Well, I have to say I am totally shocked (in a fascinated way) of how much your children all eat!! I have read through your thread and everyone seems to agree about how much teenagers eat! I must be in complete denial because I cannot imagine that my children will EVER eat that much food in one day!! My goodness, me and DH wouldn’t eat that much put together!! Ha ha!!! 

My children (ok, so they’re only 6 and 9) but they will eat on a typical day:

Breakfast: small bowl of cereal (weetabix normally for ds) or 2 slices of toast (dd)
They don’t have a snack at school in the morning but at home they might have a biscuit or two mid morning.
Lunch: Sandwiches or wraps/pitta bread etc, 2 pieces of fruit or veg, a cereal bar, a yogurt, a chunk of cheese (or mini cheese).
PM Snack: 2 crackers with butter or mini cheddars with soft cheese or a fruit salad.
Dinner: Pasta and sauce (made with 50g of pasta) or Jacket potato and beans and cheese or something similar (they’re rather fussy so they have about 6 meals that get rotated).

That’s normally it but occasionally they’ll have a slice of bread and butter just before bed, or an apple or something.

We are on a tight budget so I’m very glad they eat the way they do as there is no way we could afford £200 a week. Our weekly budget is £60 so I try and do £50 so we have £10 for emergencies throughout the week.

I’ve just read some of your posts to DH and he was shocked too. Neither of us can remember eating that much when we were growing up. (150% certain he wouldn’t have done as I met him at 19 and he ate like a sparrow then!!!)

I’ve got the best appetite in this family but apart from fruit between meals I rarely snack on anything else. Not daily anyway!

Not sure what we’ll do if my children grow up to need a huge amount of food…send them round to Nanny and Grandad’s I think!! 

Are we in the minority here?? Do children’s appetites really change that drastically once they hit teenage years? Or did your children eat a lot more than ours at younger ages too?

Just to add that my youngest boy always drank large glasses of milk too as someone else has said, he still drinks loads of milk in fact.  I also second hummous and oat cakes or breadsticks, and home made bread with lots of peanut butter.  If there was only bread and nut butter and milk in and maybe a banana or two the lads would be happy

Mine have all been very fussy eaters as little ones.  But now there really is no filling them up!  Remember though there are 7 of us rather than your average 4,  so that I’ll bump the food bill up a bit too! . I am dreading though when they are well into their teenage years, I think I will need a catering style kitchen!!

Admit the kids are going to eat loads and with 7 people in the house bills are going to be expensive, try to make, buy, etc frugally.  I often double up bread recipes, making either 2 loaves of bread OR 1 loaf and rolls/breadsticks.  I find they keep brilliantly wrapped up. 
Double up meals and use them two days in a row or at least for lunch or snacks the next day, cook extra pasta or rice and make salads for snacks, I find making more than one meal at a time uses less ingredients but still goes as far.

I would definately double up snack recipes you use, it makes it cheaper for example doubling up a cake recipe where you need 2 eggs I only use 3 eggs in the doubled amount. 
Maybe make a big cake and fairy cakes, then hide half and bring out later.  Cut up cake ready and keep it sealed so you or kids don’t cut off huge portions but they can grab and eat easily.

Make your own houmus, dips, etc.  I got a lovely recipe from Talie for lentil, sundried tomato and basil paste which is lovely as a dip or in sandwhiches. Because you blend it you can’t tell what’s in it.  Lentils are great for bases for sandwhich paste or dips and also very filling and good for you

I would definately make a big glass of water the first thing they have when they come in, milk is even more filling but more expensive.

Serve only water with meals, put a jug on the table and top up regularly.

Keep juices, milk, squash, etc for when they are appreciated.

Search online for frugal websites or on fb join the frugal living groups, they are great and there is a huge amount of knowledge to tap into Frugal Homemaking Tips, Make Do and Mend, DIY, Thrifty Ideas and Crafts is a great all round group.

