How to Feed a Family of 5 on 200 a Month
The $200 Per Month Challenge
Welcome to the $200 per month challenge! The claiming that sees me feed my family of 4 on $200 per calendar month.
This is where I will show y'all what I would buy and brand if I could only afford to spend $200 per month on food for all my family'southward meals. Now, don't exist fooled, $200 per calendar month IS a challenge. Information technology is no piece of cake feat and that'due south why I have called it a claiming.
4 people for an entire month means I am looking at 120 serves of breakfast, 120 serves of dejeuner and 120 serves of dinner. I will as well exist supplying snacks, treats and desserts. It's a hard task but I know we can do it!
The concept is that I volition starting time with blank cupboards and have to build everything up. For case, calendar month one requires me to purchase a lot of staples and spices because the pantry is completely empty, simply in month 2, I will build on what is remaining from the first month. You lot may already have a lot of the products on the shopping lists so feel complimentary to spend any spare money on more fruit and vegetables or save it for a special occasion.
I will provide y'all with gratuitous meal plans, shopping lists and recipes for the meals I have created for my family unit in case you lot experience like taking the $200 challenge too.
Below are links to the monthly repast plans, each meal programme has links to the recipes included in that months programme also as the shopping listing of the required ingredients. I hope you like information technology!
Delight see my about me folio if y'all'd like to detect out more than about me and my family.
Month ane Meal Program
Calendar month ii Repast Programme
Month 3 Meal Plan
This challenge is dissimilar to others I have seen online in the post-obit ways:
- The $200 covers all meals. That's breakfast, tiffin, dinner as well as snacks/treats. Most others I take seen only cover dinners or tell you that yous tin can't afford snacks and treats on this budget.
- $200 per month is less than $50 per week, I take not seen a budget repast plan based on less than $fifty per calendar week, especially one that covers all meals.
- My outset $200 per month is starting with bare cupboards. I volition non presume you lot accept anything at home. No flour, no sugar, no table salt. This ways the first calendar month of the challenge will be especially lean, simply after that I will hopefully be able to provide you lot with more than variety.
- I take based this on what my family would swallow, still, I have 2 immature children so I have upsized their meal portions to accommodate what my husband and I would eat instead of our children. And then essentially, this is a meal plan to serve 4 adults. Not 2 adults and ii children.
- I take tried to make all the ingredients as accessible as I can for anybody. I take merely shopped at three major supermarkets; Coles, Woolworths and Aldi. There is no point in me telling you I found a great deal at my local butcher if yous alive 600 k's away.
- I have not bought any items on special or that have been marked down so y'all may be able to do your shopping cheaper than I did. Fruit and vegetables practise fluctuate in price and I base my meal plans around what is in season and inexpensive and I encourage you to substitute the fruit and vegetables for the cheapest in store at the time and buy any marked down products you can.
Earlier you kickoff this challenge you need to consider a few things.
- This is the nutrient I feed my family unit, you lot and your family unit may not similar the same things we do.
- I have not catered for whatsoever allergies, intolerances or families larger than 4. If you fall into whatever of these categories and so you may exist able to modify these recipes to adapt your family, nonetheless, it will undoubtedly cost you more than.
- This challenge includes nutrient items only. It does non include cleaning products or toiletries.
- Before you do your shopping you demand to know the prices at your supermarkets. Looking them upward online is a swell way to make up one's mind if Coles or Woolworths etc is cheaper. You may have another supermarket with some of the items on special and be able to buy them at that place. Or your local butcher or greengrocer might be cheaper than the supermarket. If that is the instance, and then please shop there to relieve whatever money you can. Call back it costs money to drive around and then don't make special trips to shops that are far away if you're only going to relieve 50 cents.
- I buy my gift cards online at Cash Rewards. If you lot buy gift cards online for Woolworths yous are able to save 5% at some sites. Sometimes this corporeality is even higher. So, if you were to spend $200 on souvenir cards, you would really have $210 you could spend, or your $200 shopping trip only toll you $190. This means that when you're checking the prices prior to your shop, your competitors prices need to save y'all more than v% earlier you bother to buy them from there, otherwise information technology's cheaper to buy at Woolworths with your discounted gift card. I have occasionally seen Coles gift cards discounted, but this seems to exist infrequent. I use this disbelieve to stay under $200. If you lot are non prepared to buy gift cards online and so you will pay closer to $210 per month.
- Even if you do non follow my guide completely, it may still help you save coin on your future shops. Couples could follow this guide and consume for longer than one month as well since the meals I accept prepared cater for 4 adults.
- With this get-go month I was unable to purchase much fresh fruit because I was buying staples. Chances are you will have some of the items on my shopping list in your pantry already. If you exercise not need to buy staples or if you can salve any coin I suggest you buy some fruit. Otherwise, do a lot of little shops at Woolworths with your children. They permit each child a piece of fruit from the handbasket at the entrance for free. I know information technology's not ideal but I also know some people store every day and this is a good way to get items for free.
- I could easily salvage more money on these items if I shopped around or bought food marked downwards. In fact, at the fourth dimension of writing this, Steggles manufacturing plant outlets were selling chicken drumsticks for $2 per kilo or 6kg for $10. Had I bought the drumsticks from Steggles instead of Woolworths I would have had twice as many.
- A lot of people feed their families on limited funds considering they are saving for a vacation, paying off their mortgages faster or simply want to salvage money, only some people have no pick. If you have no choice there are alternative places to buy nutrient than from the supermarket. My local Seventh Twenty-four hours Adventist church does food hampers once a week. These bags cost $v-$10 and contain a cracking multifariousness of foods, unremarkably a box or ii of cereal, some fresh fruit and vegetables besides as some pantry items. They are bang-up value and worth a lot more than than $x. There are other church groups that also have a shop set upwardly, you can buy heavily discounted items on item solar day. Please contact your local churches and see if they offer anything like. These usually occur at a venue for several hours 1 day a week. For some you need to meet their criteria like having a Centrelink Card simply others are bachelor to the unabridged customs.
- I know that not anybody will like my meal program, my recipes or my site. I can't cater for everyone, if you don't like what I'm doing and so simply don't read my web log.
Source: http://www.mummyonabudget.com.au/200-per-month-food-challenge/