...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...)

The best way to do it is write every last thibg you buy in a book.All disposable income stuff in there as well as food and keep trying to lower it or maintain it.Its easy to do if you see where the money is going.

I do agree on kitchen rolls however

I love my kitchen rolls!

Could not live without them!

We are a family of five and I do it but it does take organisation, bulk meat meals out with lentils(ie chillis, stews and soups).
I always buy my fruit and veg from a local farmers market also my eggs come from the same place(£1.20 a dozen) i was getting huge punnets of strawberries in the beginning of the summer for £1.00 and they tasted so much sweeter than the supermarket ones.
A pasta meal will be made with passata and whatever veg needs eaten usually an onion red pepper, green pepper mushrooms.
A vegie version of spanish rice- rice, stock, carton of passata tspoon of paprika, onion red and green peppers chopped cherry tomatoes.
If I have any random bacon rashers or sausages left over I will throw these in also.
Morrisons sometimes sell there pork joints for £2.00 a kilo I buy 2/3 thenand freeze.
Sausages I can buy a pound of beef sausage from my local butcher for approx £1.00 also huge homemade burgers I get a 10 from there for £1.50 a fresh chicken anywhere between £3.00 and £4.00 does a roast anyhting leftover will go in a pasta or rice dish for lunch. I have a teenage son who love pasta with mayo and curry powder with either saus,chicken peas onion sweetcorn.
Breakfasts are either cereal (supermarket brand), toasties (these also are made for lunch sometimes) omelettes, crumpets, chopped fruit if its needing eaten.
Lunches are homemade soups (theres loads to try on mumsnet recipes) this is also a good way of using anything up, Spanish omelette(potato, onion and eggs)
beans on toast jacket potatoes with thing like cheese and sweetpickle, wraps made from peppers onions and either bacon or chicken. Also cheese or ham rolls.
Nothing goes to waste in this house I plan around it. £50 however does not include things like shower ge,l deodorants etc and my children are all older and don't need nappies.

I think with dcs teenage stuff, apart from sanitary stuff, then I would buy one thing of hair gel and tell them how long I thought it should last for and if it runs out earlier then they will have to spend pocket money, savings or Saturday job money on it.

I mean seriously, one deodorant, a hard cream type, lasts me literally 6 months.

Or I suppose if they want fancy stuff then they need to ask for lots of it at Christmas etc.

What use are they though? They just rip for me. I have a load of those different colour microfibre clothes (if I recall the name right) which I use and then bang in the washing machine. They are very handy, and only 99p for 3. Saves on kitchen roll for me.

I also make my own cleaning stuff, so I suppose I save money there, too. and it also helps that DP's Aunt runs a cleaning business, so when we visit, we end up bringing home tubs of MP10 etc

Okay, with all this very excellent advice, can anyone advise me?

I have a budget of £56 a week for food/household goods/any clothes, shoes etc the kids need.

My DD is nearly 6 and ASD and isn't dry at night. Although I can sometimes get Dry Nites or Pyjama pants on offer, mostly they're around £5-6 a pack. It's crippling me.

Does anyone know of anywhere I can get cheap versions of large night time pull up type nappies?

Sorry to hijack but this fountain of thrift was too good to ignore

we were feeding 5 of us plus 3 cats and one dc in nappies for £60-£70 a week. now its more like £80-£100.
3 of us are veggie and i swear its since the other two started eating meat that the bill went up!

Sainsbury's basics range is excellent for toiletries. Around 50p for a roll on deodorant, super cheap, alcohol-free mouthwash.

I got a five pack of soap bars in the pound shop last month. Bar soap lasts for ages, more economical than shower gel.

Im so impressed with people who manage to do all of their shopping on a budget. I spend about £80 per week and that is for 2 adults, a 1 year old and a cat. Hubby moans if I buy certain 'own brand' things, and I am veggie and he eats meat so there are always 2 lots of sausages/chicken type things to buy. Shopping online sometimes saves a bit of cash.

Cloud i have heard that if you go to your HV then you may be able to get free nappies/dry pants for children with ASD.

