Eating Frugally

Note: Updated 1/3/2023

Thirteen years ago a friend blogged about her achievements of spending only £40 a week on food - that was for a family of 4! Since then food prices have gone up by more than 50% and the national average spent on weekly food bills for two adults £70. Making it work for anything less is an admirable goal, especially if you live in a high-cost area.

Where do I shop?

This is the number 1 question I get asked at church these days.

I see shops in categories. Lidl and aldi are German stores that some of you Americans might be familiar with, and the prices are generally good but you can be caught out. I tend to do 1/3 of my shopping from the local lidl because it does not deliver and that is all I can fit in the buggy or physically carry once a week.

I do not get fresh veg or most fresh fruit or meat other than sandwich meat from Lidl. They do not have the personnel to look over their stock and so you can easily pick up an out of date or bad lot of food and then have the nuisance of trying to return it - always an adventure in the UK.

I do 2/3 of my weekly shop from asda, via an online delivery. I can usually get a slot that costs 1 or 1.50 pounds on a Thursday afternoon. It helps us avoid impulse buys and stick to a menu.

Free food

See my post on foraging depending on the season.

Dumpster diving - kinda illegal so I've never done it. Anyway most shops are beginning to donate their out of date or almost out of date food to charities. I'll never forget one friend who went to a newly married student couple's for dinner and said, 'She told us after we at the mackerel that she'd got it from a dumpster behind Sainsbury's. I would rather have liked to know that before I ate it.'

About once a year one of my friends or I will discover a class or course with free food - check out the library and local churches for fliers, keep an eye on facebook events and check these places regularly! Occasionally you'll find a holiday club or church picnic which is a barbecue!

You can download a plethora of apps to try to snag free or cheap food. Also check out libraries, swap shops and other community centres for giveaways. 

Best of the British

The cream and chocolate here are amazing. We love baking with these high-quality ingredients!

British crumbles and various vegetable soups - potato and leek, lentil soup, pea soup - are cheap and filling especially if using foraged fruits and veg (for example, throw in a handful of nettles at the end of a soup or try my apple and blackberry crumble)!

My British friends have blown me away with their bakewell tarts, steak pies and venison stews. I don't know how economic these are but definitely delicious!

Go Ethnic like a Brit to save!

Getting into Indian cooking - for example making meatless curries and daals is a great way to save money.

Even a chicken curry can be cheap compared to eating out! Chicken Tikka Masala was developed in Glasgow  and is best in the UK because of the mix of ingredients.

Try falafel as well - sometimes chickpeas go on sale and this is a great way to use them up, especially if you have freezer space. We survived my 3rd pregnancy on frozen falafel as I was too ill to cook most of the first few months.

Prep-Ahead meals

Not everyone owns a slow cooker here - there isn't the space in most UK kitchens and most people work so don't have the time to nanny a simmering pot for hours.

You can do lasagna of course and use real Italian ingredients but it's usually going to be cheaper to buy the ready meal version than make your own. We also enjoy making my grandma's recipe for manicotti - to which I sometimes add foraged nettles.

A great British prepare-ahead meal which people bring when you've just had a baby is shepherd's pie. We have enjoyed a sweet potato and parsnip variation in the past!

Other favorites are doing a 'Sunday lunch' roast which then makes fab leftovers for days - a roast chicken with tons of vegetables for example can be remade into all sorts of exciting meals, and then the bones and leftovers can be boiled into a rich broth. Roast beef is our favorite to take to people who have had babies, along with potatoes, salad, fruit salad and apple pie.

British expectations - meat and potatoes

Most British people expect a meal to constitute a meat - like roast chicken with little or no seasoning - some form of potatoes and one or two other vegetables - say broccoli and carrots, usually boiled but steaming is becoming the fashionable and healthier thing to do.

British people like desserts - crumbles, trifles, tarts, or a fruit salad. Served with cream on the side - whether whipped or for pouring.

Tea is 'like a fullstop' to a meal and some people hand round a box of After-8's or chocolates especially if it's Christmas.

Don't over-stretch your budget to impress

One newly married person I know ran out of money in her food budget and her hobby budget and her household maintenance budget but she had guests coming for dinner so she took money out of savings to make a splendid feast. The guests ended up canceling at the last minute so she and her husband were eating a feast for days which they couldn't afford and would really rather have had lentil soup instead.
It would probably have been better for the guests to see the realities of living newly married on a single income anyway.

