Budget meal ideas for a family of three on £300 a month for food and household items

[Budgetbakingmum]

I thought I’d start a thread to pick up more ideas for feeding my family of 3 (me DH and DS3), to share my meals, and for some moral support with COL! I try to budget £300 a month on food and household items but it’s getting harder! DS eats lunches in nursery 4 days a week, DH and I eat at home most days or take a pack up.
Here are some of my go to meals, but I’d love ideas to give us more variety (it is quite pasta and bread based). I try to get one bigger meat item a week, like a roast chicken, ham, 1kg mince and create meals round that for a week with maybe one smaller piece of fish or meat for another day and then supplement with veggie meals.

breakfasts - almost always weetabix, porridge with banana, sometimes I’ll make eggless banana pancakes if I’ve got time.

lunch - cheese and pickle sandwiches, egg sandwiches, beans on toast, jacket potatoes, homemade soup, we don’t tend to eat ham as I prefer unprocessed meat, we will eat ham sandwiches if I’ve bought a ham from the butchers and roasted it. I make my bread in a breadmaker as supermarket isn’t particularly close and it’s so much nicer - takes 2 minutes and I can get a 16kg bag of flour for £20!

dinners
main dinners - roast chicken, I then make leftovers into a chicken curry and do a paneer curry and dhal alongside, with homemade naan (breadmaker) or rice. The curries do 3 days so I keep 2 days out and freeze 1. Or make a smaller chicken curry and a risotto.
ham with parsley sauce, left over ham is used in a ham, leek and potato pie, and a ham and pea pasta bake, we also like risi bisi.
mince - I make a big vat of bolognaise and then make chilli by adding kidney beans, lasagne, sometimes we will have the chilli with jacket potatoes. I also do mince and onions with dumplings and cottage pie or a mince and onion pie.

other meals for around £1-1.50 a portion.
aubergine pasta bake
homemade pizza
sausage pie
tuna pasta bake
home made gyozas
spinach and ricotta pasta
chicken and broccoli pasta (using 1 chicken breast).
macaroni cheese with fried onions
sausage and home made Yorkshire puds with baked beans
corned beef hash
fish pie with green beans (Using frozen fish mix).
cheese and tomato risotto

for snacks I tend to make them, home made Welsh cakes, bara brith, cookies, fairy cakes. I do one batch a week and when they’re gone they are gone. Also make my own yoghurt as DH bought me a yoghurt make for our anniversary about 5 years ago and it saves so much money and really easy to use (romance isn’t dead)!

if anyone wants recipes let me know, but I’d love extra ideas. I’m doing a curry tonight and can’t decide what to do about the rest of the week - meal planning is wearing
me down.

Make a big batch of black bean chili- either with tinned or dried beans- freeze some, and make burritos with some. I usually have coleslaw on the side, which is cheap and fast to make. The rest of the chili you can have with rice, jacket potatoes or make nachos.

I'm a veggie, could you add more veg and swap out some of the meat. So I have green veg with my curry/ pasta/cottage pie and so on.

Perhaps try crispy fried tofu with stir fry, rice or noodles. You can get firm tofu in Lidl, cut into squares, marinate in soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil and a little chilli if liked. Toss in flour / gram flour and sesame seeds, fry until golden on all sides. You can serve with a homemade sweet chilli sauce.

You could cut half the mince snd add lentils to cottage pies, bolognaise etc .
homemade beanburgers are good

Me too, and I would find it fairly easy to stick to a weekly budget of £75 for three. Also because I shop at Lidl, which really does make a difference!

Tesco magazine has recipes for budgeting with costings. I've made a few of those. Also, cook once eat twice which I like, so a saucy dish for one day which can be incorporated into the next days meal, say in fajitas.

I think you are doing a stirling job and take my hat off to you.

So DS is allergic to soya, lentils and some beans which I probably should have put in the OP 😳 when I do the dhal I make it spicier so DH and I have it and he just has the chicken and paneer curry. Would be really handy to bulk out the curries. He can eat baked beans, chickpeas and kidney beans though. We do eat veg with most meals, usually carrots, peas and sweetcorn as they are easy and cheap! But it depends on what’s on offer.

