£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

In the kindest way this may start you on a whole new path of saving money and making healthier eating choices. Some great advice here, things we just do anyway.

Re-home the dog .

can you go back to work sooner?

It helps so much-using the scanner in the shop is also good to keep me on track-but if not available I still add up as I go :)

There's a fb page called feed your family for about £20 a week. Lots of cheap recipes and people post good deals in supermarkets etc

I do all my shopping at M&S and drink alcohol and buy loads of shit and I don’t spend that much. Less people but still….

I implore you to swallow your pride (I had to) and join the Trussel trust. Speak to your GP and health visitor who can provide vouchers for food and milk formula and /or prescribe the same. Have you hit a crisis for some reason? If so you may be able to approach dwp and or citizens advice who can put you in touch with other community services who can provide both food and resources I'm sorry to hear about it and I know how it feels believe me, but just get organized and reach out. I'm not sure where you're based but there are often community gardening groups who can supply fresh produce too. Perhaps you can offer a bit of labour in return. Good luck with it. If you're in the south Yorkshire area I can direct you to specific resources systems. Good luck with it and I'm an ear if you need it, a day at a time and courage mon brave.

Your husband will be going on a diet, he has no need to eat double a normal portion other than greed and when it’s time to tighten belts financially that excess food is first to go.

Formula- have you got a costco card or know anyone with one, and a local shop? They do different formula in bulk which makes it cheaper, for us in store it was about £12 for 1 tub of formula or at Costco £20 for a pack of 3 so was basically 3 for 2.

Snacks- Aldi. Multipack of aldi own 24 pack of crisps £2.60 ish, biscuits 60-70p etc.

Your food bill is far too high, you can easily cut at least £50 from that without having to eat baked potatoes for tea.

I think you need real help with the bulk cooking because I can’t see how you meal plan and still spend that much!

I buy the 750g packs of pork and beef mince when we are a big tight along with a cheap bag of carrots, onions, celery, cheap tinned tomato’s and kidney beans. The mince cost £4.79 in Aldi. I can make 4 or 5 meals with that for around £20. I make bolognaise, cottage pie and chilli bulking it out with homemade soffrito mix as the base.

Jamies Hidden Veg Sauce is another really good one to batch cook and makes loads for freezing. We used it on pasta or homemade pizzas which are also super cheap to make.

Nobody needs snacks, I'm still not sure where this culture came from. So they can go for a start. They're a want, not a need. And toast will do if your gannet husband is desperate.

Bulking out mince with veg is the way to go, freeze bags, then use it for different dishes.

OP you'll get lots of meal suggestions here but the easiest option for stretching a grocery budget is ChatGPT. Plus you don't have to deal with AI's opinions the way you do Mumsnet!

I input what ingredients we already have in the press (this is the tedious part), where we shop, what our dietary requirements are, what our macro needs are, what our food preferences are, and ask for a meal plan. I ask to approve the meal plan before the chat sends me the grocery list, so I can make any tweaks.

So a good prompt would be "we are a family of four, who need a cheap, nutritious meal plan to do until the months end. Our family is comprised of mum (height X, weight X, activity level X), Dad (height X, weight X, activity level X), and active children age X and X. The meal plan must include 3 meals and 2 snacks a day. Dad must be able to pack his lunches for work, DC must be able to pack them for school.

Our monthly budget is X. We cannot go over this.

We like eating X. We do not like eating X. We have X dietary requirements.

We have X and X in our press or freezer already.

Please suggest a meal plan, and accompanying grocery list. Please wait for the meal plan to be approved before sending the grocery list. Break the grocery list down by category of food.

You can also add photos of your previous receipts to ChatGPT and ask it to suggest savings.

Personally when I'm on a budget, I find click and collect shopping easier as I'm in more control.

£200 a week for a good shop seems a lot! We’re family of 3 plus two dogs and average about £70-£80 a week. We’re veggie/vegan though so no meat.

It's doable I often have less than that. Lidl/aldi, buy their cheapest pasta and mix it up with tinned tomato sauces, pesto, mince. Cream and the cheap cuts of bacon in lidl make a nice pasta. Own brand cereals/porridge for breakfast. If you're really struggling iceland do a lot of cheap options, not super healthy but makes sure everyones fed.

Online shopping is helpful as you can see what you're spending and adjust accordingly. It also gives you alternatives so you can buy cheaper too.