Bread

Although carbs are falling out of vogue in dieting philosophies, is there really anything better than warm toast with butter melting into it?

You can get bread fairly cheaply in UK if you don't mind shopping for the generic brands but certain critics refer to it having a 'texture of cardboard.'

We prefer to make bread from scratch. I discovered it is possible to hurt your wrist with too much kneading so we got a bread machine. But it brings the price down and also tastes better and fills the house with the lovely smell of baking. Maybe if you get a bread machine on Freecycle or freegle, or share around the kneading job to other family members, you can avoid hurting your wrists.

Crescent rolls in bakeries can be as much as 2.50 each and in supermarkets the ready-made rolls can be dried out and tasteless, so we find it's cheapest and tastiest to make them from scratch.

Doughnuts used to be horrible in the UK - all these ones which were frozen after being made and thawed before being sold so they were already stale - and dense - even the yeast ones with tasteless toppings. With the rise of Krispy Kreme's, even generic doughnuts have been overhauled so as to be palatable. We used to make doughnuts from scratch a lot but the almost-boiling oil around so many small children has put me off in recent years.

Cakes and pastries

Cake boxes in the States can be marked down to cents, but here cost significantly more than the necessary ingredients. We always make cakes from scratch - using British recipes and digital scales so it's actually not too much work. Check out 'Fool proof cakes' from the library for ideas! Digital scales are investment of about 10 or 15 pounds but are well worth it!

This cake cost more than our usual birthday cakes because of the candy involved but thanks to Lidl's generic brand for kit-kats, gold coins and tropical candy, it seemed very special!

Another thing we sometimes do is slip a cake mix box into our suitcase in the States and save for birthdays or busy times, like when we are having a baby or birthdays near Christmas.

We have looked into buying readymade cakes - Sainsbury's and others have bakeries which even personalize them for you - but the cost is extortionate. Apparently Costco's does good cakes for less but you have to have a Costco's membership which last I checked was about 74 pounds for an individual!

Scones are always fun to make if you have a digital scales and only call for a few ingredients, then you can jazz them up depending on how you're feeling with cheese or chocolate chips or whatever.

A lot of convenience food here is surprisingly expensive, for example pie crust. Making your own pie crust can be a good way to save. In my great grandma's recipe it's like 3 ingredients - flour, salt, and Crisco which you might have difficulty finding here until you realize it's called Trex or hydrogenated sunflower seed oil. Not too arduous!

Eggs and dairy

We have found certain shops generally have cheaper eggs and milk and we try to shop there - Iceland and Lidl historically. I can't seem to find 15 eggs for less than 1.99 at the moment though.

Meat

My best advice, become vegetarian - eating meat is expensive.

We generally do a tin of fish per week, chicken breasts once a week and red meat twice a month to cut costs.

Generally in the summer months we get invited to at least one barbecue which is lovely.

And of course we have haggis on Burn's Night.

Fresh fruits and vegetables

Some shops mark down their fruits and veg and other sell-by-today items by 10% or 25% and then mark down more as the day goes on - I find fruits that have gone soft can be used in smoothies and purees, old bananas in banana bread, etc.

I have only found marked down bananas about twice a year despite hitting the shops daily to snoop for deals, so when you see a deal JUMP ON IT. Small, personally owned shops tend to be willing to haggle a bit more.

Foraging for blackberries, apples, rosehips and other fruits in the autumn can be a great way to save - particularly if you have freezer space or the ability to turn them into jams for the whole year. See my full post here!

I have not found that growing your own veg saves money - in fact sometimes it seems more expensive if your crop suffers from blight, you have a snail epidemic, birds eat all the fruit before you do, or you spend a lot of money enriching the soil content. A few gifted gardeners might be able to pull this off, depending on the sort of garden available, etc.

Also I never shop at Lidl for most of our fruit - their fruit and veg seems to go off really fast. The exception is apples - we get apples at Lidl and they are fine. Also if you are going to use it the moment you get home, you are usually safe.

Generic brands

Get generic brands for everything. I can tell the difference between posh pasta and generic brand pasta - who can't? - but a person can get used to anything. You can make your own pasta from scratch if you're really picky.

Junk food

I have always been of two minds about the budgeting advice to 'never spend money on junk food.'

