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.

Of course it's doable. Bulk cook and freeze. Buy big bags of potatoes, rice, pasta. Raid the reduced sections and freeze when you get home. If you buy a large quantity of mince, you can bulk up recipes with lentils. You'll get multiple meals!

Thighs and wings are the cheapest but breasts are all meat. I'd probably buy a whole chicken though, roast it and strip every bit of meat off it, then portion it out correctly ie 3-4 ozs per person, this is how the magic chickens work. This would work well on the days when the extra teenagers are there, served with stuffing and roast potatoes, veg and gravy.

Go to your CAB or local area Facebook community to find out if there is a social supermarket/grocery scheme available. I live in the NW and there is a ‘club’ you join where I believe you pay a weekly flat fee (£2-3?) and they deliver about £15 worth of standard groceries.

3 meals you can make for about £1. Make a simple tomato sauce by blending 1 carton of possata with 2 tins of cheap tomatoes and spoonful of mixed dried herbs. portion up and have with cheap pasta. You can make 8 portions with above so could serve when teens arrive. Give them beans on toast for lunch and porridge for breakfast. Another cheap meal is a pasta bake. Take two tins of cheap tomatoes and cut up one budget mozzarella cheese and a spoon of herbs and squirt of tomato puree. Mix with cooked pasta and bake in oven with bread crumbs on top. Serve when teens arrive with frozen peas. A third cheap meal is homemade veg soup. Cook 3 potatoes, 5 carrot, an onion, frozen peas and any other veg leaves such as cabbage you can get cheaply. Add a squirt of tomatoe puree and seasoning and blend until smooth. Serve with bread. You could also make chilli and hulk out with red lentils and serve with rice. Also freze small portions as lunch for toddler. Buy cheap frochen chops so you can have beans and chips or egg and chips or cheasy chips. In September people often give away apples fallen from trees. Find a few blackberries and make fruit crumble. Go to supermarket at 8.30-9 o'clock and pick up quick sale bargans. You can do this but teens will have to get on board.

Another great soup is to buy the big bags of the cheapest mixed frozen veg - chuck a couple of bags in big pan with a few stock cubes, tip in half a bag of lentils and boil gently for 30 minutes.

Blitz and season/add dried herb and you have veg and lentil soup for absolute pennies (and practically zero effort).

I hate frozen mixed veg but use it regularly for soups and it’s lovely.

@OJZJ I agree with your comments about Lidl and Aldi compared with the big 4 supermarkets.

I quite like Lidl but can't stand Aldi. Their fruit and veg is terrible quality and I have tried at least 5 different Aldi stores in different parts of the country.

I always put my shop into "mysupermarket.com" and see which supermarket comes out cheapest. Surprisingly it is often Sainsbury that is the cheapest and Asda is often the dearest.

Sainsbury and Waitrose own brand products are excellent. I agree that Waitrose baked beans are better than Heinz and I think M&S ones are too.

Nicky loo rolls are definitely cheaper though - 18 rolls for something like £4.99 and they are very good quality. I buy them in Home Bargains but Farm Foods sell them too

I would direct the teens to only snack on toast or cheap biscuits. Buy your fruit at a market if poss and embrace frozen and tinned as others have said. Otherwise buy apples and bananas (not berries/grapes etc). Go veggie most of the time and use cheap tinned or dried pulses for protein. Value ranges for all staples. A Girl called Jack is a fab shout for ideas. Ideas: omelettes, root veg stew with beans and dumplings, pasta with homemade tomato sauce, curries with frozen white fish. Also suggest going to supermarket near closing time to pick up going out of date food you can freeze. I think you can survive on pretty much any budget but as others have said, it could be a bit joyless.

Very tight
Home brands and lots of forward planning
Have to accept it will be a chore for the cook
But okay for the eaters if you don't accept pickyness

Ok. Doable just. But firstly. Have you applied for Working Families Tax Credit? Make sure you do, even if you don’t get much, every little helps.

Secondly, think soup. The cheapest are French onion and lentil, but get creative, charity shops usually have old cook books.
Do NOT be embarrassed to use foodbanks if you have to.
Is there anything you can sell ? Old baby clothes, ornaments, dvd’s etc on eBay?

Also now but growing herbs or seeds (basil, thyme, rosemary, and really really take care of them. Fresh basil makes all the difference to a cheap pasta.
Next, the cheapest food to make is pizza (and it feels like a treat) buy pizza flour (google how to make pizza (it’s so so easy)
Buy almost end of life fruit now really cheaply. Blend it and freeze. Buy huge no name natural yoghurt and that’s breakfast sorted and you’re making sure everyone get some their 5 a day.
Go to jack monroes website and borrow her new book (tin can cook ) from the library.
She’s amazing!
Start applying for every benefit you can think of.
Make sure you’re applying for council tax benefit and housing benefit. They have lower threshold than you think.