Cheap food ideas:

• Spag bol/Chilli - buy the biggest pack of mince and serve up as a spag bol but save half. The following evening, add chilli.
• Cheese pasta with bacon bits - Primula cheese, bacon lardons, pasta.
• Jacket potatoes with baked beans.
• Beans on toast
• Home made soup (you can freeze this)
• Egg, chips and beans.
• Chilli non carne (substitute mince for mixed beans)
• Veggie noodles - Frozen stir fry bag with noodles and sauce.
• Pitta/Flatbread pizzas
• Fish finger sandwiches/wraps

As for dog food, have you looked at pet stores nearby? We used to buy Chappie from the supermarket fot £9 for 3KG. We get it from a pet store at £27 for 15KG.

I get the Orlando dog food in lidl. £8 for a 12kg bag thats lasts our 2 dogs a month. They get raw food every other day as well. (Cheap chicken wings or any other yellow label reductions). £100 a week is easily doable if you plan

Download cherrypick and get a free trial. Its going to help you with your meal planning and ingredient rationalisation because right now I dont think its working.

I don't understand how you can be organised and planning, yet not know where £200 on groceries is going, that's huge. All those people saying you need dull boring food to cut down costs, you can eat perfectly healthy and tasty food on £100-120 for four. I think you need to check every receipt and work out where it's going. You certainly shouldn't need a food bank with that amount of budget, just need to plan more carefully. Maybe it will be a wake up call to be really efficient with your money. Look at the recipes in Asda magazine, they often have a week of meals and a list. Theyre designed so a bit leftover from one meal is used in another.

There's no way in hell that's cheaper than a supermarket. And who needs steak and bacon when they're on a budget! Ridiculous suggestion.

Would you feel brave enough to share your typical meal plan? We might be able to suggest ways to make similar meals more cheaply so it’s not a shock to the system. Misery leads to splurging and going too hard in the wrong places can be counterproductive.

How are you managing for bills and utilities? If you need to watch your electricity costs, you might need to rely on your microwave rather than the hob or oven for instance

You can get cheap snacks like crisps and even chocolate. Asda sell a bag of crisps with 6 packs just under £1 and they do a range of chocolate .You could involve your older child with making things like apple crumble or cakes so you can all have a treat. I am sure with all the things in your freezer and cupboards you could make plenty of meals. Asda has a basic range called Just essential in yellow packaging and it actually covers most of the things they sell, a chicken should be around a fiver. They do mince and sausages as well. With chicken a roast dinner would be the first meal and again Asda has a range of Yorkshire puddings just less than 50p a bag. Yorkshires bulk out a lot of meat. Another meal could be chicken curry or chicken casserole using potatoes, onion and any bits of veg you have. Then cook the carcass for a soup using up some veg or if no veg is left check the reduced veg section as any veg would do. Another meal could be eggs ,chips a few sausages and beans or peas. Baked potatoes with beans ,cheese and 2 tins of tuna. Pasta bake again using tuna and 2 tins of tomatoes .Fish fingers ,chips and peas .Omelettes and a little salad is another option. Budget cookery does not have to be boring as I have suggested a variety of meals .Iceland and farm foods sell inexpensive pizzas so you can have a fakeaway meal and that would be nice with any reduced salad items and a cheap garlic bread. Mince meat can be used for spaghetti bol, chilli and rice and garlic bread or a nice crusty loaf or a baguette, a pie adding carrots and an onion with mash or boiled potatoes. I think there are many possibilities which are much cheaper than your usual spending limit.

I can believe you spend that much on food here. 3 people here, one man who eats a lot, shops all of it , does not listen from where, does not want batch cooking, frozen food, processed etc, one 11 year old daughter with very very very specific taste and me, who eats just a slice of bread and something to keep the balance - 1000 a month

Pack out stews, curry etc with loads of fresh veg and freeze.
Carrots, frozen peas and what ever is reduced goes in, I don't use onions as I hate them but pack every meal with veg. What's left over freeze, you don't have to have the same meal as each other every night.
Rice is cheap if you use the basic ranges, make cakes, flapjacks and other snacks.

Buy some cheap bread and butter and your husband can bulk up on that. Ridiculous that you and your children will be living off scraps while he eats double.

We’re a family of 5 with 3 dogs and a cat. Our dog food costs £30 a month (autarky grain free, it’s classed as a working dog food so VAT free) so worth looking into alternatives.
Our weekly food bill is about £160 a week but none of the children are on formula. The cost of living is eye watering at the moment and so many people are struggling.
It’s worth looking to see if there are community larders near you, we have 3 within a 30 min walk and lots of people use them, no necessarily because of low funds but to reduce food waste.
Is it worth you looking into a car boot sale or similar if you have lots of things lying around that you don’t use?