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.

If you're willing to eat a lot of eggs and lentils and own brand frozen veg you might do it.

Water down shampoo and conditioner. Shop for loads of items in poundland.

But I think you will need to find a weekend job.

I think food-wise it's very possible, providing nobody is fussy. I would recommend asda though - 20 Smartprice sausages for less than £1, bags of pasta for 25p, 1kg frozen chicken breast for £3.50.

I have a lot of experience living this way to be honest 😂

With toiletries and cleaning stuff and cat food... No.

Can you use ebay to sell things? Or Facebook.

I think it is tight but doable, however I don't eat meat. I would suggest that you get the teenagers to help cook from scratch. It can be fun to make your own pizza/hummus/muffins etc and it can be cheaper to make if it is done from scratch. If you or your husband pass any farms they are often selling 25kgs of potatoes for £5/£6 which last ages. Carrots are 59p per kilo in Tesco just now, so adding grated carrot to bulk out chilli and bolognaise works fairly well. I used to make big batches of lentil soup with carrot and potatoes fairly cheaply.

When I was on a tight budget I used to work out if it was cheaper to buy something or to make it, so muffins were way cheaper to make but scones were cheaper to buy. Buying reduced food at the end of the day works really well for cheap bread.

I find having milk, flour and eggs means you have the basis for lots of weekend meal options that can be fun (pancakes, drop scones, Yorkshire puddings, toad in the hole, etc). Meal planning is essential to make sure your budget stretches. Sometimes dried beans and pulses are cheaper and just need to be soaked the night before you use them. I usually have some frozen meals that are quick/easy (bolognaise sauce I made in a large batch) so that when I don't have energy to cook there is an easy option that isn't the local chippy.

If you can manage it buy one tinned/long lasting item each shop that you will use in the future but do not need yet as this will help if you have a particularly lean time.

As others have said Jack Monroe's website has some good cheap recipes.

not sure this is doable esp. with 4 teens EOW. is the toddler at nursery and gets food there (i.e. not coming out of your budget). do you and DH go to a canteen at work or do you make sandwiches which come out if the £200 shopping?

how much money is coming in? what are your other outgoings? there may be a better way to save money than food!

I don't think it is doable. Can you take the teens out to a skate park or something free and then bring them back to mum so you don't have to feed them? I think you're going to have to be honest with her that you really can't afford to until after the New Year.

Sorry OP, not enough unless you can eat veggie at least half the time.

You will notice nearly all the meal plan websites doing £1 a portion recipes etc have a high proportion veggie food, for a reason.

Sell anything you can, and assume you need to get any part time work asap.

OP you really need to focus on maximising your income.

Is there any way you can get a weekend job whilst you're looking for a regular one? Care agencies are often desperate for weekend staff. Or shops or pubs locally? I appreciate it means you'll have very little family time but in the short term it might be necessary.

Are you in an area of low or high unemployment? That will make a difference to how easy it is to find regular work. What skills do you have? Have you been to the Job Centre for advice?

Please don't ask the teens to bring toiletries to yours or to babysit to pay for their food as some posters have suggested. That would be very wrong.

Good luck!

You can’t ask the children to bring their own toiletries or get a job to pay for food. They are children and it’s not their fault the family has extended and now has an adult not working.

Plenty of time to sign up for temp agencies, you could be working very quickly that way. Likewise seasonal work will be available. It doesn’t sound like you can wait to find the ideal job.

You will need to think a different way.
Buy trays of eggs/sacks of spuds from garden centre etc
For sacks of pasta/rice/bags of cheaper spices look in the specialty aisles.

Personally I would stop spending now, save what you can especially your last wages. You need to retain whatever money you can.

Get to know the reduction times of your local supermarkets.

Have a go at meal planning ASAP and go to my supermarket and put in your shop.

If you have good stocks and the time to make it work, eg use it all efficiently, look for yellow sticker meat etc, then you might manage as it's only 4 months.

You say you've 'cut back on everything', so just to check, have a look through:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

Also sign up to the weekly email. Try the tips about free money for swapping your bank account. Also look out for offers on Christmas presents.

Christmas - presents for your immediate DC only, and perhaps token (eg bottle of wine) presents between you and DH, parents etc. No presents for other adults. You can't afford to waste money exchanging tat. Stick to existing decorations for Christmas, Halloween etc. You do not need to buy anything new. Ask around if you don't have things, nearly everyone has things spare.

Can you get invited elsewhere for Christmas dinner and promise to repay the favour another year? Also, don't worry about stocking up on all the inevitable extras that will start appearing in the shops soon (Quality Street, mince pies, weird cheeses etc). Buy none, see what you/DC get for Christmas and then go and look in the sales when it's all reduced and get something then. Christmas doesn't have to be about buying mounds of extra food and then eating it all 'because it's there'. Look for other cheap things to do to make it Christmassy like going for a walk in the woods if it snows, go see the Christmas lights locally - even walk round your neighbourhood and see your neighbours decorations if you have any locally that really go to town. We have streets near us who go way overboard, the whole street festoons their entire houses with lights, they are featured on the local news and then the streets get blocked with traffic when people go to see them.

