£20 budget shop

[samface182]

hiya, we are really low on money this week and are having to do a shopping with £20. there is me, OH and our 1 year old who eats everything we eat.

what do we buy? we have eggs, pasta and tins of beans already.

we need the food to last us until at least saturday x

 

[TwilightAgain]

I'd pick up some cereal, a large milk. Maybe two loaves of bread and freeze one. Some packet meat, if you get the shop brand stuff you usually get a lot in a packet. Some chips that would be a couple of meals. Hmm....if you have beans and eggs thats more meals

......Chicken fillets and some vegetables?

Baked potatoes, you can usually pick them up 4 for a £1, they'd be cool with beans

 

[princess_bump]

How about tinned tomatoes to go the pasta, can make a nice pasta sauce, even add some carrots.
with potatoes, any carrots left over and a little chicken make a roast type dinner. or if you had flour in, with the eggs make a toad in the hole with some sausages.
i agree, buy bread and milk, could make an omelet.
if you brought potatoes you could also make some oven chips, just buy chopping them up, par boiling and spraying with a tiny bit of oil, could go nice with egg and beans

 

[Blah11]

Pasta, sausage and mash, baked pots, omelettes, egg and chips, make Veg soup and have it with bread


Avoid fresh meat cept maybe mince.

 

[xxembobxx]

pasta, pasta sauce, big pack of mince and some potatoes and carrots should cost less than a fiver and give you a couple of meals at least (spag bol and cottage pie).
I buy cheap mince which just means you have to dry-fry and drain the fat off.
A bag of potatoes will do you a few meals. If there's any bolognaise left you can have that with jacket potatoes, no need to buy special baking potatoes, the regular ones bake the same.
And of course save some money for lunches and get a cheap cereal.

 

[xxembobxx]

Thinking about it I could really do with budgeting myself to £20 even if it's only one week a month. Doesn't mean we're gonna starve and I'm pretty sure we'd manage ok.
Might be a good habit to get into, we waste far too much on food.

 

[kayleigh&bump]

Budgeting down is actually easier than you think... We've recently cut out shopping bill down from 100 per week to 45 that includes nappies, milk, toiletries and cleaning stuff too. Almost all of our meals are freshly cooked from scratch

 

[tinkerbelle93]

Jacket potatoes are really cheap and make filling dinners/teas
Try and draw up a meal plan then go on tesco.com or something to fill up a basket and see how much it would cost xx

 

[livfc]

We had to do this the other week and it was easier than we thought.We got a big bag of potatoes,a big bag of frozen sausages,bag of frozen veg,pack of mince,cheap grated cheese,pasta,bread,pack of pasta bake sauce mix,beans,couple of tins of tomatoes,gravy granules,and stil had money left over for a couple of bars of chocolate,and some juice

 

[SKATERBUN]

so much can be done with potatoes (get massive bags from greengrocers), tomatoes, and cheese. The Sainsburys Basics range is excellent for not comprimising quality and flavour, you just get odd shapes

 

[mer]

potatoes are cheap

 

[happygal]

we buy alot of stuff from iceland, a bag of 40 fish fingers is £2, 8 chicken breasts(garlic&herb, southern fried, plain or spicy) are £2 and a bag of 20 sausages is £1.50. iceland is also good for milk, you can get 8 pints for £2 x

 

[cyclura]

Tescos Value Gravy 20p
Value peas 85p
2 x Value Beans 56p
3 x value bread 1.41
bag of 20 value sausages £1
value pasta sauce 18p
value mixed dried fruit 64p
value rice snaps 70p
value 15 eggs 1.25
value spread 1kg 1.20
value mince 500g 1.20
value carrots 76p
value 5kg potatos 1.89
value brown onions 1.18
large milk 1.99
pack of four value chicken pies 84p
value chicken stock cubes 19p
value sweet and sour sauce 25p
value rice 55p

