Help!!! How can i feed a family of 7 for less than £50 a week?

[fifijass]

We have recently dropped income and now have only around £40-50 a week left for food shopping but I have a very fussy family of 5 kids and 2 adults as we live in Orkney the only supermarkets we have is Tesco, Co-op and Lidls - we need help!!

[SunnyBaudelaire]

well for a start they will have to stop being 'very fussy' won't they?
LIDL do a kilo of rice for 40p and bags of pasta for 18p, get a few of those in along with whatever is on offer. I think I could do it at LIDL but it would be hard work. They also do sliced loaves for 49p

[SunnyBaudelaire]

oh and can you get a couple of hens?

[cdtaylornats]

There is a food bank in Kirkwall

[ninetynineonehundred]

What are they fussy about? If you let us know what you definitely don't dare cook it will give us some ideas

[Imeanlikeseriously]

Stop eating meat. Giant bags of dried pulses can be really cheap but am guessing you don't have a cash and carry type of shop near you.

I'm sure this has been suggested to you but A Girl Called Jack is a great blog for cheap food.

There are some really rank things in the value ranges but loads of things in value range are totally fine.

I feed my family of six for about fifty but used to have to do for less.

Tell us what you usually eat and enjoy now, including breakfasts.

How many people at home for lunches? DCs on free school meals?

How many actual meals will it be?

[Imeanlikeseriously]

Also how much time do you have for cooking? I don't work as many hours as I used to so have more time to be clever with food. When I was working more it was so much harder keeping it down.

[Ooooooooh]

Chilli and Dahl and chickpea curry based on lentils or mixed dried beans/pulses

[Ooooooooh]

Make them spice free for fussy ones then add chilli after for adults.

[basketofshells]

It's going to be a tough call to do it long term, but these threads (you can search for others) are definitely the right place for advice, recipes, shopping plans, etc. Especially if you can let people know your dc's ages, preferences, any allergies, etc.

A drop in income often goes hand in hand with one or more adults having more time for cooking/shopping. If that applies to you, then that's a bit of help to start with.

Presumably as you already know your figure of £40-£50, that means you've already worked out a budget, which included claiming all benefits, free school meals, etc., that you might now be entitled to? Another thing worth doing is checking your direct debits, just in case there's something going out that's no longer relevant/needed. I found and cancelled a subscription to a magazine that my dds had grown out of, which I'd forgotten because my dh had just been chucking it away when he picked up the post . Only £5 a month diverted to the food budget, but that's £1 a week, and £1 is a bag of spuds.

If you have a freezer, you could find out when the best time of day is for reduced offers, and buy meat, etc. at those times. We had to lose the idea of meat being a staple. Basic ranges can also be good - among the chemical crap there are many items of decent quality. Generally, the fewer ingredients something has, the better the quality of its basic version. I think there are even a few threads on here recommending the best things to buy from basic ranges.

Setting up with chickens and the like means you'd have an initial outlay. But would you have any neighbours who'd swap a bit of mucking-out for eggs?

[fifijass]

My family consists of 2 adults and 2 teenagers, a 9 year old that only likes cheesy pasta and processed food and 2 year old twins. Nobody in the family likes pulses and only half of us will eat rice and pasta, I have an iodine allergy so most shellfish and some mushrooms are of the menu too. No we can't have hens, would be nice tho.

[Imeanlikeseriously]

How much were you spending before?

My personal opinion is that these are quite extreme times so the DCs will have to just get on with it. That's what my four had to did when we took a hit. However that's just personal opinion. What are some favourite meals? If you are happy with it plain pasta with cheese is very cheap.

What is a normal weekly meal plan for you?

For those who don't eat rice and pasta what do they usually have?

[mammuzzamia]

Crikey!

Girl Called Jack for very cheap recipes.

agirlcalledjack.com/category/recipes-food/

[fifijass]

Our usual weekly shop was around £150+. Our meals were things like spag bol, beef stew and dumplings, mince and tatties, cottage pie, roast chicken dinner but then most of the time I had to cook separate meals for other members of the family. I have alot of time to plan and make meals, breakfast was always breakfast bars as no one likes cereal.

[momb]

potatoes by the sackload then! I get 25kg for £5 from the farm: a fraction of the tesco price.

Buy bread when reduced and freeze immediately.

cheap protein: eggs, cheese, sardines, gammon/bacon joints (the cling wrapped ones), value chicken portions (not breasts) though remember that value chicken tastes of little and shrinks a lot in cooking, mince: plus special offers
Cheap carbs: whatever you like but if some people don't like pasta or rice then it's going to be tricky. They do say that trying something 17 times can change your mind on whether you like it, if it's just fussiness not a tasting /sensory difficulty. Maybe start giving the more selective eaters a bit of different things alongside your meal until you can incorporate it more?

