I’m a mum-of-two and manage to stock my fridge and freezer for a month for £100 – where I shop is never considered cheap
A SAVVY mum-of-two has revealed how she’s attempting to spend less than £100 on food for an entire month – and claims the key is careful meal planning.
Jessica, known online as @jessicaireland, shared how she’s doing a ‘low-spend’ month, and so in a bid to cut her family’s food shopping from £300 to £100, she’s trying to use up what they already have at home.
Taking to TikTok, the 27-year-old mum explained how she’s using frozen meat and vegetables as the base for their dinners, and what she’ll buy during small shops to top up.
She said: “How I’m feeding my family of four for under £100 this month…
“So it is Sunday night and I am planning my groceries for tomorrow, and I wanted to show you how I did that.”
During the six-minute video, Jessica goes on to explain how the family are trying to have a ‘low-spend’ month, and so are prioritising using up the stuff they already have in their fridge and freezer.
She continued: “We’re doing a no-spend month which really is a low-spend month… bit basically what we’re doing it trying to live off of £100 this month in terms of grocery shopping.
“Typically we spend about £300 a month, so basically we’re just eating out of our pantry and freezer, and then we go do groceries.
“Basically all we’re getting is fruit, veggies, eggs, like, that kind of thing.
“So how I do this is I usually start in my freezer and look at through the meat and that helps me narrow down what recipes to make.”
While rooting through her freezer, Jessica finds some frozen fish fillets, diced beef and pork fillets, as well as frozen baguettes for lunches.
She continued: “Let’s get into how I meal plan, how I do a grocery list to keep the costs down.
“So for breakfast… we do yogurt and granola. I homemade granola last week, and we still have yogurt left from last week’s shop.
“Oatmeal we’re good on, we usually do oatmeal and peanut butter or chocolate and apples.
“And then another option is usually cereal and milk.
“So in terms of breakfast, the only thing that we really need is milk and then fruit. So I’ll typically just buy whatever is on offer, and then I’ll always buy apples because that’s what I have every day in my oatmeal.
“Then in terms of lunch… we always just do toasties, wraps, bagels. If you saw in the freezer, we still have some bagels left, [and] some wraps, but I think I’m going to buy a fresh loaf of bread this week because it’s nice sometimes to have fresh bread in the house.
“Then we still have ham I bought a few weeks ago that’s still in date that needs to be eaten probably in the next few days, so that’ll do us good there.
“I still have cheese, butter and that’s basically what we have.”
Jessica then moves on to plan five meals for her family of four, typically starting with the frozen meat she has in her freezer.
“So the things in the freezer that are sticking out to me [are] the beef pieces, so I was thinking about doing a red Thai beef curry.
“A few weeks ago we made a fish curry, and we still have some Thai red curry paste that I think you have to use within a couple of weeks, so that’s perfect, it’s killing two birds with one stone.
“So the only thing I think we’ll need for that is coconut milk.
“A lot of the recipes I was looking up called for peppers in it, we have frozen peppers in the freezer. And then I have cauliflower rice in the freezer I’d like to use up.”
The savvy mum goes on to show how she writes each dinner on the calendar so the whole family know what to expect, and the few items she needs on her shopping list.
For the coming week, she also planned to make pork chops with mashed potatoes and vegetables, taco soup using turkey mince and beans, chorizo sweetcorn pasta and potato bacon soup.
She added: “My grocery list as of right now is milk, fruit, bread, coconut milk, tortilla chips, sour cream, avocado, cream and bacon.
“So a very small grocery, it should only cost about £20 which is what we’re trying to stick to.”
In another video, she shared what she bought during her food shop at Marks and Spencer’s – and how much it all came too.
During the short reel, she shared that she picked up strawberries, a pineapple, apples, bananas, two four-pint bottles of milk, soured cream and double cream.
She also grabbed a tin of coconut milk, a loaf of white bread, tortilla chips and two packs of bacon.
Below the video, she added: “It was pretty much bang on £20.”
Fans loved the glimpse inside her weekly meal planning, with the first video gaining more than 1000 likes and 22,000 views.
In the comments, TikTok users shared their thoughts, with one writing: “Love these type of videos.”
Another commented: “Then there’s me spending like £60 a week on food shopping, I need tips.”
A third asked: “What about things like toiletries, toilet roll, cleaning products and snacks, drinks? I love your videos.”
Jessica replied: “That’s included! I tried to stock up last month!”