Total £16.84

rice snaps for brekkie for LO
for you guys toast or rice snaps or eggs etc

Dinners
pasta and mince with pasta sauce (use half the mince) bulk this out with the onion and some carrot and peas mixed in with the mince

sausage in onion gravy and boiled spuds (brown off enough sausages for your meal and cook some onion until it is clear, put the sausages and onions in an oven dish with gravy and let the sausages cook through for about half hour on 180 ish, check them to make sure they do not over cook, you can cook the other sausages off while you are at it so you have them to hand or sandwiches or a meal. Boil your spuds and there you have it

good old beans and scrambled egg on toast

shepherds pie, you can actually cook this the same day as you do the sausage meal as shep pie reheats well, Brown the mince and cook off the onions until clear, add some of your mixed veg and extra peas for bulk, make up a stock of gravy granules and add this to your pan. Meanwhile cook off enough potatos for the mash to go on top, once cooked mash them with a bit of spread and a drop of milk. Add the mince mix to an oven dish with a lid and then put the mash evenly on top, cook for half and hour with the lid on and then take the lid off for a further 10 minutes to brown.

Make some home made chips, cook in a deep fryer if you have one, if not cook in the oven , these can be eaten with a couple of sausages, beans, and an egg

Pie, spuds and peas

pasta cooked off in a stock cube and cooled, cook off some veg and cool and theres a simple cool meal for you

rice cooked and cooled, eggs scrambled and cooked then cooled, bung all this in a wok and "fry". you can even add some of your cooked veg if you like.

cook some rice, while you are doing that you can cook off some veg, drain then add sweet and sour sauce, you can even put chopped sausage in any of these that you cooked earlier in the week.

Sausage sandwiches for lunch, or egg sandwiches or bowls of veg rice with stock cube for flavour

here are some ideas for you

 

[cyclura]

the dried fruit was so lo had some healthy treats through the day that wont go bad

 

[kerrie24]

If we are a bit short I look at whats in the reduced section as it can usually be frozen for another day

 

[lisa9999]

Budgeting down is actually easier than you think... We've recently cut out shopping bill down from 100 per week to 45 that includes nappies, milk, toiletries and cleaning stuff too. Almost all of our meals are freshly cooked from scratch

God thats amazing! I really want to cut down on food shopping spend too.
Can you share any tips?

 

[Mummyjessie]

I agree with SKATERBUN, we often have weeks ( esp just before payday) when we have to have budget meals. Eggs are great and versatile, I add veg to all meals to add extra vitamins and bulk out a bit, most supermarkets do a huge tray of "value" mushrooms which I add to many meals. Go to the "reduced" fridge in a supermarket to find lots of freezable bargains too! Good Luck x

 

[lucy_x]

MINCE MINCE AND MORE MINCE!!!

800g for £2.00...This feeds one person 8 times! so will make you 4 meals.
those could be spaghetti, lasangua, chilli, enchilladas, these yummy things made from mince with soft cheese in the middle and rolled in breadcrumbs...., homemade pie, etc

Boring but hell if your hungry If you are to buy those, Get 4 tins of chopped toms, Kidney beans, Wraps, Lasangua sheets, Pasta.

Staple bits like bread, Milk, Loo roll, Cereal and ham for ham sandwiches for lunch. Smart price or value products are actually all fine, Their ham is particularly good at morrisons...In cobs with crisps at lunch, lovely!!

At our poorest i fed 4 (5 including Amari) for £23.00 one week!...So if i can do it you definatly can

Seriously can you tell we are poor...we eat a lot of mince.

 

[bubbles123]

We have recently got ours down to £50 from £80. Could have got it lower but as OH is vegan there are some things we have to buy (soya yogurts and cheese etc) that are very hard to find cheap versions of. I did it by comparing prices at the supermarkets and getting what we needed from where ever was cheapest, getting veg and fruit at the end of the day at the market when the vendors where trying to off load it cheaply and buying whatever we could from Aldi. Good luck with your shopping, there are some great ideas in this thread!