A bbc program recently pointed out a 30p bag of ginger nuts stretches a lot farther than one 30p apple. The person on the program was trying to make the argument that it's harder/impossible for the poor/extremely frugal to eat healthily.

We do buy apples but we also buy a 30p bag of ginernuts to carry in the buggy 'in case of emergencies.' We try not to buy loads of other junk food.

Chocolate does not count as junk food as cocoa is technically a health food. Having said that, there were times in the past when we had to forego cocoa powder for a month or two for budget constraints.

Icecream - We usually only buy vanilla or chocolate icecream - luxury icecreams like 'chocolate chip cookie dough' or 'triple chocolate brownie fudge' cost £4 for a dinky little mug-sized, 500 ml container at tesco currently. I know 500 ml is like 4 servings but who ever eats 1 serving of icecream? Iceland before the pandemic used to have a good deal in the summer £2 for a 900ml container and you can occasionally get one free if you have an Iceland loyalty card.
Asda and certain other shops have come out with their own range of luxury icecreams for less and we're still sampling these.

So basically there are ways to get what you really want if you look hard enough.

Coupons

Get the app for every shop you use! 

The sort of savings in the UK are NOT what they are in the States. They don't really do coupons to the same extent here. Most shops have loyalty cards with a 1% or less reward system.

A whole year shopping almost exclusively at tesco's might garner you 30 pounds' worth of vouchers, and they have a program where your vouchers go 'twice as far' with certain other companies - for example you can use them toward an English Heritage pass or toward 2-for-1 tickets at the Tower of London or a railcard.

Generally speaking though couponing in the UK stinks and it's not getting any better.

Mexican

There was a time when Mexican food was like the Holy Grail to every American expat. You couldn't reproduce it accurately or cheaply here in those days. Ingredients tasted wrong or were overpriced. It was an act of greatest charity to invite American expats over for a Mexican feast.

Now a days I feel I can find what I need. I've had to upgrade the tortilla crisps from the generic brand which is too oily and fried-tasting but the next brand up costing 20p more.

I have never found a good substitute for Colby Jack cheese and the consistency of the beef in this country is always going to be different. It's best to stick with chicken enchiladas to avoid this problem - anyway chicken is cheaper than 'beef mince.'

The British salsa has really improved over the years though it never beats homemade salsa, and I think the sour cream here tastes really good.

You can now buy flour tortillas, corn tortillas, mashed pinto beans, green chilies and taco shells from most places - including asda, tesco and sainsbury's. Online shops are easiest to accomplish this but if in the physical shop try the 'International foods' zone.

Pico de galla, enchilada sauce, taco seasoning and guacamole are best made from scratch. Some folk would say that for salsa too. I am not a fan of making everything from scratch now that I have 4 kids so I tend to import or ask my family to mail taco seasoning packets from the States.

Asda has recently come out with blue cornmeal chips and lime-flavored tortilla chips!

Alcohol

Although European wines and Scottish whiskies are cheaper here, alcohol is always relatively expensive - even buying it in the shops and drinking at home.

There are various club or group schemes on the internet to bring down the price per bottle.

The cheapest thing of course is to make your own - get into foraging and make fruit-based, country wines. This can bring the price per bottle down to £2 or £3 each last I did the math in 2015. There is a great book in the Edinburgh library on country wine-making to get you started.

Thanksgiving

Turkey is easy to find in the UK. It is the national favorite for a traditional Christmas dinner - closely followed by goose.

Lidl did the best deal the last two years on turkey crowns, which we buy to avoid spending hours sawing away at a big old bird.

Sometimes the week of Thanksgiving certain shops - Iceland for example - will mark down last year's frozen turkeys to half price to clear them out for the new Christmas birds. We have jumped on deals like that in the past.

Cranberry sauce - very British, easy to find

Sweet potatoes - are a different breed here and more stringy than in the States so you may want to substitute butternut squash in your dad's amazing Sweet Potato Casserole or skip it as not worth the effort.

Potatoes - very British but I have had trouble finding frozen cubes of potatoes for a traditional Potato Casserole. Often the frozen potato cubes you can find are quite oily and grainy for some reason. So we tend to just peel and chop our own. This does add about 45 min to prep time.

Dressing/stuffing - you can find ready-to-make boxes of stuffing which is okay. The best dressing anyone has ever made me is made by my friend from Texas and it uses cornbread. Cornmeal can be hard to find here - it can be called 'maize meal' or 'polenta'.

