How can I have a v low spend forJune .. with DH not necessarily on-board

[coldanddark]

We need to spend as little as possible in June.
We have a GP birthday, fathers day (dh & 2GP), wedding (eve only, I will drive to save drink costs and taxi. Dh not coming). I am having a much needed haircut and roots done.

I want to basically live out of the freezer. But dh won't do that. He loves fresh food. We need 1 month of v hard cutting back, to get us back on track in the bank. We spend circa £800pcm on food shopping for 3 adults and 1dc and a dog, plus dc has £5a day for school meals. He wouldn't eat packed lunch and it would go to waste.

A packed lunch doesn’t have to be a sandwich. Just send them with food they will eat?

There’s probably a happy medium between all freezer vs all fresh. I would work out what meals you’ve hot in the freezer, what fresh stuff you’ve got to add to it and go from there.

... not sure what you have in the freezer, but I would serve the frozen pizza with garlic bred & a fresh salad.

Fish fingers, chips & fresh salad ...
Make veggie meals as meat is very expensive.

Alternatively give DH the reduced shopping budget (£120-150 p/w) and let him do the shopping & cooking!

Honestly, it’s going to be much easier to materially reduce the spend by revisiting how you approach the ‘events’ than through food shop adjustments.

It’s also an odd balance to say your haircut and colour is essential but that something that’s important to your husband isn’t.

A realistic discussion on how to cut spend across the board is needed, and it might be better slower for longer.

Eg. Do a freezer inventory and then meal
plan taking the freezer stuff into account and topping up with tactical fresh. Eg. Taco mince from freezer and fresh salad.

Why won’t DC eat a pack lunch? You could easily save £50 a month or more with pack lunches. Do a mix of fresh and frozen for the month, so some meals just freezer food, some freezer plus fresh vegetables or salad, some completely fresh meals and mix with very cheap meals like tomato or pesto pasta, pasta bakes, jacket potatoes with beans.

Edited as posted twice.

Could you revise it to cut back over two months, rather than one, then it wont feel so arduous.

I understand about the packed lunch. It’s as much about being with their mates, eating a slice of pizza, as it is the food. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want a haircut, especially if you haven’t had one for ages, nor is it unreasonable for DH to want fresh food.

More of seasonal vegetables and less of meat or fish.
Yellow sticker food, if you have time to shop for it.
You don’t say which supermarket you use. Is there a cheaper one?

The birthday and Fathers Day presents will have to be cheaper.

What do you usually spend on gifts for Father’s Day? DH usually get a t.shirt with some daft Father reference on it.

Where do you shop? We eat mainly fresh food but don’t spend £200 per week, that’s 3 adults plus the Queen of the house who is a fussy cat. We are an Aldi/Lidl house with a bit of M&S.

We are meat eaters but I cook with meat in a dish as opposed to a slab of meat on the side with the addition of veg. It’s not so much to save money it’s because my lot don’t like vegetarian food much and would eat too much meat given half the chance.

Tell him that his father's day present is the fresh food

You could probably save money on the haircut if you do the coloring yourself. Batch cooking might also save you some money. They way you could still eat fresh some of the time and the rest of the time you just defrost the leftovers for other meals.

Personally I’d rather have nicer food than a haircut and colour.

Would your son do packed lunch for a month if he gets a cut of the savings ?

Lots of vegetarian dinners - Mexican beans, chickpea and spinach curry, cheesy spinach and mushroom pasties

Would your DH be ok with batch cooking and heating leftovers? If so you can make a few big batches of chilli, spaghetti bolognese etc.

Do you need to spend anything on fathers day? I wouldn't be spending money there if I needed to tighten my belt.

Depends what’s in your freezer. Mine is a mix of your usual pizza and fish fingers etc and then stuff I’ve made and frozen. DH wouldn’t know the difference if the curry he’s eaten has been freshly made that day or frozen the week before. Use your freezer to supplement the fresh meals so DH doesn’t notice as much rather than solidly eat from it?

Can you cut back on processed food, snacks, expensive fruit? I find those can really add up.

Is there a packed lunch your DS will eat? Even a couple of days a week could help cut costs and he could still get school meals the other days.

