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Top tips for feeding the family on a budget
Feeding the family on a budget can be difficult. These top tips will help you get the most from your money enabling you to eat better for less.
With the cost of living going up you may find that you are struggling to make ends meet. One of the areas where it is possible to save a lot of money is in your food budget. With a little planning you can feed your family well on a budget.
Top tips for feeding the family on a budget
These top tips will help you eat better for less.
Read more: Managing your money effectively with giffgaff gameplan
Make your own bread
As well as being much nicer than store bought bread home made bread is also cheaper to make. These days you don’t need to make it from scratch, you can invest in a breadmaker which will do all the work for you. Just put the flour, yeast, butter and sugar into the breadmaker and several hours later you will have a loaf of crusty bread.
One bag of flour will make around three loaves and with the other ingredients and electricity it works out around 30p a loaf. You also have the benefit of the lovely smell of cooking bread wafting around your home.
Meal plan
The key to feeding your family on a budget is to meal plan. Before you go shopping work what what meals you will need for the week. For each day work out what you will be eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For lunches you may need to plan packed lunch ideas.
Write out these meal ideas on a menu plan. This should just list the days of the week and what you are having for each meal that day.
Next write a shopping list. Before you do this you should check if you have any of the ingredients already in your cupboards. This will prevent you from spending more than you need. When you go shopping make sure you stick to the list.
Choose filling but cheap ingredients
There are a number of super ingredients that are cheap but will fill the family up. Oats are great for breakfast in porridge. You can also use them to make flapjacks for snacks. Root vegetables are perfect for bulking out a stew, making soup or having with a roast dinner. Beans and chickpeas are perfect for all sorts of recipes and help fill you up. Lentils are another versatile ingredient that can be used in lots of tasty dishes.
Some ideas:
Porridge recipes and topping ideas
Buy budget brands
When you pick up a tin or a cereal packet have a check on the shelves for own brand products. Often these are hidden at the bottom of the shelf. They usually taste just as nice as branded product but you can often save quite a bit of money by swapping to these own brand products.
What are your tips for feeding a family on a budget? Let me know below
Collaborative post.
Some great tips Alison, we spend so much on the weekly grocery shop and I really need to start spending less xx
Thank you. It is so easy to spend too much on food, especially if you take your kids shopping. My son adds things to the trolley. Hope they help you spend less
Supermarket own products are now often better than the branded ones. For example, Waitrose essentials pasta is good quality and the one I buy most often. I’m also partial of Co-Op biscuits, especially the ginger ones, so lovely.
We don’t have a Waitrose or a co near us but I do use supermarket own brands quite a lot. The quality can be really good