I have £30...

[LucyDeSpiderman]

how can I feed 2 adults & a 2 year old for a week?
We don't like pulses or beans .
Is it possible?

Big bag of spuds

cheese and tins of beans

depends what's in your cupboards too

do you need stuff for packed lunchs?

Doable but not much variety
Pasta
pesto
cheese
bread
milk
potatoes
sausages
some fruit

Big bag of pasta and jar of pesto will do 2 or 3 meals with grated cheese
Cheese on toast is fine for lunch or cheese sandwiches, but it late tonight or tomorrow for reduced and freeze it.
Jacket pots with cheese/pesto
sausages and home made chips
Get some frozen peas or whatever veg your 2 yo will eat and serve them with everything.

Satsumas, apples and bananas for fruit as are cheap.

Pot value yoghurt for pudding with chopped fruit in.

Do you have anything in the cupaboards?

You could get cheap mince and make a big bolognese as well, could get 2 meals out of it.

All this 'feed your family for a fiver' is bullshit anyway, I only spedn a fiver on 'special' meals!

And eggs for omelettes
eggs on toast etc

maybe shop in aldi or netto
obviously not waitrose

maybe sit down and look at finances to see where things went wrong and if anything can be done for next time? Switching energy suppliers etc

Get thee to netto or lidyl for cheap fruit and veg. Big bottle of milk £1 in netto.

agree with compo re: spuds, beans, cheese.

Do you eat eggs?

Mushrooms and onions are cheap and can be used to bulk out meals making them more filling.

Pasta
Mince
A chicken = sunday roast, sandwhich meat and a curry or stirfy or similar. Could also make a soup from the carcass if you like chicken soup.

value rice and a bag frozen veg - veg stir fry?

pasta
rice
potatoes

big bag of frozen sausages
frozen peas and sweetcorn
stock cubes
a cheap chicken
cheese

what have you got? Spices etc?

God yes, aldi goes without saying, their super 6 fruit and veg is brilliant, bags apples, grapes, tomato (for soup) for 69p each.

Forgot about eggs, omelette, spanish omelette with potatoes, scrambled eggs for lunch.

Just have milk and cereal for brek.

A sack of spuds, gives you jacket potatos, add some cheese and you have cheese and potato pie maybe with sausage, pack of mince and carrots means cottage pie, left over mince with garlic and toms becomes spaghetti whatever pasta you have or even top with homemade wedges. Plus you can have jacket spuds in between so it's not the same every night.

Jacket toppings;
cheese
beans
mince
tuna/ whatever you have in the cupboard

Remember to batch and freeze mash and wedges so you don't throw away the spuds. Gives you instant mash whenever you need it.

Op any of these suggestions appealing to you?!

soup

pancakes!!

Porridge. Cheaper and more filling than breakfast cereal. No added salt or sugar.

Ok, just been & looked, in the fridge we have green beans (on last legs by the look of them), some tenderstem broccoli (ditto), 5 medium sized tomatos, a handful of cherry tomatos, 1 slice of bacon & some philadelphia.
Cupboards - pasta, spaghetti, loads of rice, a few different jars of dried herbs, seasning etc, 1 large egg, olive oil, white wine vinegar, dijon mustard, honey.
Freezer - mixed veg, 2 braising steaks, 1 block of puff pastry & some mini corn on the cobs.

Definitely not going to waitrose , but unfortunately it's going to have to be asda, as have no car so having to walk.

Dp takes packed lunches to work, he's in construction so works hard, so needs quite a big lunch iykwim.

get your self down to aldi, fantastic quality veg and fruit and quarter the price of the 'big' supermarkets.

egg fried race?

chilli...with rice

spag bol

Chop up steaks and make pasties with them and some potatoes and pastry for his lunches.

