipes.

Savoury mince with mash, spag bol... bulk out with lentils, grated carrots/courgette/suede etc

I just tend to add garlic bread, loads of veg to fill plates.