...to doubt posters who say they feed a family of four on £50/week

[twofingerstoGideon]

I'm really broke myself, so I'd love to believe this is true, but that works out at £1.78 per person per day (£50 divided by 7 days divided by 4 people).

Some people go even further and say they 'run their household' on this amount, implying that they manage all bills, buy loo rolls, cleaning products, sometimes even nappies, etc., for fifty quid.

I'm really good at budgetting, freecycling, buying second hand etc., but I can't help feeling a bit about some of these claims. It's just a kind of one-downmanship, isn't it?

(Awaits flaming...)

A good way to save money and eat more healthily is to stretch your meat to cover more meals, eg 'rubber chicken' where a roast chicken covers sunday lunch, maybe a curry or something the next day, sandwiches for lunch and soup with the carcass. (And I know people who can stretch it for a whole week but I struggle.) When cooking with mince, ie chiili, bolognaise etc, add either red lentils or porridge oats, they will disappear and you won't be able to taste them but they'll make the meal go much further and both have health benefits. The same applies to making a stew in the slow cooker, and I always add pearl barley etc to soups, even if they are being blitzed. I'm no expert, I'm very much still learning, but our household income has dropped by about 65% and we've had to make drastic cuts.
if you are eating really cheaply, you do have to rely heavily on carbs to fill you up but £50 a week for a family of 4 is enough for fruit and veg - not expensive fruit and veg, but enough to get your 5 a day.
To get some ideas of really frugal cooking you could visit the website of a longtime poster on MSE who has done some amazing challenges on feeding her family frugally, and some board members on MSE tested all the recipes with her.
www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/

Sorry Fluffy cross-posted with you

Welcome valium.

PooPooOnMars - I had to pay for a periodontist after he chipped a tooth on a fruit pastille!!

My PCT won't do prescription food anymore, they are nearly bankrupt. I only get 6 x 400g tins of the special formula my DS3 needs, yet with cooking etc, I get through 10+ tins a month. Each 400g tin costs £15. So I am spending £60 a month on his milk alone!

Dietician is arguing with the PCT currently about this, but it comes out of my GP's budget, and they're not budging. All other local GP's have closed their books, too, so changing GP isn't an option either!

DoubleMum - if I buy a large chicken for a roast, there is NONE left by the morning. I have a teenager, and a 10yo that is as tall as a teenager and very active, and eats as much as a teenager. Leftovers? Ha!

Sock - he has the enamel coating done every 6 months, but still needs the toothpaste too, normal toothpaste is too abrasive and wears the enamel coating off too quickly.

I DO spread things with lentils and pearl barley already, when I can, but DS1 can't eat pearl barley, the gluten in it affects him.

As an experiment I have just done a fake weeks shop online at tesco and though it doesn't contain dishwasher tabs or shampoo it does have 1kg amounts of rice and penne and potatoes, something I wouldn't need to replace every week. Anyway, its the stuff we buy every week and live on and it comes to 44 quid.

That's 2 adults, an 8 and a 4 year old, all meals as dh is working from home.

The thing about it is I can look at it and know what all the meals are and there isn't any wastage or spare iyswim or any choice for anyone but that's out of choice rather than necessity.

I do agree about the teens though, ds now eats as much as me and even that has been a game changer.

We do eat small portions as well. Actually we eat small portions of a high fat diet.

Out of that £171, £24 was fruit and veg. For a week. Thing is, when feeding 5, one pack is not enough for a full portion, but buy two and you are wasting some. At the end of every week, I put all the veg that are left together and make mixed veg soup for Sunday lunch. So that it's not wasted.

When you really CAN'T shop around, you DO end up spending more. And in my case, it's due to disability, and shipping around just isn't an option. Just one way in which having a disability costs you more money than a healthy person!

1kg of pasta does me two dinners, working on a portion size of 100g per person (though DS3 eats less than that, and DS1 eats more than that).

Youbroke - if he eats as much as you now, at 8yo, how much MORE do you think he will eat at 14yo...?

I do 70g for me and the dc and 100g for dh.

I have a 10 yr old too CouthyMow, they can certainly eat! Any meat that doesn't get put on the plates for sunday dinner is out of bounds though - not being mean but I need that meat for another meal. It's definitely tougher if you can't shop around, although I can only alternate between Tesco and Aldi it does make a difference.

I know, it's scary, I will probably do a pudding every night then. Sigh. Mind you I was often hungry as a child.

1kg of pasta does me 1 family meal in here, that's why I buy value stuff. if we had allergies to deal with it would be much harder to keep to a low budget.

I used to do all my shopping in Asda and just get everything on line. Then I discvered how much cheaper Alde was for things like bread, milk and butter, that's why the boys go there for me now. I can't shop around because I have ME and can't get out and about. I was still able to get everything for well under £400 a month when everything came from Asda, though.

