Help! £20 for a weeks worth of food shopping

[Wewereherefirst]

We have got £20 to spend for meals for the week- DH, 2 DC and I.

Can I stretch the money out to get a weeks worth of meals from Tesco? I have to do an online shop tonight and I am panicking we won't have enough.

Any super cheap meals welcome!

I have tins of beans and tomatoes, lots of carrots, some potatoes and a few other bits and a slow cooker.

Do you have rice? If not, I'd get some.

What about cheese? What meats have you got in if you're a meat eater?

I need to get more rice and I think I've got mince and some chicken breasts in the freezer, enough to do a meal each I would say.

Baked potatoes- cheap and filling! Pasta and sauce, toasted sandwiches, tinned soup and roll.

Jacket potato and beans
Pasta and tom sauce
Sue it can be done

Eggs. Omelette as one meal, egg sandwiches another day. And lurrjing tins of tuna?

Do you have spices? Dries chillies/paprika etc?

Passata is really cheap, could make some pasta sauce.

Lentils, tin toms, stock makes a really filling soup. I put chorizo in ours but if you cant afford that just add some paprika.

Baked potatoes, pasta and sauce with some cheese grated on top, shepherds pie with your mince and potatoes, chicken breasts in a spicy tomato sauce with rice, beans on toast, scrambled egg on toast, eggy bread, soup and rolls

What about lunches?

Do you have a lidl nearby? Tesco is really expensive when you only have £20.

Lidl do supernoodle type things for 18p. Cheap pasta, cheap sauces etc.

Thank you so much for the ideas!

My plan so far is jacket potatoes, beans and cheese, pasta and sauce, soups-mixed veg and lentil and tomato, egg fried rice, a shepherds pie and a chicken thing.

Lunches will be a packed lunch for DS1 Monday- Thursday, DH will have soup when he's at work and DS2 and I will have toast and something each day I think.

Thank you all, I was beginning to panic that we wouldn't have enough money to last, but you've made me feel so much better

I have been here. This is what I bought-
value smoked bacon
Value frozen sausages
Pasta
Celery
Carrots
Onions
Eggs
Potatoes
Lentil
Mixed beans
Tomato
Chickpeas
Bacon. three quid two meals. Slice carrot and potato in thin rounds and layer in slow cooker with a few cooked chopped rashers of bacon. Add 500ml of stock and leave for a few hours. Very cheap hot pot thing.

The other half of the bacon pack, fry in small pieces with onion add tomatoes and pasta (herbs and spices at your disposal)
Sausages, not ideal, but a frozen tesco own bag is a quid for twenty. Use four, a tin of toms, a tin of beans (any kind) and chopped carrot in slow cooker for a few hours sausage casserole thing.

If you have flour and milk, buy eggs, another 6 sausages and you have toad in the hole with carroty mash.

The remaining sausages I defrosted,.skinned and fried with onions, celery, carrots, spices and tomato to make a very cheap version of Jamieopregnant pasta.

I did a lentil and chickpea soup

And a chicken casserole with.frozen chicken, sweetcorn and leftover veg.
Finally there was a rather desperate but surprisingly nice egg fried rice, with onions for one of five a day.

I bought value porridge oats for breakfasts which went down well and lasted

And a large pot of veg stew served as lunch for the week, along with an omlette or two

Here's a recipe I got on here that I use a lot during skint weeks:

'Recipe for slow cooker below - if you don't have a slow cooker, just make it in a big pan over the lowest heat you can manage - fry the garlic and onion until really soft, add everything else, cover and cook for as long as you can (maybe two hours) and check because you will probably need to add a bit more liquid

Great as a side, but even better made in batches and stored in the freezer to act as a base for other ingredients - ideas at the end of the recipe. It's very economical and comforting food. It's also really good if you reheat with leftover boiled potatoes and/or defrosted frozen cauliflower (well just tip a kettle of boiling water over it)

2 small or 1 large onion - chopped quite finely

3 cloves of garlic also chopped finely

2-3 tbsp of bought curry paste - I like Massalman, but use whatever you like or happen to have

2 tins of chopped tomatoes

squeeze of tomato puree

half a bag (about 250g) red lentils

Put everything into slow cooker and mix together - cook on low for 6-8 hours'

Bananas a really cheap and really filling. Lentil soup is just onion, couple of carrots and lentils!
Baked beans on toast /spaghetti hoops on toast for the kids.

