Feeding My Family of Four on a Tight Budget

I spent years feeding my family on a budget, with so many bills to pay each month and more or less annual increases on everything, I had no choice. The only place for movement when more money was needed was the food bill. Every other bill in the budget was set by someone else and we had no choice but to pay them or incur a cancellation or fine. So, I’d pull our proverbial belt tighter by reducing the food budget.

The challenge was always the same, how to produce nourishing, inviting and tasty food in sufficient quantity to satisfy and sufficient variety to not bore my family. Food that neither looked or tasted like a ‘poor man’s fare’. Simple inexpensive tweaks and a little extra effort would elevate the humble jacket potato and beans or sausage and mash. Always at the forefront of my mind was the need to get the maximum amount of food for the least outlay. To achieve this, I had to be willing to shop around and this took a lot of physical effort but I was ready to do whatever it took for my family to eat well and keep the bills paid each month. That was my goal…, and to achieve it I did the following:

Bulk bought some ingredients:
   1. Potatoes (20kg)
   2. Onions (5kg)
   3. Rice (10kg)
   4. Salt (1kg)
   5. Oil (5lt)

Stocked up on Frozen and fresh foods (I had a small chest freezer) from wholesalers and supermarkets, keeping an eye on special offers!
   1. An assortment of frozen vegetables
   2. An assortment of frozen meats/meat products
   3. 4lt Tub Vanilla Ice Cream, lollies etc

Got some supplies from wholesalers:
   1. Boxes or large bags of assorted flavour crisps
   2. Snack size boxes of raisins and variety packs of chocolates bars
   3. Laundry Powder and conditioner
   4. Various hygiene and cleaning products
   5. Various meat products

These lists may look impressive and give the idea that I had a massive budget but that wasn’t the case at all, I didn’t buy them all at the same time. I shopped around a lot to get the best value for my money and I wasn’t too proud to shop at Netto (for those who remember) and Lidl whose products carried brands unknown to me but what of it? It didn’t put me off at all, I initially bought one or two of my chosen items to test for quality and generally found them to be comparable, and at a fraction of the cost too, so they very quickly became my ‘go to’ stores.

I also regularly popped into Sainsbury’s and Tesco for fresh fruits and veg, dairy products and other bits and pieces. At those times I’d check out their deals and special offers on things like Breakfast Cereals, squash, snack foods, frozen goods and things from the fresh meat and fish counters. This all took time and a little effort but it was worth it. I was able to provide a wide variety of meals at minimal cost per head which…., unless I told you I was on a tight budget, you’d never have known! I also made good use of our local market stalls and farm shops. The thing is, I love to shop, all kinds of shopping, it stimulated my imagination so while it was sometime tiring it was only occasionally a ‘chore’!

Fast Foods were occasional treats even when we could afford it because I couldn’t help thinking how many days’ worth of meals, I could provide for my family for the cost of just one takeaway meal! I grew up eating homemade meals cooked from scratch and that’s what I wanted for my family, it was healthier I felt and I had more control over what went into their bodies. During school holidays we’d take the kids out to a fast food restaurant once or twice for a meal of their choice; they liked to go to Pizza Hut, Burger King and Mac Donald’s; Kentucky Fried Chicken, Fish & Chip and Chinese takeaway we’d enjoy at home. We had homemade fast foods and takeaways too where I’d re-create their favourite meals and we’d pretend we were eating out.

I got the kids involved in cooking quite early on when they were in primary school. Initially, I think they took turns to prepare a meal on alternate weeks with me, but eventually as they improved and were more confident, or at least I was more confident that they could, it became weekly. At these times I became their helper peeling chopping or just observing advising, but if it appeared like I was trying to take over they’d send me packing to a stool where I could watch only and speak when I’m spoken to. They could prepare pizzas using a scone mixture for the base, all made from scratch (this was my son’s speciality), spaghetti Bolognese, meatballs in tomato sauce, beef burgers, chicken drumsticks in homemade BBQ sauce, macaroni cheese (my daughters speciality) and simple things like beans on toast, scrambled eggs, French toast, cheese on toast.

