Could you feed a family of five for 23 days on £120?

[MediumBags]

It's a long way to payday!
I see lots of pasta in my future! :-(

Do you have anything in already, herbs, spices, oil, flour etc? What kind of facilities do you have, decent sized freezer etc? Any dietary requirements? It will be very hard op, sorry you're in this situation.

And how old are the family members, toddlers or teenagers?

It's fine. It's a short term problem, sadly all my fault, terrible budgeting. Will be hard, but, what can ya do!

Not many spices left, and freezer space poor - but I've never really seen the benefit of freezing. Easier just to use again the next day.

Mix of all ages! But the toddler eats as much as the teenagers at the moment! 🤣

Tell us what you already have in and I’m sure we could come up with a few meals for you

Anything you could sell for a bit of extra cash? We’ve got somebody picking up a rather rusty bike tonight for £40, people buy all sorts that you wouldn’t expect to sell!

Yes, I managed to do a full months shop for £123 last month. Not the most exciting but I can post my meal list? We are mostly vegetarian though.

Yes, but it will be a bit repetitive.

Rice and chickpea curry is a good cheap meal, pasta with tomatoes and veg, homemade focaccia is filling and costs under 40p, Bolognese made with cheap mince. Cous cous & meatballs.

Rice was £5 for 5kg today so that's a lot of meals, homemade chappattis are really cheap too.

It won't be easy but inventory your cupboards to ensure there's no hidden things that can liven up a bland dish eg tin of anchovies plus tomatoes means puttenesca sauce.

www.netmums.com/life/meals-under-5
www.goodtoknow.co.uk/food/recipe-collections/cheap-family-meals-recipes-under-1-per-head-33813
www.foodnetwork.co.uk/article/budget-family-recipes.html
allrecipes.co.uk/recipes/tag-2098/cheap-recipes-for-under-a-fiver.aspx
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/cheap-eat
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/may/20/five-pound-dinner-reader-recipes
freshstudentliving.co.uk/news/shoestring-budgets-5-healthy-meals-fiver/

Iceland's is your friend.
Frozen veg, onions ect ..
You have £5 a day for food.
So buy a sack of potatoes.
Plan each meal, and buy the multi packs of cereals.
Large thing of eggs.
You can buy bulk flour.
Pancakes one day won't kill them .

Thats just over £5 a day so will be a challenge - jacket potatoes, veg soup with rolls, chilli bean wraps, £3 chicken from aldi - 2 meals, mash, beans and sausages, omelettes.Meal plan meticulously, you can do it !

Never had much luck selling stuff. I'd rather freecycle it and hope Karma gives back somehow!

Ohh, well done! That must have been hard as well.

literally hundreds of recipes onlone

@stucknoue homemade focaccia recipe please!!

I figure I'll just make cheaper versions of the stuff we normally eat. And only buy things on offer...

Rice is also super cheap! 30p for a bag. Consider turning mostly veggie for the month? Or cut down on the days you have meat. Only buy normal milk for DC's and drink super cheap 1% UHT for yourself? Sauces and everything made from scratch eg. tinned chopped tomatoes and flour + butter + milk for white sauce.

If you have the time risotto is a great cheap meal that tastes nice, box of stock cubes will last you ages and then you can use half the meat (perhaps form frozen) you'd normally use, bulk up with veg + rice and nobody will notice there less meat than normal.

We make our own bread because it works out cheaper but I know thats not for everyone.

Try and do only one food shop per week (if you have transport) it'll be easier for you to keep track of what you're spending on food.

Do DC's ger free school meals? If so then at least you know they're getting a decent sized hot meal during the day. So a sandwich or something on toast would be fine a couple of days a week.

Buy a few things in bulk + freeze.

Fingers crossed for you OP

What do you currently have in fridge etc? Helps to know what type of meals to suggest.

Yes I do it all the time. I always make sure I have tinned tomatoes, tuna, corned beef, beans, lentils, pasta, rice, lots of dried herbs and spices, flour and spuds etc in my cupboard and bags of frozen veg, milk, bread and grated cheese in the freezer. We get a delivery from muscle food of chicken, beef, mince etc every 2 months. Every month we have a week where we only eat stuff we already have in. It gets very creative at times.

So it's £40 a week. It will be tight.

Tips...

Buy a whole chicken. Cook it. Don't eat it as a roast dinner. Remove meat and use all of it as if it were leftovers. You get loads of meals out of it.

Cheap dinners:

Ham, egg and chips.

Jacket potatoes with filling

Tinned tomato soup with cheese toasties

Don't buy any drinks beyond milk/squash...no fresh juice/fizzy drinks or alcohol.

Taking notes:
Chickpea curry
Risotto
Chicken fried rice

its not going to be easy, lots of pasta like you said and soups, get goggling for ideas lots of budget family weekly meal plans online, and do a good audit of what you already have in, there is a website feed your family for 20 quid, also has a facebook page look for fyf20quid and she's shown things like over 165 dinners for £49, need to have a lot of freezer storage for that!! but I think they do weekly plans I have never tried any of her stuff, but link on website to a shopping plan and probably worth trawling through for ideas.

Also RE: Risotto, never buy the fancy risotto rice, the cheap bog standard rice works just as well.

I feed 3 of us on £40 a week so I think it would be very tight, however most of our meals serve us twice, if that makes sense? I have 2 freezers so batch cook or buy big packs and freeze.

Sausage casserole. Bulk with chickpeas, red lentils, baked beans, tinned tomatoes. Cut the sausages up and you'll find you use less sausages per head than you would if they were whole. Serve with rice.

Frozen fish to make a fish pie. Don't use prawns (or buy the tiny ones as they're cheap) and it's a pretty cheap and tasty meal.

Cottage pie. Bulk with lentils, frozen peas and frozen carrots.

Curry. Use a jar if you don't have spices. Again bulk with lentils, and do a mix of chicken, veg and potato.

Buy chicken legs/thighs, much cheaper than breast.

A really cheap meal which is one of my favourites is this www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/313611/ovenbaked-egg-and-chips but rather than tomatoes, I serve with beans.

If you normally have weetabix, etc - buy store brand rather than branded. Meal plan today for the whole 23 days. Breakfast, lunch & dinner. Don't deviate. Before meal planning, go through every cupboard, the fridge & freezer and write a list of what you already have.

Big pans of home made vegetable soup are your friend, complete with bread to fill up.

I also look at Jack Monroe blog for inspiration. Lots of cheap and tasty meals.

That's going to be hard but not impossible. Lots of good suggestions above.

Check if you have any points on loyalty cards you can use for topping up

Bulk mince out with oats or lentils for things like cottage pie or bolognaise

If you have a fruit and veg market you can get stuff cheaper there and usually in greater quantity than the shops

Chickpea curry, daal, mixed bean soup (get a can or two of cheap mixed beans add onions, garlic and stock and a tin of tomatos and blitz)

Soda bread - look up Jack Monroe's soda bread (you can add fruit to it too if you have stuff going off so as not to waste it)

Haunt the reduced shelf at around 6pm you'll be surprised what's on there

Byriani works well you can get a bag of frozen minced lamb

Cheapest rice and pasta won't hurt.

Cooking bacon - dirt cheap and really good for bulking out meat stews (get cheap cuts like brisket and slow cook them with carrots, onions, gravy granules, tinned potatos and cooking bacon)