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

We spend around £100 for five plus pets and I’ve never thought that was scrimping. That includes £25pw for school dinners, about a metric ton of cereal, eleventy billion pints of milk and decent meat.

Unless you stole your chicken and salmon you need to include it in how much you're spending on the food you're eating this week. And neither of those items are " bits" - they're the main part of the bloody meal.

danadas I find fruit expensive. If you say to your children (mine are both teens so adult size)- eat fruit instead of snacking on crap, then you have to have a lot of fruit, at least say a banana and an apple each a day, plus some berries or melon perhaps a few times a week. This costs a fortune! But I'd rather do that than have them eat stodgy things as snacks (apple and cheese good, yoghurt and fruit).

There's no point someone with two small kids and free lunches telling me my family of four adults can get food for £100 a week as they have two kids eating almost nothing at lunch and half portions in the evening! Clearly 'feeding a family' will depend on the size of the family.

Including stuff you already have, like chicken and raspberries implies that your plans wouldn't allow for spending only £100 per week, every week.

Heck, I don't budget at all and spend under £100 on food for 4 adult appetites, some weeks, if I'm using up stuff in the freezer.

£100 a week to feed a family - except breakfast and lunch. And those dinners I've already bought the ingredients for

I can't see any cat food, or cat litter on those receipts at all.

I am absolutely roaring with laughter at this. OP bought 4 meals, had all the ingredients for the other meals and 3 days dinners, and is somehow proving she can feed her family for £100- and doesn’t even get that it’s nonsense!

They're not in the same school, tracie. DD2's school lunches are £3.50 a day. I can't afford this. She does have them sometimes. I agree it's not a great lunch and would love to buy her fruit, pasta salad etc but I can't.

She's moving up to DD1's school after summer where she will get £12.50 a week. I'm going to cut back on my own lunches and breakfasts to afford this. I'm back at college and my lunch and breakfast voucher is a daily entitlement, so I'll probably walk to college to eat.

Our entire diet is shit. I mean who feeds their kids a Gregg's frozen pasty and a tin of beans for their main meal? Sadly, right now, it's the best I can do. As I said, I could make fresh food every day but it would be bland and consisting mainly of pasta, rice and pulses. I prefer to have the shit meals so we can afford the few fresh bits we get.

OP
Try it this way. If you had completely bare cupboards, and an empty fridge freezer, would you be able to make £400 last 4 weeks, to feed you all breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and drinks?

OK, you spent £100 on shopping for this week.... But the stuff you are eating this week has presumably been purchased at some point?

So you haven't done a weeks worth of shopping that cost £100...

If you took everything you paid for for the food you and your family were going to eat in the next seven days how much would it come to? That would be your cost-per-week.

My weekly shop is usually around the £50 mark. 2 kids, 2 adults and 1 cat. This includes 7 days of breakfast/lunch and tea. We shop at ASDA. We are broke and have done it for less but meals can be rather basic. Even when times were better and we had disposable income I would struggle to spend any where near £100.

Given that Inhave a chest freezer full of batch cooked meals and leftovers, a cupboard full of basics eg pasta, rice etc basically enough food to feed the five of us for two to three weeks(providing we didn’t add anything like bread, milk etc)
Could I therefore claim that you can feed a family of five for zero pence a week
These threads are depressing it seems like a race to the bottom
“Aren’t I clever I can feed my ten children for 5p a weeek”
I know we all have budgets to stick to but claiming to be some sort of frugal goddess cause you can make 50g of mince feed a family of 10 isn’t up there with finding a cure for cancer.
Jeez

I'm sure you mean well, OP, but your shopping list isn't great and many of us on here, me included, spend less than £100 pw and feed our families extremely well.
As you must surely be aware, school meals are not free unless you have very young children, and they don't eat much anyway. The hazlenut spread/Monster Munch lunch combo isn't really much to be proud of, TBH, either.
Thanks for the advice but I'll stick with my own shopping lists and spend less but eat better.

I budget £50 for our weekly shop.
£20 every fortnight for a meat pack from the local butchers.
Over course there's stuff already in the cupboards/fridge/freezer but that's all from previous budgeted shops which haven't been used.
There's only 3 of us though.

I initially wondered if she was JO in disguise. Then I saw the jelly beans.

This week our family is varying between 3 and six adult sized people. We are eating

Roast chicken, salad and couscous
Homemade pizza with pepperoni, mozzarella and loads of veg on top
Huevos rancheros with nachos
This Jamie aubergine and chickpea thing with feta and sweet potato wedges
Lamb kebabs and pittas with salad
Vaguely chinesey chicken stir fry with rice
Soup from the chicken carcass and rhubarb crumble (from garden)

I have cold meat, cheeses, olives, eggs, tinned fish, salad, wraps and part baked bread in for lunch. Will also use my breadmaker.

Breakfast will be cereal or overnight oats.

This lot cost me £95 including a 4 pack of Guiness. Mainly from Aldi except veg. We'll also need to pick up some Lactofree milk and cheese at some point.

Not much meat, not much booze, not much crap and not much cleaning stuff or toiletries this week.

@frequency dont let people on here make you feel bad, you are doing the best that you can and there are some people out there that dont or cant feed their dc!

well done you - however mine do not get free school dinners so that's £42 a week right there!

then factor in cat food, cat litter etc

plus toiletries and other stuff

still well done - have a big smug gold star

But if it’s not been eaten you don’t include that in the next weeks shop that would be bizarre

Eh? Of course you do if you are adding up how much a weeks shop cost. Which seems to be the point of your thread!

So you have mangoes,and berries in your freezer

And a chicken or two to roast plus,all the trimmings already bought

And all the ingredients for a chilli already in your fridge

I am trying really hard not to call you Marie Antoinette, but I just failed

(For your info, it is nice for you, but honestly not everyone has a feezer And fridge stuffed with food before they dillydally off to spend another £100 on food... and end up feeling frugal [

FWIW, I eat like you do, but feel quite well off with that budget

I generally spend £200 a month on store cupboard/household/toiletries then £75 a week on fresh food (dairy (milkman so more expensive), fruit & vegetables, eggs, bread) and £40 a month on pet food.

Which works out at £130 a week for six people (two adults, one teen, three pre teens), a rabbit & three cats.

I do that because we are absolutely skint at the moment & it's only possible because we're all vegetarian (no meat or fish), we don't buy alcohol, I don't buy snack foods or stuff that disappears instantly (yogurts, fruit juice etc), no ready meals or convenience food & packed lunches. I make a lot of pancakes!

We eat well/healthily but it's time consuming.

And you still havent addressed the fact that most children dont get free school meals either.

Does anyone think this can't be Done? Idiots who think ready meals are a cheap way of eating maybe but no one else

I completely agree that you can feed a family of 5 for £100 a week. However OP, your examples do not show that at all.

You have shown that you can feed a family for a few days using random items from your freezer and store cupboard plus some texts bits from ASDA. Which I think most of us can also do quite well.

Apologies if it's just my eyes but I can't see the meat for your pulled pork on the list? Did you have that already by any chance?....