To those who are not sure you can feed a family for less than £100 a week

[Metoodear]

I posted a few pictures on the other shopping conversation of the food I cooked as people simply refused to belive you can weekly shop for less than £100 and not just eat pasta all week

Just come back from shopping and just wanted to show you my list and weekly plan Monday is not on their because I already have the dinner we are having salmon baby roasted potatoes and squash wedges with green beans

I have 3 kids and a cat no less Sp 5 of us in total this list includes stuff for lunch as well for me and husband

I it can be done if you don’t allow grazing and make a meal plan the

Our Aldi is far too common for world foods but I can pop to Tesco once a week and pick up some spices. I had no idea they came in pouches and were cheaper that way. I've only ever encountered the tiny jars that cost about seventy million quid and run out after two meals.

I know that sounds thick but I went from living quite well to penniless overnight when my wealthy ex-H kicked us out.

With ex-h all my recipes were centered around chicken fillet, prawns, salmon or tuna steaks, so it was a bit of a culture shock for us all to go from that to Iceland frozen pizza. I lived in a bit of depressed, self-pitying trance for the first year and then ended up stuck in depressed, self loathing rut until I went to college this year.

The bastard kept my fully stocked spice rack. DD tells me it is gathering dust in the corner of his kitchen because he orders in all the time but he won't let her take it or anything from it.

By OP's standards, I will be feeding self and cat for £0 over the next seven days. Excepting Monday, when I will be eating at a free buffet after a funeral - so is that -£3.50 for the week?

DD is on a school trip this week but with the money I save on her drinks/squeezy yogurts etc I am going to get some frozen ginger and spice pouches and she can take curry and rice to school when she gets back.

I'm afraid you will have to pry her jaffa cakes from her cold, dead hands but veg curry and rice, an apple and some jaffa cakes is infinitely better than she what she has been eating.

I feed my 2 kids and myself on a lot less than £100 per week, and it's not shite food either. They do both get free school meals though.

On an expensive month we spend £300 on our grocery shopping, family of 4. That's in school holidays too. What are people feeding their kids, liquid gold?!

Having said that, out of 21 meals a week, maybe 4 will include meat. We've cut down on meat massively and have really noticed the difference on our wallets (veggie stuff usually tastes better too!)

Your ex sounds like a twat, Frequency. And soon he'll be a twat with a collection of thimblefuls of ill gotten spices while you will have a whole cupboard full of massive jars of the stuff. Sucks to be him eh.

Other ways of using veggies: paella - fry onion and garlic, add veggies, add a teaspoon of smoked paprika (strong so you don't need much) add stock to half a cm below the edge of the frying pan, add rice to just below the edge, simmer until absorbed.

Also risotto - butter, onion, garlic and celery softened while you boil any veg that needs boiling in a pan of stock. Cauliflower is surprisingly nice this way (don't knock it). Add rice to frying pan, stir to coat, then gradually add boiled veggies and stock. Turn off heat, grate cheese over the top, put on lid until it's melted.

As you can see, a lot of my budget meals involve rice. I get a 5kg (yes really) bag of it from the international shop for four quid. When you think how many carbohydrate portions that is, it works out way more economical than potatoes.

Paella sounds nice, I might try that this week when DD is away. The oldest is more open to trying new things. The youngest is only open to trying new curries/chillis or things involving sausages.

Oh and one last thing - don't discount curry powder. All it is is a ready made blend of cumin, coriander & etc spices that you buy individually.

School dinners are free if you don't work. Otherwise they are about 3 quid a day. So not exactly cheap either

New curries eh?

This site has loads of recipes you can try when your spice collection is up and running:

www.vegrecipesofindia.com

Frequency. Hope you have a good lawyer!!!

Yeah nail him.

He made me sign something when I moved in to say I had no claim in house and when he kicked me out he transferred/sold to his sister/did something with all his properties and took a NMW job to avoid paying me CM. He still has money but I have no way to prove it. His sister gives him his own money when he needs it and it's classed as a gift. They're a very savvy family, so savvy his mother (who had about 500k in savings plus her owned her house outright) got free care at the end of her life.

