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

It's like anything you have to learn.

If you can read you can cook.

There's loads of easy sauce recipes online or look for a budget cookbook for ideas.

You are wasting money and while it's nice to buy something prepared you can put in the oven occasionally it's neither healthy or budget friendly to do it all of the time.
You have said that budgeting is making you feel stressed every month so now is the time to start cooking from scratch. You will have much better control over your finances and it's really not that hard, we've all had to do it.
I use the bbc food recipes, there's loads of different ones and you can search for quick/easy meals.

Nasty judgemental people.i can manage on f.. all a week so you can too and its your fault if you can't..Nappies or things for kids and food for picky kids can be a nightmare.Cut the poster some slack.

I spend about that much, but my only nearby supermarket is Waitrose, I buy ice cream and avocados and other expensive items and I get snacks and drinks for dc. It's difficult budgeting in summer when we're outdoors all day as there are cafes everywhere. Fares cost a lot, too.

If I were just with a toddler going to the park, I could manage on £50-£60 a week. Pasta, ratatouille, eggs, muesli, home made ice lollies for toddler in hot weather, bananas, apples, carrots, cucumber, cheese sandwiches. Take a flask of coffee/tea and some juice or water out with you.

I just don't manage it because I'm tired and it's stressful budgeting if there's a lot going on. I agree with pp that an online Tesco or similar shop might be cheapest.

get your dd involved maybe so you’ve got an activity as well as food such as making pizza (easy to buy pizza bases or even use pitta breads)
top with cheap but healthy toppings. Chop up
some basic fruit - apples oranges bananas etc
cut right back on juice

She can cut down that electric bill even more if she sticks to candle light and she can cut out detergent altogether if she washes all their clothes by hand with a bar of soap. Who does she think she is using these modern conveniences on a tight budget? 🙄

So that sounds as if you are buying readymeals rather than ingredients to cook with. That's a very expensive way to eat! I had to look up Little Dish - again, that's a really expensive way to feed a 2 year old. A bag of pasta and cheese sauce made from butter / flour / milk / cheese could feed them for a fraction of that.

How are your cooking skills? I can remember mine being not so hot when my DS was that age, I think I believed anything I bought rather than made was somehow 'better' for him. But I learned. I bought Annabel Karmel's book (currently 99p on Ebay), found a few recipes he liked (cheesy pasta, cheesy pasta with broccoli, cheesy pasta with bacon - you get the idea) and never looked back. I think you just need to have confidence in yourself (something I was sorely lacking).

Have a browse at this Sainsburys link for ideas to get you started too.
https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/recipes/scrapbooks/feed-your-family-for-a-fiver

I batch cook meals, and you can find recipes on the feed your family for £20 quid a week. I get my fresh fruit and veg from my local food pantry. Also some meat and ready meals. Any joints of meat I buy from my supermarket near me.

Well that's why you're skint 🤦‍♀️

I'm a single parent to a teen dd and our food bill is loads cheaper than that.

Get yourself a budget cookery book, stop buying expensive meat, stop buying ready meals....

After bills this month we will have about £180 for two adults, a primary school child and a toddler until the bank holiday weekend.

Like everyone else has said, mince can make a few portions of spaghetti Bolognese or shepherds pie, roast a chicken and split it into a few meals (chicken and chips, chicken stir fry, chicken risotto, whatever sort of thing you like). Toddler should eat what you do ideally, they don't need ready meals.
You can find a lot of recipes online using Google or Pinterest, they are pretty straightforward to follow if you search for easy / quick meals.

With your budget I don't even think you would need to go for budget brands, you just need to plan and cook rather than relying on convenience food.

You can see if any charity in your area has a food club and join it

Have you thought of meal planning and, you know, actually cooking...

Duck breasts? Chicken in a sauce? prepped potatoes? That's your problem right there.

Dishwasher tablets and running a dishwasher cost hardly anything unless you're stupid enough to buy branded tablets at full price and use they less water than washing up by hand. Plus they save loads of time if you cook every day/meal.

