Trying to cut down food bill

[get657]

Help! Trying to cut down on food shop, I'm also trying to lose 2 stone! So we are a family of 3, 2 adults and 1 toddler.

Can I have some healthy family meal ideas?

We are currently spending £100 a week on food and I'm wanting to get that down to £60.

Any other tips to be able to get the food bill down would be much appreciated! Thanks

Bugger! That's really blurry the photos themselves aren't so must be mumsnet photo quality.
Shame cos I also have Jack Monroes "A Girl Called Jack" budget cookbook that I'm happy to share recipes out of too!
I'll see if I can make anything of it.

Not sure if this'll work but here goes!

This is the index for Jack Monroes budget cookbook, happy to snap any recipes and post!

Fucks sake mumsnet 😂 what kinda blurry, shit, photo quality is this!! Sorry OP! I tried.

I spend about £50 a week including cleaning products for a family about the same size as yours ( my ds ,13 is adult sized for portions and a dd,10)

Plan what you're going to eat, cut alcohol out of your shop, especially if trying to lose weight as you'll drink your calories and also it's expensive.
Plan for snacks and breakfast. I know if I don't plan what we eat we'll end up eating out and that's not good for budget or weight loss.

You can swap mince for green lentils in spag bol –loads of lentil guides online! A tin is 55p from Sainsbury's. I remember being daunted by all the different kinds but they're so versatile, healthy and delicious!

Swap mac & cheese (cheese can be expensive) for pasta bake with tomato sauce made from cheap tinned toms. Add carrots and peas or other cheap veg to bulk it out.

Likewise, you can make veggie chilli with a mix of green/puy and red lentils and kidney beans. The texture is surprisingly meaty! This recipe is a favourite.

There are loads of cheap meal threads. One tip that stuck with me is to plan at least one really basic/cheap meal each week (jacket spuds and beans / eggs on toast etc).

Agree about planning every meal and shopping online.

Food has definitely got more expensive. I just have me and dd1 at home but our shop has gone from under £55 to nearer £70 a week. I shop online to avoid temptations and am already vegan but have had to cut out my weekly bar of chocolate and bag of peanuts ☹️. The bill is still too high so I think I'll be heading back to Aldi.

OP you can make meat free chilli's and curries that are cheap and still very tasty. BBC Good Food recipes work well I find. Bags of frozen veg are good value as are frozen berries. My kids used to eat frozen peas as a snack but they might just be weird (a lot cheaper than fresh berries though!). Veg sticks make cheaper snacks than fruit. I have replaced my lunchtime fruit with carrots and cucumber as it's also better for you.

Look online for aldi’s Super 6 fruit and veg and plan your meals around those.
Veggie meals are generally cheaper, veggie curry, dhal or chilli with rice are all good.
If you combine veg with beans and pulses you are upping the protein and making them more filling. A root veg and butterbean crumble for example.
The other good tip is to use small amounts of strong flavourings, for example a cauliflower cheese with lardons on top, or a mainly veggie pasta bake with some finely diced chorizo.
Also look at using frozen meat and fish, canned fish also comes in handy. Tuna, sweetcorn and sweet potato fish cakes are a hit here.
Fritata is great for using up odds and ends that are left in the fridge.

During the recession I had to drastically reduce our grocery spend. What helped me was meal planning and batch cooking. Chili, bolognaise etc, I cook a massive pot, leave to cool and spoon into ziploc bags then they get flattened and frozen that way - I can get more onto my freezer shelf. I add cups of red lentils to mince to bulk it out. Batch cook lasanges in individual freezer trays as well. I did a massive lasanga/bolognaise cookoff and it worked out something like £1.50 per portion.
Little things like buying a bigger chicken for a roast dinner then stripping all leftover meat off it to freeze gives you the meat for a curry. Fruit and veg is cheaper in season. Lettuce is quick and easy to grow on a windowsill, lasts longer and one less thing to buy. A slow cooker is great for cheaper, tougher cuts of meat, like pork shoulder and could do a couple of dinners, ribs done in the slow cooker are so tender.

How about a veg box? We get one weekly from a local greengrocers it's £20. We also get meat, bread and fish delivered which comes to about £35. We do a monthly click and collect of about £100and spend another £20 a week on milk and cheese and whatever else we fancy from the local shop. The veg box is massive and means we never really need to plan meals as it's slightly different each week so just have a look at recipes I fancy. That feeds 3 adults and was feeding 4 during lockdown. Having deliveries also means saving on the cost of transport to the shops for us and wish we'd done it before ! If there is stuff I have left or don't fancy I often just chop it up and roast it in the oven with some oil and garlic and some smoked paprika which makes everything taste like bacon. Then you can blitz and put it on pasta or make lasagne with it.

Unfortunately have no tips on the weight loss aspect

Shop in Aldi. I feed two adults very well and very healthily for around £80 per fortnight and that includes loo roll, kitchen roll and cleaning products. Swap beef mince for turkey mince, make your own oven chips, substitute half mince with lentils, buy frozen fruit....

Oh and I make my own soup using a hand blender.

Would be much easier to advise if we knew your usual habits in detail.

Off the top of my head:

1 Do you meal plan and plan your shopping? People who shop “off the cuff” spend more and have high food waste, only shop once a week and don’t top up! Use EVERYTHING you have in before getting more favourites!

2 Are you brand slaves? An area often explored on “eat well for less” and which Martin Lewis via MSE addressed long before that. His tip which I’ve followed and benefitted from is to gradually move down the brand “levels” so the levels are:

Named brands
Supermarket luxury
Supermarket regular
“Unnamed” brands (the kind of thing you’ll find in home bargains etc they’re branded but not a high end/well known brand)
Supermarket budget range

The idea is you move down a level with each shop until you reach your “nope not worth the saving” limit

Eg

I will not compromise on fairy Liquid original, I’ve tried umpteen others and it’s the only one I think really gets dishes clean and reduces the need for scrubbing!