Pumpkin - tins of pumpkin can be expensive! The best deal my friend found this year was on amazon for a bundle. Posh stores in the New Town, RealFoods and LupePinto's in town have all had pumpkin sightings. 

It can be cheaper to make your own from a pumpkin but it is a lot of work. It's easier to make it from a butternut squash instead. I usually harvest butternut squashes a month early and freeze the puree in pre-measured increments (i.e. the same amount as in a can). 

We have been known to pack a can of pumpkin in our suitcase in America once or twice.

Jello salad - all UK orange jello packets have stern warnings against using in conjunction with pineapple. I ignored these warnings to my peril and the whole thing melted. I have since imported US orange jello to make jello salad with a little help from my friends!

Pecans - whether this is for a pecan pie or a sweet potato casserole, it's a important part of Thanksgiving. They are much more expensive here than in Georgia. This is another thing we often bring in our suitcases. Don't let your friends bring the pre-chopped kind in carry-on though as Security may decide it looks like an ingredient for making a bomb! - as happened to one of our friends. Otherwise this is the best present to bring an expat without nut allergies with whom you might be staying/dining.

Cranberries for making your own cranberry relish/sauce - not every shop carries them. This year Tesco's seemed to have them but Aldi's, Sainsbury's and Lidl all failed on the days in November when I checked.

Things which are easy to source here from most shops:

• self raising flour
• plain flour
• butter
• margarine
• salt
• pepper
• dark brown sugar
• granulated sugar
• caster sugar
• cream of mushroom soup
• green beans frozen or in a tin
• friend onion toppers / salad toppers - to go on green bean casserole - these can be harder to find and more expensive. One American expat tried to make them and failed rather miserably once so take a lesson from this and just save up. Sometimes one container can last two years if you are conservative with its use!
• potatoes
• sprouts
• sweet potatoes
• chillies
• garlic
• red pepper
• avocado
• walnuts
• celery
• cranberry juice
• sprite

Picnicking

Eating at home costs about 1/10 what eating at a restaurant costs. For example, you can buy £1.5 pizzas from Iceland, whereas the local Pizza Express offers a £9.70-14.25 pizza per person. You can make carrot lentil soup for 30p per person, verses the cheapest soup at the Art Museum cafe was £3.00 pre-construction and pre-pandemic!

Instead we always pack picnics. You can find some great ideas for picnics online or just shopping in the supermarket!

popcorn made from kernals on stovetop - no salt or sugar or butter so really non-messy, 'wholegrain' snack! And cheap!

York, part 2

Not being the sort of people to let things go, we decided to do York again. But we had a totally different trip this time. See my posts about visiting York and doing York with children.

We took the medieval wall walk from the station

to Clifford's Tower.

 and attempted to climb the hill - which we discovered later via signage that you are not supposed to do!

 We explored the inside.

and admired the view from the top!

We nipped across the street to the York Castle Museum. We enjoyed the vintage toys section, the Victorian street and the fashion exhibition with a sacque-back gown and other period pieces!

 We were tempted to leave the kids in prison.

 But took them for icecream instead.

We visited the Birds of Prey in the Museum Gardens! Then we explored the ruins and ran wild around the beautifully maintained flower beds and hills leading down to the river.

Also we decided the best place to eat with picky kids in York is Spurriergate Cafe at St. Michaels Chambers. It has lots of variety, lots of space and a mini soft play in the corner so you can supervise the kids whilst you eat! D loved the full English breakfast all day option and my veggie lasagna was a feast. They do a soup of the day and top quality roll for 4.20. The bathrooms were clean and there was a baby changing, as well as highchair facilities.

I am a month away from having this baby so this may be the last trip-related post for a while!

Trunkis

We have owned two British Trunkis since December 2014 and taken them 30,000 miles. The trunkis have been extremely useful but also frustrating at times.

