Is it possible to feed your family on. £20 a week? Slow cooker recipes please :)

[Jackthementalkitten]

When I had Facebook, quite a few years ago now. I did used too vaguely follow the - feed your family on £20 a week. I know there is a book out now by them. Apologies if this has been done before. With all the ever food prices increasing etc. I was thinking tonight with it been school holidays, a hungry teenage daughter- what meals could I do cheaper or even on £20 a week? If anybody has any slow cooker suggestions or even easy/ cheapish meal ideas, I’d be really grateful.

Oh and if you have a freezer, make use of yellow sticker bargains. We had sausages and mash for dinner last night, the sausages were the Lidl own brand premium 95% pork type, 20 chipolatas for 70p. I have three ravenous teens so one pack did one meal, but with younger children it would easily do 2 meals. So 70p for sausages, few spuds, half bag of frozen peas, no more than £2.50 to feed 5 of us?

I think you can feed a family on £20 if that's absolutely all you had but I wouldn't try it if I had the money to buy more variety and decent quality. If that's all you had then your family would understand why you were giving them a small slice of chicken bulked out with carbs and most meals were rice and beans or whatever. Not saying its bad to be frugal with food or anything .

@Paulinna

I honestly don’t know how £20 a week is possible. I spent £20 just on toast with Philadelphia for breakfast, and ham salad sandwich with fruit and yogurt for lunch. That’s assuming we eat the absolute cheapest with no variety. I haven’t even added any evening meals to the basket yet!

Where the heck do you shop? You can get all that for less than £5 in Tesco and the bread/philly /ham will do at least 3 days lunches?

I have send to follow that page too. I remember one day she showed a teenage boys packed lunch and it was about the same as my then toddler and would eat for lunch.

There is a website, but I don't know if there are slow cooker recipes on there. I found it when looking for a chow mein recipe which is as close to a takeaway one as possible. This one is really lovely, and a big hit with all my family fyf20quid.co.uk/recipes/takeaway-style-chicken-chow-mein/

Sounds weird. But it's lovely!

Not a money saving tip as such, but intermittent fasting.

I only eat between 12-8pm, and that consists of two normal sized meals plus a snack Inbetween, usually a big spoon of peanut butter and an apple.

Takes a little getting used to, but I exercise pretty heavily and get along well on that.

Where the heck do you shop? You can get all that for less than £5 in Tesco
400g of ham is £4 in Tesco. A couple of loaves of bread and spready cheese costs £3. Maybe £2 worth of lettuce and tomatoes. £2 for milk and coffee. £4 for a dozen yogurts. That’s £15 and it only covers a boring basic breakfast and lunch for the week.

When I shop in lidl I always look at the fruit and veg boxes that they have by the checkout first. They cost £1.50 and have a variety of fruit and veg close to sell by date in each one. I then look at the reduced section for meat or fish etc. Can't always be relied on but some good bargains can be had.

Thank you so much for all these suggestions! Giving me some great ideas on meals and too save a little. I’m feeding myself and a 12 year old daughter.

Dd is trying to feed just herself healthily on £30 a week & it’s a challenge especially as her work means she often has to have a packed lunch & tea with no kettle/microwave facilities.

So it's you and a female preteen should be easier then. Is she fussy ?
I would try :
Omelete
Pasta bake
? Fish pie made with frozen fish, sweetcorn or peas or Frozen fish fillets and home made chips
A chunky soup with nice crusty bread
Veggi Curry/ Chilli with rice
Either roast chicken or chicken thighs in a tray bake with root veg, onions, courgette- whatever is seasonal and or reduced.

Also when times were hard I made a tray bake at the weekend for snacks through the week either flap jacks (v.cheap especially if you don't use butter), brownies; block of value chocolate is 40 or 50p, 100g fat (50p if butter less if margerine) 75g flour (pennies) and 200g sugar (20p) so 10 brownies for £1:50 or lemon drizzle (100g fat, 100g flour, 100g sugar with more for drizzle, 2 lemons (30-40p) similar price.

You might find it doable on a vegan or plant-based diet. Cereals, pasta, rice and potatoes are your friends. Cheap vegetables like carrots, tinned tomatoes, peas, mixed frozen veg and mushrooms. Lentils, beans and chickpeas too.

Eggs are a brilliant staple for cheap healthy meals, combine with peppers, onion and potato for a frittata or scramble with chilli, peppers and spring onions then serve in wraps or ham and mushroom omelette with salad.

Baked potatoes with whatever filling you like, buy them loose rather than in a pack of 4, it usually works out cheaper if you don't pay for the plastic wrapping.

I buy cured meats like salami or chorizo, you only need to add a small amount to get a lot of flavour and they're often on offer in Lidl or aldi.

Stuff on toast one day a week - mushrooms, beans, cheese (or Welsh rarebit), scrambled/fried eggs, tinned tomatoes

Oh and if you have a butcher near you that does the bargain trays of meat, alternative would be musclefood.com if you don't have a butcher.

Split the tray into meal sized portions, add flavouring to each portion - honey and mustard, pesto, lime and coriander ..... then freeze, then you just need to take them out to defrost the night before and they will be marinated ready for baking or stir frying.

I buy the fruit and veg boxes from Lidl. £1.50 for 5kg of assorted fruit and veg (well they say it's 5kg but it's actually less). They don't always have them in but if you live near a Lidl, definitely worth a look.

I batch cook Bolognese sauce with cheap tinned tomatoes, loads of onions, celery etc and the mince is cheaper if you buy the bigger packs. Also, chilli with cheap tinned red kidney beans freezes well.

I'm aiming for 35.00 per week for 3 adults. We don't eat breakfast. Lunches are home made soup, eggs and toast. Evening meals, lasagne and bolognese, enchiladas, risottos and currys. I don't buy snacks in the food shop but the teens but their own with their own money.

Iceland do 4 joints for 10,00 bag of spuds,bag of mixed veg and 50p for a big bag of yorkshire puddings be about 13 .00 those joints are chicken,pork,turkey and gammon,,then you could do a pasta dish, jacket spuds and fillings ....milk and cereals and bread for toast and something for sandwiches and some crisps and yogurts might just see you through.

@Paulinna

Where the heck do you shop? You can get all that for less than £5 in Tesco 400g of ham is £4 in Tesco. A couple of loaves of bread and spready cheese costs £3. Maybe £2 worth of lettuce and tomatoes. £2 for milk and coffee. £4 for a dozen yogurts. That’s £15 and it only covers a boring basic breakfast and lunch for the week.

Tesco sell these things much cheaper. Bread 38p-50p a loaf, cream cheese, 50p, yoghurts 79p/6, etc etc. They still have their value range, it's just been rebranded to make it more rustic, but there's still tons of cheap stuff in Tesco.

The lidl veg boxes are good.
You can buy sacks of potatoes for about £5 at the farm gate after harvest, pony carrots are only £2 a sack and are fine to eat
I use frozen veg when its cheaper than fresh
Meat can be very good value if you buy half a lamb or pig.
Some supermarkets are cheaper for some things than others so go to different places each week. Heron can be very cheap for brands

Man, I wish I lived in England.

Where I live, food for 2 adults is $800 a month, absolute minimum (granted I do bulk buying and buy frozen foods, but still).

And minimum wage is $14 an hour, so no huge disparity there to make up for it.