I think she gifted her money/property to ex-SIL, though I'm not certain. Whatever they did, they got away with it.

He can't buy his own daughter the kit she needs for her school trip because he's going away at the end of the month Luckily, I had my hoard of frozen and tinned food so I bought it with this week's food money.

When he is old, bitter and has only piles of money for company, he will get his comeuppance. He is older than me and overweight, I have time to wait My children are already starting to see through him.

Plus, next year I finish college and will be back on my feet and that will really piss him off.

That's so annoying and sounds like my ex. He's self employed and fiddles the books but really thoroughly and the CMS are crap so don't investigate properly. I know how much he earns! I lived with him!

Wankers the lot of them. Hope they have lots of happy memories of sitting at home looking at bank balances. Meanwhile we'll remember nice times with our kids. (And rice. So much rice.)

I feed myself and DH healthy home cooked meals with plenty of fruit & veg for about £120 a month. I'm veggie (husband isn't) and I mostly shop at aldi. Think I must be some sort of freak

You don't need a blender to make curry paste, just use a potato masher. My Indian granny has never used a blender in her life!

Chop 2 onions, 3 garlics cloves & thumb nail of ginger.

Fry in a bit of oil, add 1 tsp salt or to taste & fry until soft. Probably 10_15 mins. Add splash of water if drying out. Mash it down with a potato masher if you want, I don't bother.

Add 1 tsp of coriander, cumin, turmeric, garaam masala (optional) chilli powder & curry powder, 1_2 tbsp tomato puree or handful of fresh chopped toms. Add water to bind the paste together & cook for further 10-15 minutes.

Then add your veg, fish or meat (don't brown it) you've got to seal the spices in with the meat. No self respecting Asian browns the meat first!

Cook for 10-15 minutes on a medium heat & then add enough water to cover meat or enough to have it as thin or thick as you like. Simmer on a low heat until the meat is cooked.

If you're cooking fish, then don't use garaam masala.

frequency you can anonymously report your ex to HMRC, the investigation itself should freak him out.

That's massively helpful Flamingo, thank-you. DD will be overjoyed when she gets back from her school trip and finds we have a week of curry planned. It had never occured to me to use a potato masher and it seems so obvious now. I was young and stupid when I got with my ex and learned to cook with all the mod-cons and no budget in sight. Frozen ginger is a revelation to me. Root ginger was the most off putting ingredient in all of my usual/historic culinary repertoire. I quite like this thread now. It pissed me off to start with. Cheers OP

Atm I am in a cut-my-nose-off-to-spite-my-face mood with my ex and want nothing to do with the man or his money after he refused to help towards DD's school trip kit and accused me of spending the clothing allowance the government give me on drink for myself but I will bear that in mind. However, ex-MIL was once interview under caution for benefit fraud and they got away with that one so I'm not hopeful but it will entertain me to watch him squirm for a while.

Doesn't seem very balanced. Where's the fruit and veg?

What's the point of this thread?

Sorry if I've missed this @Frequency, but you can also get just premixed ginger/garlic paste that you keep in the fridge if you've no freezer room. And I'm not sure if you meant this when you said pouches, but you can get spice mixes in bulk in powder form for a lot less than whole spices.

If you could get to an South Asian shop I'm sure they'd be able to tell you which ones have cumin etc already included so you might not need to get each of those separately. Or get chatting to some classmates so they bring you some of their family's secret spice combo if that's the kind of area you're in. Indian people love to share spices IME. :D

Frequency if she eats generally well outside of packed lunches, then I don't understand why you're still packing her lunchbox with such junk? Why can't the banana, carrots and a peanut butter sandwich go in, instead of white bread chocolate spread, crisps and biscuits? It keeps just as well, is just as cheap, and from what I can see, it's all stuff she'll eat.

You'll also do well with all the dinner-related suggestions here, so hope you can put them into practice and they go down well at home.

There's seems to be a lot of processed food on there, I don't buy anything processed and I find this is why my shopping Is more expensive. Sausages are cheap but not good for you in the slightest.