Cooking.

The price of food these days makes it quite difficult to make a budget we can stick to. Firstly, I recommend that you buy beans, any kind will do. They are rich in protein and have many health benefits. You can make a huge pot of beans and take out what you will use for the meals on that day and put the rest in ziplock bags and freeze it. You can also do the same with spaghetti. When you start doing this you will not only start having ready to heat meals, but you will have food in storage for the days when the money enough to last through the month. You can also buy rice, oatmeal, tuna and canned goods which are healthy, cheap and last longer. For snacks you can buy jello, pudding or make oatmeal cookies. Hope this helps.

Hello! I am the mother of 5 and so I know what it is like to live on a budget. I remember when I only had 2 children though and was going through a divorce, no vehicle, and pregnant with my 3rd. I only had so much I could spend each month for food. I started making things from scratch, such as bread, rolls, etc. I would make a big pot of my spaghetti sauce and we would have spaghetti for a night or 2 and then I would freeze the rest of the sauce so that I could use it later for lasagna or more spaghetti, because my kids loved it. I would also make a big pot of beef stew, brown beans and ham, red beans and rice, jambalaya, gumbo, etc. and again would freeze the leftovers after the second night of eating it so that by the end of 2 weeks period, I would have at least 10 or so meals in the freezer that each would equal 2 nights of dinner for us. I would make homemade pizza too! The kids love that, because they can help and they can make it the way they want. The major staples that I always kept on hand were flour, sugar, yeast, cornmeal, and spices, because I could make so many different things with them and they are not that expensive to keep on hand all of the time! One night, toward the end of the month, I had nothing to fix, my staples were running very low and I happened to find some canned chicken in the cabinet, some packets of chicken gravy and I hat potatoes, so I mixed up the chicken gravy on the stove just as the package said to do, poured int he canned chicken and we put that on top of mashed potatoes. We had some kind of vegetable with it and the kids loved it!

First of all: a cooked meal is not mostly a "hot" meal and not necessary more healthy as other meals. Important is you get the right minerals and vitamins which you can get also by eating bread, yoghurt, cheese, some vegetables/fruit/raisons etc. It's easy to make soup yourself, which is more healthy as buying it and way cheaper. Buy fruit/vegetables make salads out of it and choose the ones that have a cheap price at the moment. Babies/little children can eat what you cook, there is no need to buy special food for them, it's only more expensive. I live with 3 kids from 40 euro a week this does not only incluse food but also clothes, birthdays etc. I can send you plenty of easy/cheap recipes if you like. An other tip if you have the posibility to get your own home-made food get frozen, cook more and do so. Also try to find out if you have a lack of something (it mostly shows if you want to eat something more frequently or whole time).