Need to get my shopping bill down, any ideas of cheap meals?

[elliejjtiny]

6 of us usually, do a roast dinner for 14 on Sunday. Shopping bill around £300. I normally do the same meals for dinner each week. Lasagne, spag bol, jacket potatoes with cheese/beans, frozen pizza, roast chicken, cottage pie, sausages and mash. Every dinner served with either salad or cooked veg. Dc go to breakfast club in term time, breakfast at home is usually toast and/or eggs. Pudding only on Friday. I am terrible at snacking in the evening so going to try and reduce that to save money.

Why are you paying for 14 people to have a roast dinner every week? Do they ever pay for you?

Less meat? Bulk stuff out with lentils, which is also healthy. Have pasta with tomato sauce one of the nights, with lots of veg to start. I don't have teenagers yet though, so maybe I'm being very naive.

Your biggest cost saving will be not feeding 14 people on a Sunday! If you're actively trying to cut your costs, maybe you could (in addition to not feeding 8 people who presumably don't live in your house) limit Sunday roast to once or twice a month. I often replace meat with lentils or chickpeas (personal preference), so in a lasagne or spag bol that's a viable option and will cost you less.

tuna fish pie with or without mushrooms
ratatouille
pasta bake, add ratatouille to shell pasta bake and cheese sauce top with bacon
quesiladas (use the old El Paso kit
fajitas with tortillas

How much of that £300 is the roast dinner for 14? How much are the joints that you cook? Is there a lot of alcohol served with the meal?

Lentils, butter beans, kidney beans. You can do a lentil shepherds pie.

Tuna pasta. Boil shell pasta, heat up tin tomatoes, add to tuna and cheese sauce.

Spaghetti pasta carbonara. Omelettes. Quiches.

Basically learn to make pastry and cheese sauce. Or white sauce, without cheese. You could make fish cakes. Serve with potatoes veg and cheese or white sauce.

less meat
seasonal veg and cheaper veg
don't buy prepared fruit/veg/salad (you might not anyway!)
frozen berries instead of fresh
eggs are expensive, I'd do porridge / overnight oats / weetabix some mornings
stop inviting 8 people for sunday roast

where are you shopping? could a change in supermarket help?

Can you bulk up.on cheap veg for roast? I do loads of roast carrots and other cheap veg to pad out a roast. Then I make a stock out of the carcass and get another couple of meals from that )add red lentils to bulk out. Im a big yellow sticker afficianado so buy loads of cheap veg that way as it generally keeps fine. Similar sausages and that sort of thing,can buy and then throw in the freezer.
I'd make things like chillies, curries which you can throw in a few tins of beans (or even go 100pc veggie) to bulk it out. Basically stews and soups are easiest for this.

How much of what you buy goes in the bin?

Thank you. We normally do roast chicken for the sunday roast, pork if it's on offer. No alcohol. Dh doesn't like lentils or chickpeas. I don't buy pre made salad but i do buy frozen/tinned fruit a lot because the dc are always going through stages of liking certain fruit and then not liking it. I need to work out what veg is in season when, which will help a lot I think. I tend to cook veg separately as the dc like/don't like different ones. We mainly shop at tesco and lidl.

Lidl does massive packs of mushroooms you can add to mince to bulk it out.

We don't waste much food. Food bin is about half full every week and that includes chicken bones, veg peelings etc.

How old are your dc?

Lentils and pulses are your friends now.

And asking for contribution to the 14 person roast!

You currently spend £300 a month or a week £300?

If it’s the former you aren’t going to reduce it noticeably, if it’s the latter you’re buying a hell of a lot more than what you list as your basic meals.

Cook everything from scratch - healthier and less expensive
Veggie Chilli (Kidney beans, lentils, veg) goes a long way
Jacket Spuds (Lidl's baked spuds are lovely)
Roast every fortnight
Pasta Bakes (Roasted mediterranean veggies, tinned tomatoes, chillies, cheese on top)
Bolognese (mince is expensive but make in bulk and freeze portions)
Stir fry with quorn pieces
I shop in Lidl and a lot of their own brands are very good (join facebook group 'We love Lidl')
Save all the leftovers for another meal / lunch

Why are you doing a roast dinner for 14 on Sundays? If it's not some kind of doubling over to use leftovers later, fuck that off for starters.

Egg fried rice is a good cheapo staple. You can use the bits off the chicken carcass if they aren't already going into soup or similar, and any veg that has seen better days. Even just the shreds off chicken bones makes it feel like a meat meal.

Pastry, as a pp said, is another good shout. You just need flour, water and fat and it'll stretch most things.

And DH may not like lentils, but I bet he won't notice if you add a handful to every stew you make. The MN patented 50/50 meat and lentils does taste different to me, and I like pulses. But nobody notices if it's about 20% lentils.

We don’t eat meat - it saves an absolute fortune. Easiest way to cut your food bill instantly.

I read it as cooking a roast dinner for 14 not going out and paying .

Agree get rid of meat. Much cheaper and healthier.
Snack stuff is a lot of empty money, replace with fruit

Last night on Ch4 for the first time ever I watched Jamie Oliver creating family feasts for less than a £5.

It was a revelation to me the delicious food he made to feed a family, highly nutritious. Tins of chickpeas, tomatoes, great vegetables etc. I’ll watch him again because it was revealing.

www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/tv/jamies-feasts-for-a-fiver/

Def cut the Sunday roast to monthly. My mil used to do a roast every Sunday and as lovely as it was, it meant we could never spontaneously have a day out if the weather was nice etc, lost a quarter of our weekend going over there because we couldn’t do anything in the afternoon and everything closes at 4/5 on a Sunday so couldn’t do anything after either. I know that’s not what you were after hearing!

Thank you. Dc are aged between 11 and 17. We cook for 14 people on Sundays, not pay for them to eat out. We also have 2 cats, should have mentioned that in the OP. Tesco shop includes cleaning products which mounts up. i do 3 loads of the washing machine a day and 2 loads of the dishwasher. We get a lot of damp so I am buying that HG mould removing spray every 3 weeks.