Those who use a lot of pasta, it can be cheaper to buy in bulk using subscribe and save on Amazon, you have to keep checking what offers there are.

@twofingerstoGideon

We have a Makro card (Makro is round the country, much like Bookers) as my husband is a carpenter, and they sell businessy stuff too.

You don't have to buy loads, no. We go about every 3-4 months and buy our loo roll (a pack of 48 charmin or something like that), a big box of washing powder and conditioner, washing up liquid, toothpaste (comes in packs of 10 tubes). You don't have to go away with a truck. They even sell milk... by the bottle. If anyone in your family owns a business or is a teacher or willing to take on responsibility for something at work, you can get a Makro card. It's quite a big saving for us. We tend to store the spare stuff in a cupboard in the garage.

Family of 3 most of the time here. I get a fruit and veg box for £13 a week and I save on average £8 per box for the amount we get. Rice I get a sackful out of the Indian foods store so cheap also tin tomatoes kidney beans chickpeas very cheap.

I batch cook chillies and spag bols every 6 weeks and have a roast once a week which also makes a curry fajitas/stir fry and soup. That is the only meat we have.

Veggie casseroles currys stews soups are lovely. Tuna pasta and salad jacket potatoes salad tin makeral are favourites here. Frenchstick pizzas and made from scratch cheese and tomatoe pasta bake, cheese and potatoe pie.

Some weeks I only spend £20 on top of my f&v box and thats crap we don't really need.

I bake and buy depending what I feel like plus sainsbury value custard creams.

I don't drink alcohol regularly I don't smoke I don't buy magazines.

Took me ages to read the rest of this but I did with interest- thanks! Will search out a breadmaker.

CouthyMow- sounds tough for you. I get gf foods on prescription; would be awful if that was stopped so I sympathise with you. You don't feed everyone gf pasta, do you? It costs a bomb. But you must have to cook loads of different meals and be uber organised.

my 13 year old has grown 8 inches this year! imagine the amount of food he needs to sustain that lol

I also went to tesco online and put in my usual shopping - but used all value stuff instead of my regular brands - no meat, no deodrants and it still came to £80!!!

No way could I do it. I do however have weeks when we eat up what we have. I spend far too much on food but we have very little waste. I think eating healthily is expensive tbh. Had some seabass from aldi this week, £2.99 for two pieces. It went to nothing when I cooked it. Last week bought some from booths supermarket, yes they cost £7.00 but the quality was fantastic and so much tastier. Guess its all down to personal preferences and budgets. I am absolutely not a snob btw but sometimes cheap food is false economy. Aldi things I love include their soup, cereals, cheese, free range chicken, toilet roll, biscuits, pasta and sauce and tinned grapefruit BUT I found their fruit is often rotten/bruised when you get it home, washing liquid fades your clothes and the kitchen roll is rubbish with intermittent perforations ;)

Yes it can be done.

My weekly amount usually comes to £50-55 via waitrose (have found they're the best with deals, essential products good quality). I can make a roast chicken go 2 meals easily. Risottos for example are good meals, cheap ingredients.

We rarely drink so no alcohol in that, once a month or so I stock up in 99p stores for loo roll, deodorant, lunchbox items that keep, cleaning stuff. The week I do this I may do a little asda shop and not the waitrose one.

We are 2 adults 2 kids, oh and one tummy lodger.

2 cats too, one of which is also cooking tummy lodger (s)

No, I'd be bankrupt in a month if I tried to feed everyone GF pasta! DS1 eats it, and I will too, as normal pasta makes my IBS shitty (pun intended ).

I have to meal plan to fuck and beyond, especially if a meal one of the DC's really wants is one that one or two of the others CAN'T have (all 3 of my older DC's favourite dinners are dairy based, and DS3 can't have, and two of them are dairy AND gluten based.

I don't feel I can permanently deny them their favourite dinners, so I have to do a separate dinner for that night. Or sometimes two.

I know by Monday night (I shop on a Tuesday) what dinners we will ALL be eating for the next week, and on what days. But I always have to have 1-2 meals that 14yo DD can cook as 'spares' in case I have a seizure and am too tired to cook. Thankfully she cooks a mean risotto, which is both dairy and gluten free with the right stock, any cheese goes on after dishing up, and not on DS3's.

There's no room for foodie spontaneity here, when I am catering for multiple allergies, another DS with texture issues due to ASD, and am also on a very limited budget.

I plan around the offers for that week, checked online the night before I go.

Someone I know buys half a pig in London for £30, chops it up into the various cuts and that's the meat for a family of 4 for 6 weeks. I'm going to ask her to get me one but chop it up for me. Will pay her a bit extra to do it.