Pros:

• they are rolling suitcases which the kids can ride on, eliminating the need for a buggy/stroller
• they fit in the overhead compartment
• they pass the time on long layovers
• they are a good way to 'park' the child somewhere like in the line to registration. It's easy to say, 'Stay on the trunki' and keep them to it.
• they are cute
• they are novel

They actually fit a lot of small items

Cons:

• they don't actually fit as much stuff as you'd think and are a strange shape - you cannot pack in stuff like you normally would a backpack or roller case. There aren't separate compartments for things. I wouldn't feel safe putting for example a kindle inside as it would get jounced around and fall about.
• unless you are a die-hard minimalist, it is hard to pack everything a family needs for a transatlantic flight and one or two connecting flights in two trunkis. If you bring anything other than the bare essentials, there just isn't the space. I often end up packing one or two backpacks as well as the trunkis.
• The most I can fit in a trunki is generally one child's nightclothes, earphones, laptop or activity book, crayons and snacks. However if I split up the kids equipment between the trunkis, it's a pain to get out from the overhead compartments because trunkis don't balance well on laps when open - they're large, unwieldy and not weighted properly for it. If one child is asleep and we're juggling the other one, it can be quite tricky unless I decide to block the entire aisle to lay the trunkis on the floor to riffle through. Two open trunkis take up about three or four feet of aisle and it feels like a great imposition on anyone who might need to get up from the seats to go to the bathroom. So as far as trunkis being a practical way to take stuff on a trip, they're not great for actually being on the plane. My latest adaptation is to have all the 'we need it now' items in a small purse and then backups and items we use rarely or only once on the trip in the trunkis. I would top up the snacks and emergency items in my purse about once every hour or two. Meanwhile the purse fit under the seat in front of me or on my lap easily. This system worked better than I thought it would.
• trunkis are great indoors like an airport but less sensible on dog-poo-covered pavements or cobblestone or pebble paths. If your trip involves these, ditch the trunkis ahead of time.
• there's no way to keep a toddler strapped to the trunki, unlike a buggy where the toddler is buckled down. If your toddler is determined to run away while you are at customs/immigration, there's no way to keep them down other than to drop everything and restrain them with your hands - which you probably need to juggle passports, visa documents and to prove finger prints.
• they are not great for Under 3's - one of our 2-year-olds has been known to fall off the back of the trunki and hit his head on a marble floor.
• I'd be scared to put trunkis through checked baggage as they do not close completely and seem rather delicate so you're stuck with them as hand luggage even if your outbound trip isn't a smashing success.
• wheels are fixed so turning can be a bit tricky - no tight corners, you have to plan ahead!
• going downhill can be a bit disastrous but  luckily our airports normally don't have steep slopes in them. I say normally but you never know!
• they are not great on escalators - we pull the kids off and carry the trunkis up but some airports have a lot of escalators so this can get tedious
• trunkis can be a bit of a hazard in crowds, esp if you're like me and not great at steering. It's easy to almost do someone in with one of these things.
• the website used to claim that trunkis encourage kids to take ownership of their own luggage and become responsible - haha! Before this year when our kids are now 5 and 3, we have never been on a trip where the kids weren't too tired to ride the trunkis by the end and needed to be carried, as well as having the trunkis carried with them.
• It's awkward to carry a trunki, a child and a backpack or other luggage simultaneously

Renewing a child's passport

I cannot believe my eldest son is almost 5! We applied for his US passport and got it a few weeks after his birth so his passport photo shows him looking like a squishy wee baby!

Our eldest child's passport is about to expire.

It would expire halfway through our Christmas visit to the States. It is illegal for a citizen of the U.S. to travel without a valid U.S. passport.

We decided to renew the almost-expired-passport before we go. It is permissible to renew at any time, you don't have to wait for the old passport to expire, we learned.

The steps involved:

