Food ideas for a VERY tight budget

Rice and potatoes for carbs. Butter for fats. Lean ground beef for protein. Bags of frozen mixed vegetables to keep the Green Police out of your hair. But you ARE going to have to learn some basic "cook from scratch" techniques. At least enough to boil potatoes and sautee ground beef. Don't worry about it - YouTube is your friend - cavemen could figure this out, you can do it, too!

Also, if your budget is tight, your food will get repetitive. That's just the way it is....

EDIT: Almost forgot - and of course, the simplest way to get the food budget down is to eat less.

This is a handy link for budget supermarket shopping: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cheap-supermarket-shopping Near the bottom of the page, it tells you when different supermarkets discount their stuff if you're looking for bargains. The forums on MSE are quite good for money saving ideas generally.

I'd really recommend you learn to cook. It's really not hard to learn basic cooking, and you don't need any books - there is tons of stuff for free on the internet. Ok, so maybe not stews, but your partner may have to compromise a bit if you really need to cut back. Ready meals are definitely not the cheapest option. What about things like bolognese, shepherds/cottage pie etc? Things like that are easy to learn (just following simple recipes) and you can make them in bulk at the weekend and freeze them in portions, to be quickly heated up.

Make most of your meals vegetarian and you will save lots of money (I was a vegetarian for 24 years, then meat eater for 3, now back to being vegetarian). Breakfast and lunch veggie meals. Dinner meals go meatless every other day.

Pasta (spaghetti, rotini, angel hair, vermicelli, etc.) is always good and very inexpensive. Pasta sauce is usually pretty cheap (like $1 a jar sometimes on sale) but even cheaper if you make it yourself. If you want to 'beef' it up add shredded cheese

Beans (black beans, pinto beans, red beans, navy beans, etc.) make very good, very versatile meals and very, very inexpensive if you buy them by the bag.

Meat substitutes include those made with soy, tempeh, seitan. Well tempeh is soy too, actually. Anyway you can buy these premade but they are expensive, so I used to make veggie burgers and such from scratch.

Meat meals, generally birds and seafood are fairly cheap, especially frozen.

All Recipes is a good site for recipes and ideas:
http://allrecipes.com/

I hate to just echo all of the other ideas you have been given. But everyone has good advice for you!

It sounds like you are in the UK, I have no idea if Aldi there is anything like here in the US - but I do know they have UK locations. I find it to be an excellent place to purchase BASIC & inexpensive yet healthy food. In fact they even have frozen "wild caught salmon" which comes in 4 portions and is cheap, my husband and I eat it baked with a tiny bit of oil (usually sesame oil) to dress it, and it's fantastic with potatoes and a veggie.

EGGS, beans and rice go a long way.

"In season" fruits and vegetables can save you a LOT of money.

In my opinion, people really overhype cooking and baking to make it sound/seem much more difficult than it is. I've been baking since I was a small child and it's very simple when you just read and follow directions carefully. It doesn't get too difficult until you start introducing super fancy techniques and unusual ingredients...you could probably do some awesome scones, cookies, etc (healthier lighter versions if you like) with ease!! Pinterest is a great place to find ideas.

Anyway even with all of that baking, I didn't truly start cooking until my late 20's and it's not that hard. You can do it! Like others said, YouTube is a great resource.

I'm clueless about cooking for large families and have no idea about your children's habits (it's just my husband and I) but I do know about frugality! We keep a very tight rein on our grocery spending and I'm often shocked at how much others spend on weekly or monthly food shopping.

A few more ideas...to save money and because they're delicious. Breakfast for lunch or dinner. Morning isn't usually the best time for most of us to wanna cook a huge meal or bother with pancakes etc. But those foods can make a great meal anytime and tend to be quite cheap, especially if you go meatless. Also Mexican style meals. We regularly mix this up to do TVP tacos, nachos with imitation crabmeat, etc. You can make these cheaper and lighter by subbing black or pinto beans for beef if you want to, and going easy on the cheese and salsa (which are delicious but you usually can't tell a difference in 1 cup of cheese on a Mexican casserole versus the 2-3 cups the recipe calls for).

Good luck to you!! :-)

I have 3 boys to feed, so I understand trying to make healthy, easy, inexpensive meals that every one will eat is a TALL order!

Our top favorites:

Spaghetti/pasta
(tomato based sauce, add in whatever cooked meats you like, sausages, turkey, chicken, ground beef, etc) go easy on the cheese for me, heavy on the veggies like mushrooms, zucchini. I steam those and serve on the side. The kids will eat garlic bread/rolls/biscuits along with.

