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.

Sorry, btw, i read that as 200 per week! Per month isn't so bad!

Another one saying you can’t afford a car. As well as food and litter presumably you are also paying insurance or putting money aside for vet bills?

I’d also stop pop and cordial in favour of more/better food. You are missing meals FFS

Cat not car

I’d buy
potatoes
Rice
Pasta
Couple of sliced loafs (buy as required or freeze)
Pita bread
Eggs
Milk
Chickpeas
Kidney beans
Baked beans
Lentils
Cheese
Tuna
Tinned tomatoes
Peppers
Onions
Carrots
Mushrooms
Frozen peas
Frozen sweetcorn
Cauli
Broccoli
Mushrooms
Apples
Bananas
Frozen chicken breast pieces (thighs would be cheaper but I don’t eat them)
Bacon
Veggie sausages
Flour and yeast
Porridge

I’d eat mainly veggie
Veggie chilli
Various veggie curries and dhal
Jacket potatoes with toppings
Pasta arabiata
Mediterranean pasta bake
Home made tuna fish cakes
Frittata
Home made bean burgers
(Veggie) sausages mash and veg
Root veg casserole

Veg on the side if needed

Occasional chicken and bacon.

Porridge or ‘on toast’ for beast
Make soups or sandwiches for lunch

Homemade fairy cakes, flapjacks, fruit and veg for snacks.
Not wildly exciting but not horrific.

@Tryingtogetahead what’s your budget? What number do you have in mind?
I shop at lids or aldi and spend somewhere between 55-65 a week for a family of 4
I meal plan, portion plan and cook 99% of meals from scratch.

For the cat Harringtons is a complete good quality dry food. It's £3.50 for a 2kg bag from Sainsburys. Our vet recommended it and so did the rescue we got the cat from.

Just re read op - if your cat doesn't exist that's even cheaper! Sorry read the replies and assumed I'd missed the cat!

Go shopping in the evening when the supermarkets reduce items. We go almost every evening and get items for less than 50p. Tonight DH is cooking an enormous stir fry that will feed four of us for 2 days. The cost us under £2.00 with the most expensive item being the reduced price tofu at 88p. Bargain shopping is my hobby!

200 is my budget but also needs to include the cat and household stuff, but leaves no saving for emergencies which is why I want to reduce it.

I could reduce what I spend on the cat by putting her on dry food only. I already pay 13 a month for a pet plan which gets her wormed and flea treatment plus checks ups and vaccinations.

We've had her since she was a tiny kitten and she is now 7 so there is no chance I could rehome her. It would be like rehoming one of the kids.

Some meat free days sounds like a good idea. And one child won't eat porridge. So he has basic cereal.

Meal plan. It makes a huge difference. Freeze any leftovers that you aren't having for lunch/next day and you'll have a free night one week.

Freeze little scraps of bacon, ham and use up veg etc and use ti flavour omelette or frittata.

Have a jacket potato and leftover night. Buy a tub of sour cream to jazz it up.

Get used to less meat. Veg curry, soss andmash with veg.

To reduce meat spend bulk out dishes with beans there are loads of different tinned varieties. Also frozen chopped root veg or pulses. Frozen veg is cheaper and less wasteful.....

And buy and cook joints of meat if you buy them. So a cooked ham will do loads of meals for the price of a couple of packets of good sliced ham. A chicken will feed you all for a dinner and two lunches.

Make stock and soup.

I wouldn’t re-home the cat. You can feed them very cheaply on butchers choice, use smart price litter etc.

I would use porridge for breakfasts. I’d skip the smoothies, oats are full of antioxidants too but very cheap.

Smart price everything else, no squash or crisps because it’s empty calories. Try bulking out meals with red lentils, tinned pulses for protein.

Money saving expert has lots of meal ideas.

Minestrone soup is cheap as chips, MEGA healthy and really filling. I chuck a couple of handfuls of red lentils in to boost the protein content.

Chicken thighs instead of breast. Buy them with the bone in, save the bones in the freezer for bone broth and it's cheaper.

Eggs for frittata, scrambled, omelette, boiled, egg fried rice.

Deli counter, you can buy off cuts of some hams really cheaply. They're chunky and misshapen, great for sandwiches, omelette, ham and egg, jacket potato filling.

Tinned tuna, pasta bake, jacket spud filling, salad.

If you can, buy your well used basics as large as you can. Works out cheaper.

Frozen fruit and veg.

