To think it’s actually hard to live off this for the rest of the month?!

That is my normal budget after bills every month for me and my teen.

Its more then enough for just you and a 2 year old.

I was never taught basic cooking either, so you have my complete sympathy.

My advice would be to find 2 or 3 simple recipes and make these over and over.
The recipes are usually for a family of 4 and so each one will last you for two meals.

You can then have some frozen food to break it up or do things like jacket potato with beans and cheese.

You want a weekly or 2 weekly meal plan, where you eat the same foods on the same days - it just makes shopping and life so much easier.

Also try supermarkets own brand stuff which is often the same but a lot cheaper.

But if you're paying for Amazon Prime you're already paying 7.99 a month.

I doubt you're saving as much as you think.

Hi OP

from all the messages I’m sure you have now realised that being unable to cook is why it’s so expensive. You can change this but I’d advise you to do it gradually. There’s no point spending a fortune on a stocked pantry and fresh food if you can’t turn it into meals.

start with a list of meals you currently like to eat. If you don’t like shepherds pie normally then don’t bother trying to learn something like that. Then try to make one of those at home. Slowly build up your repertoire and start having the pre prepped stuff as your treat or emergency meals.

even pasta, a jarred sauce like pesto and some fresh veggies and chicken added is pretty simple.

jack monroe has a lot of easy recipes using basic ingredients. They also talk about how to build up a store cupboard gradually https://oursouthend.wordpress.com

some things freeze better than others but a good rule of thumb is, anything in a sauce freezes better that dry food. So pasta sauce freezes fine but pasta not so good. It’s not foolproof as rice also freezes ok but it’s a starting point for you to be able to make some decisions about what to freeze. Nothing worse than defrosting a meal and then finding its not nice as it shouldn’t be frozen. It’s also quick to boil pasta whereas making a sauce can take time.

Yes you can.plan your meals. Buy potatoes, rice, bags of pulses, baked beans, chopped tomatoes, chilli powder, frozen sausages, eggs and pasta. That way you've got omelette, potato and sausages, vegetarian curry, tomato pasta, jacket potato with beans, veggie chilli con carnie and chips. If you have any money left over, buy sweetcorn, peas, brocolli, cucumber and cabbage to go with the meals. Breakfast can be porridge and toast.

Yes or you could do that depending on if you have a Lidl or Aldi near you and if you think their tablets work as I find the cheaper tablets are not as good.

As PP said though you only really need to run the dishwasher when it’s completely full so would be better in the long run to get some cheap plates etc so you can do this.

Also you can use half a dishwasher tablet per cycle and they work just as well.

How are getting through a bottle of shampoo every month 🤔 that's alot of hair washing. One 400ml bottle lasts me at least two months and I wash my hair every day!

Or you could just buy a pack from Lidl/Aldi where the cost per tablet is about 8 or 9 p, so cheaper and no need to wait for Prime Day.

The last Prime Day, I looked at the heavily discounted dishwasher tablets on Amazon and they were still more expensive than Lidl or Aldi, so I didn't bother. Plus you either need to pay for delivery or Prime to get them from Amazon anyway.

Dishwasher tablets are expensive but efficient - it's more a matter of making sure the dishwasher in full before you use it - a wash every second day should be enough for you. Likewise, minimise your use of the washing machine. If you need more crockery, go to a charity shop or boot sale.

Don’t buy dishwasher tablets in the supermarket, if you can spare a tenner buy the biggest pack you can on Amazon. Look at the cost per tablet which will be shown on the listing and this is how you get better value. I only buy dishwasher tablets on Black Friday and prime day and they last me about 6 months. DH and I run the dishwasher every other day so need about 200 tablets per year. A bag of 100 on Amazon is about a tenner.

Same here!

This has probably already been says but boy washing powder. It's much more economical than tablets and ditch the dishwasher for a while or buy value tablets.

No I don’t think it is comparable, and I didn’t say it was. I also didn’t say I would struggle to eat for less, in fact I clearly said (twice) know exactly how I could make it cheaper. Doh!
I was just saying that spending more doesn’t always mean you’re buying shitty ready meals or branded baked beans etc, which is always the assumption on these threads.

OP, get a basic cookbook. Maybe the kind aimed at students.

I don't see how this is comparable with the OP- do you?
You've made a choice to buy organic produce which is 2 or 3 x the price of other food.

So your claim that you'd struggle to eat for less is a bit disingenuous.
It's the same as saying 'we eat smoked salmon and caviar every day so I couldn't possibly spend less', or 'I buy all my groceries from Fortnum and Mason, so I really can't spend less.'

Doh.

This.

Last month I had to put up a curtain pole. No one has ever taught me.

Do you either a) ping up a YouTube tutorial and follow the instructions, or b) pretend you haven't ever heard of the internet and it's billions of step by step instructions for everything, pay £100 for someone to come round and fit one, then complain you've got no money (presumably to pay for your £100 ironing service because no one taught you how to iron? )

She's buying every convenience product available with the excuse "well no one showed me...." No one showed a lot of us.

Dishwasher tablets vary hugely in price. We never buy branded now and get cheap ones from B&M. They are half the price of branded.

I would struggle to feed mine on less than £100 per week because I know how i could make it cheaper, but I do spend more than £100 a week on feeding my children. No ready meals, but I buy all organic meat, fruit and vegetables from the local farm shop which is easily £80 per week on its own.
Like I said, I know it can be cheaper, but spending more doesn’t mean you’re just buying ready meals etc. I can afford to buy the highest welfare meat, so I choose to do so.

If you can’t cook, I kid you not, Dorling Kindersley illustrated step by step “how to cook” books for dc are bloody brilliant. I hand them out to uni students!

I'd second this suggestion. We lent our copy to my PiL's live-in carer (a good cook of fiendishly spicy vegetarian food but not at all sure about Bland Elderly British) and she said it was a lifeline.

I make a shepherds pie from one pack of mince .
I bulk it out with green lentils, carrots, celery and peas.
It makes 4 adult portions.

One to eat on the day, the other put in the freezer.

Works out as not much more than £1 a portion.

That's three weeks. More than enough. As other posters have said, and given you good advice. And if you can't afford dishwasher tablets wash up in the bowl.

Use good food website, some cheap family meals, pasta dishes, pies etc. get some Tupperware to freeze and reheat well. Lots of veg to bulk out meals.

The internet is your friend. Google the meat you have, say duck, and then the veggies or store cupboard ingredients and it will give you a recipe. I like the BBC good food website as the recipes tend to be fairly simple with not too many ingredients.

Just learn one recipe at a time until you build up your confidence.

Ok @munnyya , Time to skill up. You have internet connectivity so you could Google, but easiest thing to do if you don’t have basic cooking skills is buy a student cookbook, reasons being they are focused on quick, easy and cheap meals often in bulk. Ref freezing, you’re overthinking this, buy freezer bags form the supermarket, portion, mark what it is and date made on outside of the bag, roll/fold up to exclude air and stack in freezer. Make sure you keep n eye on what is in there ( maybe keep a list) and actually eat it.

if you can crack simple meals ( most of which will be suitable for baby if you keep spices and seasoning to a minimum or take a portion out before yo season) so better for both of you and your pocket. Also eat veggie 4/5 days a week and that takes a massive slice out of your spends.

Why?
How are 2 children getting through more than £50 each in a week for food?
Are you unable to cook from scratch?
Are you buying branded basics and also ready meals?