Need to reduce my food bill

[HarleyQuinnRocks]

Posting here for traffic.

I need to feed myself and 2 children.

What's the least amount you could spend in 1 month to feed all and what would you buy?

I'm struggling other than noodles and the really unhealthy basic cheap stuff.

I basically use less meat, eat a lot of veg including frozen and don’t have many snacks. I add lentils to homemade veg and ham soup made from boiled gammon and add a few oats and veg to stuff like bolognaise.

Loads of veg and meal planning is key. If you google you will find loads of examples.

Porridge for breakfast
Home made soups for lunches
Casseroles, cottage pies etc for dinners
How old are the kids?

How old are the children and how many meals a week do you need?
How much are you spending currently?

It's probably easier to tell us what you do buy and we can suggest ways to cut it down.

I think the minimum I could spend is £100 a month.
Cooking from scratch, no pre-prepared meals, sandwiches etc.
Reduce amount of meat you buy. Bulk out meat dishes with cheap and filling items like lentils, pearl barley.
Make in bulk and freeze a few portions - costs more in the first place but saves money in the long run.
Obviously avoid branded items.

Have you seen the programme "eat well for less"? Lots of ideas on there.

The kids are 9 and 11.

I also need lunches for school and for work.

Last payday i batch cooked chilli, spag bol and curry. This helped but I have still ended up running out of money for food and had to use a food bank.

Want us to eat as healthy as possible but for as cheap as possible.

Frozen fruit and veg is much cheaper than fresh, just as healthy and avoid waste.

Lidl do a 'Waste Not' box, often full of fruit and veg for £1.50 if you can get there early on. I make lots of soups. Also use a lot of mince in things like spag bol. Basic spaghetti and rice are cheap and go a long way to bulking food out. Baked potatoes with all sorts of filling.

Lots of veg. Meal plan for the month. Pick 7 evening meals and make one every evening then repeat. If you have storage and space, make a big batch of each meal the first time and then freeze for the rest of the month. This saves on energy costs for cooking.

Eg Monday spag bol (bulk out with veg, I use 500g mince for 10 portions so mainly veg)
Tuesday chilli (bulk out with veg)
Wednesday stew (mainly veg)
Thursday sausage and mash (freeze the mash)
Friday homemade pizza (freeze dough)
Saturday omlette

Sunday baked potatoes

Lunches make soup and send kids with flasks to school.

Breakfast buy oats and make porridge.

What's your budget? Batch cooking is the way to go, but that only works if you have enough to buy the ingredients in bulk to begin with. If possible make two/ three times as much as you need and freeze in portions, if you keep doing this you'll have a stockpile of 'free' meals to use each week.

Pasta bakes - 50p for a bag of pasta, 70p for a jar of sauce then you can add what you like to bulk it out. Mushrooms, peppers, onions, etc and you can pick these up for about 50p, even less if you get the reduced stuff and then you can make too much and take for lunches the next day.

I would buy all veg frozen, things like sprouts and broccoli taste the same as fresh and you can get a big bag of broccoli in places like ASDA for 90p.

Cut down on meat, this is where I find I spend too much and my kids don't really miss it.

Also don't feel bad about eating freezer meals, fish fingers and beans etc.

I'm a low income family OP and I know how hard it is x

What do you currently do for lunches?
Pasta salad can be cheap and healthy, if your kids will eat that.
Apples, pears and bananas are cheap fruits and last longer than soft fruit like strawberries or grapes.
Dont bother with multi packs of things like biscuits and crisps. E.g. its much cheaper to buy a box of jaffa cakes than a bag of 6x packets of mini jaffa cakes.

Also where do you shop? Aldi, lidl and asda are much cheaper than sainsburys, Tesco and waitrose.

I spent 200 pound.
Batch cooked teas and had basic pasta or rice with them.
Breakfasts were cheap cereal with longtime milk bought in bulk. Or fruit smoothies using frozen bags of fruit with milk.

Lunches were tuna and pasta and frozen sweetcorn but a whole month of it means I'm sick of the taste of it.

Snacks I got a big multipack of cheap crisps for the kids, basic pop and cordial.

We also have a cat so had to buy cat pouches, biscuits and cat litter with that.

And that 200 included household so toilet roll, washing powder. Which I buy in bulk for the month and use asda own washing powder.

Things like shampoo, shower gel I use cheapest I can find.

I've even cut out morning coffees and skip some meals to try and reduce the budget.

Less meat.
Lentils/beans for protein
Lentil spag bol costs literally pennies for example
Ditto dahl, chickpea curry’s, shepherds pie with lentils or bulked out with lentils.

Buy meat in the reduced section of your local supermarket.

Bulk things out with lentils, beans, chickpeas,

Aldi do a wonky fruit range. Bag of wonky apples are 50p and you get about 10 in them, they also have 30% off items going out of date that day.

Also to add I bought big bags of frozen veg when I batch cooked and I have quite a lot of that left.

So already have in things like sweetcorn, peas, sweet potato chunks, carrots, etc.

Cheap meals...

Jacket potatoes

Soup with toasted cheese sandwiches

Pasta and sauce

Stir fried veg...any you have...with noodles and soy

Ready made cheap pizza...everyone gets a slice and serve with homemade potato wedges and salad

Ham, egg and chips

Carbonara

Macaroni cheese

How much do you spend on the cat each month? It wont be a popular opinion but maybe you cant afford to keep him?

It sounds like you're doing very cheap breakfast and lunches. Do you have meat for evening meal every night - as others have said it is much cheaper to do veggie or only buy meat if its reduced.

Cut out the crisps and make popcorn yourself, super easy and cheap. Cut the cordial and pop, drink water it’s much better for them. You could always buy a lime and cut it up and freeze in ice cubes to add flavour.
Porridge is cheap and more filling than cereal, you can add cinnamon or cocoa powder to ring the changes.

Visit the supermarket at the end of a day and try grab reduced bargains. Where do you shop.?

The cat needs to go (sorry). If you can't afford to feed yourselves then pets are a luxury you can't afford.

Buy bars of soap, they last longer and clean better.

You sound like you are doing a lot of the right things OP.

Lidl and Aldi are cheaper especially for bulky meat. I would plan meals in twos so a large gammon in Lidl is about £4. I would slow cook this and have it one night as a roast and second night with eggs wedges and peas.

Mince based meals are cheap. Again I would plan two nights. 1k of mince night 1 - spag bol. Night two add spices and kidney beans to make a chilli.

Sunday roast you can get multi pack chicken legs cheaper than a whole chicken.

Sausages and mash or toad in the hole is a very cheap option.

Anything home cooked will be cheaper and healthier.

For snacks you could try soupdragons flapjacks.

I think I could possibly cover food for a month for £120 but it would need really good planning.

Good luck op. Sorry you have had to start this thread. Don't think twice about using foodbanks if you need to. That's what they are there for.

Don’t want to pry but are you on benefits....might you be entitled to free school meals which would help the budget a little.

I don't think the OP has a cat, she just says herself and 2 DC

200 pounds is loads.
Get the cat tins and basic litter.
Make a vat of veggie and lentil soup every few days. Serve as starter with a slice of bread. Then serve less main course.
For a curry for the three of you then use two chicken breasts. I would also aim to have meat twice a week and substitute beans/lentils and chickpeas into recipes. Once a week have oven chips, fried egg and beans.