A common question in all my classes when the students find out how many children I have is "how much is your weekly food bill.It must be HUGE'.
They are amazed when I tell them, and often it is far less than there's.
Over the years our meals and eating habits have changed and adapted according to many factors:
- size of family
- budget
- where we lived
- time we had to cook
So we have modified our lifestyle and our meals quite frequently.
We have lived with quite a large budget, and we have lived on a very very meagre one. The large budget involved more treats for the children and shopping in more expensive shops. The meagre one involved a lot of lentils! Lentil burgers, lentil stew, lentil curry, lentil chilli....you get the picture. Now, needless to say we cannot face lentils! although I would recommend the book 'Not just a load of old lentils' which was my bible for a few years.
We are now careful.We run a tight budget, mainly because we have realised that you don't have to actually spend vast amounts of money to produce healthy and nutritional meals. In our house everyone by and large eats the same meal. It is only adapted for someone who absolutely detests a certain food. An example of this being fish. When we have fish we have an alternative as well.
I feel very strongly that everyone should sit together at meals times where ever possible. It is a time we can reflect on the day, re group and generally chat about things. Everyone has after diner jobs to help tidy up and get the house straight for the evening so these are done as soon as tea is finished.
We always plan the weeks meals so that we only buy what we have too and not have lots of food leftover that we never use up. I am very very fortunate that Simon loves to cook. When we first married I did all the cooking as I was staying at home with the children. As I returned to work, we shared the cooking more, and then Simon became very interested in Italian cooking and took over virtually all the cooking, other than any puddings which are still my domain.
For those living in the UK and Europe the shops we choose will make sense. If you are reading this further afield I will explain. We used to shop in Tesco and Asda (medium on expensive) never M&S or Sainsburys or Waitrose (more expensive). Then we went to Prague.At first we shopped in Kmart as it was the only supermarket there. We got used to lots of American brands and products-Peter Pan Peanut butter has to be the best! Then it changed to Tesco-don't get excited a few products were brought over and immediately snapped by every ex pat! and finally a year before we left Devita opened. We came back to Wales, went to Tesco and had a cardiac arrest at the bill. £200!!!!! in Prague we would be hard pushed to spend in Tesco more than £60! (Prices have since gone up). We had a serious re think.
We now shop in Aldi and Lidl. We shopped there way before the recession and when they were not popular shops to be seen in. Infact one of my children hid in the car when I went in years ago. People were very funny about the brands as they were 'foreign'. Many however we recognised from living i Europe. Now our future son in Law is the assistant manager in the local Aldi! My husband who generally does the bulk of the shopping (as he does the bulk of the cooking) is well known in both places. Mainly because our weekly shopping spills over the end of the conveyer belts! Everyone is very friendly too us and they are lovely personable places to shop in. It's fair to say Asda gives me a headache even trying to find the food!
Our weekly food bill for 10-12 of us (depending on who we have staying when) is about £100-£120. On top of this I shop for the toiletries and any things we run out of in the week, usually fruit, bread and milk. This can be another £20-40 depending. We can cut this down considerably if we have to at the end of the month as well.
As we have a lot of growing teenagers in the house who get hungry quickly we encourage protein filled healthy snacks. Noodles and scrambled eggs on toast are favourites. Crisps and cereals are expensive so these are banned at night. We eat a lot of fruit and yogurts as well, and these are also popular snacks as well. Despite all our healthy eating and cooking everything from scratch the teenagers still crave crap and go through an awful phase where they pick at meals obviously wishing the healthy alternative in front of them was sausage , beans and chips. Too satisfy this we have our one 'Crappy meal' night where we buy something they want. Usually chicken nuggets, beans/ sweet corn and oven chips! That's the compromise!
Tasty filling family favourite meals include, cottage pies, curry, lasagne, pasta with carbonara sauce, broccoli and bacon pieces, chicken with mascopne and vegetables, sausage casserole, lemon chicken and potatoes and veg and spaghetti with sauce. We use a lot of garlic and herbs as well to flavour things. We tend to use pasta more than potatoes and rice as it is healthier and works better with most of the meals.
