£150 for the months food shop, possible ?

[Cussons]

Hi.

Currently going through some hard times financially. It's just me and my daughter, she's 6. I've got £150 for food shopping (the month of feb). Do you think it's possible?

I'll eat anything, I like cooking so can easily do that. My daughter is pretty fussy.
In terms of breakfast she'll eat:
Cereal
Toast

For dinners she'll eat:
Chicken
Stir fry
Spag bol
Fish fingers/ nuggets
Lasagne
Salmon
Noodles
Chips
Cucumbers

She will not eat any potatoes, rice, pasta or anything like that.
She will either just have chips, noodles or cucumbers with the other things. Will refuse anything else.

Do you think this is possible ? Also if anyone has any meal ideas that you think she may like please let me know!

"She will not eat any potatoes, rice, pasta or anything like that."

But she does eat noodles,lasagne and spaghetti, all of which are pasta.
She eats soup, where potato can easily be hidden.

You need to lay it on the line to Madam that her irrational dietary refusals are mere attention-seeking manipulation. They have now been cancelled for logical evidential and financial reasons.

Thank you for telling me how to parent my child. I will take notes!

I posted on here to ask for help to see where her £150 was enough for a month. And I've got some really helpful replies suggesting meal ideas. Thank you all for this. To the people who keep commenting about what my child will or won't eat. I know it's not rational and I don't need to be told that. If you are lucky enough to not have a fussy child who literally will not eat, unless they are given something they like. Lucky you! Until you've been in the position then don't comment. Maybe some of you are okay with your child going hungry, but I am not.

I have a plan. Today, I'm going to go through my cupboards & freezer and write an inventory of what I have so far and start there. I'm going to spend £50 on a big shop, to start off. I'm leaning towards Aldi, I normally shop at Tesco. Ive downloaded olio and too good to go so I will be utilising them 100%. I'm going to use today to write up some meals for the week. Thank you all!

You need to be eating the lentils, not her. If she is so restricted you will have to make the changes to your diet, since you can’t change hers. But if you are cooking the lentils anyway, you can offer her a spoonful alongside her ‘safe’ foods.

Kids are weird, DD would eat eggs, bread and butter but not as a sandwich.

No cheese except mozzarella on pizzas, Philadelphia in sauces and Parmesan melted onto dishes.

Only the leg meat in chicken and sausages only thinly sliced.

Favourite foods were whitebait with heads on and Brussels 🤷‍♀️
Good luck with your menu planning, it sounds doable.

It's definitely possible. Many people are doing it every month. Meal plan and yellow stickers, own brands and tinned food. Less meat especially is saving my budget. It's a treat now.

What a shitty way to talk about someone else's kid.

I know you say no potato but I wonder if she may be open to fishcakes? They are relatively inexpensive to buy but also very easy and cheap to make, especially if using frozen or tinned fish. If you could make any space in your freezer they also freeze well.

When you say she will eat stir fry, what would that consist of?

Does your dd have school dinners? Will she eat bread/wraps/pita? Eggs? Baked beans? Pancakes? Cheese? Sorry not trying to be a pain it's just all thing that are really good for cheap meals.
With the chicken, what do you do with it for your dd?

Chicken and noodles with sweet corn. I can put onions and some peppers if they are cut super tiny.

In this position, and given that it’s only for a month, I would maintain what she is eating so that you know that whatever you buy, you won’t be wasting any element of it. And I would adapt what I ate myself. So I would choose cheaper ingredients for the meals I’d make for myself eg bulking out with lentils, tinned or frozen veg etc.

So £35 a week...it's tight but doable for two people.

Its so hard having a fussy child, especially when money is tight

try to remember that there's a difference between "I really hate this" and "it's just not my favourite/what I fancy right now" when a six year old says they don't like something!

I'm not suggesting you change anything right now as its a stressful time, but it's a good lesson for kids that not everything on their plate has to be their absolute favourite all the time and might be worth mixing things in she "doesn't like" as well as things she does.