Also, don't get it delivered, you have to pay delivery!

Stewing steak is great - can make a lovely chilli and rice which is fab for lunch the next day too.

O and tesco whole meal couscous is great and massively filling

If it's a temporary cashflow problem, could you set up an account with milk&more? You won't need to pay for a couple of weeks and they do a lot of the basics, as well as stuff like loo roll and washing up liquid.

Lots of casseroles, soups, stew - buy a bag of soup/casserole mix to bulk them up - it's really cheap (about £1 a bag I think) and you can get quite a few meals from one bag because it's dried.

I've just spent £56 in Morrison to feed 5 people, including two packs of nappies. It's possible.
This week it's, nachos, risotto, cheese and onion pie, quesadillas, pork chops and 2 pizzas. And cold meat for lunch. I'll make my own bread.

For £20 I would suggest
Home made bread and vegetable soup, wooton pie, lentil casserole, onion soup with cheese croutons, bacon suet roll and mixed veg pie. Hopefully you've got store cupboard or freezer things to help you along. I've been in this situation more then once and it's crap but it is possible.

Make a full list of everything in your freezer and store cupboard, you will be amazed at just how many meals you will get out of it all.

Use the chicken breasts for chicken pie or chicken risotto or pancakes stuffed with chicken in white sauce, they will fill you up more that way, don't just do a meal that is a breast per person.
Make fritatta with any eggs and left over veg, more filling than omelettes.
Sausages can be used for toad in the hole, or with bean casserole.
Serve bread with every meal, especially good with anything with gravy or sauce.
Chick peas, butter beans etc are cheap and filling. Make soup for lunch.

If you are stuck for inspiration, post your list of available food here and you will get more ideas.

Bean casserole is a store cupboard favourite here. Tin of beans is the base, onions, chilli, other finely chopped veg, tomatoes, chopped left over meat or bacon/ salami are all optional extras. Serve with Tesco value tortillas (40p a bag) and if you've got any grated cheese. Or potato wedges. Or soldiers (bread or toast fingers).

It microwaves in a few minutes and its really a different meal to beans on toast.

I know I've missed the cut off time for ordering, but do you have any clubcard vouchers?

Ideally I would save mine for the Exchange deals, but last year there were a couple of times when I was in your position and my vouchers meant that I had an extra £10 to spend on the basic shop. You can use them online too.

Too late for your order but I would get some frozen sausages and some mince, milk, flour and eggs.

Baked potatoes with cheese and beans
Beans on toast
Toad in the hole
Pancakes (savory with cheese)
carrot soup
shepherd's pie - use mashed carrots as well as potato for the topping. If you can't stretch to buying mince buy a couple of tins of mince and onion.
Cheese on toast
Omellette
meatloaf (mix of mince, sausage meat, cornflakes and seasoning)
Egg and chips

Can you go to shops instead? If you go before closing you get marked down bread, also reduced veg for soups, and reduced sausages are v cheap usually. If it goes off today you could freeze until you need to cook it. Our green grocers give slightly gone veg for free, meant to be for horses or guinea pigs etc, but most of it could go for soup or stock, a lot of grocers do this. ( pensioners around here are wise to it)! Also butchers will give you stock/ soup bones for free often, makes lovely filling soup! You can get whole chicken with giblets for 2.99 which can do three meals, one for breast meat, one for brown (ie curry from tinned toms) and one from giblets and bones for stock.
Spanish omelette v filling and most kids will eat, if you have potatoes (any peas in freezer)? Make sure you get reduced or v cheap cheese if you need it, it's v expensive on a restricted budget. Same with eggs, vary Wildly in price. If you need a treat for kids, popping corn is cheap and makes buckets full. With a DVD this can feel like a big night in.
I hope things ease up for you soon, Try and think of free fun stuff to keep spirits up, it works if you can stay possitive.

Thanks everyone, You're all great! We're having one of those more month than money moments as we've had a lot to pay out unexpectedly, but with all your advice I've managed to do everything for about £20

It's been a long time since I've had to really budget everything and we have an extra mouth to feed too.

I really appreciate all the meal ideas here, they sound yummy and I'll probably make them more often! Thank you all again