Weekly Food Shop

[princesspeppax]

Expensive few months coming up and looking to save some money.

We do seem to spend a fair amount a week on a shop between Tesco and Aldi - so can you tell me where you find cheapest to shop? How much a week to feed your family? And good meal planning ideas to cook in bulk that can be kept in fridge/ freezer

Tia

Have you got a slow cooker? If not, invest in on - Agros cookworks ones are great - if so, get it out and get using it! Go onto slow cooked wonders on FB and look for 'Dump bags', they're lifesavers, especially on busy days.

Following with interest. I shop between Tesco and Aldi but need to get our food shop right down as it just keeps creeping up and up. I have a slow cooker and non of the DC like lentils

Get the Tesco £10 slow cooker - I don't regret it at all, nice size and makes some great meals... plus only £10! (I ordered mine online and it was delivered with my groceries)

Pulled Pork, Pulled Gammon, Stew, bolognese, mince in gravy... loads of free recipes online too

We usually go a bit overboard on the online shop, but its pretty easy to rein it in when you need to - go for cheaper brands, essentials only

Bulk cooking - mince (veggie for us) bulked out with green lentils and lots of tinned tomatoes. Butternut, chickpea and frozen spinach curry. Quinoa bake - chopped onions, pepper, courgette, sweetcorn and black beans (or kidney are cheaper) cooked in stock, tinned tomatoes and topped with cheese. Any kind of pasta sauce. Cottage pie. Chilli.

All these freeze well, so I always make double and freeze half.

Eat very little meat and seasonal veg as much as possible. Bulk out with pulses. If you do want meat, buy cheaper cuts that need longer cooking, braising steak, chicken thigh etc.

Base your meals around Aldi’s veg offers every week..

MEAL PLAN!

Aldi is cheapest but buy odds and sods from other supermarkets when Aldi doesn't stock them.
Strict meal planning here, I use pinterest for ideas and recipes.

What are you buying now and what does a typical week of meals look like?
Its easier to make recommendations if we know your starting position .

Swap out a couple of meals for beans on toast or egg on toast once a week.

Freeze bread if it looks like you're not going to use it all up to avoid throwing it away.

Everyone here takes a packed lunch to avoid buying food out.

Other cheap meals: jacket potatoes, pasta with peas, pesto and anything else green that's lurking. Biryani just cook off an onion a carrot or two and any other veg that you fancy. Add the rice into the pan so it gets coated with oil and add a grated clove of garlic. Transfer to an ovenproof dish and add spices (garam masala, cumin, ground coriander or whatever you've got) add plenty of boiling water or stock and cover tightly with foil. Bake for about 40 mins and then carefully check it, if there's water left it can keep cooking till its gone and if its dry but not cooked add more water.
Daal is cheap too.
A bag of frozen stir fry veg is cheap too.

I tend to do a big, stocking up shop every month/6 weeks at asda. I buy a few weeks worth of tinned stuff, pasta, cereal, condiments, shampoos etc, cleaning products, washing powder...anything that doesn't go off and can be cheaper bought in bulk. It usually comes in at £100-150 ish. I then do weekly fresh shops at Aldi for fruit, veg, meat etc. We spend around £60-70 a week, with a bit of booze and usually some flowers in there too. I sometimes do another one off shop if we're entertaining (which is another twice a month at least). All in all we spend around £450-500 a month, but that's for pretty much all of our meals except for ds's school lunches (2 adults and 2 dc, 3 and 5)and we have people over a lot. I cook from scratch and meal plan. Meal planning is a really big money saving step. We could cut back by reducing meat, no flowers, no booze, no feeding everyone who enters the house!

Have a slow cooker - so will have a look on the fb page recommended thanks ! Im veggie but DH and DC are not. Jacket potatoes are a great idea thanks.

I eat a lot of pasta. At the moment the meals i make seem very receptive tbh - bolognaise, chilli con carne, chicken curry 2 days im not home until 9pm so would ideally like something i can bung in slow cooker and DH and DC's can just eat when home without having to prep.

Our biggest money spending at the moment is probably coca cola (tried cheaper alternatives but none ever come close) & snacks for DC's - pepperamis, snack chicken, cheese strings, dunkers etc (aldis own brand ones) so if anyone has any good other money saving snack ideas that would be fab

How old are DC?

Mine have space raiders or Aldi crisps as a snack.
Or carrots.

Or a few ginger nuts wrapped up.

At home they make omelettes or cheap instant noodles if they need a snack.

When my children were younger, I had a collection of little plastic pots which I would fill from larger packets. So much cheaper to buy cream cheese and put a dollop in a little pot and a few breadsticks in another pot.

They would also have pots of raisins, these, which they still love dried apricots, cubes of cheese, popcorn (we had a popcorn maker so was super cheap), jelly, custard, cut up fruit, a few crisps.

Little pots like this

DD is 4
DS is 2

We do buy aldi crisps both DC do eat them

Great idea on the cream cheese and breadsticks, im sure DD would love that
None of them like popcorn tried them with it a few weeks ago, we do buy a lot of fruit which they both love. Raisins i don't actually think either of them have tried yet so will pick some up on Friday when doing my shop thanks

Do you and the dc like noodles?
The cheap maggi ones are delicious and filling.

Popcorn maker? In our house we use a saucepan and lid .

My two snack on fruit, cheese on crackers, malt loaf (the Aldi one is very good and about 50p), crumpets (again, Aldi own are fine), raisins. Aldi do a Gouda cheese in slices that I roll up for them, it's cheaper than baby bels/dunkers. I sometimes make scones which they love and are cheap.

Yes we do have noodles, DP and DCs all like Aldis brand noodles but being honest im not keen I only like the bachelors supernoodles

We do buy a lot of fruit, but again it can be quite expensive, love the jelly idea definitely will invest in some small tubs to keep in the fridge for DCs snacks

You could cook chipolata sausages and cut them into little pieces. Also roast a whole chicken and put leftovers in little pots. Boiled eggs are a good snack. Also cucumber, carrot sticks, houmous for dipping.

Will ask the teens what else they used to have, they did love their little pots