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.

Can you get to an Aldi or Lidl? Your money will go much further there compared with Morrisons, Sainsburys or Tesco.

But £350 really should be sufficient for one adult and a toddler for 3 weeks or so.

Have you reviewed your whole budget? If there's a few cuts you can make, you might be able to free up a bit of spare money so you can put together an emergency fund so you don't need to stress if the washing machine breaks or when DD needs a new winter coat etc (but look on eBay/Vinted for this).

Have a look at:

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

That's plenty. More than I live off.

Have you got a community pantry nearby? They're a godsend. Also the Too Good To Go and Olio apps.

I spend around £120 pw for 5, all over 18! I shop in Aldi mainly and buy very little branded or convenience foods. Branded items are so expensive & not much difference from supermarket own brands!

I spend less than that for two adults but have to be more disciplined than I would like food wise. You have to make sure you use everything you buy and don't end up throwing food away. Baked potato night once a week helps. Do you have a freezer? Freeze any left overs for extra meals when needed. Wash up, don't use the dishwasher. Bottle of washing up liquid is 68p.

That's easily doable it's £100 a week. That's the equivalent of 2 adults and 2 teens spending £400 a week near enough!

For 1 adult and 1 toddler? You really are spending way more than necessary. Do you meal plan?

Shop in Aldi/lidl.
Meal plan
Batch cook
Try to cook from scratch rather than convenience foods.

I spend around £110 a week for 4 adults, 3 meals a day and household stuff.

what kind of meals are you currently eating?

August makes it worse. People always say Christmas is expensive but I find August pricey, either paying for childcare or being off work and wanting to make the most of it. In December I'm happy to sit in the house and watch a film but in August I want to be going on adventures!
She's 4 so prime age for a weekly trip to the library. Does she have a bike so you can get out and about together?
Definately do a mix of meal planning from what you have in the cupboards already and whatever you can pick up that is in season / cheap. Managing on that budget is totally doable, the art is in making it fun. Also hitting that line between optimal nutrition and what your 4 year old will eat.

I watch a TV program ages ago and I can't remember what product it was, maybe crisps? And the factory made the crisps and they got separated at the end of the conveyer, one to be packaged in branded packaging and one to be packaged in own brand! I'm sure there are some differences in most items but I think a lot of the extra money you spend is for nice packaging and advertising rather than the product!

Where do you shop OP? There were lots of supermarkets doing a meal plan for 4 last summer on the value of the free school meals vouchers so I'm sure we can dig some up for you.

Are you able to share what a sample shop (items and prices) looks like?
I agree with others, if you are just buying food and household items then it's very doable.

Personally, I think that's plenty. I'd be happy with that amount left to live on. Not as a long term thing as I understand you can't do much fun things with that but yes you can live

Can you post what you bought for £70 for three days? Then posters can suggest swaps and recipes. What cooking equipment do you have?

The way I do food is as follows:

1. Breakfasts - are you eating these at home? What do you like? Cheaper things are a big bag of porridge oats which could be had with jam or some frozen berries and can also be made into overnight oats (rather than instant oats), plus milk. Yoghurt also very viable as a breakfast base for this - a 500g pot of greek style yoghurt is 1.10 and would do 3 days for you and a 2 year old, so maybe £2.50 for 7 days plus some fruit etc would be maybe a fiver and that's quite a nice breakfast.

1. Then thinking about lunches - again are you in or out for lunch, what do you like? If you want things like chicken then I'd recommend buying chicken breast and cooking at the weekend.

1. Dinners - this is often the main expense. So I plan this by thinking of foods and then using the leftovers ingredients in the next day's food. So for example I might do a butternut squash risotto with bacon, which you could make for 3 to do you and your little one for 2 nights. Then use the rest of the butternut squash to make a feta, butternut squash and other veggies salad. Then the leftover feta would go into a dish with roast chicken thighs and potatoes and roasted red onions. All those things would do 2 nights each so cooking 3 nights a week. Then the 7th night personally, I'm usually out or at a friend's or whatever but you could either make something else or commit to an easy tea like cheese on toast or jacket potatoes.

1. Drinks - you can cut to tea/coffee, water, milk and maybe some squash. Cut anything else out if you're struggling to manage on the money you have.

1. Other stuff - don't buy branded washing liquids etc, own brand is fine, and you don't need enormous amounts or anything - I get through about £15 of washing liquids a year and I hear of people spending this per week! I don't know what else you buy but you really don't need scent boosters etc. Some for most cleaning things: washing up liquid and bleach will cover almost all needs, could add a surface spray in if you want.

Does that help? You might want to look through your receipts and work out what you have spent on what?

