To think it’s actually hard to live off this for the rest of the month?!

[munnyya]

I have 350 to last me and dd (2) until 29th of august. This is for food and household essentials like washing tablets, dishwater tablets, shampoo etc only. I think this is incredibly difficult to do? Am I going wrong somewhere? I can’t understand how this is meant to last us until then.

I think the point is that OP’s budget is not actually that small for the number she’s shopping for. She has over £110 a week for the next 3 weeks. She doesn’t need to live of rations and rice. If her concerns are easy fast fuss free food she still has the budget for things like meal boxes to make her life easier. Her budget should be more than enough and yet she’s somehow struggling with it.

You should be ok, just make an exact list of what you will need

That's over £100 per week for shopping, as you have said for food and toiletries (not something that needs buying daily) for just two people... assuming no big bill like rent is left to come out then thats perfectly normal and yes many do live on less.

Does anyone run introductory cooking shopping and meal-planning courses for time and cash strapped new-ish parents? It's the kind of skill set a young single person may not need, and when they do need it, life and all the responsibilities of new parenthood don't make learning 'on the job' easy.

Preferably in a venue where the children could come too.

To be able to shop like this is a bit of a privilege…if you’ve spent money stocking up, when you run out of loo roll you can’t wipe your bum on a handful of rice!

@munnyya I would use YouTube and look up recipes. This is a good way to start to learn to cook. Even if it's simple start like making sauces etc. That's what I did and some recipes from my MIL. But I search up recipes on YouTube and use those. Like a modern day cook book.

Start simple. When you master the basics everything else is easier. Just make sure you follow the instructions and as you get more confident you can tweak things!

Shop at lidl/aldis and make a list.

Or if you shop online stick to your list based on your meal prep.

You can buy cheap takeaway style containers for freezing food. Some supermarkets sell them too.

Just make sure the food is cooled completely before freezing.

I had cookery at school but it was things like making a strawberry milkshake or apple crumble - which are good to know and fun to make, but it would have been way better to learn how to cook actual healthy meals.

So many people (Including myself) struggle with the basics of cooking and it’s the most valuable skill you can ever learn.

There is no need to buy little dish. Start with a large bolognese for yourself, don’t season much. Then add a tin (or home cooked) of green lentils. Separate some of the bolognese into another pan and add paprika, cumin and chilli as well as kidney beans or mixed beans (a chilli for yourself or some for daughter if she’s keen, if not just a taste!). Then add herbs to the bolognese and salt/pepper to the bit for you if you need to. Serve with pasta and rice. The bolognese with lentils is what little dish do!

This recipe would cost around £10-12 i think (obvs spices are an initial outlay!) but would be at least 4 meals.

im terrible for buying little dish, but im very aware they are expensive! I don’t have a good budget but definitely feel like they’re an expensive cop out that I should use sparingly. I also aspire to be a home cooked mam (I cook all our food from scratch but for some reason I’m not confident with kids!) my daughter loves the mince and lentil bolognese.

I also love a lentil and veg lasagne, I make 6 large portions and baby eats about 1/3 of a portion. It’s so cheap and easy!

Relevant if you're on a tiny budget, but the OP isn't.

For the majority, it's an easy way to significantly reduce your spend because a lot of things are much cheaper in larger packs, you can easily save a third or more on each item and you just get into a routine of buying toilet rolls one week, laundry detergent the next, shampoo and conditioner the next etc etc. Also keeping in staples bought in larger packs or when on BOGOF etc. Saves a huge amount compared with buying the same small packs of everything week to week. To me that's a privileged way to shop because it's so much more expensive to do it that way.

That's roughly what I spend during the same time period on groceries/household items for me, adult DS and primary aged DD and I shop at Sainsbury’s! Seems high expenditure if it's just for groceries/household stuff.

DD is only with me 50% of the time I'll add, but even so, it's still less than you're spending.

Go to Iceland - think they have an ongoing offer of three meat products for a tenner, they do bags of frozen vegetables/chips quite cheaply too. Hit the bigger supermarkets at 'yellow sticker' hour for ready meals - they are so expensive when full-price. Buy reduced bread, pancakes etc and freeze them.

Tesco's own-brand washing liquid is a lot cheaper than those tablets - save them for things that are more heavily stained. Buy their own-brand double length toilet roll too. Try the bargain chains for things like teabags and coffee and toiletries. It is a tight budget and a bit of running around different shops, but not that bad if there are only two of you.