Don't quote me on that though, i may be wrong, but may be worth asking. All they can say is no :)

I tend to buy one big monthly shop of about £80, then three smaller shops of about £50. On top of this, our milk is delivered and we all have hot dinners at work / school. That said, my children have a second hot meal most nights.

I find what keeps it relatively cheap for us is the fact that I don't eat meat, hubby and children eat meat out of the house, but generally not in it so we only ever buy fish or quorn and that is a lot cheaper. I also naturally buy own brand (but not generally value price) rather than branded food, and don't tend to buy many snacks. I think it also helps that my children are out of the house a lot, so don't graze at home.

Our food tends to go something like this...

Breakfast: own brand cereal or porridge every day.

Lunch: eat out.

After school snack:* cheese, ham and crackers / sandwich + salad (tomatoes, cucumber, celery, carrots etc). I make up pots of this every day for the dc, value crisps (only get these because they do them in 18g packs, and I don't like the Dds eating big packs of crisps). Piece of fruit (whatever is on offer that week, usually there's a pack of nectarines, plums etc for a £1 a punnet), and something sweet (cake bar, yoghurt or cereal bar).

Tea: this varies depends on what my Dds are doing that day, but is usually things like:

Macaroni cheese, steamed fish rice & vegetables, chilli con carne / spag Bol. These will all be made from scratch (but I do use a jar of sauce for spag Bol etc)

Other light teas will be fish fingers & chips, beans on toast, pizza or jacket potatoes.

We don't have puddings during the week, only fruit or yogurts. I don't buy expensive children's yoghurts or cheese strings. Girls tend to drink water, but we do have Squash and lemonade at mealtimes, or milk. I don't buy any lots of kitkat type biscuits, just custard creams and the like. If they want to snack between meals, there's fruit or toast but that's about it.

However, I don't buy this to keep my meals cheap, it's just I'm a pig and would eat all the crap within 15 minutes flat I'm trying to encourage my children to have a healthier relationship with food, whereby they eat their meals and not tons of crap in between.

• the huge after school snack is because my DDs do competitive gymnastics and often have three hour training sessions after school (eldest DD), so she has hot school lunch, big snack after school & before gym and then smaller hot dinner after gym.

"I mean seriously, one deodorant, a hard cream type, lasts me literally 6 months."

Glad to see I'm not the only one, I only buy deodorant a few times a year. I still use it everyday so struggle to understand how anyone can need to buy it every week.

I manage on that ish now that i have a regular base to start from iyswim? I always have certain things in and it goes on the shopping as soon as i open it so that i am not without. I do a tesco online shop once or twice a month and top up in between from tesco express. I have v fussy children so we tend to eat the same things but not a lot of it is 'value', most is own brand or similarly priced and i don't menu plan.

my last shop was £75 inc delivery 2.5 weeks ago and i have done a top up shop that was £16 today (bread, milk, snacks, etc) I work my meals and snacks around what is on offer. I keep the healthyish snack pot at least half ful with whatever cereal bars/nutrigrain etc are on offer. The kids love making their own pizzas from the tesco value cheese and tomato ones, just add whatever veg you found in the "whoopsie" bit.

when you REALLY have to spend as little as possible you only eat at meal times and you find that you ask yourself "Do i NEED more potatoes? Or do i just WANT more"?

that feeds me, 9yo DS, 7yo DS, 4 yo DS and a house cat who will only wee on expensive cat litter

I actually never realised till I started using red lentils that I must have virtually lived on them when I was little, the smell of them reminds me of my moms kitchen.

Spot cream can be got for free off the gp, might not be a brand but the active ingredients are mostly the same eg benzol peroxide or salycilic acid.

Saniatry towels are 14p for 10 in sains and do for me. Or you can buy washable sanitry towels too.

Nothing wrong with basics roll on antiperspirent either. Bit stingy but I can live with it tbh.

The least I've ever had to food shop is £15 one week. You make do. Occasional shops to bulk buy, but I start to feel sick if I go over the £50 mark on anything food wise, and I total up every month what I spend on food and divide it and the average is roughly £40 a week here. I have a separate account for household though, I do completely different shops for the two.

cloudbase how about washable nappy at night? There are some lovely ones available now. Initial outlay higher, but you can re-sell. Not sure how big your DD is though. Mine has a smaller butt than her 2yo sister.

fluffy I could never use washable sanitary towels, no matter how bad things got.

