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.

Not doable because of the teens sorry

Your diet will be very restricted and include an awful lot of pasta and finned tomatoes as it is but with four growing kids to provide six meals for each week also?

You know the drill- bulk buy carbs in eg Asian shops for rice, Aldi for pasta; search end of day reductions for meat and veg, freezer and tinned versions of what you can from Poundland and Iceland; no take outs or cafe food; no snacking, squash or pop and no treats at all just basic meals

I think it’s pretty rough on growing teens tbh to restrict food quite that much- can you access food bank near you?

I’d be seriously looking at any way at all to bring in income to use for food eg can you work an overnight or late shift at supermarket or do some envelope stuffing at home etc? I know those jobs don’t grow on trees but absolutely anything will make a difference.

Can any relatives help at all even with the odd casserole or baking you a cake?

Good luck.

and sack off any cleaning products except basic washing powder.
Use a fabric ball instead of conditioner

Will the teens bring toiletteries from where they love the rest of the week? Even providing shampoo will be tricky with your budget

I think it will be hard but possible. I'd look for some of those website that give cheap recipes (Jack Monroe?) and start testing recipes now. Spend some time looking at your cheapest shopping options near you, you may have to use more than one shop.

Can you increase your income? I'd take myself over the MSE website and look at the boards over there, if you put up your budget advice will be given. Take the advice you can live with. There are some great tips on earning money from selling, surveys etc, they are time consuming but work.

We shop in Aldi and we spend around £40 a week. However only two of us and we do nip to the shop for odd fresh bits and have a meal out a week too. It will be very tight with the teens. But there is some good advice about meal planning sites. Take it nothing else to cut back on?

that's extremely tight, we spend £300 to £320 for 2 adults and 3dc, we are vegetarian and meal plan.

Honestly no I really don't think it would be possible for you all to eat varied and nutritious meals on that amount of money for that amount of people. As PP says I'd be looking for work.

Your h has an obligation to feed his kids well. You cannot afford to stay at home or he needs to work more. FOUR kids EOW, teens, and £200/month? Nope unless it's miserable and no Xmas. He has an obligation to the kids he chose to bring into this world.

This is a very useful website cheap-family-recipes.org/index.html?opt=rcost

Become one of those people who knows when their local supermarket puts out the reduced stuff, usually in the evening or late afternoon on a Sunday.

Olio is an app where people give away food they aren't going to use.

Agree with topping up your income: mystery shopping, try Googling focus groups near you. If you do enough online surveys you can get Amazon vouchers and get groceries from there.

I’d really struggle to do that. Four teens - someone was prolific! Are they all at home still?

I think if you can stockpile now, buy cheap bulk, forego any luxuries at all, look carefully at thing like toiletries and household items you can get close but it’s a big ask.

Vegetarian is probably the way to go and planning. Make enough macaroni cheese for supper and next days lunch. Don’t throw anything away - use vegetable scraps and the rare chicken carcass for soups for lunches.
Baked potatoes with tinned corn, carrot and chickpea curry, tomato tart with homemade pastry, egg and chips, beans on toast etc. You probably need to go back to a wartime rationing diet.
Start growing veg as well.

Incredibly tight and it will be utterly joyless, there is no chance of properly meeting nutritional requirements on that budget. The cat will end up being the best fed.

Any hopes of meat are misguided IMO along with any suggestions of whole chickens. On that budget for that amount of people, you are looking at pasta/ lots of lentils in tomato sauce, baked potato, stuff on bread. Mainly carbs so people don’t go too hungry and try as much plant based protein as possible. I can’t see how you could afford much fresh fruit as snacks, you would be looking at cheap biscuits etc. Even boxes of cereal for 4 teens can be expensive! As pp have mentioned, Jack Monroe recipes are a good source of inspiration.

If you have to do it for six months until you get more money, nobody is going to starve. Will require a lot of meal planning and batch cooking repetitive and boring foods. You no doubt already know this though!

