Has anyone just gone “fuck it” now when it comes to the weekly food bill?

[tiredandstripey]

usual disclaimer of saying I know we are in a fortunate position to have this choice.

For so so long now I have used the weekly food shop as an exercise in budgeting. I’m very strict and never spend more than £80 a week (me, DH, two DDs age 1 and 3) including nappies etc and have been doing everything I can to try to avoid spending more each week as the prices continue to climb despite the fact that me and Dd2 have allergies (= more expensive “alternative” products) and DD1 is autistic and fairly limited in her diet (and still in nappies).

I currently shop at Asda and I have been dropping down a product level, buying a lot of their essentials range, and cutting out extras/treats or opting for cheaper alternatives. For example DH and I used to enjoy a nice pudding once a week - a roulade with cream, or a sticky toffee pudding etc - but now I just get a block of chocolate to share instead as that’s £1 instead of £4 odd.

But I’ve got to the point where I’m thoroughly fed up with it. The food is increasingly shit quality - mouldy fruit and veg, crap dates on stuff, boring cheap meals all week long. We never go out to eat in the evenings (we have no one who can have our DDs) and I’m so fed up of never having anything “nice” to eat.

if we wanted to we could afford to spend an extra £100 or so on our food shop a month. Has anyone else finally just accepted the price rises and stopped trying to budget? I mean - obviously we would still have a limit, we’re not made of money (and I’ve just dropped my hours at work so will be earning less from next month anyway). But I’d really like to just allow myself to not choose the cheapest option of almost everything for once. There’s some cheaper products that I really don’t mind but some stuff is definitely worth paying extra for (I’m looking at you, Essentials rice pudding - like eating soapy bath water). And I’d happily forego my twice a month takeaway treat in exchange.

Slightly prepared to be flamed because I know some people don’t have this choice at all. But up until now I never allowed myself to buy the “nice apples” etc and now I’m just thinking bugger it.

We do our entire food shop at M&S as we just refuse to compromise on the quality anywhere else. We can afford to , but if we couldn't I would look to cut down elsewhere rather.

OP I have an autistic child with a limited diet too and I sympathise, as it really does make it so much more difficult to budget.
I buy what we like, that we can afford. Which means I don’t always buy the cheapest versions of things, and I do buy some ‘treats’. Like you we don’t get to go out anywhere due to childcare (no one can have our autistic child) so if we only ate pure basics we’d be a bit miserable.

If you have the extra money I don’t understand why you are going to the extreme of cutting out a once a week nice pudding and eating shit like essential rice puddings instead or buying 33p chocolate instead of sticking to cadburys etc for £1-£1.25.

Id rather go without then eat that utter shit chocolate. I joke around with my DH and tell him If he ever brings me a bar of Miss Mollys chocolate home then I know he wants a divorce as that could be the only reason for bringing that utter crap home to give to me.

I’m impressed that you can manage to do that. Do you cook from scratch, or eat mostly ready meals?

We had a huge flagship M&S foodstore open up near us a couple of years ago and during lockdown, I tried doing my weekly shop there a few times, just for a change of scenery, but I found I couldn’t get half of what I wanted. I shop there now for bits and pieces but find it a bit limited in raw ingredients for cooking.

I shop at Aldi spend about £70 but normally end up doing a couple of trips to coop and spending 30-50 on top 🤦‍♀️

We're fortunate too. I watch our spend but don't scrimp. I budget for £120 a week. Sometimes I spend it's sometimes I don't.

Following!

Just saw your daughter will eat chilli and bolognese, do you have a slow cooker?

When I was working full time and had toddlers I used to prep and freeze loads of slow cooker dump bags. It took a few hours of prep but saved attempting to cook from scratch with small people under foot !

I make sweets for the sweet treat. I made honeycomb at the weekend (sugar, golden syrup, bicarb, lidl cheap chocolate for dunking it in to make crunchie bars) amd toffee apples (sugar, golden syrup, 2 bags of apple slices reduced to clear).
Ridiculously cheap amd easy, and kids absolutely adored them.

Missing the point slightly, but Asda smart price chocolate is a may contain, so shouldn't be eaten if you're coeliac. The Ms Molly milk chocolate is 33p in Tesco and not a may contain. We use it for baking, it's great!

Aldi has loads of GF stuff (although not bread unfortunately). I'm veggie and gluten free. Their plant kitchen frozen sausages are really nice and gluten free. They also sell frozen Quorn mince and pieces. Just now they have their frozen Christmas stuff in, and there are some root vegetable and camembert roasts which are gluten free, and a vegan version of them that are also GF (we had the veggie ones last year and they are delicious).