Don't worry about the comments about teens needing unlimited access to snacks and high quality protein. You can't afford to feed locusts, it's only a short term thing and you only have them EOW so they can have the bean chilli while they are with you and let their DM worry about feeding them in the Mumsnet approved manner.

Look for cheaper cuts of meat and make it part of the meal, not the focus. See if you have any markets, farm shops or butchers locally that do bulk meat packs, deals etc. We have some where if you take the £20 meat pack or whatever, there's probably £40 of meat in there if you bought it separately. Get these, freeze in meal size packs and use those to make stews, casseroles etc with lots of pulses and veg to make them go further.

Also stick to seasonal veg and the 49p specials type offers, which will be much cheaper than out of season or 'fancy' veg like asparagus, sprouting brocolli etc. Look at frozen veg. Use your freezer efficiently as this can help you save a lot of money.

Finally, the suggestion for you to try and do some work like babysitting is a good one. Put yourself out there with family, friends and even amongst your DHs ex's circle if relations are amicable. It's coming up to Christmas, so there will be party nights etc to cover and people might be more likely to trust a responsible adult than a teen. Or even try and join an agency to get work? Even a couple of evenings babysitting a month could make a huge difference, and you could get a lot more work than that nearer to Christmas if your DH will be around to look after your toddler.

Also, it's a good time to check that people aren't being wasteful. Some of the behaviours people mention on here are incredibly wasteful and hence expensive - washing clothes after one wear, using a whole bottle of shower gel per person per week, using several bottles of bleach a week/month, using disposable wipes, multiple rolls of kitchen roll per week. Etc etc etc.

If you/the teens use stuff like this, try and cut back to more moderate levels, for the sake of the environment, it's not just about money.

Light hearted tip from a fellow cat slave - encourage the cat to go out and fetch it's own dinner. ;-)

This sounds very very hard, and I admire that you’re working to prepare for it and taking a positive attitude.

I will just add that

1. There’s a great thread on mumsnet about making £10 a day. Anything you can make will help.
2. Sell stuff on local Facebook rather than on eBay, much better for sellers and no fees.
3. If any of my family or close friends told me they were in this situation, I’d happily loan them some cash to see them through.
4. Do you have credit cards or overdrafts as an emergency backup? Obviously don’t use them if you can avoid it!

Lastly.....I don’t know what the actual rules are for foodbank use, but I donate to our local one weekly and would be happy to see somebody in your shoes collecting food from there. There’s no shame in taking a bit of help to get through a tough patch.

Go to the Moneysavingexpert Old Style board and you’ll see it can be done.

We do it easily but we:
don’t eat meat
Don’t buy fizzy drinks/crisps/packaged food
Make our own cakes and biscuits
Stick to seasonal or frozen/tinned fruit
Stick to seasonal or frozen veg
Buy pulses, rice and spices in bulk at our local Pakistani owned shop
Meal plan and always stick to the list
Eat porridge for breakfast!

Probably sounds really dull to a lot of people but I don’t find it at all. Last nights supper was homemade squash and sweet potato soup with homemade bread followed by rhubarb crumble (rhubarb from our garden)
Tonight will either be mushroom and lentil bolognese or veggie stir fry

Lots of people saying it won’t be much fun!! See it as a challenge! Look for some new recipes to try, go yellow sticker shopping and make a couple of big pans of vegetable soup and some home made bread for lunches. It’s easily doable if you’re not too fussy.

I agree to the Jack Monroe cookery recipes.

Also try to go to Farm Foods if you have one. I was going to pop in last week but I had already been to Asda Tesco and Aldi lol.

Lots of potatoes, pasta, beans, value frozen sausages/chips/fish fingers/veg. You're not going to have a great diet but it's probably do-able. My biggest problem would be the cats who are cat food snobs!

I don't think this is doable!

My weekly food shop is approx £35 for me & DD(17) & we have DS(11) EOW so on those weeks my shop increases slightly to cover extra snacks.

I'm probably spending around £175 a month including household products & toiletries (which I buy in bulk).

There's no way I could add £25 to that & cover another adult & 2 extra EOW teenagers.

That's going to be very tight. I think it's doable but it won't be much fun and you're going to have be incredibly strict about shopping. Have you thought about what happens mid week when you're out of bread and milk and fruit? As in you're going to have to make sure you can get to a cheap supermarket as you won't be able to pay inflated corner shop prices.

It would be fine without the four teenagers EOW - they eat a lot!

Jocasta Innes did a book called the Paupers Cookbook some of the recipes are v. Out of date with the types of food we eat now. Some of those would be very cheap, but might be difficult to get (esp the teens) to eat.

Her onion potato and bacon hotpot is amazing- and fab served with green veg. Very filling too.

Jamie Oliver does a 7 veg tomato sauce which works well for freezing, and tastes good, it’d Probably do 4/5 pasta bake type meals.

Frozen fruit/veg will be your friend, does anyone you know have an allotment that might have some surplus.

