Budget meal ideas?

[Rtfairy]

Hello I'm currently on maternity leave and my smp is going to end shortly so we will be in receipt of DH's wage, child benefit and a small amount of savings so need to be cutting back. There is me, dh and dd who is 6 months and we have just started weaning. We will have approximately £50 per week for food and nappies eycwhich is very tight but will only be for 3 months. Any ideas on how to manage? We currently get a monthly meat order of £30 which lasts over a month and use supermarket own brand nappies!

I like the sort of meals that use up oddments in the fridge - things like risotto, quiche, hm pizza, soups, any meat or veg cooked down in a tin of toms to make a pasta sauce, curry.

Lettuce and other salad leaves grow fairly quickly in a pot (or old bucket with a few holes knocked in the bottom) - much cheaper than salad in supermarkets.

One cheap meal we cook is sausage casserole as cheap sausages work best we use aldi 99p for 12 chop each one into 4 or 5 n marinate in bbq sauce we use aldi or any on offer for£1 just normal squirty stuff use about 1/3 bottle.

Fry off sausages n add whatever veg u want we have onions mushroom carrots n peas (sometime use frozen mix veg) n then add some stock if we have any ketchup or bbq sauce with little bits in we will add bit water to these n add too.

We cook it out for 45mins.

This does 2 adults n toddler for dinner n my lunch next day n then same again- next time I defrost add to casserole dish par boil some chopped potatoes (if in hurry just use tinned) add to casserole n bung in oven for half hr n serve with garlic bread.

Depending on how hungry we are n extra veggies I have added if I don't have for lunch we can get 3 meals for 2 adults n toddler out of this- goes further when sausages chopped up as looks like more meat.

We only ever buy reduced bread products if we see cheap bread stuff we buy n freeze co-99p usually good sometimes have 3 loaves n bagels trumpets etc in freezer other times we run down to last loaf depends on shop reductions-we started this when our now 3 n half yr old was 9mths n we started getting through loads bread products when previously barely used a loaf a wk (ohhh n an American family I night nannied for at the same time introduced me to bagels why had I never had them before!!)

I echo not buying baby weaning stuff we buy value porridge n when little one was baby I blended the oats before making the porridge n used expressed breast milk to make it until he was over a yr more because I was too tight to buy full fat cows milk just for his breakfast when we don't drink it!!

I have only skim-read the thread so I don't know if anybody has mentioned this already, but if you are fish & meat eaters, go for the cheaper cuts and varieties.

For example tonight we had herring, which is very cheap, as is mackerel. Coley & pollack are cheap white fish, good substitutes for cod etc in fish pies.

Meat-wise, offal (liver, kidneys, heart) is very cheap & very good for you. Belly of pork & neck of lamb are traditionally cheap. Turkey & pork mince are also cheaper than beef or lamb.

I shop once a week for fresh stuff at Aldi/ lidl. I meal plan around their offers and what is yellow stickered (can be frozen). Tonight we have Bratwurst (£1.25 for 6) with oven chips and baked beans. Tomorrow we will have pizza, toppped with yellow sticker salami, and salad. The pizza was 4 for 3. This week has been junk food week for us. Last week we had loads of tomato salad stuff as lidl had 1/2 price beef toms and we were in a caravan so quick greek salads etc.
A good tip instead of cream sauce is ceram cheese. It has a longer shelf life. I usually use 1/2 tub per pasta meal. It's about 60p in lidl / aldi.