1. Order photos (at least 2 per year, showing how your child develops between stages) or a photo book - if you haven't been updating your child's baby book or 'best of' album, do so now! Though it is important to note that a hard backed 13-by-9 inch book does not fit through the glass between the interviewer and interviewee, so maybe go for a paperback version that bends, or just realize that you'll have to hand the book to the security officer to pass through to the back. He has to bring it back to you at the end too.
2. Get American passport photos - we get ours at the Digital Image Centre at 27 Elm Row - but take a tape measure because they do occasionally get it wrong. It is supposed to be 2 inches by 2 inches with the head between 25 and 35 mm. See the official consulate or embassy website for more information.
3. Fill out the form, which you do online and then print
4. Set a date for the appointment and ensure that whole family will be there or that you have the relevant documents if one of them cannot. Use the Consulate website to schedule the appointment.
5. Budget for passport fees - there is no expedited service outside the States but the normal service is quick - our passports have always arrived within a week or two. You must pay by card or International Money Order, they do not accept cash.
6. Buy the return envelope, a pre-paid, self addressed Royal Mail Special Delivery envelope insured up to 500g.
7. Attend your appointment, allowing time to go through security. 
8. We always ask someone to drive us to the appointment to ensure we're not late while trying to catch buses, etc. The Consulate in Edinburgh has no bathroom facilities - there is a sign in the waiting room counseling that the nearest toilet is in the St. James Centre. The St. James Centre is currently closed so I imagine the closest toilet is probably the art museum or somewhere equally far - probably nothing within a 15 min walk. So all this to say - make your kids go to the toilet before you leave and try to keep the trip as short as possible by getting a taxi or a friend to drive you. I think the earlier in the morning you schedule the appointment, the less likely long queues are. 
9. The family before us had their kid wearing his school uniform and with his hair combed neatly. Our kids arrived in their sport class clothes, looking like slobs with messy hair. My eldest still got his passport but I wished I had put a tad more effort into it.
10. Our Consulate in Edinburgh has a few books for the kids but we brought plenty of paper and pens to keep the kids busy as well. There are clipboards in the waiting room which were novel to use, for our kids.

Renewal requires a few photocopies and original documents but nowhere as many as the original passport.

And that was it - we received our son's new passport within 8 or 9 days.

the shiny new passport

Update 19/8/19:
PHOTOCOPIES OF THE DOCUMENTS ARE NOT REQUIRED!

If you're like me, you will have gathered all the documents, filled in the form, and printed photocopies before applying for an appointment at the U.S. Consulate. I then received an email a week before the appointment saying we did not need the photocopies. I could have saved so much printer ink!

We just renewed Number 2 Son's passport.

We were totally a slick operation - we knew to turn off our phones and hand them over first thing. We had all our paperwork accessible. Our kids and ourselves were clean, tidy and well-dressed.

But they still made us wait around for an hour, despite our appointment being at 9 am. Note to self: bring lots of things to do with the kids!

The NOT to pack list

Here are the top things I have learned not to take on our outward trip.

• We rarely take gifts back for family - we order things online to be shipped directly to them. There are exceptions to this rule - for example if there is something that can only be bought abroad or is much higher quality, like chocolate. However I know from experience that 12 bars of chocolate can make a carry-on rather heavy.
• 
• shampoo and conditioner - most hotels and homes you go to will have some in the bathroom. You may want to pack baby shampoo for any babies or small children on the trip. If you are doing a hostel or backpacking tour or university dorms, you will want to pack shampoo and conditioner or maybe a combo.
• bathrobes
• jewelry or anything valuable
• towels
• electrical appliances or anything with motors - which need adapters and sometimes converters. Transformers are often more expensive to buy than just purchasing a cheap one in the UK. 
• guide books - a whole guide book can be quite heavy and do you really need the whole thing? We recommend photocopying or even slicing out the parts of the book you think you'll need. If you are only doing a week in London, why lug around the entire Rick Steve's England guide? 
• extra books. A 200 page book should take 5 hours to read at average speed. I would always prefer to take a kindle or a phone with a kindle app for the compulsive reader, or limit everyone to one book (except toddlers who usually get 3 small ones).
• neck pillows - most transatlantic flights have inbuilt head-huggers which make neck pillows superfluous or even uncomfortable
  
• pillows - they give out pillows on the flight and someone clever told me recently you can bring your own pillow slip which takes up hardly any space for the same feel of home
• pj's - try to set up your destination if it's with family or friends to have pjs and three sets of clothes for everyone. The exception is if you want to dress your kids in pjs on an overnight flight to help them feel it is bedtime. If you are a student/backpacker, try to take day clothes that are comfortable enough to sleep in so they can be your backup pair of clothes. Everything on a trip has to work double-duty!
• two costumes - this is what I packed in my bag on my first solo trip abroad! The long, flowing cloak I only wore once in a Scottish gale took two and half days to dry in my airless dorm room. It took up loads of space in the suitcase and my friend who saw me in it said, 'I hope no one else saw you.'
• Satsumas or any fresh fruit. My family still laugh about the satsuma story - when we brought two satsumas over the border and got stuck in the longest line in creation. We were only saved waiting three hours by our two babies starting to shriek their heads off and airport staff hurrying us to the front of the line. Now we ditch any fresh food on the airplane or don't bring it at all.
  
