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

She doesn't like peanut butter. She has a serious aversion to peanut butter, as in she can smell it a mile off and will not even taste food which may have touched it, even spicy food like satay.

She does like carrots but only cooked and warm or in a curry as in she would eat a cold curry with carrots in it but she would not eat cold cooked carrots or raw carrots.

She loves bananas but they are more expensive than apples so I try to encourage more apple eating and less banana eating. I would give her banana sandwiches but she doesn't like bread without butter and she does not like bananas with butter [sigh]

Imo, she doesn't really eat well outside of school. We don't have biscuits, cordial, sweets or dessert because we can't afford them not because she won't eat them. I'm not sure baked beans are healthy but as far as afternoon snacks go, they are cheap and filling.

Now I know you can get frozen root ginger and use a masher instead of a mortar and pestle or mini blender, I will make her more curry and rice for lunch and might even get away with hiding some brown rice in with the basmati.

I'm not studying catering. I am have just finished level 2 hairdressing (aka mobile stylist or salon junior) and am about to start level 3 (aka senior stylist/colourist/whatever I choose to specialise in) but my college has a catering department which donates its leftover stock to students, normally veg and breads, sometimes cooked things they have been practising and not sold. IDk if any of the catering students are Asian. it's not really a department I spend much time in.

I made a carrot and chickpea concoction the other day that went down well. It was a HFW recipe but it can be made more cheaply! Basically fry carrots with onions and whatever spices you like, shove a tin of chickpeas in, cook until the carrots are soft. I served it in wholemeal pitta bread.

@Frequency Baked beans are a pretty healthy choice, lots of protein and fibre. Three heaped tablespoons or more count as 1 of your 5 a day.

www.nowtolove.com.au/health/diet-nutrition/10-things-you-did-not-know-about-baked-beans-11863

Chick pea & veg curry can be made with the spice base I posted above.

Taste the base and add more spices depending on how spicy you like it. I always make it a bit spicier because a lot of it is absorbed by the meat/veg once you add it in so the flavour then evens out.

Make double quantities of the spice base & freeze a portion for another time. You just need to defrost it in the fridge the night before.

There are 21 meals in a week; your photo includes 4 of them . What about the other 17?!

I am sure you can feed a family for less than £100 per week, how easy that is probably depends on the size of your family. I would also say, doing it on a really tight budgets probably does mean some impact on quality of produce, though probably less so if you are mainly/totally vegetarian. And yes, meal planning and buying only what you need would probably help reduce spending too. All common sense really, not some great revelation is it?

I spend far more by choice- and I totally recognise that I am lucky enough to be able to do so. I like to buy local, high welfare meat though and this is not cheap. I get it from local farms where I know they are free-range and not injected with water to bulk it out and so on- or the local butcher who sources locally. This is important to me because of welfare and also supporting local businesses rather than the big supermarkets chains (whose behaviour towards producers often leaves a lot to be desired in the quest for ever cheaper produce, despite the fact that production costs are going up).

I also buy locally produced milk, fruit/veg in season and free range local eggs. Again, not the cheapest option but something I feel is important.

(don't brown it) you've got to seal the spices in with the meat. No self respecting Asian browns the meat first!

I never knew that, I always brown it first probably why my curries are a bit insipid

School dinners are free or are you not aware of that and um i said in my original post today is not on their because I have today’s dinner already we have a roast on a Sunday as we already have the chicken and Saturday will likey be a chilli we already have those bits...

I'm assuming you had to pay for the chicken at some point? Or did it fly straight into your kitchen cupboard uninvited? (I can do sarcasm too.)

I shopped yesterday for £75 for 2 adults and 2 children for the week ahead. 7 main meals (I had some frozen chicken in the freezer but would have added £3.50) stuff for sandwich lunches at the weekend and dh and ds2 packed lunches. Cereal or toast for breakfast (no time for pancakes or fry ups - I'm out the house by 730!) I eat at work and ds1 has £12.50 on his prepaid card each week. This included fruit and veg, 3 lots of meat, pasta, tins, washing tabs etc... But not toiletries as I'm stocked up already. Can easily be done. I shop at lidl

Someone's mentioned "competitive fruit eating" but all I can see are lemons and blueberries?!

So for the spices the bagged ones from east end/rajah have the English names on. There are cheaper brands (insanely cheap) which don't and are usually found in Asian supermarkets, so cheat sheet:
Cumin = jeera
Coriander= dhania
Tumeric = haldi
Fenugreek = methi
Cardamom = elachi
The rest eg cloves you can see through the packet! Meant that when i was superskint i had some interesting food!
Good luck Frequency so pleased this thread turned into something nice

Redforfirth. That would be me.
Competitive fruit eating as in 'that amount of fruit would only last half an hour in OUR house's

Ooh that's very handy Mavis

House, obsv.

Well,I got my online shop delivered today, so won't need to buy food until Friday. If I ignore paying for school dinner and the monthly cat food delivery from amazon, then basically we are living for free. How cool is that?

I bought virtually nothing for my family last week because we are clearing out the freezer. So, op, can you feed a family of five on 7 quid a week? I did it last week.

I can't quite believe that anyone could genuinely be as stupid as not to realise that a family food budget includes ALL the food you buy, whether you bought it this week or three weeks ago.

I’ve just been food shopping today and I spent £48, and that will feed us for the week.

I make EVERYTHING home made, and I batch buy from farmers markets and fish quays. I spent £128 on fresh meat and fish and that will last us over 2 months.

We eat meat and fish a few times a week and the rest is vegetarian meals.

A fish quay! Wistful look at lack of sea anywhere within 90 miles

The "I'm so clever and the rest of you are such idiots who can't understand my amazing budgeting and menu planning" schtick doesn't really work when you write things such as, "their are some tomatoes... ect ect".

*@PickwickThePlockingDodo

(don't brown it) you've got to seal the spices in with the meat. No self respecting Asian browns the meat first!

I never knew that, I always brown it first probably why my curries are a bit insipid

Well now you've been let into the subcontinental secret, you've got no excuse.

I always brown my meat first too. No more! Starting tonight, with katsu curry wings.

Youvealwaysbeenthecaretaker

Enjoy and welcome to a world of new and authentic culinary experiences!

My granny used to shout at the poncy chefs on the tv for browning the meat first before putting it in the curry. That just makes it into a cooked meat and sauce dish not a curry. The trick is slow cooking it over a low heat and it always tastes better the next day.

diggery those oat things are delicious! I used up a load of stuff- chucked in maple syrup and dried apple.

OP has rightly buggered off. Absolutely ridiculous thread.

If you do come back, OP, your full stop key seems to be broken. I didn’t spot a single one in your OP or in any of the replies 😂

Two of us ate for absolutely free today! We had pancakes for breakfast, spaghetti bolognese for lunch and a salad for dinner. All of it was from our cupboards and fridge, we didn’t have to go to the shops once!

Great raisedbyguineapigs :) maple syrup in them sounds nice, I will add some next time we have some in. The great thing is you put in whatever you have to hand.
I've just done similar with some egg muffins (I added some pics) and put in half a jar of white beans I had in the fridge and grated a bit of cheese. DD was happy because she's been asking for egg muffins for a couple of days.