I could feed my family of 7 (me, DH, DSS, DTs, DD and one big dog) for £50, I'm sure.

But it'd be bloody boring meals. And I like my food, I like red wine, nice meat, organic fruit and veg, etc. I'm lucky enough that I don't have a tight budget, I realise. But tbh I'd rather cut back on lots of other things before I slashed the food budget.

I have never ever spent over £100, even with Inlaws visiting at Christmas!

There not for me either, I'll stick to my sainsbos basics ones.

However, if they had been around when I started 19 years ago they would have worked out sooo cheap.

I still cant get my head or fanjo round a moon cup. I just couldnt.

I think yabu.. It's all about the aldi but them I do eat quite boring mon- fri dinners like jacket and tuna, omlette, pasta, stir fry with two veg etc and only have 1 dc but them I can get under 50 quid eady so reckon I could do it for 2dc too.

cloud if you can measure your dc's waist and you can deal with the washing contact your LA or local wildlife charity and see if they either have a real nappy amnesty or cashback offer if they have a amnesty phone them and ask if they have any pocket style large sizes that would fit, if they do you get a free trial pack and if it saves you money and you can use them they will often just give you enough to use.
they will not means test you the service relys on donations from people who have finished with theirs.

if its a cashback offer check out dudeybaba.co.uk there premium quality at budget prices also they are larger than most other budget brands.email them your dc's measurements and ask if they will fit. one of my friends nearly 10yo was mucking about prancing around wearing one the other day.order over the cost of your cashback offer and keep invoice and delivery note then claim the cash back.

im also going to try to find the brand of reusables i brought years ago for the teenagers but it may also be worthwhile posting on the sn boards someonev else must know where you can get the large sizes hth

I do for 7 - 4 adults, 2 big teens and a 9 year old - for less than £100 a week. That's for food, cleaning stuff and all toiletries inc. sanitary towels, spot cream and the like. The only 1 I have to buy deodorant for every week is 15yo DS, who walks about in a fog of body spray. It also includes Dh who won't eat 9 out of 10 meals that the rest of us have so has to be catered for separately.

I don't buy a lot of value stuff, except pasta, chopped toms, bubble bath and handwash, but I very rarely buy brand names, either. The kids have meat perhaps 6 times a month, fish is usually tinned unless I get something reduced, fruit and veg are usually cheap, seasonal British stuff like carrots, cabbage, kale, apples and pears. I also buy bananas and soft citrus for DS4 who won't eat any other fruit.Things like peas/green beans/sweetcorn/brocolli are frozen.

I meal plan , I buy rubbishy things like crisps/biscuits once a month and when they're gone, they're gone. Yes, we eat quite simply, but we have a very varied diet, eat more than enough fruit and veg and no-one is ever hungry

Last night, for instance, we had pasta salad and crusty bread, followed by yoghurt and a choc biscuit: tonight, veggie sausages mash and beans, ice cream and fruit, tomorrow, cheese and egg baked rice with carrots and cabbage, fruit and a biscuit. Lunches were peanut butter and banana sandwiches, home made soup and bread, wraps with hummus, grated carrot and raisins. All delicious and good for you but cheap.

I spend too much and could do it for less, but our family is DH 6ft4 and 2 teen DSes both 6ft3. They all have massive appetites.

I find I spend less in the Winter because we eat lots of soups which DH takes for lunch the next day, the same for cottage pies, chilli and lasagne.

If we have pasta I cook extras and make a pasta salad for all our lunches the next day. Meat for sandwiches is so expensive, I won't scrimp on that because I might as well just chuck the money away.

We do go to Home Bargains and Aldi's/lidl's when we can be bothered, but I am disabled so I need someone to come with me and DH doesn't always want to at the weekends. Plus it is 15 miles away.

I have started experimenting with toilet roll, kitchen roll and cleaning stuff and the cheaper brands are just as good. I bought some Formil washing liquid from Lidl for about a fiver for 66 washes. It is excellent, copes really, really well with all sorts of stains.

I think that a lot of us could save money on our grocery shop TBH.