Trying to decide what to feed your family on can sometimes be really frustrating. It’s easy to just grab the nearest thing from the freezer and pop it in the oven, but that’s not always going to be the healthy and cheapest option. Most parents want to feed their children a balanced and nutritious diet, but not go over the top on the spending, so to achieve this you are going to have to give it a bit of thought.
Lots of ideas can be found by searching the internet and some sites will enable you to download a family meal planner to help you out. I’d say one of the first considerations to make is the type of food your family like best, as it’s no good spending hours producing wonderful dishes that they turn their noses up at. It’s also a good idea to consider food which is in season which will be cheaper to buy than something that is imported from across the other side of the world. Pasta, rice or potatoes are cheap and filling options and can form the basis of many family meals, and if your children won’t eat vegetables then why not disguise them by adding them to a pasta dish blended into a sauce. They won’t even realise they are eating them.
I find a great way of keeping costs down when food shopping is to sit down at the beginning of each week and make a list of meal ideas. You can then write a shopping list for the whole week’s meals, just buying a few fresh ingredients when necessary. You’ll probably have lots of store cupboard ingredients anyway to keep the cost down. You may think that it’s going to take to much time to do, but over the course of the week then it’s going to be far more convenient than asking “what do you want for your tea?” each day.



