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!).

Eggy Bread? Soak stale bread slices in a beaten egg thats had a bit of milk added to it. Add S+P if you're going down savoury route, and serve with tom ketchup, or leave out and serve with sugar/ honey.

The fact that there's a bit of protein in the snack seems to help.

I also do cheesy muffins...
Split and toast a muffin, then spread with pizza topping and grated cheese and put under the grill for 3/4 mins

Have never tried flapjacks with condensed milk before. Might dare to give it a go, although I'd have to make double, because half a can of leftover condensed milk would send me into a snacking frenzy all of my own .

These ideas are great! Hugely appreciated .

Yes, that why I use the squeezy tubes!

Couscous and pasta salads can be cheap to make and are filling if they'd have those?

Loving this thread as we have the same circumstances this January! Only instead if two teens I have three smaller kids.

I do love the reduced section!

If you hit the reduced section at the right time of day you can do really well! When dh and I were in our early 20s we lived in a rented hovel with no furniture, but it was just down the road from a Waitrose. Out of all the supermarkets they seemed to be the best for marking things right down to a few pence. We used to go in there after work and basically lived on cheapies for two years while we were saving up a house deposit. Dining on things like partridge and quail's eggs. Happy days .

send the girls shopping and make sure they understand just how things are. Valuable life lesson.

Basics pittas are dirt cheap and can be toasted and cut into strips for dipping into houmous (sp) or soft cheese

Tinned fruit in a Tupperware tub is also good for snacks or packed lunches and can help to preserve the contents of the fruit bowl for a bit longer

Most teenagers will absolutely not stop eating until there is nothing left. For my sins I sometimes have up to 7 at a time here (not entirely at our expense thankfully!!). It is physically impossible in those conditions to do a "weekly" shop- you have to go 3 x a week at least and get more than what feels like a week's worth. Two days later, you have to go again. :(

I almost always have a big pot of soup available. You make it with veg that starts to look a bit iffy and might otherwise go in the compost, some red lentils etc... It's ultra-nutritious and strangely if it's the only thing they're allowed, it doesn't go down anywhere near as quickly as stuff like cereal.

I think there is a lot of mileage as a learning exercise in giving them the budget available to do the shopping for a day (not sure I'd risk a week's worth in your shoes) and telling them they have to shop and do the cooking with that. Might rein them in a bit.

Google vegan brownies, it costs pennies but is very sweet.

Ooh, of course you can put all sorts of unpopular veg into brownies as well! Courgettes, beetroot, etc. I completely agree about Waitrose bargains- they are the best. We exist almost entirely on Waitrose bargains.

Certainly the girls know we're on a budget, but getting them to work out how we'd stick to it as healthily as possibly via shopping/cooking is a really good idea. It would be better than trying to get them to restrict what they eat, as we have some disordered eating elsewhere in the family and it's made me very nervous of telling two teenage girls they should be eating less.

Good God, duchesse, seven teenagers? I'm clearly only an amateur - I was already quite glad I only have girls as I'm told that boys are basically eating machines.

My ds1 is 10 and he can easily eat 9 pancakes for breakfast
He doesn't really snack too much ATM and mostly had rice cakes, breadsticks and aforementioned flapjacks.
Ds2 (5) eats every hour on the hour! But he is happy with carrot sticks or fruit :)

Try and make sure there's some protein in the snacks as endless rounds of white toast/cereals/biscuits might not be helping with the constant hunger.

Eggs are quite cheap and easy to cook, so scrambled egg/eggy bread could be better than just toast, or how about sharing a pack of noodles between 2 and making an omelette to slice up and put in it to up the protein content.

They're both quite fond of "poaching" eggs in the microwave, so I could get a few extra in and encourage them to do that

I'm a big fan of nuts in shells. Good protein, which is what DH always zooms in on when snacking, but the shells slow him down so he eats less of them. He registers satiety before he eats too many of them because the deshelling slows him down, if you see what I mean...

Cold boiled eggs (protein again). Porridge rather than prefab cereal (and make with water not milk, then jazz up with bit of honey/golden syrup/fruit). Or make oatcakes (porridge oats, bit of baking powder, water - mix in food processor ideally, roll out and cut to shape, bake). Popcorn from bags of kernels. Grate all cheese in the house as soon as it arrives - it lasts much longer. Also, snacks which are spicy (like bombay mix in large bags from asian supermarket) tend to be eaten more sparingly.

Egg fried rice with frozen mixed veg?
Popcorn
Pancakes

Banana bread - often huge bags of black bananas going for 20p in my local supermarkets
Custard
Rice pudding
value biscuits

asian shops do 4 packs of pitta breads for a pound, and tinned chickpeas are dirt cheap in those places too, to make a vat of hummus

I makes plain scones and cheese scones, banana cake. CereA, cream crackers, feel your pain!!

Pancakes, make a batch then freeze and put in the toaster, wraps with melted cheese, u only need a sprinkling

Sacks of potatoes, yes a jacket potato is just a snack

Porridgeweetabix even if they have 6 at a time with half. Bag of sugar

Milk milk milk as a drink

bread and jam/choc spread is probably quite cheap, really?

I have started buying extra loaves of bread, and jam, to keep my hungry lot going.

My 11 yr old stands by the toaster, 2 hours after dinner, almost every night, with his jars of nutella/jam! (disclaimer; He eats his normal food (veg), disclaimer 2: he is very slim). I buy cheap chocolate at Lidl for DH.

yesterday I made home made popcorn, works out cheap too. And not unhealthy.

Make them pancakes.
1 egg, flour milk
Does loads!