Gosh corn beef hash, mince pie, sausage pie, ham and parsley sauce, cheese and pickle sandwiches. Sounds like a menu from another decade.

Noodles, stir-fry, wraps, cous cous with falafel, protein based salad , roasted veggies with homemade hummus/ guacamole etc all quite cheap and easy

We don’t have a Lidl nearby unfortunately, it’s Tescos or co op. Tescos isn’t too bad though if you get some of the club card prices.
I guess I could look into going to a Lidl for things like washing powder and toiletries, my PIL have one nearish to them, but they are 3 hours from us so don’t visit often.

We do two very cheap meals a week like jacket potatoes beans and cheese, tomato pasta, beans on toast. Then standard meals the rest of the week.

I guess it’s what my DM cooked so what I cook! DS loves hummus and I do get that for weekend lunches, with dips and bread.

Depending on your finances… you’d have to work out if it’s worth it … but I subscribe to Tesco clubcard discounts - for £7.99 you get 10% off your £200 of groceries in-store, twice a month, as well as 10% off F&F in-store all the time.

It only works instore but I prefer to shop instore anyway.

Your maximum discount monthly is therefore £400 x 10% less £7.99 = £32.

As long as you spend £79.90 per month in Tesco and use the vouchers, you break even.

I use the handheld scanner so I tot up the shop as I’m going along.

i think it’s a no brainer as I always go to Tesco twice a month and spending £80 is easy!

It works well if you batch cook, have an huge freezer, cook from scratch a lot (so used canned, jarred and dried goods a lot) and have space and finance to manage your shopping as two big shops, and a top up for fruit and veg in between.

So say you bought £250 across your two big shops, and then £50 to buy fruit and veg on alternate weeks. You’d save £17 on your voucher shop (after taking into account your subscription shop). That’s quite a hefty saving.

If you are loyal to Tesco, it’s worth it in my opinion.

Nor much to add helpwise, just Pat on the back because it sounds to me like you are doing a fantastic job bringing up a family on a budget. I did that many years ago and isn’t easy, but it’s satisfying and I wouldn’t change the past. Well done you!

We can get 4+ meals from one large roast chicken. The first night we have sliced, roasted chicken. The next night, I will make a tray of chicken enchiladas, enough for two meals. Serve half with rice, tomatoes, sour cream. The other half for another night, or will freeze. Then the last of the bigger bits are pulsed in a processor with celery, onion, mayo and seasoned rice vinegar for a great chicken salad. Anything left is stewed with onions, celery, parsley and when the bones are removed, and the broth and veg separated, make homemade dumplings. We like the denser, flat, square dumplings because they are filling. A lot of people make light, cloud like dumplings. If you don't like dumplings at all, throw in sliced carrots and noodles instead.

Rather a sneery post. What's wrong with eating food the OP and her partner and son enjoy? Are your suggestions guaranteed to cost no more, given that she's looking for cheap tasty alternatives?

OP, risottos are good value, try chicken & mushroom risotto, pork & fennel or broccoli and parmesan. They are creamy, tasty & filling. There are endless varieties. I make a seafood risotto with frozen hake, fennel seeds and a handful of frozen mussels.

I stuff peppers with sausagemeat and bake for 45 minutes. It's cheaper to make using sausages that you have removed the skins, than buying sausage meat. As we move into summer, peppers will be less expensive. Add a garlic baguette to the oven for the last 20 mins.

Omelettes are great, my ds likes a 3-egg cheese and tomato omelette with a few slices of chorizo to add more flavour. Served with crusty bread, they are healthy fast food..

Cassoulet is another good one, Chicken legs (good value in Tesco), with tomato, garlic, chorizo and cannellini beans, baked for an hour - it should be ok if your dd can eat baked beans.

A chunky chicken soup with lots of veg and crusty bread is good too. Or garden pea and ham soup - better if you have a real butcher and can buy a ham bone.

