To ask your absolute cheapest ways to feed 1 adult 1 5 year old

Have you got a local allotment? Strawberries are out at the moment and the quantity some people have is unbelievable! Literally buckets being harvested and they are only just starting. Other veg/ berries are going to be ample too soon. People begging to give away and foisting veg on you. Might be worth asking around.

If I was going to do this I would go food bank route or bulk buy pasta and rice as the basics. Then yellow sticker the rest. If you eat a good meal 3 times a week you can probably eat a substandard one the rest and still be ok.

You can get free vitamins for kids. https://www.healthystart.nhs.uk/getting-vitamins/

Might be good as a stopgap to ensure even if your dropping the ball a bit on variation of fruit/ veg that he’s covered.

Risotto is cheap. Mushroom, squash and sage, tomato or chicken if you can stretch to it.

Make sausages into meatballs to have with pasta and the rest of the packet into "burgers" or sausage casserole.

"Lobbies" is a bit of a regional thing but basically cubes of potato, carrot and onion boiled in a pan with an Oxo. When cooked add cubes of corned beef and simmer for a few mins more. Looks awful but tastes good with a bit of HP sauce and bread and butter.

Special fried rice (add egg, prawns, ham or bacon and whatever veg you have). 5 spice lasts forever and makes a big difference to this dish.

Bacon, mashed potato and cabbage.

Bacon and egg pie.

Pork is probably the cheapest meat, Chinese style pork chops with fried rice and broccoli is a fav here. Or chops dipped in breadcrumbs and baked, with potatoes and veg.

Tinned mackerel or sardines on toast or made into fish cakes to have with tinned beans.

Quiche.

Scones and flapjacks for treats.

Shakshuka: in a shallow pan, fry onions and peppers, add some spices, pour over tin tomatoes, then once that makes a nice rich sauce, make wells in it and crack eggs in the wells. Cook so eggs to liking. Mop up sauce with some pitta bread, or add a baked potato. All ingredients cheap but a nice dinner :)

I love lentil soup - easily the cheapest thing. Add one rasher smoky bacon for additional lovely flavour, or toasted cumin seeds

I lady I know has a FB page 'Janes Food ideas on a budget', and what is good about it is that it is her genuine record of her feeding herself and her teens using the food bank/food pantry/ really budget food as a long term thing .
Dahl is a great cheap food which is nutritious and filling. It does need long cooking to start with, but you can freeze portions and add whatever veg is cheap at the time when you reheat it to ring the changes (carrots, courgettes, peas, butternut squash, cauliflower, spinach whether fresh or frozen) and I like some peanut butter added in too. That way it doesn't feel quite so like the same thing over and over. If you can do the cost upfront of a big bag of rice it is so much cheaper (and weirdly big bags of rice on Amazon can be very good value, though Tesco and Sainsburys have them too) and you can cook brown rice and then freeze in plastic bags (cook, spread on a tray for 5 minutes to cool, portion, flatten the bag, get them into the fridge to cool quickly, then into the freezer after 30 minutes and its perfectly safe) then you can microwave from frozen in 2 minutes

Pasta and broccoli bake
Batch cook ratatouille and freeze in portion sized pots. You can add this as a base with mince or meatballs or eat as a vegetarian dish.

Buy bigger portions of meat and freeze in smaller portions.
I find eggs a good staple. Scrambled, poached, omelette, boiled with a bit of salad or veggie sticks.
Tuna bake
Mini roast with sausages as the meat.
Look for yellow stickers 4pm ish onwards. I got a six pack of rolls for 20p last week reduced from £1.85, when I popped in the small co op for milk. Freeze and use as needed.
Porridge
Buy fruit you can stew, plums are reasonable and apples or pears or apricots and nectarines if on offer. Put in portion size containers and freeze until use. You can eat with value natural yoghurt or custard or in porridge etc.
Frozen fruit also good option.
Frozen veg last longer than fresh and I have found on a tight budget better value.

What does your 5yo like eating op? Pasta is usually a safe bet and there are many cheap but filling and delicious pasta dishes. Do you have freezer space because batch cooking is a great money saver too. Today I gathered up all the remaining veg I had and made a pasta sauce- butternut, carrots, courgette, pepper, garlic and roasted that with some olive oil and dried spices. I then added that with a tin of tomatoes and let that simmer and blend and I made so many batches of pasta sauce. So easy to boil some pasta and take out a bit of sauce when you need it.

I also did a batch of pinwheels today. Different fillings.

A portion of mince - roll into meatballs or burger patties. To this I add veg like carrots, onions, spices. Endless options of pasta and meatballs, burgers, on pizza too.

Im doing a lot of batch cooking for upcoming school holidays. It doesn't need to be expensive and a good amount of veg, beans , pasta goes a long way.

'egg in a cup' is a soft boiled egg, a torn up slice of bread, salt, pepper, ketchup, mashed in a mug. Easy cheap lunch or breakfast.

Fish fingers from the value range of supermarkets are surprisingly good. I can't tell the difference between them and the more expensive ones. Really fancy fish fingers and chips now 😂

Pasta with broccoli, peas and cream cheese is a quick cheap go to my kids love

Growing your own veg takes an awful lot of time and attention and often isn't that cheap.

In the winter I make 3 soups each week. 1. Homemade winter vegetable soup with onion, carrots, swede, parsnips and a potato. 2. Tomato and lentil soup. 3. Leek and potato soup. All with a vegetable stock cubes base. I have it with a French stick or crusty bread.

Do you have a Turkish supermarket near you? They normally have big tubs of hummous and yoghurt cheap which you can combine with lots of other things to make things feel jazzier.

bit of cumin in some yoghurt mixed with some finely chopped red cabbage is great in wraps/as a side with a potato or lentil curry and cabbage feels more filling than lettuce.

ramen (the packets not the cups) with extra mixed veg, a chopped up omelette, any other bits and pieces is a good quick meal if you don’t have time for curry/stew type stuff.

lurk the supermarket discount sections if you have time!

God that sounds awful!

I buy frozen white fish fillets...from the supermarket value range...the Sainsbury's ones are about £2.50 for a big bag. I defrost them as I need them. Make a batter out of flour and water and make my own fish and chips.

Lentil bolognaise is cheap and filling - celery, carrots, onions, passata, some veggie stock cubes and tomato puree, dried herbs and garlic powder.

Risotto.
Homemade fish cakes.
Bubble and squeak.
Homemade bread and butter pudding.

Feed Your Family For £20 a Week

Check out this website and its sister FB page. £20 is optimistic now, but lots of low cost recipes and meal plans.

crepes (100g flour 2 eggs 300g milk makes loads) - savoury - cheese with mushrooms if feeling fancy then sweet - with jam or cinnamon and sugar
bacon is your friend as can be deployed in different ways - to jazz up fried rice, with tinned tomatoes as a pasta sauce etc.