Other things I found helpful in managing my food budget were:
1. Preparing weekly menu plans, I had four of these so meals didn’t become predictable and boring, for me at least!
2. Making an inventory of goods in the freezer and larder before writing a shopping list, or devising a new menu plan; all common-sense stuff that is often ignored at our cost.
3. Doing the main shopping monthly with weekly top ups of fresh produce as required.
4.Sticking to the menu, you can swap out a day or a week but not add a new dish as this might incur extra costs and blow the budget.
5.The kids packed lunches was included in this process so there were very few surprises to my budget.

Planning and shopping this way I calculated that our main meals cost between 0.65p – 1.25p per person per day generally!

For about a year in the early 1990’s after we’d taken on a mortgage thing were really tight so that a dish of rice became an occasional luxury, pasta and potato was cheaper, potato the cheapest. For someone from an African/Caribbean heritage this may sound like quite a sad tale to you but for me it was just another strand of life and I could focus on what I wanted but did not have and feel ‘down’, or I could focus on what I had through my adventurous lenses and face the challenge with optimism and a sense of excitement. So I asked myself the question “what can I do with this humble potato?” I already knew I could roast, wedge, chip, jacket, and mashed it; and I’d thought creamed potato was just a posh name for mashed potato…..then I discovered it was on another level entirely and hardly ever make the humble mash now. I discovered colcannon, bubble n squeak, mashed potato with horse radish, or caramelized red onion, or garlic butter and herbs, or sweetcorn, kidney beans and caramelized onion; the computations seemed endless, these are just some that I remember we enjoyed, I just made it up as I went along and not once did anyone say “Oh no not again!......” and believe me they would!

Breakfasts were a mix of traditional Jamaican and English dishes such as fried dumplings and accompaniments, saltfish fritters, cornmeal porridge, oat porridge, and Kellogg’s Rice Crispies, or Coco Pops or Honey Nut Flakes. I tried, but the kids never let me get away with other brands, they detected the difference immediately, I even put the shop brand into a Kellogg box weeks later and it was still rejected after the first mouthful so I gave up trying to fob them off, they didn’t often make a fuss.

My mother could make the quickest and simplest dish as tasty as she did a Sunday feast from a few disparate ingredients on a Friday when her stock had sometimes run low, we called these her ‘hurry-come-up’ meals and wished they were produced with more regularity. I had learnt from her, adding my own slant from watching other people cook and mix flavours in Trinidad and Kenya. I actually didn’t realise how much I’d taken onboard until I found I began to feel the squeeze on my purse. I believe I also have a natural flare when it comes to cooking and experimenting with foods and flavours. So…., difficult as things were at times, they afforded me the opportunity to rediscover those latent skills and enjoy watching them at work as though it were someone else producing those dishes not me!

I don’t often cook a dish exactly the same on every occasion as my mind always runs ahead with ideas about swapping out one ingredient for another to see or confirm the result I visualise and can almost taste! Cooking for me is like a big experiment, it’ll either work and you enjoy the dish, or it won’t and you choose whether to eat it or not. Thank goodness most times mine worked and the family enjoyed something a little different.

If you’re on a tight budget but are not confident cooking with the raw ingredients from scratch, but would like to try, I suggest you start small. Choose one dish you enjoy eating but have never prepared, find the recipe in a cook book or even better on youtube where you can watch it being prepared. Watch a few people prepare the same dish and you may find slight differences in ingredients and method. Don’t let this confuse you, let it liberate you! It shows there is no wrong or right, just a personal preference. Even the chefs on TV all have their personal tweaks to the basic dish, try it and see!

After you’ve cooked it a few times and feel confident about it, try another dish! This way, slowly but surely, you’ll progress from ready or oven meals to freshly prepared meals, and if you shop around for your ingredients as I’ve suggested above, it shouldn’t cost anymore and may surprise you how much less you’ve spent plus, you’ll know exactly what you’re feeding your family.