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.

Do you have to invite 14 for Sunday lunch every week? Could you take it in turns to host? Or everyone bring a dish? Surely that’s a big part of your budget?

Rissoles are another shout. Could you give others not DH lentils etc?

Agreed here. 14 every week is a huge cost.

What sort of dishes has your OH not liked with lentils and chickpeas?

And what lentils were they? I find I very much like dhal with red lentils or mung dhal but Im not overly keen on green or puy lentils, but I will enjoy green lentils from the tin mushed in with a mince ragu

You're cooking a lot of cheapish dishes already so you're doing well, is it portion size do you think?

Nothing wrong with tinned or frozen fruit either as they tend to be cheaper

Are you bulking out with cheap root veg, celeriac, swede, turnip, fennel (not that cheap), parsnip, apple (yes in savoury too)

Beans in tins are great, perhaps use those to bulk out more expensive things like rice, add them to salad to make it more carby and bulky

I think you're not actually doing too bad with 6 people, pets and 14 once a week for a roast.
In terms of cheaper meals, dried pasta with veg and sauces give a cheap meal. We have pasta with broccoli and pesto, with a bit of grated cheese on top for example.
Or pasta with tomato sauce with courgettes, olives and red onions.
I bought DD the Nosh student vegetarian cookbook and stole a few ideas from here. Maybe take a look and see if there are any helpful recipes.

I moved to Octopus energy and they do cheap electric between 11.30pm to 5.30am. I put on a load of washing every night before I go to bed. We use delay button on tumble dryer to dry overnight and load dishwasher and use it overnight too. Over night electric only 7p kWh we here as day time electricity 30p kWh. My electric bills have reduced a lot. Add an extra tin of tomatoes into Bolognese and lasagne and you use less mince that way and/or you could add red, yellow and orange chopped up peppers to Bolognese. I do this and call it rainbow Bolognese. Only cook for 14 pleople once a month instead of weekly.

3 loads of washing a day?!!!! No wonder your house is damp if you’re having to dry all that. That’s a ridiculous amount of washing? And you haven’t clarified how often you spend £300 - weekly or monthly? It’s weekly isn’t it…?

Sorry, forgot to reply. Yes it's £300 a week.

Portion size is definitely an issue. Biggest expenditure seems to be beef mince, cheese and washing tablets.

At school I was taught to make meatloaf with mince and sausage meat which I serve sliced with roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and veg. It’s a very cheap roast which goes a long way. I also make a version with breadcrumbs and cheap sausage meat which I serve cold, sliced in sandwiches which makes a change from cheese and is cheaper than ham.

Swap beef mince for pork, turkey or chicken, or quorn if you can eat it.

Buy liver, kidney and other offal from a butcher and get them to mince it and add some of that in to your mince.

As others have said, red lentils disappear into a ragù, as do oats.

Tinned fish is still very economical, mackerel or sardines. Stir through pasta, serve on naice bread, jacket potatoes, etc.

Always serve bread, flatbreads etc on the side as appropriate to the meal. Especially if you make home made. They can be frozen.

Serve extra potatoes, rice, or pasta. Have a bean based side dish available and see if, after all, they do like it alongside their (gradually reducing) meat portion.

Savoury bread and butter pudding with maybe some bacon chopped up through it.

Macaroni cheese.

Actually yes meatloaf is nice. Lambs liver and bacon casserole also nice.

TVP/soya mince instead of meat for cottage pie/bolognaise/chilli/lasagne. Add lots of marmite or bovril. Can cut half and half with beef mince if you want. Cheap as chips.

Pasta with philadelphia and chorizo or lardons.
Mroccan style couscous and chicken wings.
Butternut squash risotto with bacon.
Quorn or tofu stirfrys wit noodles.
Fish pie made with frozen basa or similar.

Do you mean dishwasher or washing machine tablets? If latter switch to powder or liquid same for dishwasher. You can get cheese on special offer sometimes Iceland was doing cathedral city the other week, just freeze it. Look into getting a chest freezer and find a butcher.

I changed to stores own laundry liquid. Much cheaper than tabs
I still do already 150 pw for 2 adult 2dc under 10 similar meals to you.
The issue I have is no one will eat lentils, chicken peas etc too.
Twice a week 2 adult dcs come for tea.
Mine inc lunchboxes for all of us. All laundry and toiletries which imo isn't too bad.

You can also do chickpeas or other butter bean with puff pastry and baked.

Bread is a good idea. Get a bread maker. Or just knead it etc yourself.

Stop the roast for 14 for a starters, it’s clearly getting to expensive for you so either someone else hosts and pays or it doesn’t happen anymore.

Lasagne, spaghetti Bol and cottage pie: use half as much mince beef by bulking it with red lentils and or more veg like grated carrot. Or replace the lasagne with cheese and tomato pasta bake. Meat is expensive, even sausages. When all the supermarkets reduce their veg down to 9p at Christmas I bought loads of potatoes and bulk made mash and roast potatoes and froze them.

Stop cooking for 14 people every week. Obviously.

I suspect the issue is that your family will object if they perceive you to be trying to change their diet. So you need to be clever. Don’t make any announcements, just hide pulses in the mince, change to cheaper alternatives like turkey and pork. Add in extras like breads and extra carbs. Learn some tasty bean casserole type recipes and just serve them as a veg option. Once they try them, you’ll have them!

Tesco had a pack of beef and pork mince - tried it the other day and was great - and think was about half price of some of the pure mince. Good way to save a bit.

Mine is the same! I have autistic children, husband is athletic, and everyone has their special requirement (mine being wine lol) … just did my weekly shop, £320 … bloody nightmare … we do have lots of pets i guess so spent around £40 on them

Chicken stew with vegetables and tons of bread
Change the vegetables for variety and do mince meat pasta with vegetables for a change
Tinned fruit, baked potatoes with beans, tuna
Custard for pudding

My brother "doesn't like lentils" but does love my cooking.

That's because I don't tell him there are lentils in the bolognese and chilli he's busy eating. I just go 2/3 meat, 1/3 lentils and he hasn't spotted the difference

I think the answer is probably less meat / cheese and switch to washing powder. Aldi washing powder is fine as well as their cheap dishwasher tabs.

I went from making a lasagna which was costing £7 ( double all together) in mince alone to spaghetti with two tins tomato, garlic, herbs, onions with chorizo ring. Simple tomato and mozzarella salad on the side with a drizzle of balsamic. It’s still nice but not as rich and costs about £7 all in.

we literally live that way, plus cheese, yogurts, ham, and eggs again, all slapped on a lot of bread