AIBU to think £200 is enough?

[Pauuuuuuline]

AIBU to think that £200 a month on groceries is enough?

As of next month, as a family, we'll have £200 a month left over after essential outgoings to spend on our shop.

This £200 will need to accommodate two adults, a toddler, two cats. Will also include four teens EOW.

Can currently spend (and often do) roughly £400-500 a month, so for us, £200 seems quite small but it's doable right?

Any thoughts and tips on how to do it would be much appreciated.

A month? I spend that much in a week!

Its doable, people survive on much less.

That's not to say it wont be tight obviously, but meal planning and stretching ingredients is what will get you through. I wouldn't shop at poundland for toiletries, you'll find its cheaper to go for supermarket own brand cleaning products etc.

Good luck OP, it doesn't have to be depressing pasta and beans!

If your veggie/ low meat its fine...jacket potatoes with beans and cheese, lentil dhal, porridge, tuna pasta bake, bread and butter pudding, cheese on toast, fish fingers with mushy peas and chips, homemade chocolate cake...all delicious and far from joyless!

I have started buying big red and white cabbages from Lidl (69p) and using them for slaw. Red with carrot and a zingy chilli / ginger dressing, white with chopped onion and carrot with some mayo diluted with plain yogurt.
Much cheaper than bought slaw, much cheaper than other salads and each cabbage, with raw carrot, makes about 4 meals-worth, as an accompaniment.

Get used to using dried lentils and soaking your own chick peas. Chick pea and potato curry, with a modest amount of frozen leaf spinach, is great.

Sweet potato and chick peas as the basis of a veg

Get used to the times of yellow stickering in supermarkets and buy and freeze only if it is something you actually want and will use in an actual recipe or dish.

Sorry: veg tagine, with the sweet potato and chick pea.

Budget supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi, supplemented with online offers and coupons/ deals. Most supermarkets have yellow-ticket offers on certain days so you can pick up extras cheaply that way. The secret to budget shopping is cheap tins and not buying a lot of fresh food at one given time. It saves on food wastage when it goes off. Make a list of what you need and what you know the kids will eat, so you don't get distracted while inside the shop and buy other stuff. Also going shopping while hungry is not a good option. There are some good food suppliers online like starbargains, approved food etc that deliver to your door.

It is easy to spend loads on food these days. Lets face it, supermarkets are designed as giant marketing tools for the food industry tempting you with all sorts of offers. However, I remind my kids of how people used to cope in the war with ration books etc. Cooking from scratch using what you already have in the cupboard is a great saving. Using staples like pasta, porridge and rice are good bulk carbs that fill tummies without emptying wallets.

Will be very tight I have 3 teens aged between 12-16 all girls and not massive eaters plus a 5 year old and my budgeted shopping cones in around £70 a week including wash stuff/cleaning etc

Get over to the credit crunch board along with feed your family for £20 on Facebook etc as they have done great ideas

www.thriftylesley.com/thrifty-lesley-meal-plans/

This lady's meal plans are amazing. They are nutritionally balanced, and are budgeted at £1 per person per day. There are 1 week long different meal plans (for 2 adults), with the costing for what you'd need to get at the supermarket. There are also some 4 people week plans, and meal plans for Christmas (roughly £1.50 per person per day).

I often use 4 whole meal plans (can print out the planners) for a month, if there is something big I want to save for. Have a 3yo DD, and she doesn't add much to the cost of the 2 people plans.

Might be worth a look, so see if there is a plan you fancy, and give it a go. Each plan included simple treats and bakes to make, which I found really bring the plans to life!

@SockMachine I really like your cabbage/slaw suggestions

A few drops of Fairy in very hot water is the only 'cleaning product' you need. Flour, yeast and water will make bread and pizza bases. Flour and eggs make the best pasta you'll ever eat. A large cauliflower, couple of potatoes and an onion will make enough soup to fill everyone. This is a really tasty tomato soup - www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2075/tomato-soup

The Lidl Cien range is excellent for toiletries, I use their 49p deodorant. They do shower gel in Original Source scents for half the price and another good range half that again. Also you don’t need shower gel: a bar if budget soap will do the same job cheaper and be better for the planet (not paying for the plastic bottle!)

