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.

I buy vouchers from jamdonut for Sainsbury's and get 2 or 2.5% back. When I get to £50 I swap it for a voucher and have a cheap meal (I meant cheap week)

I'm not looking for a referral bonus but genuinely find it useful. They do them for other supermarkets as well, I'm pretty sure they do tesco but I'll have a look if you like.

Just checked and Tesco is currently 2.35% so buy £300 of vouchers and you immediately have £6.75 you can use for another voucher. They don't just do supermarkets but places like Boots, Adidas etc. Not alot but it mounts up

Ask ChatGPT to create a menu for the week. A prompt that goes something like:

Create a week’s menu that meets the following criteria:

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Use one main meat source (e.g. a chicken or minced beef) for some of the meals and the rest can be vegetarian. Avoid lentils and peas. We like curries, chillies, bolognese, etc. Happy to have repeat meals. Budget is £60.

(That leaves £10-£15 for household items) You could also ask for a month version to include everything.

Is that a compliment or an insult?

This is really budget friendly and delicious - I make my own parsley sauce instead of using packet mixes when making it.
Fish finger and pea pie | Tesco Real Food

I buy a larger ham, cook and freeze. I have a meat slicer which is really useful. You can get cheaper meat cuts off a butcher than you’ll get in a supermarket that are delicious cooked low and slow. You can also look at buying bigger quantities from a butcher. If you order it in advance, you may be able to negotiate a discount too.

If you have good storage, you might be able to take advantage of bigger quantities, eg buy potatoes by the sack rather than small bags. They need storing somewhere cool, dry and dark (an outhouse is ideal) and you can freeze parboiled roasties, mash, and baked potatoes. Apples last for ages in the fridge (check carefully for bruising first) and are a great snack. Again, order ahead in season from a green grocer, and negotiate against the wholesale price,

It's a compliment, common saying up north meaning so delicious be gone in seconds😋

It’s a big compliment that’s very common in Scotland and the mention of lovely food in my original post was kind of a give away.

Hiya @Budgetbakingmum

There's a lovely website of budget recipes called Thrifty Lesley

She writes budget meal plans concentrating on several different ingredients each week. She has some lovely recipes and all her meal plans are for a low budget with everything cooked from scratch

I love the list of recipes from your first post, a lovely variety

My DM used to make a very simple Cheese Pie by putting mashed potato in a baking dish, a generous amount of grated cheese on top and more mashed potato on top. When it was baked, the cheese in the middle was gorgeous! She used to serve it with, sausages, bacon, mushrooms or baked beans and, best of all, sometimes served it with an egg on top!

Forgot to add ~ Fish Finger Sarnies are a favourite lunch in this house

I do too. You're impressive, @Budgetbakingmum!

Chicken wings with couscous is super cheap. We also like bubble and squeak with poached eggs. Butternut squash risotto with bacon (cooked in the oven), toad in the whole, melazone alla parmigiana (aubergine, mozarella and layers of tomato sauce), eggs provencal (eggs cracked into ratatouille and baked in the oven), fish pie. My cheapest meals are chillis made with TVP mince and red lentil curry but that is not possible for you (sympathies- I also had a child allergic to beans and pulses).

Buy shops own brand every time if possible. Also, get to know prices of toiletries/cleaning, toilet rolls, and if you're passing by places like Savers, Superdrug, the Range, B&M, have a quick look and see what's cheaper in there.

If money is really tight, swap some of your choices, ie we find Tescos malt wheats for breakfast cheaper per portion than a lot of other things. If you buy biscuits, get the multipack with four packs of biscuits they do. Eat a few more meals of the ones you find cheaper to make. Buy as much as you can if something is on offer that you use.

Explore any community shop / pantry in your area.

I live alone and my carer has been cooking for me recently, we have been using 'Hello Fresh' which isn't a cheap option but works out at under £40 which is for 3 meals for 2 people, so 6 meals for me.

