You guys who are excellent at feeding your family on a budget - I need your help

[MascaraOHara]

I need to tighten the purse strings this month after an expensive few months with some unexpected bills. I am terribly overdrawn.

I need your cheapest meals please so I can spend as little as poss on food

I'm already getting my bread, fruit & veg at market etc so just a case of cheap, cheerful, quick & easy meals for me and dd

I have a fair amount in freezer (including yogurts for dd's lunchbox) and cupboards are fairly well stocked with ingredients. hoping to spend less than £50 for the month on food including our packed lunches.

TIA

Cauli cheese. Add a dollop of peanut butter to the sauce to make it yummy, and whizz up nearly-stale bread with a bit more grated cheese for crunchy topping.

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Iceland frozen veg is the way to go, usually £1 a bag - great for casserole mixde veg (and they seem to be the only place that sell it all year round). Bypass the artery furring crap that KK endorses obviously.

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Pasta, stir-fried veg (inc some tomates if you have any, makes it juicy, other nice ones are courgette, onion, pepper, mushroom) and a dollop of pesto.

Prob already someone has said buy dried beans not tinned, but you have to be organised soaking them in advance.

Thanks for all the ideas.

I got a bit fed up trying to meal plan and stuff last night so left it and will resume tonight.

I started to find it a bit depressing... planing the main evening meals isn't too bad but am really struggling to plan the lunches.

eat left overs for your lunch

lunches - quesadillas, couscous, cold pasta salad, soup, baked tatties.

ASDA do 24-packs of white bread rolls - not v healthy but dirt cheap and last aaaaages if you freeze them and take out as required.

Homemade traybakes, dried fruit, oatcakes and topping, natural yoghurt.

can you freeze yoghurts god i wish i had of known this

[sorry, quick Hijack for Davina - if you come back to this thread - I have a question for you over on the sentimentality thread. Can you come and have a look?]

12345678910 - you can certainly freeze Frubes - I buy them when they are on offer/past the sell by and put them in the freezer to use for packed lunches. I do know they aren't cheap and I'm not suggesting the OP buys them but if you do see a bargain pack you can freeze them.

It might not be practical for everyone but on Martin Lewis's website he has a table of what time of the day the supermarkets start reducing items and in my local Tesco after 7pm is great for really cheap bread/cakes and othet short life products which again you freeze.

Tesco have bread on offer £1.24 for a loaf but 3 for £2.50 so really good if you have freezer space.

Obviously having to buy a new freezer to take advantage of the multibuys isn't a money saving tip

Dont take anything but cash to the supermarket or better still send soemone else, with a list of what food you need to supplement your freezer and cuboards.

That way you will not do impluse buying, If I am having an eat the fridge and freezer week or two I just write all the meals down that I could make from what I have and then try to not go shopping until I really do need to, just for the stuff to top up.

That's what I do N5, Frubes (or the other equivalant) are nearly always on offer in TEsco and the like (normally BOGOF) so I buy the and put them all in the freezer, dd eats them frozen at home as a snack and they go in her lunchbox to defrost for lunchtime

I'm not sure whether I could only take cash to the supermarket.. that would be way out of my comfort zone

Exactly - your not shopping in a comfort zone, but on a budget and that isn't comfortable. It makes you add up the produce and not buy an extra.

Do your shopping list online so you know how much the bill will be - then take the cash and what is on the list is all you can buy.

I need some tips for the mealplanner. I could cry as my dh didnt close door of freezer and the lot has now gone in bin bags. It had 2 chickens,1 whole duck, 8 chicken breasts,2 large pack spare ribs, 16 m & s quarter pounders, 2 packs mince, icecream, king prawn ring, pork joint, bread, 5 home made spag bol, 5 home made potato bake, some lamb, beef stewing steak... and cant even list the rest im well fed up! Now I need to feed all of us on not much money. Im gonna go to shops soon see whats reduced so I can stock up again

Oh soremummy that's absolutely gutting!

SoreMummy, is it covered in your house insurance.. it often is. poor you!

It probably is but by the time we pay £50 excess and then it will probably make it go up next year it wouldnt be worth the hassle..

Lunches could be

cheap lentil soup in a flask

Homemade bread

apple

value yoghurt

where do you shop when you are budgeting?

For a variation on lasagne try this. You don't really need fancy cheese, could just use cheddar, also Lidl is really good for cheeses.

What about making a quiche? I made pastry with my whizzer the other day - it was a revelation! Took 2 mins! You could make a tray of it, have some with salad and potatoes for tea then the rest for lunch.

And while you are making pastry I make this recipe from my ready stead cook book, Autumn Veg Pie, just veg, potatoes, broccoli and carrots, in a cheese sauce, cut the pastry into large leaf shapes and bake then just place on top of the cheesy veg - yummy!

As someone else said eggs are always a winner, scrambled, poached, or boiled with solidiers, or even better egg bread

eggy bread

I also made wholemeal cheesy scones yesterday, and again it took 2 mins with the whizzer (except remember to add baking powder or else they will end up like pancake ) and 10 mins in the oven, great for lunches.

some great ideas here!

i just bought some mince on offer from the butcher, about 2.0kg for a fiver and have spent the afternoon making meatballs to freeze for a bunch of quick teas.

also like to do cheap veggie curries. i cheat and use frozen mixed veg and canned chickpeas with Patak's - just follow the instructions for beef curry on the back.

our slow cooker gets used about 3-5 a week.

i made a spag bol sauce in it the other day that is going to be pizza sauce tonight.

Im really catering for 5 adults and baby as the older ones are 17,15,14, so normally cook chicken during the week with veg etc, one night spag bol, another night 1/4 pounders with jacket spuds, beef casserole that sort of thing. But because they are older I tend to have to use 2 packs of stuff like mince/beef stewing steak etc. The problem is I have the basics in but not meat to go with it. I suppose they can survive on eggs one night. I was looking forward to our chinese evening tomorrow night hence the duck and the spare ribs and the spring rolls. I wish now that I had brought them up on potato smilies fishfingers and nuggets at least could have fobbed them off with that this week lol.

Oh can i have recipe for savoury scones please. I make muffins already.. I imagine base ingrediants are similar.. which means i will have them all. dd would love scones in her lunch box