• If you have kids:
• Your kids' own packing of their backpacks. They are sure to pack their entire homemade salt dough collection, their megablocks collection and Dad's weights. I never let our kids even have their own backpacks because they invariably want me to carry them - along with their coats and half-eaten snacks.
• changing pads - I now take pieces of fabric I've cut up from sheets from charity shops. Then I can throw them away after I use them. They take up less space than these plastic ones.
• bibs - baby is not going to spit up on a bib, he's going to spit up on you or dad or your neighbor or his shoes which aren't washable. The exception is these enormous, plastic, long-sleeve painting bibs that you might only get out during Craft Time. Well pack a few of them for your trip because that's the only bib that will be useful.
• stuffed toys unless you need them desperately. I try to mentally prepare my kids for leaving behind their toys for a month in advance. If they have to take one, it is better if it's a small one and washable. So work on attaching them to the stuffed toy of your choice.
  
• if you are blessed with a direct flight, you might not need three changes of clothes per kid but I tend to pack an outfit per layover (so a two leg trip gets two sets of clothes, a three leg trip gets three changes of clothes, etc.)

Choosing Seats and Battle Mapping for Transatlantic Travel with Multiple Small Children

Where's the battle strategy? Clearly it's all in the positioning.

For under 5's, we recommend the parents divide and conquer on transatlantic flights.

Here is a normal plane - it has bulk head seats at the front of sections, first class at the front of the plane, toilets and the golden area in the back where food and drink are available.

Look at the red seats. This looks like  an ideal situation - bulkhead seats for mom with lap baby, dad and older child. But you cannot get in and out without disturbing neighbors, esp if there are any bags or tables and drinks set out. You do have more leg room, easy access to the toilet and more attention from the flight crew.

This scenario has happened to us more than once. One lap baby and four people in a row of three. It is a little harder to get the flight attendants' attention. The toilets are still nearby. You have easy access to the aisle. You have to check before you lean your seat back and you have to be aware of the people in front as well - they might lean their chair back unexpectedly while your baby is on your lap. The best thing about this scenario is that one of the kids can sit by the window!

This is the safest part of the plane - near the furthest back exits. It is also blessedly near the toilets. Flight attendants and therefore unlimited bottled water are within easy reach. You still have to keep tabs on whether the kids are kicking the seats in front. Ideally the kids are not sitting next to each other as they will probably keep each other awake. You have easy access to one aisle and best of all you can lean your seat back without worrying about cramping the person behind you!

This is the most difficult scenario - two inner row seats with two lap babies. You won't be able to get out to use the toilet without making at least one person stand up or cringe back as you hop over them. You are cramped with people in every direction. This was about to happen to us once and we felt blessed to be moved to a bulkhead in the first half hour of the flight.

This 3-1 scenario can be tricky with one parent in the row behind the rest of the family. We thought it would work well for us to take turns being the parent on duty but as it turned out after 10 minutes of managing two kids you suffer extreme fatigue. It is hard to concentrate on two and make sure that neither is kicking the seat in front and that their basic needs are met.

This is the other 3-1 scenario. Dad and Child 1 behind and Mom and lap baby in front. Each parent looks after one kid to keep a consistent management. This scenario is usually a result of too many moms with babies being on the flight so they only give the bulkhead to the mums and the dads get stuck in elsewhere. Another benefit is that Child 1 can sit behind mom and not inadvertently kick the chair of a stranger who might be reticent to complain. It actually works well as long as dad has everything he needs. 

It's better if you can gauge one kid the whole time if possible. It depends on seating and the mood of the passengers around you of course. And there's nothing wrong with asking your spouse to watch your charge while you go to the bathroom.

If you do one kid the whole time, you can have consistent strategy (one gift or sweet an hour) and keep tabs on how many diaper changes/bathroom trips he's taken and how much he's eaten and how much he's slept so when he's bad you can target the area he's most deprived. For example 'Your brother has had a nap on this trip but you haven't tried that yet, I think you'll be much happier if you do.'

For Under 3's

Try to get both kids in the same nappy/diaper size - it works if your kids are close in age and just two sizes apart. We traveled once when Z was size 5 and Y was size 3, so we packed loads and loads of size 4 nappy/diapers. That helped us faffing about looking for the correct size in frantic changing situations.
Clearly this won't work if you have a newborn and a 3-year-old but sometimes if your children are 18 months apart or less, at certain stages, this works a treat.