When I am doing my own cooking (depending on my health) I build in leftovers.

I feel like I say this on most cooking threads but if I am making baked potatoes I cook some extra.

The following day I take the potatoes out of their skins and mix with flour to make gnocchi.

I have a window sill full of herbs still in their pots from the supermarket.

You can regrow spring onions, chop the base off, the roots plus about 1/2 inch and put the roots in water.

If you have a local FE college that has catering courses then you can sometimes buy the food they are making. I used to fill my freezer with bred when I was doing a day release course.

Thanks for this thread. I think your meals sound great and also got some ideas myself.

Tesco have a recipe for chickpea paella that is cheap and tasty.

Some of my budget go to meals are things like either egg fried rice or risotto made with leftover meat/veg from Sunday.
Love a Bulgar wheat salad - cook and dress the wheat then add in what ever salad/veg/herbs you have. A bit of feta is nice too and some
chickpeas to bulk it out
Made a delicious carrot salad the other day. Middle eastern spices, oil vinegar and herbs all mixed in with ribboned carrots

I also usually buy stuff like basmati in 5/10kg bags as it’s better value

Thanks for the ideas!
We eat either stir fry rice or noodles once a week. Usually with left over chicken or frozen prawns.
I also do chicken and mushroom pie or pasta with leftover roast meat.

onion flan, once you have the flour, butter its easy to make the pastry and 3 large onions for the filling a couple of eggs and some milk. I use Delia smith recipe, as the pastry is easy and has cheese in. I reckon it costs about £3 and gives 6 portions. serve with bake beans and new potato

It is food from another era and it's the type of home made food I brought 4 kids up on and I still eat today. So do they when they visit and the grandkids too. I wouldn't thank you for the food that you eat either.

I think you are doing brilliantly as it is OP.
I second what others say about cooking risotto in a non stick frying pan, it's a game changer.
We eat a fair amount of rice based dishes, jollof rice, egg fried rice, all in one chicken, veg and rice baked dishes etc. So cheap.
The Cherry pick app is great for ideas and there's an option to price up grocery lists at different supermarkets.
I don't love pasta but Cajun chicken pasta is the exception. I've learned to avoid buying the pasta sauces as it's so simple to make them from tinned tomatoes, chilli, garlic and a spoonful of Philadelphia.
Have you got a garden? Even a tiny plot can be enough to grow some herbs, bay leaves and an otherwise expensive "luxury" fruit eg we grow blackcurrants (yielding approx half a big bucket of fruit from 2 small bushes, enough for 6 jars of jam and 4 bags of frozen berries for cheesecake this year) , raspberries and cherries and patio tomatoes. It genuinely saves us a lot.

Our cheap dinners are

egg, chips and homemade coleslaw ( carrot cabbage and onions grated with mayo )

home made bean burgers / tinned beans mashed up with onion sweetcorn and whatever flavours are to hand

halomi burgers ( ok probably with the same coleslaw because it’s cheap and filling !)

Sausage and bean casserole - onions, sausages baked beans and tinned tomatoes. Cook slowly for quite a while so it goes all soft. I then quite like a spoon of the leftovers on cheese on toast the next day

sausage tray bake - sausages, baby potatoes, onions and apple all roasted together and mixed with some whole grain musttard

roast a Boursin or equivilant with baby tomatoes and then mix in cooked pasta

smoked salmon pasta - fry an onion, add a pack of smoked salmon trimmings then add some cream, black pepper and lemon juice and stir into pasta

Yes, I use the Quiche recipe in the be-roll cook book & make it regularly, using whatever i have in as the filling. The pastry costs pence & takes no time to make. It requires 2 eggs & 150ml of milk - i use longlife and have winged it with one large egg before 😆 cooking bacon or chopped sausage & fried onion, broccoli & onion, tuna & onion, all with a little cheese on the bottom & top. I don't even blind bake & sometimes double-up and make two.