Roast tomatoes and make soup

Use rice to make veggy egg fried rice with egg and veggies

Then do as above

Compo - yes, most of them! It's been so long since I've had to limit my food bill this much, so I completely forgot about simple, yummy things like baked potatoes!
Oh, and I know the exact reason we've no money, but that's another thread [going to kill dp emoticon]!!

Lol

Your fridge + pasta from cupboard = 1 dinner.
Pasta with green beans, big tin of tuna and cheese = another dinner.
Team this cold with hard boiled egg as Pasta Nicoise (type thing) for DPs lunch.
Mash with onion and steamed cabbage stirred through with soft fried egg on top = a gorgeous dinner.
Definitely porridge for breakfast for all.
would the family eat kidney beans if you expained it's authentic for chilli con carne? makes a small amount opf mince go a long way.
My DP hates lentils as well but little does he know he basically eats red lentil bolognaise and red lentil con carne a couple of times a week.

Tinned tomatoes are fab, you can use them to make pasta sauces, soup or rissoto.

Don't forget baked beans, cheap and filling.

I bung all of our leftovers (spoonful of peas, bit of pasta, half an onion) into the freezer then make soup at the end of the week - Free meal.

If you don't like beans, what about something like sketti on toast? (apologies for awful spelling but trying to differentiate between actual spaghetti and spaghetti in tomato sauce in a tin lol)

These are all great.
Wukter, we do eat kidney beans, just in chilli though. Lol'd at you tricking your dp into eating lentils

Does anybody have a simple bolognese sauce recipe, that they then turn into chilli for another meal with the leftovers? I'm to admit that I buy dolmio bolognese sauce because my few attempts of home-made have always failed miserably.

£30 can be done. Don't worry! We live on about that for a week for two adults (although tend to not do a weekly shop) and can't imagina 2 year old can eat that much extra. That's assuming it is just food you need from that £30.

Firstly do you think your DP would eat quorn? I personally love it and think it tastes very similar to chicken. In a sauce I wouldn't notice at all. A 300g bag of quorn I would expect to get two meals out of minimum. Could also be used to bulk out a meal with chicken so you can use less chicken.

Another thing is look at large joints of meat in the supermarket. We got a huge joint of beef from Sainsburys last month which I chopped in to three smaller joints. I should have in fact cut it into four. We have eaten two so far and had lots left over from each joint which was good for lunch the following day. If had bought three seperate joints we were looking at £7/8 each where as the one big joint cost about £11.

For 7 evening meals I would suggest a combination of the following:

• Roast beef joint with veg
• Left over beef in a stir fry with noodles
• Pasta in a tomato sauce made with tinned tomatoes, another veg thrown in such as courgette or mushrooms and with quorn or a tin on tuna. Or use some quorn with a chicken breast
• A curry with quorn and chicken and some veg. Use tinned tomatoes as a base for the sauce as they are cheap
• Jacket potatoes with cheese and beans
• Another pasta dish - perhaps buy some creme fraiche or cream if your family will be bored of the tomato based sauce
• Par boil potatoes, chop into slices, place in a baking dish with layers of cheese in between. Also mix in chicken or quorn or tuna or something similar (I would cook first).
• Baked sweet potatoes with cheese topping

Would your DH eat leftovers for lunch? That way you can just make more pasta or more curry and he could reheat. Otherwise the leftover beef is also good for lunches. Also if you can get to Lidl's their cold meats are much cheaper than main supermarkets.

Turkey breasts are a good substitute for chicken as well although a little tougher.

Also if you usually buy premium brands then make sure you just buy the cheaper version for this week. There are some things like tinned tomatoes that I always buy the Sainsburys basic version as there just isn't any point in buying the expensive ones in my opinion.

Oh, I see you said you were going to Asda. They usually start reducing things at about 6ish. Head there then, find the area where the put the reduced stuff and see what you can get. you can quite often get very reduced chicken breasts which you can freeze and use a couple of days later. Also their indian and chinese ready meals from the counter end up in there quite a lot and at a cheap price.