£350 till end of the month. family of 4 + dog

[AnxietyLevelMax]

How do we survive? Needs to include formula for the baby. Other ds is almost 5 yrs old. Fuel to be included. We are sorted for this week and have few lunches in the freezer for the next week, but otherwise have to manage within the budget and just dont know how! Each grocery shopping is about £200 for a week with careful planning, we just cant afford it

If he's eating for two and they're on a strict budget, he'll have to get over it for a few weeks. Eat lots of pasta, lentils etc., but feeding 3 adults will not be helping their budget position.

Gusto is definitely not a cheap way to eat!

For a week it's not bad with an introductory deal. We find the two person gives one leftover portion, and we aren't tiny eaters... we also keep the recipe cards for inspiration for the future, I have a folder of them.

@AnxietyLevelMax go on and follow family freedom and weary wolf on YouTube I’ve just came across them .They are the best at budgeting for a family and decent meals .
Goodluck

What does your dh eat? He may be large and need bigger portions but the fact is you can't afford it so something needs to change. Less meat - get protein from eggs, bags of frozen veg are cheap make soups, omelette, fritatta etc. Use beans and lentils to bulk out meat meals, batch cook if you buy the biggest packs of mince or chicken etc then portion them out it usually works out cheaper.
How old is baby? I found the most i ever used was a tin a week so surprised to hear they only last 5 days now. Is baby weaning could you reduce the quantity and size of bottles?

I commented similar.
Amazes me when people complain about food prices in this country. You just don’t know how to cook. You don’t need to live on beans and rice, you can eat meat and veg. The problem here is you have no clue how to shop and cook food.

Apologies if its already been said i only got through about half of the responses- but have you utilised all the online shopping offers available to you? This can save you the fuel getting to the shop and savings are often quite a bit above the £2 you might spend for delivery

E.g. 25% off your first shop on ocado (spend £60)
Sainsburys- £18 off your first shop (spend £60)
Iceland- £5 off first shop (spend £40)

They may not be as cheap as aldi but you can use the money off on the offers, frozen veg and basic items, they tend to be the same sort of price everywhere.

Are you due a child benefit payment? If you claim. Healthy vouchers, food bank? Do you have Bread and Butter thing? In your local area, excellent value.

£200 a week shopping is a lot!

We are a family of four, and we spend usually £120-130 a week. My husband is a big guy too! but he doesn't need an extra 70 quid spent on him.

I am so past these women trying to solve men's problems

Seriously who gives a shit if he can't manage his own diet

He can't eat tomatoes??! That's not an excuse FFS

Too good to go can be useful - if you get one from Greggs you get loads of pastries and you can freeze them for lunches. Yes, you need to be careful you don’t just end up with doughnuts but worth trying.

Also see any local community fridges / similar. We have one in a community c eggs which gives away bakery goods every Wednesday.

Hi Op,
Hello Fresh have 50% off your first box, you can cancel after the first box and 3 people 5 times a week would work out at £2 per portion.
It’s not cost effective long term but might help this month. If you have any friends who use it they can send you your first box free.
Aldi chicken wings and thighs are good value.
Buying bigger portions of meat is better value, bulk things out with carrots, lentils, beans.
Giant 10kg bags of rice are much better value. What are your staple meals?

Last week I fed my family for 4 days with ifor £37, I did the 4 portions for 4 recipes with a discount as a returning customer. (I had stopped so they offered a big discount or restart)

I mistakenly said above that the discounts they offer cover the optional extras, it doesn’t, so I paid and an extra £13 for two soups and some dough balls and spring rolls so I fed lunch for one day too the whole family (but that’s optional).

The rest of the 3 days of the week it was things we already had like sausages and mash and pasta and we needed only a small top up shop (bread milk some fruit and veg and eggs). So definitely less than £100 in that week.

I don’t do the boxes when my discounts are over. Then they try to allure me back in offering great discounts again, I use them and stop again etc etc.
It also makes it a bit less miserable and fun to try new things.

Yes - definitely look at the ‘too good to go’ app : saved me a lot when I needed help.

Also rather than extra meat give DH and egg or two on the side. for protein MORE BEANS. make some falafels

As someone else mentioned re the Gousto box, exactly, it can work out cheap with the discounts they offer and I have the same folder for the recipe cards, I recreate some of the recipes with ingredients from Aldi/lidl.

Family of four here with a dog and 3 cats. I don’t spend anywhere near £200/week.

Watch Jamie's series " meals on a budget." I found this a breath of fresh air for a treat meal or two. You have to cook more but the portions are incredibly cheap. You can freeze. I've watched the series about three times, slowly slowly, his ideas sink in to my cooking methods and my money goes further. I can't remember whether it's on channel four or iPlayer but I'm sure you'll find it. Great series. Saves so much money. If you do decide to try permaculture for your salads give me a shout I can send you some seeds so that won't cost you. Just keep going. No one can see your challenges and it's none of their business any way. Smile every day and let the sun settle on your face.

What exactly does your husband eat? Are UPF foods pushing up your food budget? Any man who is huge and "eats for two" doesn't seem like the type to happily eat double portions of chickpea burgers or plain porridge with water. Willing to bet there's almost certainly going to be UPFs, takeaways, junk food or alcohol involved somewhere. All entirely optional items that can be slashed from the budget.

You say you meal plan? I think sharing what you normally buy in a week would help people to see where you could make savings.

We meal plan and spend £80-£100 a week for two adults. I don't eat a huge amount but my partner does and, as its only two of us, we dont feel we economise on anything. If we want it, we have it and eat well.

The bill rises slightly when my daughter is home from university so that's £100-£110 a week for 3 adults and no economising. I just don't see how two adults (even if one is larger and eats more), a 5 year old and a baby is costing £200pw to feed if you're eating cheese on toast and economising heavily already.

What sort of food are you buying?

Can't eat tomatoes or doesnt want to?

Oh and for cleaning, I buy 5l of white vinegar from Amazon for around £5. That lasts forever!

You don't need expensive cleaning products.

Hey, not sure your location, but I've provided the link for Suffolk... basically there are these shops (not foodbanks) where you can go, fill up a trolley and pay a super low amount, like 3 or 5 quid. Mostly donations from supermarkets and shops, food nearing end of shelf life so prices are insanely low. Maybe you can search and find something in your area:

www.stillgoodfood.org/

Why can't your DH eat a red sauce? I see he doesn't/can't/won't eat tomatoes, but why is the colour red an issue with sauce? A red sauce doesn't always have tomatoes in it.

200 a week on food is tons, I have a family of 4 plus 1 pet and we spend half that at the supermarket each week! And we eat really well, nice treats in there etc.
Can you look for some meal plans/budgets online as it sounds like this is something you struggle with if you spend £200 a week on food