3 Tips for Feeding a Family on a Budget

ClaireBearx

I’m always on the lookout for how to help my family and I with working on a tight budget. However, I’m always looking for ways to help us even more. Whether that is with; food, gifts, shopping, days out etc. I’m always switching where we shop for food due to whats the most affordable, most deals etc. but here are my basic methods for feeding a family on a budget.

budget-food-post

  • Meal Plans. I have lacked in this department as of recently but I find when I meal plan, I only buy items of food I actually need. Therefore, no food wastage (or very little at least). Like I said, because I haven’t done them recently, I don’t have a picture example I could show you guys but I guarantee it is a fantastic way of keeping costs down and less wastage.
  • Shopping Online. Neither Tesco or Asda like to come down my street very much but doing my food shop online really helps us! I am the kind of person who walks to the supermarkets just to see if there are any new books, toys on offer or new clothes lines (and also pick up some treats). I’m also the kind of person who loves a ‘SALE’ sign. Seeing things on offer make my heart jump with glee. But it’s something I realised I needed to stop. Whenever I see things on offer, I just have to run over and grab some things. But really, they aren’t on offer if you didn’t need or want them in the first place.
  • Keeping Leftovers. This is something I’ve mostly been doing recently as I’ve started making sure I cook all meals from scratch. With Bear being Baby Led Weaned, we find it’s really important to keep our diets healthy and full of as much good, fresh food as possible. Not that we never did before, but we were a bit lazy with it before baby arrived. Since weaning, we have decided what kinds of food we’d like him to eat and that involves *yes, wait for it* me cooking EVERYTHING from scratch. It means though, that we have some leftovers, I tend to cook enough for a small army, but that’s fine! I just pop them in a lock tub and freeze them for later use. Whether Bear has them for his lunch or tea when we decide to have a cheeky takeaway or something like that.

As I said, I’m always looking for more ways to help with my budget spending. What are the things that help you to stay within budget or to help keep things cheap and affordable for you and your family?

29 thoughts on “3 Tips for Feeding a Family on a Budget”

    1. I was worried about the cooking time for baby etc but we just altered our eating times and met in the middle kinda thing. It’s so much easier to cook for everyone at the same time and all eat the same thing šŸ™‚ xx

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    1. oooooh, I should have included this one! My partner hates that there are separate bags of chicken breasts and stuff all over the freezer (fills the freezer up haha) but its worked out so well for us to bulk the meal out, and means we’re using up the veg too! xx

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  5. Meal planning is definitely key for me. Like you say, there is minimal waste. I have also incorporated one meat free day a week as well which saves a bit of money. Chicken is getting more and more expensive all the time.

    Online shopping is another godsend and I find with Morrisons that you get some pretty good flash sales if you go back into your basket a day or two before your order is due and check out again. I always buy meat and fish that is on offer and that helps with the varied diet.

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    1. Oh a meat free day sounds like such a great idea! If I liked veggies enough and could live without the meat for a day, I would totally be able to do that haha! Ah really? I didn’t even know that! I went with Aldi for a while as it was a much cheaper shop, but I found their fruit and veg doesn’t last at all. So I started to go to Tesco & it’s so good! Especially if you go to my local at the right time, I picked up loads of reduced meat the other day! xx

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  6. All of these are fab tips Claire! I’m also a sucker for a sale sign so online food shopping is so much better for us too. I love a bit of meal planning but I’m not great at using leftovers so I’ll definitely bare it in mind.

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    1. Honestly lovely, if you’ve made like a bolognese or meatballs or something, once you dish it out, if there’s any spare just pop it in a container and let cool then pop it in the freezer, means one day you’ve got something quick and already prepared etc. It’s a lifesaver sometimes haha! ‘Offers’ and ‘Sale’ signs reel me in haha! xx

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  7. Great tips! I’m not organised enough to meal plan lol! But I do find shopping online makes it so much easier to stick to a budget, and we keep leftovers too! Katie x

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  8. I’m planning on kicking off meal plans in the next few weeks on my blog – I’m hoping writing them online will force me to have to actually make one! Do you read them, if so, do you have any favourites? Great post!

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  9. Yay so glad I came across this post. This is something I really need to start doing. I waste so much food weekly through not planning plus I spend far too much on food. Planning is the way to go for us ā¤

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    1. It really does doesn’t it! I don’t tend to purposely batch cook a lot but like when I’ve done a meal and there’s some leftover, I’ll just pop it into a container for freezing so there’s always food in for if we ever have a takeaway and Bear can have some food I’ve already made or a quick tea or something xx

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  14. Meal planning is key. However there’s nothing worse for the plan to say ‘fish’ and no one in the house wants fish lol.

    Totally agree on over cooking and saving food for toddlers, we also cook all of Bella’s food from scratch.

    However i disagree on the online shopping. I find the quality of the fruit and veg picked out be awful and some of the substituted items to be totally unsuitable. I tend to go to Aldi, with a specific list. i buy whats on the list. nothing else. no sidetracking. i find Aldi to be cheaper than everywhere by miles. having said that every 2nd or 3rd week i do have to go and buy branded items in a different shop (depending on who’s sending me tokens in the post)

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