I have £50 per week for food in February

[Lovelybitofsquirrel3]

After 2 big unexpected bills in a few days since getting paid, I have £60 a week for February for food for myself and 1 child, dog food and toiletries not included. I usually spend about £80-130 a week. I usually batch cook so that’s fine. Will eat a lot of things. The first week of the month I don’t need to buy anything as I’ve got enough in. I feel really overwhelmed.

Some of our favourite meals are extremely cheap - a big bag of dal from a world foods supermarket, so many delicious recipes. Also they have brilliant value spices - forget the tiny jars from the supermarket. In-season vegetables and fruit from the local market. I also make a lot of soup and like being inventive with what needs using up. We had roast cauliflower and garlic soup last week and it was delicious.

£80 a week here for 3 adult,household stuff and cat food.
It's perfectly doable.

Apologies if it’s been suggested but worth trying the Foodbank as they also provide toiletries. Your council will have cost of living advice on its website. Do you claim all relevant benefits.

5 Easy Family Dinners For £25 | Family Meal Ideas | Tesco Real Food

Does this help? Could halve amounts and do for less and then plenty left for everything else

She has very little money ,this is not the time to be creative.

I've been through this a few times.
I just use whatever i have.
It's not great but it's better than starving.
But frozen veg,beans tins of soup.
Part baked rolls.
Cereal,milk.
Cheap ice pips,if your kids not fussy you'll do ok.
Cheaper buying a large chicken and getting a few meals out it.

I'd double up everything. Make a cottage pie, lasagne, spaghetti Bolognese (you only need a small packet of mince and can add lentils), chicken stew, pasta bake etc.

You should get two meals out of each easily, if not more.

Soups are good and filling. Get a big bag of potatoes so you can always do jacket spuds.

I think you'll be fine. We spend about £80 a week on a family of four with older kids than yours.

As someone else said a change in habits might be great in the long term as it's easy to fall into spending patterns..

please note OP is disabled and can't go to Aldi or Lidl re only option is Tesco delivered to door

tesco's own website has some cheap meal plan ideas someone linked it above

You obviously missed the post where the OP is not going to drop the quality of the dog’s food/switch to all dry food diet or in any way reduce the costs of the dog’s diet but the 6 year old is going to get cheap carbs, much reduced protein and one poster even suggested not being fed until full!

I have pets and kids. If I couldn’t afford to feed both well, the pets would definitely have their food changed first (or be rehomed if things were long term dire)

Like some others, I am still struggling to understand what the issue is, with £60 a week for you and a small DC? And good that you feed the dog well, that's the right thing to do and I am sure you can feed your DC well on £60 too (when I was desperate for money - no way I'd have £60 a week! - I fed my dog pork mince and I dont want to tell you what happened but it didnt end well :( never forgave myself and never will)

If you have a back up
plan then I would try take the pressure of yourself .
Try budget on what you have said you have , but know that if an emergency or anything pops up and you got over by 10-50 pounds it won’t be the end of the world. .

Why doesn't your dog have insurance? It's the responsible thing to do. You should get that sorted and spend less on food generally to afford it.

We spend less than £60 for two adults and that’s using gusto so you can probably do it a lot cheaper.

You obviously missed the post where the OP is not going to drop the quality of the dog’s food/switch to all dry food diet or in any way reduce the costs of the dog’s diet but the 6 year old is going to get cheap carbs, much reduced protein and one poster even suggested not being fed until full!

But she has £60 a week to feed one adult and one young child. That is plenty for a health, enjoyable and nutritious diet. There's no need for scrimping, reducing protein, going hungry.

I'm constantly shocked at the number of people who are incapable of making decent nutritious meals without having to resort to expensive, processed, ready made crap. Or even googling how to cook from scratch or batch cook or use cheaper cuts of meat.

Our food shop is around £60 per week for my husband, myself and our cat. This includes a packed lunch for my DH 5 x a week. I don’t budget or try to save, this is usually just what it comes to.

I am vegan and my husband is veggie in the house so I think this helps massively.

Maybe planning a few meat free meals can help? Big bags of lentils are cheap and can be used across multiple meals a week. Batch cooking too. We quite often have a lentil dhal with naan bread and rice and then the next night will have left over dhal on a jacket potato.

Also a huge pot of lentil, veg and bean chilli with the left overs making enchiladas and then tacos or chilli loaded fries. We have some kind of pasta dish once a week too. I use the whole bag of pasta and then we have enough for the next day or for lunches for my husband.

£60 a week is plenty, plus with the dog food, easy, plus with the toiletries, easy

Please dont worry OP

You'd be surprised just how long you can eat out of the cupboards, fridge and freezer.

If your child is 6 do they not get free school meals and does their school have a breakfast club?

It really pisses me off when people have an unexpected financial emergency and immediately get judgement for having a pet. That’s neither helpful nor reasonable.

Easy OP. I do that every week, shopping at a big Tesco. I feed me and ds (16) who eats more than I do. You'll be fine, Basic suggestions....

Breakfast :
toast, marmalade/jam/marmite & satsuma/pear. Coffee, water

Lunch:
Beans on toast,
Cornish pasties & frozen sweetcorn
home made veggie soup and crusty bread,
fish fingers, peas and oven chips.
Cheese & beetroot/tomato/pickle sandwiches.
Sausage rolls and beans
Broccoli & blue cheese soup
Tinned sardines with warm boiled potatoes and fennel

Supper:
Sweet peppers stuffed with parslied sausagemeat, with garlic bread
Wholemeal spaghetti with meatballs and homemade tomato sauce
Breaded cod with peas and chips
Chicken fajitas with lettuce and tomatoes, creme fraiche and spices
Cassoulet made with cubed pork shoulder, garlic, tomatoes, onions and cannellini beans
Cheese and tomato/spring onion omelettes and oven chips
Home made mushroom risotto with grated cheese
Fusilli putanesca
Casserole of chicken thighs with onions, green olives, lemon, with brown rice
Seafood risotto made with frozen hake, frozen mussels and flavoured with garlic & fennel seeds.
Roast gammon with roast potatoes, couscous and peas/broccoli

OP, you don't have to reduce quality. I'm post-cancer and eat 30+ fruit & veg a week as part of my efforts to boost immunity. A bit of thought and you'll manage.

Really manageable but it's hard to think straight when you are overwhelmed. Ditching or reducing meat products is a great start. In desperate times, a full tummy is what you need. There's some good groups on Facebook called feed yourself for £1 a day and feed your family for about £20 a week

Go on chatGPT, ask for a meal plan for x amount of people for one week for under £50 at x shop and it will give you a plan plus a shopping list.

I use it for ideas for a calorie deficit meal plan.

Use chatgpt! I type in my budget, number of meals needed and things I don't like and it meal plans for me and gives me a shopping list.

Jinx!

It's really not difficult. 1 adult and 2 mid teens here and I spend £50 a week at Tesco delivered. I batch cook, meal plan and use all my food - leftovers for lunch.

Tesco can be expensive. I shop at Asda and M&S but we spend £40 a week including toiletries for 2 adults. 1 veggie 1 that eats meat with every meal. We always have treats in and cook from scratch every day. £60 should be totally doable