Lidl ‘s Formil laundry stuff is excellent.

homemade pizza lots of pasta beans (good old jacket pots) eggs & cheese, fruit & veg in season, homemade soups, bread& toast, cheap biscuits ditto crisps etc.I use to go round shops & work out essentials, & than some stuff we would like, & other stuff that was treats. Put through essentials first (get sub total) work out how much you have & put through what you can afford. I use automatic wash powder (it goes further) & own make of other goods, a mix of value & if you can afford "middle" own make

£200 a month is doable.
We spend about £60 a week but that includes small luxuries. That's for 2 adults, 2 toddlers and 2 teens EOW and a cat.
I'm lucky that our Lidl's is in a retail park with a home bargains and an Iceland and just over the bridge from a Poundland so I don't have to waste fuel going to more then one place.
We get toiletries at Poundland or home bargains, and do the bulk at Lidl then get some soya milk and that from Iceland (DS has CMPA)
I'm veggie but the others definitely aren't so I buy a party pack of meat from our local butchers every month and divide it all up and freeze most of it. Think it's £25 for 20 sausages, 20 burgers and some chicken bits but it's good quality.
We do a lot of slow cooker meals that last the whole family several meals and I batch cook a lot as it works out cheaper this way.
You will be fine, just take a lot of planning

We spend £400 for just two of us

Sorry OP this is not ok. You need to go out to work. It is completely unreasonable to feed the teens nutritionally inferior stodge EOW because you want to SAH / won't work opposite shifts to OH. There is no way you can do this and meet 4 teenagers requirements for protien, iron, calcium and vitamin D. The toddler is not thier responsibility nor their problem. It is also entirely reasonable that they should able to meet their mates for the odd burger/ movie trip EOW where is that money going to come from ?

The ‘slaw’ cabbages keep fit ages in the fridge, too, especially if tightly wrapped in one of the supermarket plastic bags for loose fruit and veg.

I often find that a few of those bags find their way into my trolley... they are good instead of buying cling film, for sandwiches in packed lunch etc.

But for packed lunch best to do without wrappings if you can manage in a compartmentalised lunch box.

You can do it but it will be tight. What’s your food cupboard like now? Do you have a well equipped kitchen? Do you have enough freezer space?

Personally I wouldn’t go anywhere like Poundland. It’s named brands and sometimes works out more expensive. I would shop in Aldi and Lidl. They both have fruit and veg offers weekly and i would be buying those. If the teenagers really need meat I would buy chicken legs and make a fake Nando’s for them. If you can get yellow sticker stuff then even better. If you have a slow cooker or an instant pot it’s easy and so much cheaper to make yogurt.

I would be bulking meals with lentils and as much veg as I can afford. Freeze extra portions.

There is a group on Facebook called feed yourself for a £1 a day. It has some really good tips and ideas.

I’ve managed on this budget a few months ago and I have teenagers. It’s doable but be prepared for how much time it takes.

When I was a single parent to 2 dc, I'd spend £40 a week on groceries, that was everything inc school packed lunches and my lunch for work. Also things like bleach, washing powder etc. It was tight but doable.

But who knew there is another adult and 2 cats as well as the dcs being teens. Food has gone up a lot in the last 18m....

Just wanted to add for the toiletries I would only buy soap (if you buy five you can make it in to shower gel - have a look on Pinterest) value shampoo and conditioner, deodorant and toothpaste. Oh and shaving gel for the oh.

With cleaning products I wouldn’t buy any. Obviously you need toilet roll and laundry powder but I would clean all of my sides down with washing up liquid. We use it to clean our dishes and cutlery so it’s good enough for everything else.

It'll be tight, but it's certainly doable. Write out weekly meal plans and shop for what you need. Maybe do the shopping online, so you haven't got the temptations you sometimes get when shopping in store.

I have to be honest I spend more than that with just me and ds14. Monthly the combination of these:- washing powder, softener, washing up liquid, bleach, toilet rolls, shower gel, tooth paste, deodorant (him and her), razors, shaving gel, shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser, hair serum, leave in conditioner, kitchen rolls, foil, cling film, Kitchen spray, bathroom spray, floor cleaner, kitchen cloths, sandwich bags, hair spray, paracetamol, ibuprofen, and sanitary products, this is what increases my shop.

So if you can do away with stuff, by bigger containers now etc you can save a fair bit. The last shop I done £60 of it was this stuff (admittedly it was £4 shampoo £4 conditioner and so on, so can be reduced but it still makes me 🤬 when I think I have £180 to do a two weekly food shop, but then I need 10 of the above).

Actually I have a question- has anyone used laundry nuts I believe they are called, if so, are they any good?

Very interested in those saying it's doable, how many have teenagers (nevermind 4)? It's one thing doing park trips and sandwiches with 5yo quite different with 15yo. Also these kids have suffered a disolution of their birth family already. To subject them to 19th century work house conditions (only plain soap, porridge, lentil and veg stew) is simply not on.

Tesco do a cheap range of ready meals for 65p. They really aren't bad and a great way for the teens to get variety if you're finding the cooking too much.

I'd make massive chilli with tins of various beans etc which are cheap and bulk out the meat.
Cheap bread, butter, jam.
Cheap cereal , beans and eggs always cheap on toast for lunch

Of course you can do it if you're very very careful, needs must planning is the key