250 pound weekly shopping/food

[Whome91]

Please try not to judge. We are a family of 5 two adults 7 4 and 7 months kids. Some of that is takeaways that me and dh have at night. I have a Diet Coke habit (20 for cans) I cook meat for the kids most nights. It’s including nappies for two kids in full term and baby milk. Help please

I would do following:-

• get an online shop delivered so you can stock up on basics like pasta, tins of beans, cokes & you will get money off deals
• work out 3 or 4 basic recipes you can do from scratch macaroni cheese, baked potatoes, omelette, roast chicken (you do literally just bung in the oven) - don't worry about fancy things like home made chilli and bulk cooking
• buy in 'treat' meals e.g. in Waitrose they do nice ones for £6/£7 which is a lot compared to cooking from scratch but would be lots less that your takeaway. So have a couple in for the week

www.waitrose.com/ecom/shop/featured/groceries/fresh-and-chilled/ready-meals/charlie-bighams-meals

• nothing wrong with children having things like boiled egg, beans on toast, fishfingers & waffles, pasta with fresh ready made sauce
• buy the house wine! £40 a week sounds a lot but if you're never going to the pub I suppose between 2 of you it's not that ridiculous?

You know it’s bad when people start to call piss take. Bloody hell

Yep.

3 litres of diet Coke per day, OP get a diabetes check ASAP.
Kinda hoping you're a troll.

Also Sainsbury's has just been voted cheapest Supermarket I think - not Asda. I hate Asda. I always end up buying stuff I don't need & it's always rammed full of people.

The Delia how to cook series I think there are three volumes are quite a good place to start with cooking - she covers the basics.

Start with the basics and work up. Once you learn it's like riding a bike you never forget. It's a skill you will have for for the rest of your life.

Family of 5 including 3 teens

£100 per week plus £30 takeaway if we have one.

Shop online so you can keep a running total

Meal plan

Start with basics - Mash, Pasta, Noodles, Rice, Jacket Potato, Chips, Roast.

Then add what you prefer and mix it up.

Sausage pasta bake, tuna pasta, carbonara, spag Bol

Jacket with sausages, mince, chilli, cheese and bacon

Rice, curry, creamy chicken or a tomato based chicken or beef.

Chips with chicken or egg, sausages, fish, add peas or corn

Add side salad where you can - tuna Jacket and salad.

Or do a picky tea of wraps, salad, pickles sauce.

A lot of recipes are really easy once you’ve mastered them. Start by cooking from scratch once a week. Use a slow cooker for stews or curry. Throw it all in in the morning and dish up later.

You can do this. If you want to.

Available in one book.

Decent chicken curry

Lightly fry chopped onions, after 10 mins add 1 tea spoon of chilli powder, curry power, turmeric, garlic powder. Mix well with the onions.
In a jug mix a veg stock cube, spoon of brown sugar half pint of boiled water add to onions.
Simmer for 5 mins.

you can now add cornflour to use with chips

OR add cooked chicken and veg - carrots mushrooms, bean sprouts, cauliflower, whatever and cook for 15 mins

Add cornflour to thicken and eat with rice.

Could you get a recipe box like Gousto to help with meal planning and confidence? Less shopping at the supermarket, less to carry home? Obviously with your husbands portions a little worried it wouldn't quite be enough. But that could solve 4 days a week of meals maybe whilst you build your confidence up?

My DH had a Diet Coke habit but was making his joints hurt so we swopped for cordial, saves us a fortune

Do you have a slow cooker? That's what started my way into learning to cook. I started by making 'bung it all in' recipes. Then recipes that needed a bit of prep and then in the slow cooker. Now I'm more confident I make a lot of the recipes on the cooker.

You don't need to make two meals even if you are eating after the kids. Make your meal for you and DH and make enough for the kids. Tomorrow the kids have that reheated. That way you are only making one meal a day

Instead of buying expensive prepped veg buy frozen veg. It's just as good as fresh and is normally pre-chopped. You'll find much less waste that way.

Your first meal plan needs to be simple and not too daunting. So have a week of simple meals - mac and cheese as you are alredy confident with that. Bolognese, sausage and mash and other simple things.

Shop online. Buy only what you need

If you really can't cook then I'd strongly recommend a slow cooker.