There are websites where people who have cooked too much can advertise their surplus. That might be worth a try when you don’t have the teens( just because surplus to feed that many is unlikely). You could pay it forward when you have more money spare.

Frozen meat is cheaper.

We have a costco card and bulk buy lots of things. I buy huge portions of mince and portion down to 400g/whatever size you use. It’s not much cheaper, but for £15ish you can have 1 or 2 portions of mince per week for a month.

Local greengrocer/butcher/fishmonger might throw in a few extras if you buy ahead.

To be honest, in spite of the helpful suggestions given by PPs, I think £200 for that number of people is going to be tricky.

Pasta/rice and potatoes are fairly cheap and if you make a big batch of something you might be able to eat cold for lunches it might help.

Biryani is flavourful and can be eaten cold next day. Veg biriyani would stretch furthest.

Egg/veg/chicken fried rice

Pasta bakes.

Porridge oats- breakfasts, flapjacks and bulking out other stuff. Value ones do the same job as the more expensive ones.

Good Luck OP

It depends on how you shop, what you eat and where you shop, along with what you’re eating

Swapping I popped popcorn for crisps in pack lunches
Giving teenagers tasty homemade soup before each meal - fills them up
Making many vegetarian meals & only eating small amounts of meat - halve your meat at each sitting by increasing vegetables
Buying in bulk in shops that are cheaper & reducing trips to supermarket for “top” ups mid week
Keeping milk and bread in freezer, along with pitta bread & frozen vegetables

Re: the cats - cheapest dry cat biscuits - they’re basically the same, dry food much cheaper and better for their teeth.
Second what others have said re/ Jack Munro cookbook, it’s ace!
Bulk buy the pasta, rice etc if you can/ a luxury if you have a car to transport heavy stuff. Go to places like B&M for tinned stuff as can be cheaper sometimes.
Homemade pizzas when the teens are there. Massive amounts of dough very cheap, tomato base again cheap and nice and everyone’s fave toppings as you don’t need much of a topping on good pizza!

I'm going to be honest I think it will be very hard. I think if with your last wage you could bulk buy the cat food and washing powder, toilet roll ECT them at least the 200 could all be on food it would be a little easier. I think it will need to be all frozen veg but you can get big bags of lots of things for under £1 so you could get say broccoli, green beans and carrots big bags this would last for all evening meals for the week. Fruit probably needs to be one piece a day basic like bananas ECT at the moment nectarines seem to be on for 49p in a few places and are pretty similar to apples but lots cheaper agree go BlackBerry picking and get lots and freeze you can use these to make pancakes , pies, crumbles add to porridge ECT I would also get plenty of flour , with eggs and milk then you can make pancakes , Yorkshire puddings ECT. Oats are good for flapjacks make in bulk and they keep well and will last. I think you will have to go veggie at least half the week lots of pasta, i would buy own brand tuna/ mackerel tinned as these can be mixed into dishes. Veg and lentil curries or soups, omlettes, jacket potatoes , lots of value baked beans , when you get meat get the cheaper cuts I also think look at your local butchers do any of them do big value packs? special offers e.g. get settings for certain price. If you can get a ham or gammon joint and cook I always find it lasts well as can add to pasta, fritata ECT. For breakfast probably porridge maybe with the frozen berries you collect at weekends you could do pancakes just to mix it up a bit
For lunches I think you need to just do very basic beans on toast. I also agree with trying to get apples ect if you know anyone with Apple trees or Google Apple picking events in your area as some commu ity areas do this. Lastly I would look at things like leaflet distribution as you could maybe do with toddler in the buggy out for walk ect ( no idea how much this makes but might be worth it very short term) could also look at taking in ironing , babysitting , ECT I'm hesitant to say this idea but I have done it when very skint there are certain sections on eBay where people buy very well worn items ( you aren't strictly meant to do it ) you could look and see what you think totally get why people wouldn't want to do this though. Good luck with everything and hope it's only short term

You could Register with the electoral services office at tryout local council. They will need lots of people to work at polling stations and count votes if there is a general election.

Well you’ve obviously got no choice so I’m sure you’ll be able to manage. It won’t be easy though.

make things that are filling like porridge, soups with a handful of lentils or pulses in, home made cakes using the cheaper flour and spread,
Buy baguettes when they’re reduced and freeze them in slices to bulk up meals for the teenagers.
Ask butchers for cheap cuts of meat or even bones to make stews and stocks.
If you like Indian food, there’s tonnes of really cheap recipes.
The rice, lentils, pulses and pita bread are cheaper in an Asian supermarket or the world food section of other supermarkets.

If I’m having a cheap week, my meals for the week would be along the lines of
Dahl and rice,
chickpea, spinach and potato curry with rice or chappatis,
spaghetti bolognese using a small amount of mince and lots of grated veg like courgette and carrot,
veggie pasta,
chopped chicken thigh and veg stew or curry
chilli with kidney beans, veg and small amount of mince.
Any veg curry with rice

Make cakes, pancakes and crumbles for desserts using very basic ingredients and picking blackberries and apples. You can freeze blackberries and cooked apples.

get a job? I'd rather work than living like this. you clearly cannot afford being a Sahm.