The children have packed lunches for school. Years ago I used to make up about 9 or 10 each night. Now the older children make up their own meals. In the winter they can take a flask filled with hot chocolate, soup or maybe chilli with some bread and fruit. Often they choose to make sandwiches and then carrot sticks, tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers, fruits, a biscuit and crisps. They take water to drink .
Because of the way we eat, none of the children have fillings and the dentist commented "for such a large family' how remarkably healthy all their teeth were. I can only presume she must think as a large family we eat ready made meals??? if we did our budget would be double!
We also look out for reductions in the local co-op . Often both here and Tesco we have picked up meats hugely reduced that we can freeze for meals. We do some baking each week, but thankfully none of the children have very sweet tooth's so we don't need to make up very much.
I hope this has given you some insight into how a larger family manage. We all eat very well as well as very healthily! We do not go without and neither do the children. It shows you do not have to spend a fortune of food to give a nutritional and balanced diet to a large volume of children and I am pleased to say the older ones who have left, learnt from their father and produce lovely meals for their partners as well.
We are now careful.We run a tight budget, mainly because we have realised that you don't have to actually spend vast amounts of money to produce healthy and nutritional meals. In our house everyone by and large eats the same meal. It is only adapted for someone who absolutely detests a certain food. An example of this being fish. When we have fish we have an alternative as well.
I feel very strongly that everyone should sit together at meals times where ever possible. It is a time we can reflect on the day, re group and generally chat about things. Everyone has after diner jobs to help tidy up and get the house straight for the evening so these are done as soon as tea is finished.
For those living in the UK and Europe the shops we choose will make sense. If you are reading this further afield I will explain. We used to shop in Tesco and Asda (medium on expensive) never M&S or Sainsburys or Waitrose (more expensive). Then we went to Prague.At first we shopped in Kmart as it was the only supermarket there. We got used to lots of American brands and products-Peter Pan Peanut butter has to be the best! Then it changed to Tesco-don't get excited a few products were brought over and immediately snapped by every ex pat! and finally a year before we left Devita opened. We came back to Wales, went to Tesco and had a cardiac arrest at the bill. £200!!!!! in Prague we would be hard pushed to spend in Tesco more than £60! (Prices have since gone up). We had a serious re think.
Our weekly food bill for 10-12 of us (depending on who we have staying when) is about £100-£120. On top of this I shop for the toiletries and any things we run out of in the week, usually fruit, bread and milk. This can be another £20-40 depending. We can cut this down considerably if we have to at the end of the month as well.
As we have a lot of growing teenagers in the house who get hungry quickly we encourage protein filled healthy snacks. Noodles and scrambled eggs on toast are favourites. Crisps and cereals are expensive so these are banned at night. We eat a lot of fruit and yogurts as well, and these are also popular snacks as well. Despite all our healthy eating and cooking everything from scratch the teenagers still crave crap and go through an awful phase where they pick at meals obviously wishing the healthy alternative in front of them was sausage , beans and chips. Too satisfy this we have our one 'Crappy meal' night where we buy something they want. Usually chicken nuggets, beans/ sweet corn and oven chips! That's the compromise!
Tasty filling family favourite meals include, cottage pies, curry, lasagne, pasta with carbonara sauce, broccoli and bacon pieces, chicken with mascopne and vegetables, sausage casserole, lemon chicken and potatoes and veg and spaghetti with sauce. We use a lot of garlic and herbs as well to flavour things. We tend to use pasta more than potatoes and rice as it is healthier and works better with most of the meals.
The children have packed lunches for school. Years ago I used to make up about 9 or 10 each night. Now the older children make up their own meals. In the winter they can take a flask filled with hot chocolate, soup or maybe chilli with some bread and fruit. Often they choose to make sandwiches and then carrot sticks, tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers, fruits, a biscuit and crisps. They take water to drink .
Because of the way we eat, none of the children have fillings and the dentist commented "for such a large family' how remarkably healthy all their teeth were. I can only presume she must think as a large family we eat ready made meals??? if we did our budget would be double!
I hope this has given you some insight into how a larger family manage. We all eat very well as well as very healthily! We do not go without and neither do the children. It shows you do not have to spend a fortune of food to give a nutritional and balanced diet to a large volume of children and I am pleased to say the older ones who have left, learnt from their father and produce lovely meals for their partners as well.
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