In Tesco, keep an eye on the price of duck legs. They are sometimes reduced, and I bake them dusted with five-spice and serve with brocolli & noodles.

Your options are good - I'm impressed. I'd look at some rice based dishes myself as rice is very cheap, adds variety from pasta and can be a great option. Baked rice dishes with chicken or meat is great too and things like chicken thighs work well here and are very reasonable. I always do extra chicken thighs when I make them so that we have leftovers for other dishes/sandwiches eg we like a pea and roast chicken risotto or I turn leftover chicken into chicken fajitas using ots of peppers and sliced onions.

Jazzed up baked beans in a sort of casserole on rice works. I like a bit of chopped onion, some chopped chorizo, baked beans and then i usually add a tin of regular cannellini beans too. A bit of balsamic vinegar and some salt and pepper and let it simmer for a few minutes, then serve on rice.

Also meat casseroles cooked slowly in the oven or slow cooker, on rice or mashed potato are great value. x100 if you can get discounted options from meat counters in person at the supermarket. I often pick up a bit of oxtail or beef shin when I see a deal on and keep in the freezer. With lots of veg (and in my case, usually beans), it can go a long way.

Also, I do sausage based sauces for pasta/gnocchi which let the sausages go much further. At a push, I can do 1 sausage per person, but even 1.5 is stll less than if serving sausage by itself with the gannets in this house!

Homemade fishcakes? Mash, salmon or white fish flakes (one filet can go a long way) bit of parsley, and crumb. Fry until golden and serve with salad or broccoli. Or a large deep filled quiche with roasted veg, tomatoes, cheese, and bacon bits. Potato bakes with layered potato slices, cooked cauliflower, broccoli and onions, in a cream sauce with cheese. (Add bacon bits if you like). Finally any spicier sausages such as salciccia, squeeze the out in little nuggets, fry with onion and add passata and pasta.

thanks some of these are exactly what I was hoping for, I’ve never made fishcakes, not sure why, I guess I think they looked complicated to make! I used to buy them pre-made from the supermarket but they just became a bit out of budget.

I think I’ll try to do more risotto, I just never seem to get it right, it always takes twice as long to cook than the recipe suggests and I always stick it to the bottom of the pan.

Thanks for all the positive messages, it’s quite demoralising having to always stick to a budget, for once I’d love to go round the shop and just stick in what I fancy (I do this at Xmas a little bit, I try to save £75 a month for Xmas to cover the tree, food, travel and gifts).

The lightbulb in my bathroom has just gone and it might only be £2-3 but these are the sort of household things that eat into the budget and make it harder to keep within £300.

I’m also definitely going to sign up for this when I next go to Tesco! It will save me quite a bit!
I haven’t seen it advertised in store.

So funny though, like the Fifties. Yep I think ramen could come in cheaper than boiled ham and parsley sauce.

@Budgetbakingmum you can buy frozen fish fillets at really good prices, and if you're doing it for fish cakes, the slightly generic "white fish" fillets are a good option.

Re risotto, my risotto game was hugely improved after I watched Monica Galetti make one on Masterchef once!! She used a deep frying pan rather than a saucepan - so much wider base - and she actually had it boiling a lot faster than I did. I was always terrified by the "gentle bubbling". If hers was a horse, mine was, at best, a trot, and hers was a canter! . Here, I found it on youtube:

Seconding firm tofu suggestions. Boil it in salted water first, then shallow fry. Frozen edamame, sweetcorn, thin strips of carrot, half a boiled egg into hot ramen noodle soup and topped with some spring onion (or dried seaweed). Easy to leave out anything your child doesn’t like.

Don’t be a dick ffs absolutely nothing wrong with any of those meals.

We also have homemade fish cakes, chicken and leek pie with homemade pastry, spam fritters, liver and bacon, various pastas, chicken Marengo or cacciatore, or breakfast for supper, home made burgers with coleslaw etc, with help yourself toppings, and my favourite for lunch, paste or, pâte and jam sandwiches.

We have ramen, chow mein, sweet and sour, fajitas with guacamole etc but you can’t beat a steak and kidney steamed pudding in a pressure cooker.