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.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss Heavily comprised? It's likely to be a damn sight better! This is how people lived during the war. In fact they had rationing on top of limited availability of most foods and limited money. Yet people were the healthiest they've ever been! Sugar was the rarest and in the shortest supply, followed by meat. Therefore everyone lived off veg, lentils, brown bread, beans, casseroles consisting of a mix of primarily plant based foods.

A healthier diet of home cooked foods every other weekend is NOT going to compromise their health! 🙄🤦🏼‍♀️

lidls do 5kg of fruit+ veg(which would be ending shelf life) from opens til 12noon for £1.50. i think its rolling out to all stores. scones+pancakes are low cost makes,dumplings,rice,jacket potatoes etc.good luck

It will be tight, but....if you meal plan (to the enth degree and stick to it) market shop- as in street stalls- for veg and fruit, lots of pasta, rice potatoe based meals with salad to fill up with as extra. Homemade sauces, soups and Currys and you can make it.

All the extras you can start to buy again once the income in the house increased again. Oh and shop in Lidl, great value.

It can be done, say good bye to jar sauces, crisps, sweets, takeaways and the deli section for a while, but you'll appreciate it when you get it back.

Good luck, and see you on the other side x

I reckon it's doable

Less than £66 and some decent meals. OK not free range but there is plenty of variety

Definately do-able with planning and care.

My tuppenceworth: don't forget that fat is not a bad thing per se. Cheap British minced beef will be higher in fat than lean mince and a couple of generation's ago fat would have been valued as a source of nutrition better than it is now. Fatty mince is great for things in sauce (like chilli) and for burgers where the fat makes them succulent.

Buy things like kidney beans dry, much cheaper than in tins.

If you can find a greengrocers shop or market stall ask about large sacks of unwashed potatoes - the teenagers can learn to scrub potatoes and they'll fill them up!

Ask your local butcher about cheap cuts of stewing beef like shin. Really tasty when cooked long and low, e.g 3-4 hours at 150/160 degrees.

Check out the world foods aisle of supermarket - things like coconut milk, pulses, rice, oil, spices can be much cheaper than on the other shelves, for exactly the same foods.

Good luck OP x

You could try Olio for some additional help for some shared food items occasionally.
For the cats, zooplus do Bozita huge biscuit bags and cartons of cat food. It’s swedish so their standards for pet food are generally higher than U.K. (unless you buy expensive brands like Lily kitchen, applaws, almo nature etc )
So you could save money buying this cat food plus it’s better than supermarket quality cat food.

Lidil are food good value for family shopping as is Iceland.
And make vegetarian meals as well sometimes.
Pasta and rice can be bought in large packets so you could save money if you do meals with rice and pasta.

Ps bozita cheap too

Don’t know if someone has mentioned app Toogoodtogo local restaurants that have excess food at the end of day so something that would cost say £10 will be £2.50 ... that’s our fish and chip shop . Need to buy it in advance then collect later . Maybe for the odd weekend when the teenagers are there ? X

Oh and as someone said, teens can work .
In my day everyone got Saturday jobs from 15 until started full time work. Thing seem different these days?!..
If they work then make them buy and pay for their own clothes. That will cut the amount you need for your budget down a little.

If you have Facebook there’s a page on there called feed your family for a fiver or something similar which has lots of ideas which would help you. They have recipes and monthly meal plans etc. They seem to bulk buy, meal prep and freeze portions and use leftovers to stretch things. Which are all good ideas and minimise food waste. I think the main thing is you’d need to plan meticulously and stick to it. I agree with previous posters that the addition of the teenagers will make make it a challenge but if that’s the reality of your budget you don’t have a lot of choice. Also look out for any pay as you feel shops, there are some in my area where supermarkets send grocery items past best before to avoid going to landfill. Good luck OP

use soya mince or lentils to bulk out meat mince. Tinned fish, stew up the chicken carcase. Tinned tomatoes can make a good spag bol sauce. Home made pizzas, apple pie from windfall apples, pick blackberries from hedgerows.I think there is a TV programme on healthy eating on a budget. Eggs are nourishing and potatoes filling try steamed puddings for the very hungry.

ALDI nappy pants - £1.20 a pack. Aldi shampoo & condition 70p a bottle. Aldi wipes 40p a pack

I shop at Aldi and Lidl and still spend at least 170€ a week for 6 of us and we waste virtually nothing! £50 a week isn’t going to go very far when you have 4 teenagers gobbling everything they can lay their hands on! Unless you’re eating pasta or jacket potatoes every other day it’s going to be struggle!

@Pauuuuuuline

in my bad french accent Listen very carefully, I will say this only once....

As summer sods off and it gets cold.... ONLY HEAT THE MAIN ROOM YOU ARE ALL IN!!

We saved a bloody fortune last winter just by heating the front room only.

We found we didn't spend any time in any other room long enough for it to be heated (we are in a 2 bed ground floor flat and it can get nippy as its old).

Longest time spent in the bathroom was to shower (unless MrBC found something interesting on his phone to read whilst having a poo) and we just learnt to dry off quickly! We didn't have baths to save on the gas and I didn't really miss it and really love showers now more than baths.

Didn't need the heating on in bedroom as we both prefer it cool (I remember the days of frost inside the windows!) and I actually crocheted a huge blanket for the bed (from gifted wooly things no one wanted anymore that I unpicked to get the yarn) and we had extra throws in storage as well so we were super toasty all winter as we slept.