There's a fair few foods that don't exactly spark joy in my mouth but I eat them for balance and nutrition and always have something I really do like on my plate too but I'm an adult, she's 6, so it's just something to be aware of.

Just want to say I sympathise. My grandson will have a plain bowl of spaghetti with nothing on it . I gave him linguine the other day and because it was a different shape he just ate nothing . We just ignore it at the moment hoping he will gradually add to his diet. He also won’t eat chips.

Try putting a small handful of lentils in with the mince for bolognese sauce. It bulks it out and they cant tell if you put it in at the sauce stage and let it cook slowly.
Check out the fish stall if you have one as you can often get the tail end of salmon which they sell cheaper.
French toast /eggy bread with a teaspoon of syrup or jam on it. The egg and bread are nourishing.
Bread pudding.
Queen of pudding great after a bowl of soup or baked beans on toast as they have bread, milk and eggs in. My kids loved this and didn't realise why they had it until Christmas when we were discussing food and DS2said it was his favourite pudding and could I make it next time he came over.😂

Do you get her to help cook sometimes. I was a TA and lots of parents said there kids wouldn't eat things at home but if we made them at school lots of them tried it and discovered they liked it mainly because they had MADE it! Home made pizza is cheap if you use the scone dough method it is very cheap and easy to make.
Chicken thighs are cheap and very tasty.
Check out pork mince as it is cheaper and if you mix it with some beef or lamb and make delicious meatballs with spaghetti and you can freeze some too.

Cleaning - look at Bi carb and vinegar.
Toiletries- maybe check out charity shops where people deposit unwanted gifts. Simple soap like dove is very cheap in Wilko .
London- market stalls at the end of the day? Often happy to sell off some veg and fruit for you. Ask. DD's local shops in Bristol used to sell fruit and veg cheaply to the students( which was lovely of them) so I discovered one day. One had bowls of slightly wonky/ damaged of it for £1 for everything in that bowls.Don't be afraid to ask politely.

I had four kids. The two eldest wolfed anything. DS3 was a veggie from 6. DD was fussier and became a veggie at 5. She would never eat chicken right from a baby even if we tried to trick her. A 'friend' thought it was funny to give her a veggie burger but hid chicken in it as a teenager and she was so violently sick that I had a tearful call could I come and get her from town. We took it that she always knew she was allergic to it. DS3 and I had dairy cow, soya and eggs and DD soya and eggs from babies. Some kids are fussier than others but do try and get her involved in the cooking, chopping etc.

Look out for warm place opportunities too as maybe free tea and biscuits, soup etc. Also if you can't manage food bank, church meals are available. Make it a challenge though and you might surprise yourself.

Such good advice on here. I have no problem adapting what I eat, there's really very few things that I won't eat/try. I'm going to try eat veggie a couple of days out of the week to cut down costs.

Yes. She will literally eat nothing. It's annoying cause pasta is so cheap and can be had with loads of meals. Even rice and potatoes. So once they're off the list, there's not that much.

As you are in London you may have churches in your area who do food share. Many churches receive food from supermarkets to give away free. Marks and Spencer’s give food to my local church to distribute to people and they will often be giving away really good stuff to people who have time to queue Some of my friends volunteer there and say many different types of people are coming for free food

Does your dd have school lunches? If so then she won't need a full cooked dinner too on school days. I totally get how annoying it is when kids won't eat pasta. It's sooo easy, quick and cheap! I find it infuriating that mine won't entertain it. For bolognaise, you can bulk out the meat with blended mushrooms, veggies and lentils. Small freezer might be worth prioritising cheaper frozen or yellow sticker salmon and chicken.

Yes she has school meals. Sometimes she comes home, having just ate cucumbers or a piece of bread for lunch🙄

Have a search and see if you have local pantry to you, you can get a great selection of items for £5 down in ours, 2 meat choices plus 8 cupboard items with free fruit and veg.

Hi where would I find this? Just a quick Google search ?

Community shops are often called Community fridges so worth searching for them. Lots in London.

Try mixing a few lentils in with the mince of the lasagna and gradually increase.