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

Tomato based sauces are VERY easy especially if you cheat and use Tinned tomatoes or passata.

Start by frying off a base of garlic, onion and maybe celery if you like.

Then add the tomatoes.

Then add other ingredients to flavour depending on the final dish so some examples:

Italian: oregano, basil, black pepper, parsley

Mexican: chilli, coriander, paprika, black pepper, cumin

Indian: turmeric, coriander, cumin, curry, cardamom

Chinese: ginger, cloves, 5 spice, star anise

Depending on your family's preferences.

Stir fry sauces are easy too. Again start with a base of onion and garlic then make up depending on preference or according to a recipe easily found online

I like satay best which is so easy (partly why I like it!) it's just peanut butter (yes really!) sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce, ginger and cumin

If you mean you can make a cheese sauce from scratch then you can make any other roux based sauce:

Parsley (ideal with fish), bechamel (lasagne) or just add your own flavours

You just need to build up your confidence in the kitchen, like others have said a basic tomato sauce base is easy to cook and then use as a base for loads of dinners. Red lentils are really cheap and easy to use, soup is easy to make too. Maybe set yourself a challenge of cooking something from scratch once a week.

I usually get an extra large whole chicken from Morrison’s for £4.50. Do a roast, then we still have enough left for two more meals so stir fry/fajitas/curry. Cheaper than buying three separate lots of meat. They also do 8 frozen fish cakes for £1,50 which go well with cous cous and roasted peppers/brocolli.

Soup is wonderfully easy and fantastic for using up past its best veg!

Sometimes I'll do a "proper" soup from a (usually very rough) recipe, dds favourite is spices carrot and butternut squash which I have known her to polish off 8 servings in 2 days! Mine are carrot and coriander or my garlic cauli & mushroom (I know sounds weird it's yummy and creamy), being a Scot a traditional (albeit veggie version) broth is often made in winter too. The food safety geeks would be horrified but I just do as mum always has and keep a pot on the hob through the week, always been fine

But dd also likes "skint day" soup this was the soup I'd make the day before pay day/when I had money to do grocery shop which I'd just start with a garlic and onion base, then it was a case of just chopping and adding whatever veggies were hanging about needing used and whatever herbs/spices we fancied.

The heartier soups are a meal in themselves especially if served with good crusty rolls.

Yeah soup is incredibly cheap.

If you're already buying chicken, you can boil the bones up and use them for soup. It takes hours to boil them down enough that all the marrow comes out, but even if you only leave the carcass on for about an hour you still get basically chicken stock flavoured water which is very usable in all kinds of soups. If you fry up a couple of onions, couple of carrots, garlic and then add the chicken stock/stock flavoured water plus some pulses, plenty of salt and pepper plus a bit of paprika if you like more of a kick, leave it for maybe 45 minutes you've got a delicious, hearty and incredibly cheap soup. And once you learn the skill you can do it from whatever is hanging around.

Also on the subject of stretching a chicken, the little bits you pick off the carcass go beautifully in egg fried rice. Also fantastically cheap, and so nice.

The heartier soups are a meal in themselves especially if served with good crusty rolls.
You can't beat a hearty soup with crusty bread. My current go-to is a seafood chowder. It's cheaper and easier than I thought it would be to make.

I used lockdown to practice a few basic bread recipes. I've just made a sourdough starter. So if you could make your own bread it would cut out some costs & waste as well.

We spent £55 this week which included nappies and wipes for toddler! Did a Asda click and collect which is a lot cheaper than Tesco we was spending £100 at Tesco click and collect!

Plan your meals before you go shopping! That's our main thing to cut down, if we go without a list we spend a fortune. Shopping online always helps as well. We use hello fresh for 4 meals per week as it's all portion controlled so good for dieting and no food waste then go to Aldi and get the rest of our shopping. We also just switched to Aldi nappies and wipes and they are amazing, less than half the price of pampers and just as good in my opinion.

Evan apples are expensive! I went in one supermarket and 4 pink ladies were £3!!!

If you haven't got a slow cooker then asda do a small one for 10.00.
Will help you use less electric than using oven and save you money that way as well

@Deathraystare

Evan apples are expensive! I went in one supermarket and 4 pink ladies were £3!!!

Pink ladies are always fucking dear, but that seems particularly outrageous! You can almost always get cheaper apples than them though.

Gala or Braeburn apples are always cheaper than pink ladies!

Buying in larger quantities saves money over time, although is a bigger initial outlay. For example it's much cheaper to buy 80 dishwasher tablets once every 8 weeks, than 20 once a fortnight.