Learn how to make your own cleaning products using vinegar (ridiculously easy)

Include treats. Make your own scones or bounty bars. About 8p each to make.

But more than anything APPLY FOR WORKING FAMILIES TAX CREDIT

Would love a link to 8p bounty bars!!

OP I really think you will struggle with that budget. Inflation has made the feed your family for a fiver recipes impossible now.
I agree with PP re checking out if you are entitled to benefits. Otherwise is there any potential for either of you to look at alternative employment?
Childminding?

Oh and I've never met a teenager that didnt love cheap home made pancakes.

Correction for anyone looking for the Lidl voucher in the Metro today - apparently it's now going to be in tomorrow's issue instead.

OP, do you live in Yorkshire? Google Kindness Sharehouse if you do - it gives away food which would otherwise go to waste. Sometimes they have loads of stuff in.

The Jack Monroe recipe for jazzing up baked beans is tasty and easy. I can't find it right now but I think you basically just add a tin of chopped tomatoes to the beans, and however much chopped onion, garlic and paprika as you like. Jack Monroe's site is very helpful.

Doable but with a few sacrafices. Meal plans are your friend in this situation. Make a weekly menu and stick to it.

I bulk everything up with veg/lentils. Carrots are usually always quite cheap and they taste brilliant in Bolognese/chilli so do garden peas and sweetcorn! We have cut down our meat consumption by doing this.
If you can get hold of a second freezer (facebook or alike) then bulk cooking and freezing will reduce gas /elec cost in the long run, just defrost and reheat.
Also stocking up on reduced foods and freezing. Treats like the trays of donuts/muffins reduced at asda freeze really well. Any left overs get frozen.
We do a "pot luck" meal once a month or so where we cook all the random bits at the back of the freezer, the lonely sausage, the 2 fish fingers, left overs -anything that doesnt quite add up to a full meal etc. Cook all the odd bits and serve with a big bowl of chips and beans/veg. It does make for some strange concoctions but ends with full bellies and less waste.
I also do a random potato bake- sliced potatoes and what ever meat and veg you have left over (ham/bacon/chicken/carrots /broccoli etc) layered in a dish with a bit of onion and garlic, cover with milk (cream if you have it) sprinkle with cheese and pop in the oven. Can do the same with pasta. And you can stick pretty much anything into a pie or pasty (make your own pastry for pennies) and the kids will love helping with this and creating their own pie.

Cleaning you only really need washing up liquid and a disinfectant like detol. Soap bars go further than bottles of hand wash/shower gel. Flannel and water instead of wipes when in the house (and out and about if you can cope)
Half the amout of soap powder you use and add a tea spoon of soda crystals to you wash. Replace fabric softener with white vinegar.
And a really silly one but helps in the long run. We live in a rented house, which the landlord had gone ott with the light fittings (12 bulbs in the kitchen ceiling alone, 9 in a tiny bathroom!)
1 it was too bright and
2 cost a fortune, we took a couple of the bulbs out. Only saves pennies over the year but its a small difference.
Good luck op! You can do this!

Hmmm I probably spend £400 pm on groceries for two adults, a dog, two cats and occasional dgs.

Everyone saying I spend more per month, she only has £200 a month to spend. Good for you, she doesn't.

@platform9andthreequarters no I don't but I would not eat one all in one go.

Sorry, I’ve skimmed the thread and may have missed some but in the interests of helping you I’d like to dive in and say...It depends how much you already have in your freezer, cupboards etc. You may be able to bake bread and cakes if you have enough ingredients. Do you have any vouchers? Club card points etc? Can you save money elsewhere?

If that’s all you’ve got then it will have to be enough.
End of really.

People keep going on that it won't be fun meal planning and shopping at Aldi and lidl etc. I've travelled the world with my son as a single parent on 'meal planning' and 'shopping at Aldi'. And I tell you, travelling the world is far far more fun than wasting money on food from Marks and Spencer or waitrose that 'by the way' comes from the same places as the food available in aldi or lidl.

As in, I've travelled the world on the savings I've made by shopping in aldi

I love Lidl; DH won't hear of going to Aldi though. Otherwise we use Co-op and local independents.

Nothing wrong with cheaper supermarkets and sometimes you get better stuff there too. Don't use brands, eg Branston baked beans are much nicer than Heinz and half the price, Lidl chopped toms are cheaper than Napoli and, really, how much difference can there be? There are tins from all over the world, many of which are so much cheaper than the speshul branded ones. We don't need them!

Otherwise, I suppose you could go dustbin diving - lots of people say it's brilliant (not convinced myself), and then there's the food bank.....