Grow (I know I’m preaching to the choir here) stuff on your windowsills all year round, herbs, lettuce, stuff like that

Hope that helps,
sarie

Can I just say, and you probably don’t want to hear it but….you’ll get used to it! Scary thought huh?
You know our oldest 4 are very close in age so we added one teen per year over four years, the food bill went through the roof! And then one of our teens adopted her friend and so we had another one most nights. (She had a really rough childhood so spent a lot of time with us.) We gave up on solely homebaked breads and supplemented loads with bought in bread. Basically we would do porridge and toast for breakfast, packed lunches for school, scones and milk or similar when they got home, tea was casseroles/curries with pasta/rice/potatoes, a stodgy pudding (crumble/bread and butter pudding/fruit pie, and something with toast for supper (beans/egg/peanut butter). A pretty old fashioned diet really but the only way to fill them up.
Now we have me, DH, 20 year old DD, 16 year old DS and the 3 littler ones (3 older ones have moved out)  so our food bill is still up around £150+ per week but thats so normal for us now that we hardly notice. Of course we don’t buy meat so that saves a little as good quality meat is so expensive, so I imagine your food bill is around average for your family size.
Not much consolation but there was a positive for us - when everyone started complaining about the price of food going up in the past 2 years we didn’t notice as much because 2 of our grown teens moved out so our food usage went down a little. It just meant we got a little less for our money but we had two less to feed so it was ok. Well I did say it wasn’t much consolation

B x

my dh is the youngest of 11 children.
I think shopping habits are also a good thing to look at.
if I had a very large family consuming a lot of fruit and veg I would conceder using the wholesale market. we have a very good one in Cardiff and if you turn up at the end of there day, this s about 10 am you can often buy a box of the left overs for a very good price. you do get huge amounts but won’t go to waste by the sounds of it ! these places often get direct from the farmers and inporters so can tell you where the food has come from. also we had a fish man that used to come around selling large amounts of food much cheaper than supermarkets.  dh mother bough food in sacks of. the Indian shops in Cardiff sell sacks of rice ect. look at where you source your food. I think changing your mind to 4 meals a day is a good thing to do, may involve more planning to create enough meals but can be done. malls mum also had a pantree to keep all big sacks of lentils oats ect.
eggs ate a great snack, an an excuse to get some more chickens ! although apparently high in cholesterol but don’t quote me on that. might not want to give the boys 4 eggs a day, however it worked for mr strong !
buying larger cuts of meat might help. you can buy whole pigs from butchers and farmers markets who can butcher them for you. a whole pig does work out cheaper. 
just a few thoughts x

Sounds like you have some great ideas to help keep you going…just wanted to add as well though, might this be a great opportunity for teaching your children about what it takes to get their food to the table, obviously in an appropriate way, not meaning just for their age, but to not deter them from eating either, obviously they need to be eating this much. BUT, it could lead to discussions about seasonal and British fruits and veg, the effects eating this much fruit from abroad will have on the earth and our environment, perhaps getting them to make foods like bread, which you could then freeze, or baking oatcakes. flapjacks etc to freeze, not sure how old they are but for them to even look for ideas in the library, internet etc. I know this doesn’t sound like an issue for you, but there’s no way we could afford to spend this much every week on food, which would mean if we weren’t prepared to cheapen the bill we would need to look at other ideas for increasing our income - not child labour lol, but perhaps a job for me, and the consequences this would have on our family. Not to make this sound like that’s a negative, but for the children to understand that everything is about choice and consequence. Yes as their mama you have a responsibility for ensuring there is enough food on their plates, and that is it healthy, but I personally feel we also have a responsibility for teaching them and preparing them for adult life, to be working out what food they can/should eat, financial management and environmentalism.
x x x

Wow, u ladies are an inspiration, I find cooking 2 meals a day more than enough at the mo (DH does breakfast!)  since having toddler/picky 5 yr old cooking and meals have become the bane of my life.  I used to love cooking when there was just DH and I, you know that “what shall we have for tea?” cooking together, and even with one LO when all the solids thing is all exciting and new, but now, with a 5yo who has sworn himself off veggies and is super suspicious of anything new, and a 2 yo DD who climbs around the table pinching peoples food, dancing about and genrally eating very little, and is cows dairy free I would happily give up cooking right now.  How do you keep it going without having the feeling of never leaving the kitchen?  (Both LO were babyled weaned and used to eat everything but both seem to be getting picky, DS esp, and if DS decides he doesn’t like something then DD copies him…grr!)