Kitchen got hot when I cooked and we kept the door open to heat up the hallway and I found I used the kettle to heat up water rather than use the hot tap in the kitchen when I need to wash up.

We also (no sniggering) got cheap "Slankets" to wear to keep us warm watching telly. OMG! We LOVE THEM!!!! (can also be done with cheap big sized FLUFFY dressing gowns worn back to front!) MrBC has to be dragged from his so I can wash it sometimes. Your arms free for pc, fannying about, hobbies,snacking, stroking the cats etc and soooo snug!

My baby brother laughed at me until he tried mine... He then went out and got them for all his family (his kids and step kids all funked theirs up with sew on patches and cut up old clothes to make them individual)

Everyone just needs to wear extra clothes and warm socks.

Also a good excuse for cheap hot chocolate drinking! (I make it using boiling water, a bit of dried milk or fresh and super cheap cocoa powder normally used for cooking or cheap drinking chocolate (Tesco do own brand for 89p for under 400g) plus sugar if need be if they have a sweet tooth). Really nice! even MrBC thinks it's the posh stuff sometimes if I add more milk.

If you can crochet or knit make really stupid hats/scarfs for everyone to wear when you are all together because you will need a good sense of humour (which I know you have!)

You can do this!! (and we are all here to help you and everyone else!)

HUGE hugs to everyone xxx (apart from the doomsayers who have NO idea what its like to struggle. Oh and the people telling the OP to get rid of her cats, you lot can feck right off)

That's going to be hard. Is your toddler still in nappies? You can do it because you have to. You will find a way but it might mean lots of basic meals and not much meat. Aldi would be your best choice if you have one near? Remember things like omlette can be a dinner too. I've been baking lots for my toddler a he wastes so much food, I find this cheaper. I make loads of cakes, flapjacks and biscuits and freeze them. A freezer is your friend. Batch cook, freeze leftovers and meal plan. We freeze things like lemons and watermelon! So nothing is wasted. Good luck x

£200 is my monthly budget for groceries/toiletries/cleaning products for 1 adult and 2 cats, and I feel that I have to be careful, so I don’t see how it’ll be doable without things being really shit.

No of course it is not enough. It will be awful. You need to try to get at least £200 more per month. Sell stuff from the garage/loft on eBay? I don't know what your resources are. But no, I don't think enough. Only enough for the 4 teens ...

Badcat those are awesome tips.
Can I just add, fluffy socks! My son got me some lovely thermal ones last year from Primark, they're so lovely and warm and cosy. Now off to google a slanket.

farmfoods have printable vouchers online £2 Off £25 spend £5 off £50 useful for stocking up freezer their veg are 5 for £4

@tabby007
Things are different now, there are fewer weekend jobs for students. Zero hours contracts and shifts have taken over. There are fewer jobs with set hours you just need to be available. Hence why you see the same people in supermarkets during the week and weekend when it used to be a stark difference.

That won't be easy with teenagers. Can you do anything to improve this? Second job? Weekend work? Overtime?
I'm just thinking of any issues regarding the teenagers complaining that there isn't enough food at their other parents house.

You sound like a fantastic mummy and stepmum. Please ignore the haters, unfortunately they pop up everywhere.
You have been very clear in your efforts to find work and just asking for advice on how to manage on a tight budget.
I agree that home bargains etc great place for cleaning products and cat food.
I like both aldi/ Lidl and shopped there when we were needing to hold the purse strings tight. I do lots of batch cooking as works out cheaper in the long run but does mean we eat similar things. As others have said lots of pasta, potatoes, rice. Tinned fruit is good as a treat and doesn’t go off too quickly. Be careful not to be tempted to buy huge bags of fresh food if it won’t get eaten. I made that mistake a few times.
Good luck x

You’ll be fine OP. When my ex left and I contacted on if those charities to help with debt they looked at my budget and told me I was spending way under what they would recommend I should on food and household things, luxuries etc.

And for those posters who say ‘get a job, get more hours’ etc it’s not that easy. I was out of work for quite some time and signed up with agencies and still struggled mostly due to not being able to get last minute child care. But even still, applying for jobs I was over qualified for left me with no offers - supermarkets etc wouldn’t take me as they thought I would be leaving the first opportunity something I was qualified came along. Actually I was trying to take a break from my qualified career after I was made redundant and would have happily taken a minimum wage job for quite a few years but had no luck. Tried applying for other things but ‘lack of experience’ often came into it.

OP things will fall into place hopefully. Good luck.

Just want to say definitely check out the £10 a day thread on the Money Matters board. Lots of good ideas there. I'm making £200 a month on an Appen project. Good luck.

@platform9andthreequarters ok lets do the math 2 adults 2 teens I toddler and 2 cats each week, that's £50.00 a week divided by lets say the toddler and the 2 cats equal 1 person so that's 5 persons thats £1.42 a day per person divided by 3 meals a day = 48 pence a meal per person and that's just food, lets take things like toiletries and other essentials and you are getting less than that, so if you are happy stuffing up your diet on high carb foods like pasta and bread then fine you can add baked beans to the list but if you want a healthy meal with meat salads and veg then you won't do it.The office of national statistics show the average food bill for a family of 4 in the uk is £81.40, the question is is it doable then yes but the question is it it healthy imho it is not.