Dh and I did a month's food shopping today and spent ...

[Miaou]

£98.05

Beat that!!

[happybiggirl]

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[Pinkchampagne]

Wow! I want to know your secret too! My Tesco shopping (which will last just over a week) was delivered today & I had spent £150! And there was NO alcohol included in that price!!!

[ludaloo]

wow...for a month...thats not bad!!!!!!

[BROWNY]

Wow, can you let us know what you bought please and where from?

[Miaou]

OK the rules are:

We plan all the meals in advance and buy what we need for them
We buy as much Betterbuy (Morrisons cheapest brand) as we can get away with
We don't drink booze or juice or coke, just water and tea/coffee
We eat chicken occasionally but no other meat (too expensive)
We buy fruit/veg that is bruised/cheap, then parboil and freeze it for casseroles and pies etc
We make all meals from scratch and our own bread too


The secret is to know what not to skimp on - eg we always get good-quality stock cubes as they are a basis for tasty soups/casseroles

I have to add too, we will be topping up from the local shop for milk and bananas/apples, but we can often get bananas for free as they give away the old ones when the new lot are delivered - it's all about timing

[MrsSpoon]

Do you shop like this every month Miaow? Or is this the start of a new regime?

[Miaou]

Well we had to tighten our belts when we moved six weeks ago - our rent is £75 more and I'm no longer working so we are about £300 down on the month (from £1100 to £800, to give you a context). So after we have paid our bills we have about £120 per month for food! (Hopefully dh will get a job soon (fingers crossed) and I am in the process of registering to be a cm)

[NannyL]

im very impressed!

[happybiggirl]

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[7up]

thats good! bet you'd like to spend more though. i get very jealous in the supermarket when im spending ages checking/rechecking my list and dithering if i can afford an extra something and see some lucky person with a trolley loaded up with really yummy grub

[MrsSpoon]

Wow, all the best with that! I'm impressed as I am pleased if mine is less than £100 a week these days.

[MerlinsBeard]

thats about all we have a month for EVERYTHING except nappies and its bloody hard! Well done for doing it though

[Miaou]

Well, I can't deny it can be time-consuming, but tbh we actually eat really well on that! "Treats" for me aren't bought stuff (well, chocolate is nice ); I bake all our own biscuits/cakes etc, and my lovely dh is the most wonderful cook who can make a really tasty meal out of almost nothing

And we do pick up bargains too - dh picked up three packs of fresh cranberries that had been reduced to 20p each and has made a huge pot of cranberry jelly (about £5 worth if it was bought in the shop!). We also picked blackberries when they were in season and have made several pots of jam with that.

[VanillaMilkshake]

You are my new role model.

We are remortgaing later and will see a similar increase in motnhly payments, coupled with a similar drop in income as I go from part-time work to stat maternity pay.

I need to cook better and more economically and DH needs to learn not to be a food snob!

My hat is off to you!

[Overrun]

Wow, I am so impressed. We try and budjet for food, but never get it anywhere near that amount. I suppose you don't buy organic then?

[Miaou]

Er - no

But we do buy organic flour (by the sack) from the farm shop when we can - 25kg goes quite a long way! - and we bought an organic duck (frozen) for our Christmas lunch today £6! What a bargain!

I'm afraid that on that budget organic is a no-no in general

[Gillian76]

Wow, Miaou. I am so impressed!

[LoveMyGirls]

how many people are in your family and what are their ages? we spend £200 a month and i thought that was good going, although dp does like his meat.

[FrannyandZucchini]

Seriously impressive. Can you post the list of what you bought, plus list of meals? It would be a great resource for when people ask "what can I cook on a tight budget?"

[Miaou]

Ah, lack of meat is the key I think - we eat a lot of veggie stuff in our house!

Our family: Me, Dh, Dd1 (9), dd2 (8), ds (1). Dd1 and dd2 have school lunches (not included in the £98, obviously).

What did we buy? Er... I'll get back to you ....

[MrMiaou]

I'm working on a quick guide to cheap food, as soon as I get it done I'll post it. hopefully tomorrow

[Gillian76]

We have meat nearly every night.

DD2 is allergic to dairy and we'd be vegan if we skipped the meat too!

[theheadlessgirl]

Oh well done on this mr and mrs miaou.... looking forward to the cheap meal ideas. Veg soup and bread always goes down well in our house (carrot and orange, and courgette and tomato are favourites) i always try to buy seasonal stuff, but I'm no way near as economical as you guys.

[VanillaMilkshake]

Just so you know I wrote my shoppiong list (well Tesco.com'd it) today with a recipe book in front of me and am aspiring to be more economical and plan my meals following your post Mr and Mrs Miaou.

thank you for the inspiration [SMILE]