In the chiller they have 3 types of veggie burgers (vegetable based rather than fake meat) which are all GF as well as some sausages (although I'm not keen on them as they're in skins and I can't abide sausage skins). They also have 2 or 3 different veggie falafels and pakoras which are gluten free.

For meat eaters there are some products that you wouldn't expect to be GF but are. Need to check labels as I don't take much notice being veggie, but possibly tempura chicken or chicken goujons (can't even spell it, sorry!).

A lot of the crisps are safe, just check the labels as they're very good at highlighting allergens and any may contains.

There are a couple of cereal bars in there that are GF (marked on packaging). Oh, and some lovely ganache type chilled desserts also marked up.

The only thing I would say is that often ingredients change, so need to double check labels each time, but then as a coeliac I presume you're used to doing that anyway.

Someone recommended Becky Excell. She's fab! Four books out now all with easy to follow recipes that actually work and taste normal. No-one would know the cakes are gluten free, which can often be a problem with GF baking! She has a huge Facebook group which is really helpful, and interacts personally with everyone on there. It's a great resource. Her blog site also has 100s of recipes on it.

It is hard when you have allergies/medical dietary requirements, I do get it, as have the same problem. But don't dismiss places like Aldi and Lidl (Lidl do similar to what I've described above for Aldi, and their own brand Pringle type snacks are all gluten free and very nice!). Both of them also had gluten free Christmas puddings in last year which were great, and even better Aldi sold them off for 9p after Christmas last year so I stocked up for this year and also bought a load at the time for the foodbank.

Good luck, and I hope you can make your food shopping work a bit better for you.

Yes, agree. I've upped my donations to Trussell Trust, but more is needed.

But for those of us who can afford it, economising by eating rubbish is not a good plan. Nourishing food is the main building block of good health.

I've actually cut out Cadbury because it tastes like shit since Kraft took over. Full of palm oil rather than cocoa butter.

I buy quality dark chocolate and eat much less of it these days.

£100 a week is still fairly conservative for your family with nappies and current prices

When you get a takeaway, you could cook your own rice if you usually order it.
You could cook more from scratch, for example, if you buy tomato-based sauces or hummus, they are quite quick and easy to make yourself.

Ice creams make cheap puddings if you buy them in Lidl or Iceland. Cornetto-type ones are I think 6 for £1.25 or £1.50

Bebravelittlepenguin That sounds lovely! I also make Coconut Ice ,also really easy as no boiling of sugar ,just Condensed milk ,Icing Sugar and coconut. recipe online .just chilled .Also peppermint creams super easy too(No more of those bags in the shops)Victim of brexit?

i spend between £90 and £110 a week in Aldi for two adults and two adult size teens. This has increased from £70-£80 since lockdown.

I don’t scrimp, we all have an ear what you fancy day on a Friday. So get the nice fresh pizzas/pastas or posher ready meals.
I cook from scratch the rest of the week with a roast on a Sunday. This includes lunch stuff for everyone for the week too as we don’t tend to buy lunch at school/college/work.

sometimes I have to buy extra bits, but this is often more of a want to than a have to. Most of the time we could manage just on this shop. We only have takeaways occasionally and only eat out as a family on special occasions.

Ocado do offers especially the first two shops. I spent £60 but got £20 off which meant we stocked up a bit. I haven’t found it to be that much more of you look for lowest price items tbh. Depends what you buy. I love the free delivery and convenience. I hate food shopping!
So we now do Aldi and Ocado a couple of times a month.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to up your budget so you can afford a nice meal and a nice dessert weekly if you can afford it.

If you can afford an upfront bulk order, try
www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk

They are really good for buying staples like spices, rice, oats, nuts, dried fruit, seeds, etc. You can buy normal sizes from them, but the larger quantities save you more per kg in long run. Tins of things like beans and chickpeas also. Good place for huge variety of gluten free oats, flour options etc as well

Then Ocado has always been best bet to get everything else online.

Waitrose online do good discounts if you have the My Waitrose card. I'm regularly getting £22/ £24 off a £100 + online shop with them now, as this is weekly can be over £80 a month saved.

@Orangesandlemons77 oooh thanks for the tip. I do have a MW card but I can’t see any offers online etc. Do you think I’d have to start shopping with them initially and then wait for them to start sending me offers?

They often do an offer of £20 off first 4 shops online. I installed these apps on my laptop called Coupert and Honey which find the codes for me at the checkout.

But they do send them in the post as well

Cadbury was just an example of brand chocolate rather then the naff 33p crap.

I prefer lindor myself 😂

It still sells in huge volumes so there must be many people who still enjoy it.

That's true, but then lots of dreadful things sell in large volumes!

I used to like it, but the new recipe turned me off. I started experimenting with other brands (that don't use palm oil) and found a nice dark chocolate that I like instead.