I would recommend watching "eat well for less" on BBC there are lots of families on there who have lost their way on there. Many of whom don't think they can cook, rely on convenience foods and I'm sure they've had some over eaters and cola addicts on there.

Slow cookers are great, just chuck everything in and it does the rest for you. Stews are cheap to make, bulk it up with loads of vegetables, same with curry. I buy whole chickens instead of just the breasts as it works out cheaper and I can make 2 meals out of one large chicken (use the breasts to make a curry, legs and thighs to make a casserole). A large chicken is £3-£4 which is often the same price as a couple of breasts.
Fish pie is popular in my house too and relatively cheap as you can buy “fish pie mix” in tesco which I can make 2 pies with, again add some veg to bulk it out (sweet corn, peas).

Cooking doesn’t have to be tricky.

I’ve just been to the gym, come home for half an hour, knocked up a cauliflower cheese for tonight and some breakfast muffins for my breakfast tomorrow, now I’m off to work. My life’s quite busy but I still manage to cook from scratch most days. The quickest meal is a stur fry (20 minutes) and costs about £4 to make.

I also meal plan and shop online, saves a fortune.

Any reasonably priced slow cooker recommendations?

I know its a Mumsnet favourite but I really don’t like most slow cooker food! We use ours about once a week but not keen on that sort of food more often than that.

Don’t expect to make massive changes overnight. Choose one thing to change gradually - I’d say the drinks tbh. As the sugar/sweetener is probably making you crave more food later anyway. I had a Pepsi max habit so no calories from the actual drink but when I cut right down I lost weight quickly because I wasn’t fucking up my appetite anymore.

Oven pizza and some frozen veg would be a good swap for one takeaway too. I have health issues and sometimes use the microwaveable frozen sachets of mixed veg, it’s so fast

Minty I got a smallish slow cooker (4 portion size?) from Asda for £7, but it was a student special, I don't know what the normal price is.

Seems to do the job, I think they're quite a basic item in terms of functionality, so it's not necessary to pay extra for a higher quality item or extra features.

You don't need to learn to cook like Delia - something like jacket potatoes with a variety of toppings will save money and are so easy to make.

Look up student recipes - they'll be cheap ingredients and easy to prepare.

You know yourself that the Diet Coke, wine and takeaways are the worst offenders though. If you can work on reducing those a little bit at a time you'll have halved your shopping bill by the summer and will feel so much healthier!

2 meals a night or 1 meal and a takeaway?

Take-aways are expensive and usually quite rubbish, we only have one a month typically around pay day. I understand your diet coke addiction, I have been there myself and probably spent a similar amount every week. It’s only the same as a cigarette addiction where addicts will spend up to £60 a week just on fags. I beat the Diet Coke habit by cutting down a couple of cans at a time and getting water or squash instead whenever I fancied one. You can do it, it is very possible.

Other than that, I’m not sure how you’re spending £250 a week. Two take-aways is probably £50 of that max and £20 on Diet Coke means you’re spending £180 on nappies, formula, toiletries and food for five. It’s expensive. Have you tried Aldi? We save a fortune.

I'm actually really shocked at this!

We are a family of 5 and for january our whole amount spent on food was £224. I know this as we use monzo and I can split what each transaction was for and it keeps a running total. Crazy.
Meal plan, learn a new recipe each week. Dont have bloody take away and budget for something nice like a great holiday and you could have enough money for it in 3 months.

The year the Chinese takeaway sent us New Years greetings we decided that it was time to change our habits and agreed to aim for a once a month takeaway rather than twice a week.

I cook twice and freeze half (in single portions so they defrost quickly) and when I’m not in the mood to cook, there’s something I can throw in the microwave or oven and have on the table faster than a takeaway will be delivered.

Oddly, we enjoy a takeaway more now that it’s a treat, rather than a standard dinner option, but generally prefer to eat a home cooked meal instead if we can. Once we broke the habit we discovered that it wasn’t nearly as much of a hardship to do without as we expected.

If I'm ever tempted to get a takeaway, I go online to a clothing or make up website and look at what I could get for that money instead. I then think about how I'll feel in the morning looking at the empty cartons and thinking about how much I spent. Honestly, it really puts me off.

@Judystilldreamsofhorses Do you have a recipe for the chorizo and broccoli pasta bake by any chance?