To ask you to help me get a weeks groceries with £30?

[Mickeybox]

Very unexpected expense has left us short this month and we have just over £30 to feed us until next Friday. I normally spend £50-70.
I have some staples like spices, flour, gravy granules, worcester sauce, soy sauce... So I know this should be easy enough but I really struggle doing meal plans!
We're a family of four. Me, DH, 4 year old and 7 month old. Both kids have CMPA so must be dairy free.
I'm okay for cleaning supplies and nappies and things so it is literally just food. Asda and Iceland are my only options.

Any help is much appreciated.

Make a tomato soup with 2 tins of tinned tomatoes, squirt of tomato puree and dried basil herbs. Add a dash of single cream and eat with a stick of French bread. Or Veg soup just chop up vegetables small and cook in stock cube, blend and serve.

Buy two packs of mince and make a chile with stuff from your cupboard. Add cup of lentil to make it go further.

Use second mince in a spagetti bolognese, add cup of lentil to make it go further buy some spagetti. You could buy a packet of peppers and chop up and add. (Keep one pepper to give to kids as snack veg.)

Use the pasta in your cupboard to mix in with a penne arabatica. Just cook two onions until soft, add two tins of tomatoes, chop a small chile, chile tomato paste if you have it if not just tomato puree. If too hot for kids just give them pasatta and tomato puree on their pasta.

Cheese and ham toasties.

Baked beans with jacket potatoes.

Cheap sausages and mash and peas.

Buy cheap noodles as a hot snack. They are about 25p a packet.

Buy some fruit for kids, apples or those easy peeler orange fruits.

Buy porridge for breakfast or bread for toast.

I add grated veg to bolognaise and chilli, 1 grated carrot, fe, makes it more filling.

Veg and lentil soup/curry etc depending if you have spices/herbs.

As pp have said, lots of veg and some eggs for yourself if that’s an option. You can boil them and keep in the fridge for snacks. Glad the Cooking on a Bootstrap site is helping.

One thing I used to fall back on was a microwave veg curry. Frozen veg, rice, curry paste or your choice of spices. Add water, cover and microwave for 10 mins, stir and repeat. It could easily be cooked on the hob if you prefer.

Not that hard actually. For £30 you couold buy bananas, apples, oranges. Potatoes. Pasta. Tinned tomatoes. Mince. Chicken. Rice. Bread. Wraps. Onions. Sausages. Soups. Cereal bars/biscuit bars etc. Eggs. Dairy free butter and cheese. Cereal. You can make loads with all that!

Ok, I've done this with tesco but I think Asda/Iceland should come in the same if not cheaper. Some things might not be suitable for dairy free, but I'm sure you're a dab hand at adapting.

Spaghetti Bolognese
Jacket Potato & beans
Roast chicken with roast potatoes and veg
Chicken pie, mash, veg (using leftover chicken)
Fishcakes, chips, peas
Chilli con carne with rice
Tuna, tomato and olive pasta

Ham, bread put in basket to help with lunches, fussy eaters, etc!

Total for the below: £29.94
2 x tinned tuna
frozen mixed farmhouse veg
frozen peas
1kg onions
pack red chillies
2 tins kidney beans
1kg long grain rice
1 loaf bread
400g pack crumbed ham
pitted black olives
200g tomato puree
garlic pack of 4
4 tins chopped tomatoes
frozen chips
frozen fishcakes (10)
frozen mixed veg (sweetcorn, carrots, peas)
ready rolled shortcrust pastry
large chicken
2 tins baked beans
1 pack jacket potatoes
2.5kg white potatoes
1kg frozen mince
500g spaghetti
Chestnut mushrooms

Do you have food in the house for breakfast?

Using the mexican beans and tinned tomatoes you can do a chilli. Get cheap mince and some rice, add lots of carrots to bulk it out cheaply.
You can make super cheap flatbreads in a frying pan with just a basic flour dough if you have flour in.
If the kids will eat lentils, you can make a sausage and lentil stew pretty cheaply, it's tasty and filling. Get a pack of cheap sausages, a bag of dried puy lentils.
Fry off and onion, and some cheap lardons or bacon bits in a massive pot. Fry sausages a bit until brown. Add chopped carrots, dried lentils, a tin of tomatoes, water and stock cube. If you can get a free sprig of rosemary or bay leaf somewhere chuck that in. Simmer until lentils are done.
250g of lentils and 16 sausages does 2 hearty meals for my family. My kids are slightly younger so you might need an extra 100g of lentils.

halfwit's post is great. In general big bag of pasta, basic jar of pasta sauce and grated cheese on top is a yummy, filling meal. Eggs if allowed? Porridge with jam for breakfast. Bread, peanut butter. Mince and pasta. Frozen veg.