Catfood tins, not pouches. If you're on housing benefit or council tax benefit, register the cat with the PDSA.

Meal plan! Saves time and money.

I hope all the ideas help you. It's rubbish stressing about money and how to feed your family

Regarding the cat, cat pouches are expensive, tinned food is cheaper, reduced price meat is cheaper still, and mice are free! Why are you buying cat litter? Surely the cat can use the garden! But if you do need a litter tray, then a couple of sheets of newspaper on the bottom with shredded newspaper on top will work.

Apart from the obvious peas, lentils, barley is there anything else to bulk out meals, my dh and dc gag on them.

My budget is 200 per month but I can do it on 120. 30pw or 50pw.
Similar to list above.
Don't buy jars of sauce. Passata makes tomato based sauce at 30p a meal. Large jar makes 3 meals.
Flour, marg and milk makes creamy/ white / carbonara sauce.

Meals:
Sausage and mash and veg
Pizzas - frozen is cheaper than homemade imo.
Spaghetti bol. Passata onion garlic mince carrots mushrooms. Pasta. Cheeseach
Penned carbonara with white sauce cheese and ham. Broccoli.
Roast chicken 3 veg roast potatoes stuffing
Chicken and (new) roasted veg pasta on Monday.
Fish fingers and chips and veg.

Alternatives:
Bacon and veg pasta
Chicken breasts boiled pots and veg
Meatballs and sauce and pasta

Recently baking at home too. Most sweet products are only mixture of flour eggs sugar and marg. We eat like kings!

Lots of fruit too.

@Tryingtogetahead, there's a book by Kath Kelly called 'Square Meals for Tough Times' (www.<a class="break-all" href="https://amazon.co.uk/Square-Meals-Tough-Times-Kelly-ebook/dp/B00BBF206K).?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-am-i-being-unreasonable-3830130-Need-to-reduce-my-food-bill" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">amazon.co.uk/Square-Meals-Tough-Times-Kelly-ebook/dp/B00BBF206K). It has full shopping lists in it depending on if your cooking for 2, 3 or 4 people, so you buy just what you need and can feed you all for £1, £2, or £3 a day (depending on how flush you are!) while still meeting daily guidelines for protein portions and your 5 fruit/veg a day etc. Good luck!

£100 for all of you.

The cat is extra. I used to have a very small dog and I felt sorry for her having boring dry food all the time, but every time she went to the vet he knew whether I had given her treats! And I'd get a telling off. I think he took personal interest in the wellbeing of ddog. So don't be put off by dry food. Not sure if dogs and cats are the same...?

There are quite a few cheap, filling meals that are not too unhealthy. If its only for one month don't worry too much about meeting all standards of nutrition. I would go for something like this:

Breakfast - Porridge, egg on toast or other cereal (although porridge is most filling)

Lunch - Possibly school lunch for the children? If not make vegetable soup for weekends. Weekdays stick to sandwiches or see if there are any reduced bread products in the supermarket.

Dinner - Jacket potato with beans/cheese/tuna
Omelette with meat/veg/cheese (could use up any leftovers in this and add potatoes to it to make more filling)
Pasta bake
Chicken thighs and rice
Frozen sausages, mash and frozen veg
Roast chicken dinner (with leftovers for pasta bake, sandwiches or in an omelette)
Mince based dishes - Bolognese, keema, chilli or cottage pie (bulked our with lentils or oats if possible). If portions are tight add basics garlic bread to fill up.
Joint of gammon - Roast dinner, gammon, egg and chips, leftovers to go in pasta with a tub of cream cheese and some peas
Any reduced meat you can find

Add some value biscuits, frozen fruit and if you have ingredients already you can whip up some pancakes for very little money.

Veg curries, soups and stews with meat or fish as an extra.

Chickpeas, butternut squash and frozen green beans with couscous.

Lentil Dahl and Saag Aloo (potatoes and spinach - frozen or tinned spinach)

Fajitas with lots of veg can make a small amount of chicken go a long way.

Agree with meal planning, I like a lot of cheap garnishes which help variety (eg Mexican pickled onions, fried onions, baked yellow peas etc anything that adds texture). But our standbys when we're on budget are Dal with flat bread, sausage & lentil stew (one pack of sausages give 8 portions), egg fried rice and a potato & lentil salad.

Make soup with lentils onions carrots potatoes etc and freeze some. Super cheap and healthy.

On a tight budget too so shamelessly place marking for ideas. iPad app won't let me watch a thread for some reason