Cheap veg: keep it seasonal. Savoy cabbages are massive at the moment!

[Hathall]

It's going to be hard!
You can still do some of the meals you were doing before. Add grated carrots and lentils to mince to make it go further. Add more veg and less meat to stews and casseroles. Hopefully your family won't object too much but they really need to be on board with this.
I don't think you can afford to have fussiness.
Will your family eat porridge? That's quite cheap.

[BackCrackAndNappySack]

If 'no-one in the family likes pulses' then it's quite possible that you've never bothered to experiment with them and see just how versatile and delicious they can be.

Do your kids eat baked beans? If they can eat baked beans they can eat any other kind of pulse.

Ditto rice and pasta, or eating porridge for breakfast, which is filling and nutritious, cheap and delicious. Cereal bars are horrendously expensive and not very filling at all.

I think under the circumstances, (allergies aside) everyone is going to have to learn to be a bit more flexible and realistic. Otherwise they are going to find out what hunger is.

[BackCrackAndNappySack]

To be honest you can bulk out a shepherd's pie or anything using meat mince with red lentils and barely even notice the difference.

[Imeanlikeseriously]

Anything else they'll eat for breakfast? Cereal bars are so expensive!! You must be spending a tenner a week on just those.

Don't want to be all mumsnet (just make your own bread, get a slow cooker etc) but if you've the time you could make your own much healthier cereal bars.

[BackCrackAndNappySack]

Making your own bread is not necessarily going to be cost effective to be honest. Same with growing your own veg and keeping chickens for eggs. It's a lovely idea that doesn't quite work as well in practice as it does in theory.

But switching to denser types of bread rather than the expensive but air-like white processed stuff is a good idea. Pitta breads for example take longer to chew and are more satisfying than two slices of white processed bread. However it is massively cheaper to learn to make your own pizza dough and toppings for example, than to buy ready made pizzas which for the adults and two eldest children would cost a fortune.

[Imeanlikeseriously]

That was a reference to mumsnetisms. It's iften a point of contention on here as well meaning waitrosers come on and give suggestions about making your own sour dough and seeded loaves not realising the OP can't afford a back of pumpkin seeds.

[BlueChampagne]

DH lived on veg soup and baked potatoes as a student.

[TyneTeas]

Here are some old threads with ideas which may help : )

//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food_and_recipes/2122710-What-is-the-absolute-cheapest-meal-you-can-make

//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food_and_recipes/2133991-Help-need-quick-cheap-nutritious-meals

//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food_and_recipes/1956734-Looking-for-ideas-for-really-cheap-meals

[Imeanlikeseriously]

Would your family eat offal? Mine used to turn their noses up slightly but I got them loving it. Very cheap and nutritious.

[Purplehonesty]

When I do spag bol I make it with a small pack of mince, three grated carrots, a tin of chopped tomatoes, onion and garlic. Add a cheap supermarket bolognaise sauce too and it will feed all your family and people won't notice lack of mince.
Tesco value spaghetti is fine and cheap too.

A good veg soup with baked potatoes is nice too - I do tomato soup with two tins of chopped tomatoes, a pepper, carrots, chilli and garlic plus veg stock. It's lovely and filling too.

Last night my kids wanted fish fingers
So I did them with boiled potatoes, carrots and peas instead of chips. They were most affronted but I added some value ketchup to the plate and the whole lot disappeared.

If you do soup twice a week, a veggie pasta dish (base on the soup recipe but less stock) a chicken dinner like chicken thighs done in the oven with roasted peppers, tomatoes, onions and serve with spicy cous cous. (Just add stock, cumin and raisins to the cous cous), the bolognaise - that's 5 meals already and very cheap to make.

Can you make pizza dough? Have a look at Jamie Oliver foccacia bread pizza it is very easy and cheap.
And you can make 3 huge pizzas from one bag of flour for 89p or so. Buy yeast in a tub not sachets as it works out cheaper when you use it a few times.

Then see what is on offer or reduced at your supermarket and work around that. I got some lamb today so we are having lamb pastillas - another Jamie meal.

Good luck!

[Kennington]

Porridge for breakfast with milk and water 50:50 sweeten with a touch of honey
Lentil soup made with onions and tinned tomatoes
Pea soup as above
Grow your own rocket salad. It is basically a weed anyway!
Beetroot salad
Eggy bread
Pancakes
Cut back on meat and just use a small amount of mince for bolanaise sauce and use extra tomatoes
Potatoes but use with the skins as much healthier
Frozen veg
Pasta plus home made sauce
We live on the above a lot. It is healthy and we are all very slim too...!