Go to the library and get a student cook book. That’s how I started. The one I had has very very clear instructions - as if you’ve never seen a pan or kitchen in your life before. The recipes are cheap and easy and will help you start to learn to cook.

£3 for a child's ready meal is ridiculous. Plus duck breasts are a luxury.

Honestly start with the absolute simplest things:

Baked potatoes with cheese and beans
Beans on toast
Scrambled eggs with cherry tomatoes and toast
Pasta with pesto and cheese

That's how I started learning to cook. Then you can gradually add more complicated things from recipes I found on websites:

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/creamy-chicken-pasta

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/tomato-chickpea-curry

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/super-quick-fish-curry

I keep a bag of frozen onions in, it is a bit more expensive than buying and chopping your own - it's a bit more expensive but way less than convenience foods!

Also agree that school cookery lessons are pretty rubbish. All my son ever seems to make is biscuits! We used to have to bring little bags of ingredients in and make dinners like shepherd's pie and casseroles, but his class has never so much as peeled potatoes.

So many people saying that that's a lot of money. It's not a lot of money - and food prices have gone right up, and quality has got so poor.

OP - try Oddbox for surplus fruit & vegetables for a couple of weeks - you get loads.

When more than usually broke, we eat more porridge, lentils, rice, potatoes. And a fair amount of beans on toast. Boring, and takes more prep, but nutritious.

I missed that it in their post, but mine was more about the op learning how to cook. I know supermarkets have recipes and the add to basket feature, but from what I remember their recipes don't have as detailed methods to them, which Gusto do. For around £40 per week, for two people, op could have all the ingredients they need plus learn a new skill.

Google exists. There is no excuse nowadays to not at least be able to find something. If she's able to post this thread she's able to post one asking for quick and nutritious and EASY meals to make to share with a toddler.

Having said that - duck breasts my arse lol.

Yup. Also @NonsuchCastle it's cheaper to use a dishwasher than it is to wash dishes by hand due to the amount of hot water used (google it).

“never learned to cook as a kid. I genuinely don’t know where to begin”

heaps of online tutorials and recipes. If you’ve time to post on MN you’ve time to learn how to cook.

It is possible to learn to cook.

My mother was a dreadful cook- still is.
I grew up on tinned spam and reconstituted powdered mashed potato.
We did have cookery at school- only the girls though- I remember making fried kidney and meringues.

I bought a copy of the Reader's Digest Cookery year- no internet then- and worked my way through it, taught myself how to joint a chicken, clean mussels, make bread. It had lots of recipes, but also an encyclopedic illustrated chapter of ingredients, types of vegetables, different flours and pulses. It was my kitchen for several years- I bought more books, and travelled, teaching myself how to make tagine, paella, sukiyaki. I learned about nutritional requirements and how to make good food when money is tight.

So to those who were not taught as a child- either y parents or school- don't give up hope.. The internet is such an amazing tool.

Completely agree.

I suggested having a few of the little ones in the cupboard for the child to eat as a back up!

I’m guessing as a young mum, the OP will be anxious of changing her child’s normal food incase the child won’t eat it.

the point is to make it as easy as possible for the OP. They can both try the gousto meals but in an emergency the child can have a little ones meal.

the point of gousto is it is easy and well within the OPs budget and will teach basic cooking skills.

as someone who couldn’t cook until my early 20s, going through recipe cook books is soul destroying and has too many barriers. It is time consuming, you need to buy lots of ingredients OP probably doesn’t have. OP needs an easy solution. And she clearly wants to eat nice food so suggesting jacket potato and beans is so uninspiring!

Wow there are some nasty comments on here! No I don’t consider dishwasher tablets a luxury?! Are people seriously suggesting that? Crazy. It’s a dishwasher tablet, not a new bar of Chanel soap every week.

thank you to those who have made good suggestions and also the links to good cook books. Unfortunately i never learned how to cook so I have no confidence with it especially for dd. Sometimes I will
do avocado and banana on toast or pasta and organix baby brand sauce with it but I don’t have confidence to actually cook
and I don’t think either of these things constitute cooking. It’s easy to laugh at me when you know how, I don’t have a clue about food prep or storage etc