I also buy big packs of things like mince or chicken breasts and divide them up. If you shop in aldi , their super 6 is a good way to get cheap fruit and veg. I like to use them as a base to what meals to make that week. Aubergines are on super 6 so I'll make moussaka, or leeks are on so I'll do leek and potato soup. Also that's a nice way to try veg and recipes you havent done before.

Have also found lockdown difficult. Have gone from walking a huge amount to being at home most of the time, then hurt my leg half way through so wasn’t even able to take the children out.

My waistline is definitely bigger, but not by too much and now going in right direction (mostly because of a massive drop off on in lockdown and an injury) The main thing I have changed is to buy much smaller dinner plates (25 cm/10 inch diameter). Has really made a difference.

We get a lot of wonky fruit and veg from aldi. It tastes the same. Also I buy big bags of frozen veg from morrisons and add them to curry/chilli/spag Bol etc. I also stick tinned lentils in chilli and spag Bol and chickpeas in curries.

It's amazing how much you can save when you put your mind to it...and shocking how quickly and how much your spending creeps up when you're not paying attention - guilty of that myself on occasion!

Evan apples are expensive! I went in one supermarket and 4 pink ladies were £3!!!!

Depends on the supermarket and the type of apple. 6 golden delicious from Tesco for £1.20 here

@FrugiFan so true - as long as you have the money for initial outlay and the space to store and are confident batch cooking if necessary.

I'm lucky on the latter of that but haven't always had the 1st 2.

But when I did it was particularly useful for meat for dd when she was younger and didn't eat a full portion (I'm veggie) so I'd buy mince or chicken breasts and portion/dice myself into portions suitable for her then freeze.

You do have to be organised too though in terms of getting out for defrosting in plenty of time, I'm not a fan of defrosting in microwave as it tends to be uneven/unpredictable and I was always wary re food poisoning.

Lockdown made me get me my act together and get back into batch cooking.

Currently in my freezer there's chilli, 'sausage' casserole, curry and ratatouille (which is fine on its own or can be used as a base for other dishes or as a sauce with pasta)

I've never for as long as I can remember, probably back to when I was living in bedsits/studios bought small packs of loo roll, kitchen roll etc far more economic to buy those sort of things in bulk as much as you can. The only thing I've NOT been able to source in bulk is non bio laundry powder (allergies)

Gala or Braeburn apples are always cheaper than pink ladies!

Well of course I did not buy them at that price! However I have been disappointed for ages bu the taste of the other apples.

Depends on the supermarket and the type of apple. 6 golden delicious from Tesco for £1.20 here

Well i never buy golden delicious. They should be had under the Trade Descriptions Act! No flavour at all. I never buy from Tesco if I can help it as they are very expensive.

Look at Asda for recipe ideas- every month they do a weeks worth of value meals with portion prices listed and share ingredients across the week. All very tasty and purse friendly. Calories are listed too: if they’re high I halve my portion and have more veg/ salad on the side.
It was easier when you could pick up the free magazine by the till pre covid but it’s all online.

Meal plan.
Frozen chicken breasts.
Frozen berries (cherries are great when porridge)
Plain yoghurt (big tub) flavoured with honey and frozen berries for flavour.
Chicken thighs in curries/ casseroles etc.
Ditch the brands.
Massive blocks of cheese work out cheaper- buy one every 2 weeks instead of 1 medium each week.
Tinned tomatoes instead of pasta sauces.
Massive pack of mince - make spaghetti Bol, shepherds pie and chilli.
Curries abs Dhals are super cheap to make with spices, tinned tomatoes, dash of yoghurt.
Buy cheaper veg such as broccoli.
Frozen spinach for putting in curries/ sauces - a little goes a long way!

*i actually spend less when shopping online than I do in Aldi as it stops me browsing and impulse buying.

Just to add that even though I shop weekly I meal plan over 2 or 3 weeks. So if I'm making a huge veggie chilli it'll go down for one day this week and one day another week (frozen). Same for things like veggie cottage pie, curries, pasta sauce, sausage casserole. I'm also far more strict about portions if I know it has to do another meal.

It takes a couple of weeks to get going but saves eating the same thing two days in a row and also means that most weeks I am only actually shopping for 3 or 4 dinners as I know the other days are already in the freezer.

@get657 I did something this week I've never done before. I did a weeks shopping at ICELAND 😬 first time ever. I did it online and got £5 off as a new customer. I spent £70 and there are 6 of us (2 adults 2 teenagers and 2 younger ones) I did buy family ready meals because over lockdown Ive had enough of spending hours cooking to be told by someone I'm not eating this shit. Anyway I was really surprised a whole weeks shop was £70! And I bought strawberries and grapes!!!

I've been spending £100 + at Sainsbury's every 5 days 😬