OP I've heard a lot of good things about Taming Twins (I think the origin of her recipes was coping while having young twins so producing easy and quick food on a budget without resorting to ready meals).

www.tamingtwins.com/

If you are not a confident cook - or perhaps feeling too busy or overwhelmed - start off by making small changes.

so perhaps replace one or two of the ready meals - buy a bag of pasta (75p) jar of sauce (£1-2) and bag of grated cheese (£2)
for £4-5 that would be several dinners for both of you. Later on learn how to make your own sauce?

Is OP a well off person who has hit 'hard times' this month for some reason, the shopping list isn't one of someone generally in poverty

The special toddler meals are a bit of a rip of. You can be made to feel like they are somehow better than what you could cook for them, but that absolutely isn't the case at all! And the mark up on them for what is a tiny bit of food is crazy. I would switch to cooking the same meal for both of you. In the long run, as her appetite gets bigger, it will save you loads as you can't be buying 2 or 3 of those tiny portions for every meal when she's older. And you don't want her getting so used to eating just them that she rejects your cooking.

You need carbohydrates, vegetables, and protein for every meal. Work with that as your options. Proteins the most expensive. Eggs are a good cheap option. But when you buy meat, it is probably cheaper to buy plain cuts of meat, and then add your own sauce than the pre-sauced options each time. But if you aren't that confident in cooking you don't need to start with a super complicated sauce recipe that needs you to buy loads of ingrediants. e.g. learn to make a simple cheese sauce (butter, flour, milk, cheese). This can be added to pasta for maccaroni cheese or chicken/fish. You can add a tiny bit of mustard to make it more cheesy. Then you can do more things with the same basic recipe - omitting cheese to make a simple white sauce, adding garlic etc.

But I have never met a toddler who didn't like pasta in cheese sauce

Yeah you need to cook rather than live off convenience products, Buy some eggs(10 for less than £2 in Sainsburys) and cheese and make omelettes, get some flour and milk to add to your eggs and make pancakes. Buy some pasta and make a basic tomato sauce, probably costs around the same as one of your toddlers meals but would do you both several meals.

I spend around £100 a week for a family of 5 including a teen and tween boy who eat ALOT!

What to add, nothing. PPs have said it, but seriously learn to do some simple cooking.

large bag of potatoes
lathe bag of rice
bags of cheap frozen veg
bags of lentils and dried beans

all cheap, and make many meals

prepared potatoes and duck breast are not what someone on a budget should be buying nor are 3 quid toddler meals. Seriously. Please. Do yourself a favour and just google some easy recipes and learn to cook.

Buy fresh fruit not fruit juice.

Fruit juice is high in sugar and shouldn't be given to children (or adults.)

three meals for dd usually little dish but they are only 3 pounds each.

That is just crazy.

You and your child can eat the same food.

No wonder you can't manage.

You could cook a whole meal for 2 adults for £3

You seem to be relying on ready meals rather than cooking from scratch.
That's why you can't manage the money.

As Pps say- you need to learn to cook, not heat up ready meals.

Buy a cookbook and learn to cook.

It’s definitely doable. My budget is £400 for 4 of us (ds here only around 50% though). Try shopping at Aldi or Lidl, I find Sainsbury’s in particular really expensive.

Buy things like:
mince (spaghetti Bol to last a couple of nights and/or put leftovers in the freezer in toddler portions)
chicken thighs (fajitas, cook to use on salads, chicken curry etc)
bag of potatoes (baked potatoes, mash etc)
rice
pasta
carrots
onions
broccoli
frozen peas and sweet corn
tinned tomatoes

You can also do one or two easy/cheap meals per week like fish fingers, mash and frozen peas or omelette and salad or jacket potato and tuna or pasta pesto.

Don’t buy:

expensive meat - steak, duck etc

fresh berries - swap for frozen berries or bananas and apples are better value or even a melon or pineapple to chop up.

prepared food like ready meals, prepared potatoes, veg etc.

brand name foods and cleaning products.

You also can't afford £3 toddler meals. If you gave her one everyday that's £21 a week alone