How To Feed a Family of 4 for £30 a Week
Looking to cut the cost of your weekly family food shop?
There are two very simple things you need to do to keep your costs down: Plan your meals and shop at a budget supermarket.
Plus bonus tip, always shop for the cheapest ingredients because brand and weight cause a huge variation in price between similar products.
Every supermarket has offers apparently taking the prices down on a range of goods every week, but these prices are often a little misleading.
Sometimes the cost of something has been artificially inflated the week before to make the reduction look more inviting. Other times it may be reduced at one supermarket, but still significantly cheaper the week after.
The following family meal plan and shopping list has been created based on prices at Aldi.
I calculated the costs based on some offers Aldi had going, so prices of course may vary from week to week.
I recommend picking your fruit and veg based on their weekly special offers, which take a decent chunk off the cost.
So this week I chose their broccoli and cabbage to go with our roast dinner, but I would change this if there was a different selection of vegetables in the deal.
My big tips for writing your weekly meal plan are:
- Think about leftovers. How can you use the same ingredients again the next day? If you are cooking something easy to bulk out, like a pasta dish, cook some extra pasta and make enough for another portion the next day for lunch or dinner.
- Avoid waste. Remember to plan how to use up all of your veg. An entire head of cabbage will go a long way and could be used in two or three meals for a family. Add it to stir fries or on the side of a variety of meals, just make sure you use it before it goes off.
- Know the costs! Be aware of the general price of the things you buy frequently. Shop around and see where does them cheaper. Aldi and Lidl are generally beating the other large supermarket chains on price, although of course you may not get all the branded goods you want at these stores.
You may also like: Budget shopping list costing less than £20 a week
Weekly £30 meal plan for a family of 4
This is a very typical meal plan for our family for a week.
These meals are all popular with everyone and include plenty of vegetables.
I’ve linked out to the recipes for some of the dishes. Our homemade pizza is made with Jamie Oliver’s pizza base recipe.
This one is super simple and makes a great base. All you need to do is add some passata on top then you can grate a little cheese over it and top with meat, peppers or cherry tomatoes if you wish.
Our meatballs and pasta recipe is a family favourite. I simply fry the meatballs then add a tin of chopped tomatoes to the pan and cook for around 20 minutes. Sometimes I add a meat stock cube for extra flavour and some dried herbs.
Sunday
- Breakfast – Scrambled eggs on toast
- Lunch – Toasted cheese sandwiches
- Dinner – Roast chicken dinner with roast potatoes, broccoli and cabbage
Monday
- Breakfast – Porridge with honey
- Lunch – Chicken sandwiches
- Dinner – Leftover roast chicken with fried leftover roast potatoes (simply cube the potatoes then fry in a little oil to reheat and brown on all sides) and veg
Tuesday
- Breakfast – Cereals
- Lunch – Chicken soup
- Dinner – Meatballs and pasta
Wednesday
- Breakfast – Jam on toast
- Lunch – Cheese sandwiches
- Dinner – mini toad in the hole and mashed potato with broccoli and cabbage. I use mini cocktail sausages or chipolata sausages cut in half to make these. The batter is simply a Yorkshire pudding batter made of eggs, plain flour and milk.
Thursday
- Breakfast – Porridge with honey
- Lunch – Leftover lamb sandwiches
- Dinner – Mushroom risotto (I do a very basic risotto recipe simply frying the risotto rice with some diced onion in a little olive oil then adding the chopped up mushrooms before pouring in some vegetable stock a little at a time until the rice is tender)
Friday
- Breakfast – Cereals
- Lunch – Cheese salad wraps
- Dinner – Tomato veggie sauce with pasta (I use the passata, saving a little for the pizza the next day, as a base for the sauce then add some chopped onion and diced carrots, you could add any other veg you like such as leeks or squash too)
Saturday
- Breakfast – Pancakes – serve with a little yoghurt or honey
- Lunch – Leftover pasta from Friday night
- Dinner – Homemade pizza with any toppings you choose or leftovers from fridge
Weekly £30 food shopping list for a family of 4
At the end of this list you will see store cupboard items such as cooking oil. These are items I purchase in bulk as and when needed, so do not include in a normal weekly shop.
Fruit and vegetables
- Potatoes (2.5kg) – £1.05
- Chestnut mushrooms (250g) – 95p
- Carrots (500g) – 33p
- Broccoli – 69p
- Savoy cabbage – 39p
- Lettuce – 70p
- Cucumber – 43p
- Cherry tomatoes – 67p
- Grapes – £1.19
- Bananas – 69p
- Apples – £1.15
- Frozen peas – 55p
Meat and fish
- Chipolata sausages pack of 12 – £2.50
- Whole chicken – £3.79
- Beef meatballs – £2.19
- Pepperoni – £1.05
Dairy
- Milk (6 pints) – £2
- Cheddar cheese (275g) – £1.99
- Greek yoghurt (500g) – 49p
Other
- 12 eggs – £1.69
- Tin chopped tomatoes – 35p
- Passata – 32p
- Bread loaf – 49p
- Soft wraps – 75p
- Porridge oats – 75p
Total cost £30.20
From the store cupboard
These are the key items you should always have in your store cupboard to create meals with your fresh ingredients.
- Risotto rice
- Basmati rice
- Plain flour
- Strong bread flour
- Plain flour
- Yeast
- Spaghetti
- Cereals
- Vegetable stock cubes
- Onions
- Olive oil
- Spread
- Honey
Final thoughts
I hope this article has given you lots of inspiration to feed a family of four cheaply in the UK.
You can find tons of tips for how to save money on food over on this post.