Another thing is that while technically ordering online might be more expensive (because you don't get yellow sticker bargains etc) if you aren't good at meal planning on the fly I think they're often cheaper. This is because you can plan exactly what you're buying and make sure you know how you're going to use it all.

I divide what I have after bills by the number of weeks until payday, then I have a budget for each week, I recalculate each Friday so if I haven’t spent the budget I have a little more wriggle room the next week.
I currently have £688 until payday which is 3 weeks away. So £229 a week - we have a take away each week so that’s about £70 and I usually spend £110 on food shopping (4 of us 2 adults -2 kids but ones 18 so should I say 3 adults 1 kid) so next week there will be wriggle room and we can have a day at the zoo.
(for anyone worrying about our take away habit on what seems a low amount, I have standing orders for our savings and the children’s savings as part of what I consider essential bills)

You do not need to use dish washer for just yourself and 2 yr old. So no dish washer tablets and less electric cost too

Shop at Aldi or Lidl, have a meal plan (I have a monthly rota), only buy what is on your list, check prices don't just shove things in your trolley without comparing, you do have to be firm and not be tempted but you should have enough for some treats. I do two big shops a month for under £200 all in then a couple of top up shops for milk, fruit, bread say £7 a time - two adults.

@inthislight

It really is simply for one adult and one toddler, even if you bought hello fresh/gousto boxes you could do it. I pay £43 a week for 4 meals, then pesto pasta £2, chicken tray bake £5 (both with leftovers for lunch) 6 loaves bread (2 per week which is lots for 2 people) box or two cereal, milk, cheese, baking potatoes, beans, a cheat meal perhaps (instead of takeaway) like supermarket pizza £5. That's 7 meals, 4 high quality. I have coupons I'll post on the promo links. I also have a free hello fresh box available if anyone wants it

Bloody hell just RTFT, what on Earth are you spending £70 on.

For four days our typical meals for a family of four might be:

Breakfast - £11 for four days. Crumpets (£1 for a pack of 9, even two each per day would mean £2 total) with some fruit and yoghurt (kilo of yoghurt is a couple of quid again max, even if you get berries as fruit you could make £4 worth last for two day between you)

Snacks - £18 for four days. rice cakes and cream cheese, carrot sticks, fruit, hummus, pittas, cheap supermarket crisps, my son likes those cracker dips with cheese etc.

Lunch - £13 approx for four days including beans or eggs or cheese on toast with side salad.

Dinner - £18 - jacket potatoes with Tuna or beans (£3), veggie burgers with sweet potatoes and corn on cob (£5), chilli with microwave rice (£5), spaghetti bolognese (£5)

= around £60

And this isn’t even trying to save money and for a family of four! If we did cereal and cut back on snacks etc would be less.

Have you tried Hello Fresh or Gousto? They may seem expensive but sometimes it works out cheaper per portion if you get their offers, and saves the outlay on different ingredients!

Meal planning is key. Eat veggie where you can (beans and lentils are fab for bulking up meals like bolognese). And don’t be afraid of the odd freezer meal!

im going yellow label, or supermarket budget range @munnyya

It's approximately £100 a week for an adult and a 2 year old, that's loads, if it's literally just for food and the odd household essential!
I'm always confused when people say 'Oh I have to buy toothpaste etc.'
How often does one adult living alone need to buy toothpaste or shampoo? They aren't the sort of things you need to get every week - I used to buy them maybe three-four times a year when I lived alone, and if you're on a budget you just get the 70p aldi stuff rather than the £6 brand surely?

Sounds sensible

Also make the most of kids free meals offers at the mo! I got both mine a free meal at Tesco today, pasta with garlic bread and veggie side, plus I had coffee and a full meal, for under £10! Technically means only a sandwich or something for tea but mine are gannets are just ate two hot meals.

@mitogoshi, it's great that people are giving the OP ideas and reassuring her that it is doable. But I worry that the tone of some of these responses might not be making her feel great. She's being open that it is something she struggles with and everyone is saying 'oh its sooooo easy'. And maybe it is easy if you're used to meal planning, batch cooking etc. But OP has mentioned shopping for 3-4 days so she probably (like many people) hasn't always had to be so careful and has had more flexibility in what she eats - picking up food on the way home, thinking 'what do I fancy for dinner' etc. Changing the way you cook and eat is likely to be challenging for most people.

Dishwasher tablets are really cheap in Aldi or Lidl. I assume other supermarkets have own brand versions too. I'm in Ireland and I rarely go to Tesco but I used to get own brand options there when I did go.

When DS was small he loved French toast and pancakes, good ways of getting eggs into kids, cheap and easy to make and quick to cook.