£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

Sorry but that is plenty when you’ve been down to your last £20 of the month you’ll get it

I manage to do an average food shop for 2 adults, 1 3 year old and 1 dog for around £80 a week. I do it with tesco super saver delivery and I think saves me loads! If I go into the shop I always end up spending alot more! Perhaps worth a try? I hope it works out OK

Try ChatGPT for your meal planning.

I meant £99, which was the £14 OP quoted as the weekly cost. No idea how much it costs, it’s been a long time. Either way, she is still massively overspending on food.

I have £25.28 for a week less than you. No baby bit 2 teen dc and a dog. I’m hoping my petrol will last 😬. Your budget pro rated would be a dream 😆

Im trying to cut our shopping costs down. We have 4 dogs inc 2 giant dogs. I used to buy joints and roast them. Id get through a kilo of meat a day plus veg and brown rice. It was utter madness. Now Ive gone all out to give them nutrients at a lower cost.

I discovered the best frozen veg is morrisons savers - 99p a bag. And the cheapest pasta and rice is from Aldi/Lidl. Tesco matches the cost of brown rice.

I shop when its yellow sticker time and freeze it but only buy what you will eat. Morrisons bread is amazing when its reduced. M&S sausages, skewers etc are a great treat, but only if they're yellow stickered.

Check out cheap household essentials etc on line before you shop so you can see where they're cheapest. Then suss out where its best to shop to reduce car mileage.

Have a look at online discount stores like approvedfood.co.uk and discount dragon - dont buy crappy food, look at what you need - formula, tins/packet foods.

Farm foods is good but only buy what you need. Same with Heron foods.

Its normally a lot cheaper to buy non processed foods, but thats not alwaysthe case. Compare cost per kilo.

I dont know what dogs you have, but they eat most things we do. Check out whether youre making something they can eat and share it with them. Remember, no onions, garlic or tomatoes.

You can buy chicken drummers, legs and thighs for c£2.15/£2.40 a kilo (Tesco, Ocado, aldi, lidl). cut most of the meat off the bones and let your dog have a bone or two to gnaw on. Only offer uncooked bones. Make bone broth, grind the bones up afyer cooking and add it to.the broth. Add loads of veg and some source of protein. Add rice to the broth to thicken it. Your dogs will love it. I add a teaspoon of cheap pate to mine to add more flavour. I give them carrots as treats. Occasionally I give mine toast with a scrapping of pate on it. I sometimes add brown bread to veg, cubed swede and chicken broth.

Download the WeWard app. Get your DH to start using it. He needs to lose weight and he needs to control his greed. He can do that whilst he earns money for being active.

You have a mountain to climb, good luck. We're all supporting you @AnxietyLevelMax

Many of the items on that list you don't need, especially if you are saving.

Do you buy fresh vegetables and peel them yourself? You can save so much money that way. Chicken is very cheap too, and supermarkets have cheaper ranges. You can make vegetable stew with cheaper cuts of meat. Fresh fruit and vegetables are very important, and far better than anything processed. Mashed fresh vegetables are far better for your DS and baby.

I gave my children evaporated milk and made it up as the tin says. Not all evaporated milks are suitable, but you could look at the labels and see if it gives the instructions for baby feeding. You can use that too when baby goes on to cereals.

If you give him foods that take a lot of chewing, rather than soft foods, so that he takes his time, he might be satisfied with less.

You could try looking at some menus with plenty of filler foods for your husband. It isn't always how much you eat, but what you eat.

Have you tried searching the supermarkets online to see what special offers they have? You don't have to shop online, but you can see the prices and what is available, and sometimes cheaper in shop.

I've been saving screenshots of cheap meals and meal plans with shopping lists to help me save money and stretch the food budget a bit further. I've attached a few so hopefully some of them will help or give you some ideas.

Have you seen the price of fruit?!

Agreed, it’s completely out of our budget atm which is a shame for my fruit loving dc but the price along with the fact it goes off v quickly means it’s just not doable. I buy a couple of cucumbers and a bag of carrots to snack on instead. Cheaper and probably healthier too

Don't know if it's been mentioned but have you looked at too good to go app?
Lists shops daily usually supermarkets but not always doing bags of food for 3 to £4'.:bit of a lottery but if you check reviews you can usually see which ones are worthwhile .

Liliwen

I agree. Reducing the amount of food allows the stomach to reduce in size and to need less food.

Drinking water and going for a walk before eating helps to reduce hunger pangs.

I think OPs DH should be sharing the responsibility for drastically lowering the food bill.

OP, hoping you might still be reading… you’ve got this. Try not to despair because we’ve all been there and thankfully the kids never notice.

I would separate out the money for fuel, formula and essentials first.

