feed a family for £50 a week

[frazzled74]

Didnt fancy the sainsburys meal plan so have just spent all eve on my supermarket.com and eventually shopped from asda, £49.87
breakfasts-toast/ cereal except saturday when we have eggs and mushrooms on toast

lunches, sandwiches /beans on toast/tomato soup
main meals- mon- tuna pasta, tues-pork and butterbean stew, wed- chicken enchiladas, thurs-veg lasagne, fri-salmon and brocoli pasta,sat-minced lamb curry, sun roast pork dinner.
The £49.87 covers all food minus herbs and tin tomatos, jams,spreads and milk.I have also sneaked in a bottle of wine so not bad at all!

[LieInsAreRarerThanTigers]

The alternative to meal-planning is to go round the shops and see what is on offer then build your week's cooking around that. I have often found meaty bargains on the butchery counter which can easily be the basis of a meal for under a fiver.
I have been costing my own meals recently as I have been cooking just for myself a lot (dieting) and having something like basics stir fry with chicken thighs does me 2 meals for about £3. (That's freerange chicken - mostly veggie and do without rather than buy the cheapo stuff)
Free range turkey mince is £3 for enough to make 4 good size burgers, or any mince dish, a healthier alternative to all that beef mince.
There are certain things I will only buy when they are on offer - e.g. have a pool of about 10 different cereals I know we like, and buy 4 packs when one is on offer.
Also I always look at the cat food and the washing stuff to see if it is on offer even if I don't need it that time. Can go 6 months without buying cat food sometimes!
Same at Lidl as we have to travel to the next town to go there, we stock up with their best value items about once a month.
Monthly bill for 4 + 2 cats + 2 gerbils is about £300. (Kids have school dinners and often eat at after-school club in school time, so have to add at least £20 a week to that, though)

[BleepyBloop]

I found some shampoos and conditioners from Poundland to be better than the expensive brands from the drugstore. Microfibre cloths 3 for a £1.

As for meat, we have a crockpot and it does wonders for cheap cuts of meat, not to mention it uses little electricity.

[PoopyFingers]

For the past 3 months I have typed every single grocery receipt into a spreadsheet, and sorted it into categories for meat, veg, fruit, toiletries, clothes (socks etc).

I have found that we easily eat for less than £50 a week (2 adults 2 kids) - but our bill is larger due to nappies, tin foil, cleaning products etc etc etc...

We have a gluten free / dairy free / egg free diet too, which adds an extra £50 a month on average to our bill

If we were vegan, teetotal and didn't eat chocolate we could live fabulously for just over £60 a week, including cleaning products, nappies, toilet rolls etc - and we eat very very well, lovely biryanis, roast dinners the whole lot

My spreadsheet is making very interesting reading, and tots up each category as I go...

It has definitely made me ultra aware of every single purchase.

There's a thread in Chat about the Sainsbury's Basics Range - very enlightening!

[PoopyFingers]

Vegetarian, not vegan (although not far off due to restricted diet)

[PoopyFingers]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1262268-Sainsburys-basics-range-dark-chocolate

[alphabettyspagghetti]

Just noticed on the Sainsburys site, if you order all of the ingredients for their meal plan priced at £50, you can get £10 off that if you have not had deliveries from them before.

[GillyMac93]

I bought Anthea Turner's perfect houseife book and use her all purpose cleaner recipe , its just as good as branded cleaners.:
2tbsp white vinegar
2tsp laundry borax
2 teacups water
3 drops of lavender oil , i put it into a water spray bottle for plants and its much cheaper .hth