I’m interested in the need for fresh food. Does he cook or do you? I think it depends on how he’s defining this. Is it a case of not wanting fish fingers, chicken nuggets, pizza and chips or is it anything from the freezer including home cooked but frozen meals, using frozen veg in cooking etc. Because I’m pretty sure that no one in my family could tell the difference between a homemade dish that had been frozen and a fresh one.
Assuming you eat meat, reducing that will be one of the bigger savings you can make. If you want meat use it as a flavouring more than the main component, crispy bacon topping a pasta dish or chorizo stirred through a risotto. Or make dishes with a combination of meat and veg/pulses curries are great for this.

Do. You end up. Wasting much? Plan ways to use up odds and ends of ingredients.

My hair cut is much needed. I've already put it off for May. The roots will cost £24.

DH does all the cooking. He makes a lot from scratch. We eat meat. Some days there are left overs for another night. We try to waste nothing. We eat too extravagantly imo - most dishes will be meat based. We shop in Tesco. Freezer food I class as nuggets/fish fingers/chips.

I would eat beans on toast/jacket potatoes type food for a month, just to save. Dh won't do this.

I've cut back on my things for May, dh should cut back/compromise on his things ie the want for expensive food. But he won't

So what’s the expensive food items? Tesco is really expensive. I have to buy their own brand washing powder as I have allergies and balk at the prices. Write a list of the last few meals cooked.

So you need to save money and your DH isn’t on board with your suggestion - what is his suggestion ?

is he in denial ?

obviously inform DH that his Father’s Day is a home made card and nothing else

Have you tried Clairol Route Touch up home hair dye? I find it’s brilliant and so easy to do. Costs about £7 and could work as one off.

@andtheworldrollson massively in denial

@ViciousCurrentBun example dinners are
Home made tacos -5% mince, spices, sour cream, taco shells, cheese,kidney beans. Left over meat will be served with plain nachos
Home made Greek wraps- shredded beef, wraps, spices, salsa (diced onion/tomato/chilli/fresh coriander), Home made guacamole and shop brought sour cream
Fresh sausages in a baguette for lunch Fresh fish goujons
Fresh pork with pasta
Lots of lemons/ limes/spices/chillies/avocado/garlic/ Fresh herbs for cooking
Fresh croissant for breakfast
A whole larder full of snacks for DC
Fresh salmon/ham for bagels

The cooking is amazing and he spends hours doing it .. but too much money

By freezer food - it sounds like you’re looking to swap to a much, much less healthy diet.

There are ways to keep the nutrition and interest up whilst cutting the spend.

There are also ways to cut the spend elsewhere. You need something you can both get on board with.

That might be:
Reducing the food budget, in proportion to budget for other things. So clothes, gifts, personal styling (hair, make up, gel, perfumes etc).
Adjusting the style of eating, and lower cost options but protecting the nutrition. So fish, but use the freshly frozen rather than fresh (most research says it’s at least as good, if not better), swap some of the meat based meals to veggie, or higher vegetable / pulse content. Eg. Tacos with mainly beans and a bit of mince. Pulled pork. Getting the herbs in pots and keeping the pots watered. Some of them are very resilient. Vegetable curries.

Theres a lot that doesn’t mean swapping to chicken nuggets and fish fingers.

I agree with him. I’d prioritise the fresh food (his meals sound similar to ours, albeit we don’t really do salmon etc as it doesn’t fit in the budget) over a haircut.

Surely he can just adapt what he’s cooking. Leave the salmon out for a few months, less snacks for the kids. You talk about fresh herbs and garlic etc as if they’re luxurious. They’re essential, in my opinion.

When on a budget, we cook things like butternut risotto, mushroom and cheese omelettes, or make a big saucepan of chili and serve one day with rice and the next in tortillas. Same if we make stew, one day with rice and the next day with crusty bread. We also try and use roughly the same pantry ingredients for the weeks meals so nothing is going to waste, easier said than done but it does make a huge difference. We are two adults and two children and spend roughly £100-120 per week shopping in aldi and topping up at Sainsburys.

A great cook book is The batch Lady (cooking on a budget), some fabulous meals and all reusing fresh ingredients

The dinners sound fabulous. A month of nuggets and frozen pizza would be miserable. I think there is a compromise here tho. Cutback the most expensive meal each week, and have a beige freezer meal instead.

I too would cut back on the haircut, and fathers day stuff - but then I go to the hairdressers about twice a year.

What is DS having at £5 a day? It's £2.35 for a main and pudding at school - and that's secondary.