Cheap between-meals ideas for constantly snacking teenagers/dh

[ArthurCucumber]

I've had to limp through January with a grocery budget of £30 a week, to cover everything - food, toiletries, cleaning stuff. This is for 2 adults and 2 teenage girls. Caveat - I know that is far from enough, and our situation is temporary - only another 2 weeks . We started off with a full freezer and cupboards, so with a lot of planning and shopping for reductions I've managed it.

My problem is that now we're getting to the back of the cupboards, there is nothing left for my dh and teenagers to snack on. I've managed to feed us proper meals and can manage without snacking myself, but the girls are growing and dh is a big guy (tall, not overweight). There's always someone with their head in the cupboard wanting cereal, buttering bread, eating crackers and bits of cheese, fruit, all the things that I'd earmarked for breakfasts and lunches. With only a fortnight to go, I wondered if anyone had ideas for things I could put in the next weekly shop that would cover between-meals snacking? It has to be mega-cheap because our budget is rigid and anything I pay out for the bloody snacks has to be taken away from something else. I've just found out they've eaten the loaf I had in the freezer for next week's packed lunches. All ideas appreciated (but no Aldi suggestions - I know that's the budget favourite but there isn't one anywhere near where we live!).

Homemade flapjacks, v. cheap crackers, big tub of cheap yoghurt that can be put into a bowl to eat. Also have you tried making bread? V v easy and many more loaves can be made from a bag of flour and jar of yeast that you could buy for the same amount.

It may not be possible but the waitrose near me has tonnes of bread marked down to 19p a loaf at the end of the day,(on last day of sell by date) as well as muffins and crumpets etc... If you have room in your freezer could you stock up and freeze?

Buy the reduced bread and freeze for toast (same for bagels)
19p basic cornflakes and UHT milk
Basic noodles.
Pasta with pesto and reduced cheese.

That was my diet for a good 9/10 months last year through unavoidable circumstances, I survived

Thank you! Tried making bread a few times but couldn't get it to rise - am a dab hand at wholemeal soda bread though, and have plenty of flour, so there's an idea if they haven't drunk al,l the bloody milk . Basic yogurt would be good as I've got a bit of stewed rhubarb left in the freezer from our garden last year. But I've never yet made a flapjack that didn't either fall apart or turn into unchewable concrete, so that might be a waste of ingredients if it happened again!

Ooh, noodles! There's those cheapie packs of noodles with a sachet of evil chemicals, but they could chuck the chemicals and just add soy sauce or something. I've become well versed in the end-of-day bargains - that's how we've got this far - but might buy a few more pancakey type things the next time I see them.

And we do have room in the freezer, as we've been working it right down out of necessity. Might finally get the chance to defrost it - it's an ill wind .

Porridge

Mine fill up on those "cheapie packs of noodles with a sachet of evil chemicals" - they are a good, (and very cheap) filler.
I reckon as long as they are getting enough 'good' stuff across the whole of the week, it's not going to hurt them, but does do a good job of filling them.

Or popcorn kernels. Really cheap and a bag makes loads!

Popcorn
Noodles
Pancakes
Flapjacks
Crackers and cheese

Or you could just say things are tight & there's no snacks between meals!? It's not compulsory.

Evil noddles, home made flapjacks, value bread for endless toast, homemade jam tarts cost pennies, value crisps. Sadly that is all i can afford for my never full teenagers i have two and our food budget is £40 a week and they are both only at college three days a week.

Oh and hide the cheese, mine can go through a pack in a day. Value pata is only 50p so good on toast.

Yes, popcorn maize is what I joined to add. £1.30 for 500g & you use 1/4 of that pack to make a good size portion, much much cheaper than buying ready popped & quite fun too!
I think I would also just buy bugget biscuits, 30p a pack or so, but perhaps you're looking for something healthier!
If you have some of the ingredients in already then home made pizza usually works out v cheap too (& quite fun again)

As well as flour lurking in the cupboard, do you have an old bag of semolina? If so, I would recommend this shortbread

Harvest Morn ricecakes from Aldi.
Cereals eg Weetabix-type.

Not ideal for all the time but the supermarket packs of biscuits are so cheap and go down well with the teens in my house, loads of them are around 20p a packet and the choc digestives are about 40p usually

I buy the cheap 40p crackers and the value cheese spread and that goes quite a long way, the value crumpets are pretty cheap too

Definitely agree about the noodles, my ds2 would live on nothing but those if I let him

They also love the asda/tesco French bread pizzas that are £1 for two

Thanks for all these ideas !!

I don't want to tell them no snacks entirely as both of the girls are growing so fast. Will have a look for all these things when I go shopping tomorrow.

Popcorn! Buy a bag of popping corn that you pop yourself for about a £1, and you get loads - with salt or butter - yum!

My teenage girl would live on the value packs of supernoodles if I would let her.

W have a compromise - as we don't eat dinner often til quite late, she makes a packet when she comes in from school if she wants
I think they're between 18-25p a packet now.

Can you make a big batch of rice pudding with value rice for them, Asda smart price rice is 40p a kilo.

Basically for cheap and filling you need carbs ime, especially for the teenagers.

they had a massive box of oatcakes in the pound shop the other day
(for £1
if you look carefully in pound shops you can find healthy stuff

Oh yes to cheap pizzas.
And cereal.
And yes, it's all about the carbs :)

Idiot proof flapjack recipe (must be, I can make it!)
Sent to me by a Very kind MNer:

500 g oats
250g Block of butter
100g brown sugar
Half a can or one squeezy tube of condensed milk
3 tbsps of golden syrup

Add butter, sugar and sypup to a large pan. Melt on a low heat.
When butter melted add condensed milk and take off heat.
Add oats and mix together.
Spread onto a Swiss roll tin or similar (30 x 20 cms ish) lined with baking parchment.
Bake @ 160 degrees for 10-12 mins

Makes 24 squares.

Enjoy! :)