Thread: Feeding a family on a tight budget

Hi everyone - I dont know if there is already a thread for this but I have few people now asking for ideas on the "whats for Dinner/Tea" threads asking for ideas for cheap meal ideas etc.

So I thought a Budget thread would be a good idea for money/food saving tips.

I know some people shop weekly, some daily - but ideas might help others who struggle.

Best tip i have to save money is to make a list of all the ingredients you have in cupboard, fridge, freezer etc and how many meals you can make out of each eg. Pasta- 2 meals (left in pack) tinned tomatoes 3 meals (3 tins left) etc.
then do your meal plan for the week incorporating as many of the things you have in that you can and write your shopping list at the same time with the extra bits you need to make the meals you have planned.
When shopping stick to this list, only buy what you need each week and do the same each week. You use up the things that have been lurking in cupboards for ages as well as only buying what you need. Can't eat what you don't have in and save so much money doing this too!

At times when money is tight I find you can make some really good value meals such as pasta and tomato based sauce (value chopped tomatoes, an onion, carrot, dried herbs etc) or soup, you can make tomato or potato and leek soups really cheap and they go a long way, plus if you make it yourself you can decide how chunky or not you want it whilst keeping it syn free