Breakfast cereal - I’m ok with supermarket regular brand, don’t feel the need to get named but found the budget stuff disgusting!

Dried pasta - Budget! Really don’t notice the difference here at all.

3 are you big meat eaters? Now in all honesty I’m veggie but PURELY from a cost perspective meat is expensive and not necessary every single day. Also consider cheaper cuts of meat and use in slow cooked recipes. Ridiculous to use expensive tender meat cuts in casseroles and curries!

4 are you getting your 5 a day? Which is actually meant to be 9 anyway! Veg is much cheaper than meat and filling. Even the 5 a day option is meant to be 3 veg 2 fruit. Also many people vastly underestimate the size of a veg portion. There’s a reason why “paupers food” is veg heavy, poor folk in days past knew that veg made a meal go further. Also soup as a starter every day fills up your family cheaply & healthily too. Bread on the side helps fill up cheaply too.

On the fruit side

we also eat a lot of fruit like strawberries and grapes as a family.

These are expensive fruits!

Apples, pears, oranges, bananas etc are cheaper, last longer and just as nutritious

Re toddler - Make the “boring” fruit fun by cutting into fun shapes, letting them have it with yogurt as a “dip”, mixing with the berries and grapes so that they go further...

5 Do you cook TOTALLY from scratch? Including sauces? They are very easy to make from scratch once you know how and much cheaper and healthier too

Always keep a carton or two of long life milk, a pack of bake at home rolls or a small loaf in the freezer. This will cut down on your top up shops and dramatically save you money.

Also a good store cupboard supply of basic foods, pasta & tomato sauce for example, will help with this too.

Don't buy cartons of ready made potato salad or coleslaw at a pound a time, instead make your own potato salad or carotte rapée for just a few pence for a large bowl.

@Graphista

We do meal plan dinners, we don't plan lunches (I will start)
I’m pretty good on branded stuff, I would say about 1 quarter is branded rest isn’t.

We are big meat eaters, chicken we eat a lot of, and mince too.

I buy jay sauces etc I’m gonna be honest and say I’m clueless as to where to start on making my own sauces, the only one I know is cheese sauce.

Thanks for all your help.

Tomato sauces are the easiest, dice and lightly brown onion and garlic, add a couple of cans of chopped tomatoes and some chopped basil and oregano (or a couple of teaspoons of dried mixed Italian herbs) and a bit of tomato purée and a teaspoon of sugar. Leave on a low simmer for about 20 mins. Then taste and season. There are lots of variations, add different veg, Worcestershire Sauce, balsamic vinegar, bacon, chilli etc etc, whatever you fancy really!

Do you eat any veggie meals? Even macaroni cheese, pizza or quiche could be a start!

The other thing you might consider is whether you have any community orchards - check if your town has a Transition Town website and you may be able to pick your own fruit.

I feel for you, my shopping has increased from around £70 to £120 (4 adults, 1 extra than pre-lockdown). This is partially because I can’t get to Aldi as am shielding but also because we are all eating 3 meals a day at home.

Here we go- tomato sauce base that goes in everything! And some recipes to make from it. Cook it at the weekend, tweak it every night. You won't notice it's the same thing!

Tinned tomatoes
Chopped peppers (frozen are good value)
Chopped onions
Celery
Carrot
Mixed herbs, garlic

Chop the celery and carrot very finely, onion as fine as you like.
Soften off in a glug of oil in a big pan like a stock pot.
Add garlic
Add the tinned tomatoes (Rinse the tins with a little water and add the water).

Simmer for an hour or so- you'll see it go from bright and lumpy, to darker and smoother/silkier.

Use the sauce as:
a pizza topping. Make a dough from self raising flour and milk. Pat out onto an over tray, top with sauce, cheese and veg.

Chilli- add to browned mince with kidney beans and a splash of chilli sauce

Bolognese- add to browned mince

Tomato soup- thin with milk, blend, add chilli or not. Lovely.

Pasta sauce

Pasta bake- dry pasta in an oven dish. Cover with sweetcorn, spinach, salami or chorizo chunks, tomato sauce. Add water until the pasta is covered. Stir, bake with a sprinkle of cheese. Takes about an hour depending how bit the dish is.

Curry- brown chicken, add curry paste, tomato sauce.

A bacon/gammon joint can be a very economical buy, serve one meal sliced hot, with potatoes, cabbage & carrots with possibly a parsley sauce, another of sliced cold with chips and egg, or use for sandwiches. Any remaining can be diced and used in frittata, pasta carbonara (a really cheap stand by meal), with beans as a topping for baked potatoes, in a Russian salad for lunch, in a quiche etc etc.
Any bones can be used to make stock for soup or sauces, or use to make pease pudding.

Budget shops- Heron Foods, Jack Fultons.

Heron foods sells catering stock, quality pies, chicken goujons, in plain packing. Also catering bacon. Bacon offcuts, really cheap.

And cut out expensive bread. Value bread is fine for toast, value rolls for lunch.
Only buy good bread when you really need it.

Tesco is one of the more expensive supermarkets. Even if you want branded stuff that Aldi don't offer, it's generally dearer than Asda. So I'd try and cut them out for a start.

What sauces would you like to learn to make? I think a lot of it is just practice. As you get more used to it, you get an idea what needs to be added to make it taste how you want. Most sauces that aren't working will be rescued with at least one of salt, sugar, garlic, tomato puree, soy sauce or something creamy!

Things that help us are meal planning, batch cooking and a slow cooker! Slow cooker is good for casserole type meals which can be relatively small amounts of meat and a lot of veg/beans/lentils etc.