I have a family of 4, with 3 of them massively active.

I would not be able to feed my family on that. I spend that a week.

However that’s for all meals and all meals homemade.

I got brought 6 4 pints of milk a week and 6 1 litre pints of goats milk a week.

We are on a tight budget. To keep costs down we buy the 15kg sacks of breeder cat dry from Amazon for £18. It lasts well over a month. And we buy chicken and eggs from the local agriculture uni . I do feel for you. Unless you've been in this situation I don't think anyone can appreciate just how hard it is.

That's not doable at all. The cats are also digging into the money that would've gone on food for the teens. Oh dear.

I was in a similar position, we are a family of six. I got a second hand freezer for the garage and a slow cooker. I batch cooked, or cooked double whenever I could and built up a good supply of frozen family meals.

Iceland, Aldi, Lidl, B and M, they are all great. You just have to be incredibly savvy with prices to make it work. My brain was like an encyclopedia of prices.

I found that a large beef mince could be stretched a lot further by adding two cans of ratatouille and two cans if of tomatoes. That would be enough for four large lasagnes or two lots of bolognese and two lasagnes.

I still have to budget and meal plan now, even though I am now back at work. It's a way of life now really.

X

It will be tight but all you can do is try. Can you bake? We didn’t have much money growing up & my mum used to have a baking day once or twice a month, baking lots of different cakes & some savoury things like pasties etc for our packed lunches. Meal planning will be your best friend & pop over to moneysavingexpert forums, there’s a section called OldStyleSaving (or something like that) and they have some great ideas.

TBH I think its a bit tight maybe OK but with the teenagers on top !.Lots of crusty bread!.Can you cut down elsewhere do you think?.Maybe ask for a small overdraft to tide you over or interest free CC?.

I feed myself 3 children one is a teenager and 2 cats on that. I wouldn't choose to though as its joyless, boring and probably not the most healthy some of the time. Ours also has to cover cleaning and washing stuff too.

I think it is not enough. You may not provide enough protein on that amount but you can certainly fill them with vegetables and carbs. Far from ideal for growing children but doable.

In average having 4 teens every other weekend equates to having 4 adults in the house everyday.

Actually, every budget is doable... some people survive on spaghetti hoops tins and beans on toast only when there is no money for more.

Do the weekly shop after the teens have stayed not before - they can't eat up stuff if it's not there.

I'd be worried about unexpected bills - vet, plumbing disaster, even prescription charges if someone gets ill assuming you aren't eligible for exemption, etc. Are higher electricity bills in the winter accounted for?

Does everyone wash their hair daily? You can cut down on that.

Christmas presents - charity or pound shop. Don't wrap them in proper Christmas paper, use shopping bags (temporary, then restore to their normal use). Don't send cards this year. No tree or lights, just use what decoration you've got.

Good luck, and hope it doesn't last too long.

How likely are the teenagers to continue coming EOW if food is tight?

I'm not saying they shouldn't come or that you should budget around them not being there at all; just that if they aren't likely to enjoy vegetarian/low meat foods and they have an alternative place to be, they may prefer to stay there. It's worth considering if that would cause any problems, so you can give their other parent a heads up.

I suspect you'll do it because you have to, but there will be hunger and it'll be hard, even without cats. Could you pick up any pub work or temp, or would you have no childcare? Can DH do overtime?

It’s thats all you have then it’ll have to work but i think it’s going to be really hard. I’m quite careful with the weekly shop. I buy supermarket own brands for the most part but I’d struggle to get it under £70 and there’s only me, DH and DD(9).

It can be done.
I used to have a menu system and only bought what was on it.
Don`t need it now as my children have grown up and moved on to have children of their own.

@modgepodge
til you mentioned the 4 teenagers every other weekend! Boys or girls?

What difference does that make? my teen dd and her friends had appetites like starved rhinos at the best of times!