Sausages - use flour, eggs, milk for toad in hole, always satisfying

Macaroni cheese

• cheap and cheerful and delicious

Limited meat

Pasta with tomato sauce
Eggs and chips
Beans/mushrooms on toast
Risotto with peas and broadbeans
“Mexican rice”
Fajitas with lots of veg and pulses

When DH and I were skint I used to make five day beef stew with loads of vegetables fresh and or frozen and as much braising steak as I could afford,
we'd have it with mash or bread on day one and day two,
on day three I added some potato slices to a portion and make a pie, I used to use lard instead of butter for pastry, we would have that with steamed veg,
day four I'd make beef risotto with some of the stew, extra stock from an oxo cube and frozen leeks and peas,
on day five I'd add stock and blend then add lentils and veg to make soup,
weekends we'd just have beans and jacket potatoes/eggs/tuna fried rice/noodles/pasta etc

thehappypear.ie/recipe/5-minute-chickpea-curry/
That's one of my favourite recipes to make, and very cheap also! I have it with cous cous, rice, baked potato. I don't bother with the avocado.
You could make a pasta sauce also, use your tin tomatoes, passata, chilli flakes, garlic, mushrooms, chopped up rashers/ leftover chicken.
Both can be doubled up and used over different days.

When we are short cheap meal for most of the week for us always- multi packs of frozen battered cod/haddock 4 in a packet, big bags oven fries, beans or frozen peas for dinner each night.

Definitely go vege for the week...I have Jack’s cookbook and have tried most of the recipes. I’m actually not going to recommend them as I found they weren’t tasty at all and I’m not a fussy person. However, when in dire need I will make some of the better ones just to be cheap.

All above are good so would just add on weeks like this I always make sure to have crackers and jam in ( cheap crackers, most of them taste the same and a cheap tin of jam) and some juice in, and do some baking then the kids still feel like they're getting something sugary? And not many people have fruit in, maybe a bag of apples and bananas?

Oh I didn't know that, thanks. So eggs back on the menu then :-)

Macaroni difficult though not impossible dairy free petal

Is there anywhere you can buy a half hundred weight bag of potatoes ? Keep them somewhere cool and dark . Then baked , steamed , boiled , chipped etc . Use with leeks and onions to make soup . Very cheap and nutritious. I’d base all my main meals arriving spuds if I was short of cash .

Frozen meat is normally much cheaper than fresh. Lentils really add to meals such as spaghetti Bol etc

Do you need to do packed lunches as well as breakfast and evening meals?

Baked beans are quite healthy (check the sugar content) and can go on beans or jacket potatoes.

Cook double the potatoes you use for jacket potatoes and make potato gnocchi the next day.

Pancakes can be made with non dairy milk loke soya and can be sweet or savory.

Have a couple of meals 'on toast' be it egg, beans, beans and cheese (for adults) bacon or avocado (if there is one reduced when you shop).

Have a look at your frozen islew, even if you normally buy fresh fruit and veg, A bag of mixed veg can easily become a vegi curry with a few spices.

Cook from frozen mince and sausages are normally quite good.

If you live anywhere near a a market - go towards the end of the day and buy up what's cheap. Not unusual for us to walk away with 3 or 4 carrier bags full of fresh fruit and veg for about a tenner. Add pasta, rice etc and main meals (and fruit for pudding) is sorted.

1kg mince, the cheap fatty one, you can easily just take the fat off once you brown it. And then some 35p(ish) passata
Half of it for spaghetti bolognese, bulked out with frozen veg as frozen veg is much cheaper.. Frozen sliced peppers, a mixed veg that has stuff like courgette etc in it.
Other half for chili con carne, can use the frozen peppers, and then two 30p tins of supermarket basic kidney beans.

Cheapest pasta I have seen would be Sainsbury's or asda own brand, they're, I think 30-40p for 500g, to go with the bolognese sauce, and £1 rice.

Bag of 1kg carrots, the cheapest ones will be under £1, usually the basic own brand or "wonky" veg. Grated, it can be added to sauce in bolognese and Chilli, and it just melts away so you don't see it in there and can't taste it, but it really bulks it out.

1kg of chicken, I usually get from the butcher at £2.50, but I'm sure I have seen supermarkets regularly have offers at the same price for fresh and I have seen very cheap frozen.

The rest of the carrots, rice, add potatoes (again, wonky veg variety to make it cheaper) for chicken with rice potatoes and carrots, if you have any frozen mixed veg left that can be added although I'm not sure how it tastes because I do think it's better in a sauce and you can't tell the difference as much. Can also get things like tinned sweetcorn or peas for around 30p

Own brand milk

There should be leftovers from the above 3 meals, that you can then turn into something else. Can buy cheese and make some sort of pasta bake with the bolognese leftovers. Cheese is more expensive but you can get own brand again. Sometimes, grated is cheaper too when it's the basic one.
Fajitas or something with the leftover chilli and the cheese.

Cheap bread isn't that nice for sandwiches sometimes, but for toast it's usually fine, so can get that for breakfast. Own brand basic jam for 35p and own brand butter.

If you already have some flour at home, can make pizzas too. Can just buy yeast for around 70p.

Also, there are a few websites that you can type in whatever you have in your cupboards already and they'll give you some meal ideas for what you already have. Google, there are a few sites.

If you can stretch to an extra couple of £, and look online, the main supermarkets often have offers like £8 off £40 for new customers etc. Even Amazon prime now, and Amazon fresh do this. That is for delivery only though. That way, you'll get more food and can maybe even thrown in some own brand snacks like yoghurt.