Next step would be to have a really good look through the freezer and cupboards for anything you can make use of or base a meal around.

Like others have said, check TGTG and local community hubs / fridges. You can get some absolute bargains and it might help you feel less like you are scrimping.

See if you have anything you can add to marketplace / Vinted for a small contingency fund.

And then lastly, you need to compile a list of cheap, bulk items your DH will eat to either stretch dinners or fill him up inbetween as you are essentially cooking multiple dinners each meal and this must be expensive. Can he fill up on a pack of pittas, crumpets, loaf of bread with tin of soup or beans each day? All those options cost less than a £1. And then he can eat a normal to slightly larger portion at mealtime with the rest of you so won’t feel undernourished.

It is possible, is hopefully short term and you can do it. Good luck.

its going to be tight but I bet you can manage. I have £117 to last the rest of the month for me and a child; plus several pets and wildlife rehab animals. We haven’t even paid the mortgage, and I will have to spend £75 on urgent dental treatment. We do have a lot of food in but with other bills to pay we now can’t even get milk. I’m sure we will find something to sell and make ended meet. Sadly, not paying the mortgage was my only way to get food this month, due to a sudden change in circumstances

Sorry you are in this position @PeachShaker

Sending you lots of good luck vibes. Do you have any family that can help you out if you run out of money?

Not really but our aocuak worker can probably get us a food bank voucher. Very different though as the child is one who will go hungry rather than eat cereal from the wrong shop so it’s going to be a bit tricky. Also, child won’t drink long life milk, so most likely we will spend a lot on that. However, at least we got a lot of fruit from the allotment 😀

I live on that for the month and I manage I have 3 kids 2 dogs me and my husband.And what I do is go on olio and see if people are giving away food. Then I do yellow stickers then I do to good to go bags sometimes Aldi do bags and Morrisons with shopping in them try that ,I also have a car which I fill up twice a month. But in Scotland we're I live kids get free bus passes so we get bus most of the time saves on fuel or we walk

Ah the curse of the picky child! Really hope you get a bit of help to keep you going.

He’s autistic too so it’s not exactly his fault :( We will find a way, even if that is by scrumping apples

You can buy cheap fruit. A big bag of clementines is under £1 in Tesco. I actually think more fruit and veg might help OPs husband feel fuller and reduce costs overall.

Take the advice of all these wise and knowing woman on Mumsnet about saving money on food.

l know quite a few families on very modest incomes and budgets much less than yours..And they seem to manage but no longer have a car and a dog. They think they were stuff they could!n't afford.
Now saves them.quite a bit of money.

Use bikes and public transport.

Do you get any help with the childrens lunches at school? And get yourself assesed for DWP benefits.

My husband is 7ft 2 and super sporty and a roast chicken lasts us a month, we sometimes add a massive salad but we are usually just too stuffed! Our monthly grocery bill is £11.36

Is it that your DH “can’t” have tomatoes/pasta sauce because he is deathly allergic to tomatoes? Or some other reason?

And how absolutely ludicrous that he eats FIVE baked potatoes to your one. He’ll be “hungry” if he doesn’t eat that much? Too bad.

Guess what - he won’t starve to death, and he won’t even faint. He’ll just be hungry. A lot of people survive being hungry for a while just fine. He’s eating far too much food for your limited budget all so that he doesn’t feel “hungry”.

I've been in your position with money/budget - the only difference is that I have pets and not DC. Do you know what I did? I went hungry. I didn’t eat more than one meal a day - and a lot of the time that was a packet of ramen - and during the worst times I would sometimes not eat at all. YOU WILL NOT DIE if you don’t eat for one day. My animals were helpless in this and they were relying on me to take care of them, just like your DC are. My animals were my responsibility to provide for, just like your DC are. So some days I went hungry to ensure that THEY had food.

Every single thing you’ve said about your DH in your posts make it seem like he isn’t sacrificing for your DC at all. Yes, he works - but he can’t do this, he can’t do that, he can’t eat this, etc. I don’t care how big he is - he can reduce the sheer amount of food he eats.

Have him calculate his BMR - his basal metabolic rate - to see how many calories his body needs to burn each day to function. That’s how many calories he gets to eat. Time to start calorie-counting. If his job is a desk/sedentary job, he doesn’t burn many calories over his BMR.

You said your DH is American? So am I. It’s time for him to sacrifice for his DC. We grew up in a culture that is steeped in being nobly responsible for the helpless and dependent. It’s time for him to step up.

Yeh that might be funny on a competitive eating post but this is a thread with people genuinely struggling to make it through the month and going hungry to try and feed their dc. Not really the place 🙄

Also tinned peaches are cheap, 3 tins fotmr approx £1 in Lidl. 37p at tin. With a scoop of budget ice cream they make a nice dessert