To ask for help with my budget and family meals?

[snoopypoodle]

Things have been v tight for us recently this week I have £5.23 left until I get paid at the end of this month... Luckily we've managed to scrape and have enough food in house and petrol in car to be able to make do.

I work pt and I cover my car running costs, mobile phone, gas and electric and groceries. DP covers everything else.

There's us 2, DS (2.5) and DDog .

After paying all the bills (have an overdue on I need to pay this month) I will have £140 left over for all groceries and dog food.... It's only going to be so tight this month as work messed up my wages.

With that budget we need to provide (for the whole month):

• dinners
• lunch for DP for work
• dog food (dry and cans)
• snacks for DS throughout the day (lunches too etc) fruit, yogurts etc
• snacks for me for my break at work (only need snacks as work pt and just need to top up)
• essentials like toilet paper, shower gel, toothpaste etc

We already don't buy sugary drinks/juice etc we have a Brita water filter and stocked up on the replacement filters so drink filtered tap water. Have tea/coffee etc stocked up.

Im going to stop buying any extras when I'm out and about (snacks/coffees etc) as I realised I probably spend more than I should on these.

I'm probably going to do most of my shopping at Aldi/Lidl.

So I turn to you mumsnetters for help and ideas to see if it's possible to survive on this?

For lunches, pasta can be your friend. I make a massive batch at the start of the week which does me and DW 5 lunches each. Massive bag of pasta for under a pound, aldi do tinned tomatoes with herbs in and 2 cans will be under a pound, chuck in whatever veg is on the super 6 plus some frozen sweetcorn and onions/peppers and you're looking at under a fiver for ten lunches. Not very exciting but great for the budget. For each dinner I would suggest making double as it'll always cost less than making two separate meals. Curries, mince based dishes or veggie are probably your cheapest options

When I was a kid in the 1970s my mum was very hard up. She sometimes gave the dog winalot biscuits soaked in oxo