Burritos
(same with whatever meat you have/is on sale) cheese for the kids, none for me. I usually cook an onion, add my meat, then season with cumin/garlic and add beans. Wrap in a tortilla and sprinkle with cheese for the kids, salsa for me.

Breakfast sandwiches
Fry or scramble some eggs. Put on toast, biscuits (leftover from dinner!) rolls, muffins, or burger buns. Add a piece of deli meat, leftover steak, slice of ham, bacon, etc (again, whatever is on hand) add some cheese if needed, a slice of tomato or avocado if you've got it. I have mine with some mild salsa (veggies!)

And of course, they will always eat mac n cheese, pizza and chicken nuggets, etc. Those days I can make myself a dinner salad.

The best advice I can offer is ``build your meal around the sales of the week `` Also most super markets have a section of produce that is about to expire and sell for very cheap - I sometimes get a huge bag of string beans for just 1.00 !!! You just have to cook it all up and then freeze .

I know how this goes. I was a single mom for years. Now my husband and I have 5 kids to feed. Grocery budgets are tough and require planning. But you can do it!

Eggs, potatoes, rice, and beans--stock up. These are your staples. Eggs and beans are your protein; rice and potatoes are your filler. Watch for sales on frozen fruits and veggies and stock up when prices are low. Stock up on pasta and pasta sauces when you can. Also, you can freeze most cheeses--I do it all the time when it's on sale. I usually shred it and freeze it in large bags.

"Stir fry"--ramen noodles with scrambled eggs and mixed veggies. Just heat and drain the veggies, scramble the eggs, prepare the ramen, and mix it all up. (This isn't considered "healthy" by the clean eating crowd, but it packs good nutrition for the price. Just watch the sodium!)

Bean burritos. You can add rice to mix it up, serve with salsa.

Oatmeal is a very cheap and filling breakfast. So are eggs and toast.

Learn to make cornbread. It's pretty inexpensive and is a nice change of pace. I pour cornbread batter on top of taco filling (meat, corn, beans, etc) and bake. Taco casserole.

Check the meat clearance bin at the grocery store. There are usually good deals to be found there.

Go low sodium where you can afford to. Inexpensive foods (especially canned goods) can have a lot of sodium.

Get on Pinterest.com and search recipes with the ingredients you have on hand. Or search "cheap meals". Don't be afraid to try new recipes all the time! Get creative! You'll get better with practice. We all started somewhere.

My mother always said if you can read, you can cook so don't be intimidated! And check out vegetarian websites for recipes.

I went through the same thing....three kids, not worth going out to work and paying for daycare, so we lived on one salary. I remember a neighbour saying to me "Wow, you must eat a lot of ground beef". I replied "Nope, can't afford it. But we eat a lot of lentils!". And eggs. And cheese. And peanut butter. And pasta. And porridge. Look around for food that you can get for free too. I picked buckets of blackberries because they were on the side of the fields at the schools for free. I also found hazelnut trees that I could pick (great source of protein). Can you barter for things? The town we were living in during that time had a bartering network. For example, if someone has been fishing and had a freezer full of salmon they'd trade some fish for a couple of afternoons of childminding. And don't look down your nose at what our grandmothers called "winter vegetables". Those are the brussel sprouts, carrots, parsnips, cabbage, and turnip that are CHEAP in the store this time of year You don't NEED lettuce in January. You don't NEED fresh tomatoes in January.

Its not easy eating well on a budget. In fact, you'll spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen. But involve the kids. Have them help you knead bread or make granola. Anyone can open a bag of potato chips (crisps) but Its way more fun to pop a bowl of popcorn to share while reading a book to them. You'll gain confidence as you go along. Don't be afraid to try new foods but don't get sucked into trendy foods. Our grandparents managed without quinoa and protein bars, and so can your family. At the end of the day, you'll actually be eating healthier because you'll have ingredients in the cupboard, instead of processed foods.

My kids have since said to me that they didn't realize we were poor when they were younger, however I like to think of it as being frugal, not poor LOL Hope this helps a bit. If nothing else, at least you know that other people have gone through the same thing and managed to feed their families healthy foods.

Good ideas! Thanks!

Butter
Frozen vegetables
Canned tuna
Eggs
Ground meat
Bacon
Buy whole chicken, and chop it up yourself, use bones to make chicken stock
Cabbage
Canned tomatoes

With the above ingredients, there are countless cheap and healthy meals you can make.