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!