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.

Tell the cats they need to contribute more, sleeping most of the day just doesn't cut it!

Could you do something other than a roast, may be cheaper to make a huge cottage pie? Lasagne? Slow cooker casserole? I’m sure mince would be cheaper than joints of meat

Take the lasagne off the menu, it has so many ingredients that it’s bound to cost more per person.

in fact, just break down how much each meal costs per person by adding up the weekly ingredients then dividing by the amount of people consuming it. Then you’ll see what meals are most/least expensive and can plan accordingly

I see the thorny issue of feeding 14 people every Sunday is being studiously ignored!

It’s lovely to host, but if you can’t afford it, then you can’t afford it!!! Either do it less often, or ask for some sort of contribution- food or money.
For you to provide everything each week, other households are only having to pay for 6 days a week. That’s ridiculous and totally unfair

DH works at Tesco so we get a discount and I still won’t get toiletries and cleaning products there - the price difference to the likes of Home Bargains etc is insane.

For the cats be sure to compare food and litter prices to Amazon. Sometimes Amazon have amazing prices!

Someone has to be adorably cute

Hi OP this seams high. We are also a family of 6 although my children are aged between 2 and 12 so eat less. We spend £85 a week on a supermarket delivery then I normally top up midweek around £10. That includes laundry and cleaning products. My husband always says we don't spend enough and I'm starting to think he might be right. I would say we eat similar meals to you but we don't host 14 on a Sunday we just have a family meal like a roast or tacos. That must bump it up a fair bit.

I have switched to supermarket brands for most things which saves a lot other than laundry products as my kids have eczema so I do need expensive brands with less additions.

As others have said you could try reducing meat?

Am I the only one thinking that £300 is very low for someone who does a 14 person roast every week?! I would imagine that hosting 14 people with drinks, alcohol, the roast, sides, salad, dessert etc adds up to well over £150 in itself.

If you have a savers or similar near you, it's much cheaper than supermarkets for cleaning stuff and toiletries.

You can save a fortune on cleaning products - just make Nancy Birtwhistle's all purpose cleaner and ditch all the other stuff forever.

Well quite, but so far the OP seems to want to ignore this gaping flaw in her budget in preference to dropping a few snacks

I like this FB account - she does 5 meals for 4 from M&S for £20: www.facebook.com/share/v/1C5t1Ao4rP/

Some of the meals she does are a bit sparse on the meat element but you could always increase that a bit (as well as increasing the recipe to feed 6 rather than 4) and still have 5 meals for 6 under, say £40 or £50.

A massive pasta dish without too much meat (maybe a bit of smoked bacon or tuna) once a week can help too.

I always do chicken noodle soup with any sunday lunch chicken left over. You can do a boiled egg on top, ramen-style.

I find it's the extras - yoghurts, crisps, chocolate biscuit type bars etc (especially if branded) that add up and can get quickly hoovered up. Aldi do some mince that is half pork half beef that is cheaper for a huge pack and good for spag bol etc. It's more fatty but it does make a really rich and filling sauce!

The obvious thing is to have some non-meat days. All of those things will add up.

To cook the bones from the roast to make stock? You could do that and then make vegetable soup using the chicken stock with some nice rolls as one meal

You could swap out normal mince for soy mince for the lasagne or spaghetti Bolognese- I know that’s not enough for everyone. We have that here And I honestly can’t tell the difference. The best thing is, it’s not got that horrible orange oily film on it.

Chickpea and vegetable curry?
Vegetable fajitas?
Home-made pizza?

For context, And it’s a bit different because we have a vegetarian in the house so eat a lot of veggie meals.
I will only usually do one or two of those meat dishes in a week maximum. The cost will be ridiculous otherwise.

The others can bugger off and feed themselves on a Sunday. That will save a lot of money straight away.

you can add porridge oats to mince to stretch it out.

A decent dehumidifier would help massively with damp, drying washing & using so much HG spray x

Sorry unless you post what you buy I simply don't believe you spend that little. Unless 3 of your 4 kids are toddlers.

We cook for 14 people on Sundays, not pay for them to eat out.

No-one was reading your OP as meaning you take them all out for a restaurant meal! You haven't answered the question - why are you feeding 14 people every Sunday? Do they ever contribute? Can you cut this down to once a month or ask them to take turns to host?

Wouldn’t necessarily cost that much if it’s a couple of chickens, roast potatoes and veg - which is a more normal roast than the “event” meal you seem to have in mind. Alcohol isn’t essential, many people can’t eat pudding after a big roast anyway, and who has salad with a roast? Sides are surely just seasonal veg.

My children are 2, 7, 10 and 12. That's what we spend. Every week. I have all girls. Maybe that makes a difference? I use nectar deals and buy the offers. I rarely go over £85 as that's my budget ☺️

Change your Sunday roast habit to a Sunday pot luck. The people who join you need to contribute by bringing a dish of something with them.

Or continue with the Sunday roasts and also go to each of their houses weeky to eat on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday night

Cooking for 14 people weekly will be your single biggest expense. Have you priced up what these roast dinners cost you? Would you still have a good time with them if they just came over for homemade cake and a cuppa?

Everything else will be rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, but here's a tip if you enjoy having the best view on a sinking ship:
If you don't want to bulk out meat with lentils, bulk it out with carrots, celery, onions, courgette, mushrooms

Why do you cook for 14 people every Sunday?

is this £300 per week?

Taming twins recipe, turkey taco rice. Cheap, filling and healthy.