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.

£300 a week for six or £50 per head is about twice what I spend (on a budget).

I buy very little lamb or beef (too expensive), more chicken legs and pork fillet and shoulder. Frozen hake and mussels, duck when it's on offer.

Typical meals are chicken curry, hake & chorizo risotto, pasta with pork, mushrooms & cream, roast duck and veggies, roast Wiltshire ham and jackets, haggis, pork & apple burgers and salad.

Lunches are home made soups, home made tsatsiki & pittas, omelettes, beans on toast, smoked mackeral & salad etc. I make our wholemeal bread because ds eats a huge amount. I order flour by the sack from a mill. 😁

Ds snacks on toast and fruit. I buy seasonal fruit & veg, but not berries or nuts which are too expensive. No alcohol or fizzy drinks.

But VEGETABLES my dear.... You surely don't have 1/6 of a pepper, 1 cm of cucumber, a few florets if broccoli, a small handful of baby plum toms ALL WEEK??

Why don't you guys eat veg? You seem to exist of sugar cereals and biscuits!

The bigger question for me is why is this all on you? You appear to do all the catering and cleaning. What do the the DH and teenagers do? Can’t they get their fingers out and get a spreadsheet on it? Treat it as a family project? Jeez a women’s work is never done…

That 9 packets of biscuits. Do they all get eaten in a single week? I enjoy snacks, but even I would struggle to eat that many!

Yes they probably are small portions. The girls don't eat much. I've never really thought about it. I will tell husband he is correct and I should up the budget! We do eat cheese I just had enough so didn't order any last week. I always have frozen veg in also-I just again didn't need it this week.

Honestly...my 6 year old eats more than that a day.

Today she had blueberries, banana and strawberry at breakfast. An inch of cucumber, 4 carrot sticks, 1/6 pepper for mid morning snack. Lunch was pea soup, and she had a satsuma after.

She ate 2 dates at 3pm and Dinner was prawn noodle stir-fry with onions, more pepper, broccoli, cabbage and bean sprouts etc and she had tinned peaches and cream after.

I can't understand how you are all eating less than a rabbit!

Wait... MORE CEREAL??? You all manage to eat more than 6 boxes of cereal in a week?

Jeez.

...and more than 6 boxes of cereal! How are they getting through more than one box of cereal per person in a week? One of the kids is 2!

Nigella meatloaf recipe is very tasty.
Nadiya Hussains keema lamb pie is great and uses half lamb mince half green lentils for the filling.
Both are great for lunch the next day.
Meatloaf is an excellent sandwich filling if there's any left over.

Buy the fattiest meat and do 50% meat and 50% green lentils.

Hi husband had a dairy intolerance so there's dairy free on there also. Milk just for the kids really.

Yes omg is that bad? They eat cereal twice a day. Not the wee one she likes egg on toast. Sorry OP I will leave it to you now.

Make more veggie stuff eg veggie chilli, veggie pasta bake, minestrone soup, veggie paella, egg fried rice.

The Sunday lunch!! Make it every other week, or get everyone to bring something towards it.

Cut down massively on washing. Use washing powder, not tabs. The Miele man told me you never need more than a tablespoon of powder for a washing load (actually using too much gunges up the machine) I've got a tablespoon measure in the box of powder. One of those giant boxes lasts us a year. No fabric conditioner.

Can you use a dehumidifier to help with the damp?

I love beef mince but because of the cost I switch it to pork mince for less than half the price

Yes... they're eating sugary cereals two times a day and chocolate biscuits and sugary yoghurts... ... They should be eating VEGETABLES.

If 5 people are ploughing through more than 6 boxes of chocolate cereal, 9 packs of biscuits, sugary yoghurts etc, they're having far too much refined sugar ... Madness!

Why don't your family eat vegetables??

Totally agree thats why I said a kilo of animal protein (I know there are some eggs) isnt very much for a whole week for 6 people, unless, its being topped up with tons of veg/pulses which arent on the list and might be in the cupboard (fair enough) OR the poster simply has miniscule meals and so does her whole family.

Again.... The vegetables.... Seemingly sparrow portions...

They seem to be eating cereal instead of actual food...

Use the chicken carcasses to make stock, then use the stock as a base for soup or risotto one evening, using up any odds and sods of veg in the fridge. No need for additional meat, although a bit of bacon works nicely if you have it and/or any leftover chicken from the roast.

If you make something with mince - lasagne/spaghetti bolognese - use lots of veg to bulk out the meat sauce so you have more than you need. The next day, or a couple of days later use that as a base for chilli with some kidney beans and Mexican spices. If you have enough have it with rice, otherwise have it with flatbreads/tortillas with a load of shredded lettuce/ cucumber/ tomatoes/ grated cheddar and yoghurt or sour cream.

Asia and Italy are good sources of inspo. Vegetable curries/ dahl with rice and homemade flatbreads made with yoghurt and flour. Veggie pasta dishes. Pizza made from dough you've made (if you make a load all at once it freezes well) with tomato sauce and any ham, cheese etc that needs using up

A couple of chickens for 14 people??!!

So what would be in your prawn stir fry?

For me I stopped cooking recipes.

I was great at making dishes like bolognese with hidden veg. Next day adding needed kidney beans and chilies to make a chilli.
But that meant I used a pack of mince, a tin of kidney beans, fresh chilli, fresh peppers, the “ hidden” courgette, onions, carrots, tomato purée, tinned tomatoes, a garlic bulb , a stock cube. Plus them I had to have pasta, then rice / wraps. Plus cheese and maybe guacamole or avocado.
It’s a lot of ingredients,

Now I just buy assorted veg and steam it, with a simple meat cooked in the air fryer. Much easier to portion control. Less faff, less cooking, less calories.

Yes, if you buy two big chickens, and do loads of roasties, veggies etc.

4 people have a drumstick, 4 people have a thigh.
6 people share 3 breasts...
Leaving 1 breast and athe wings and all the sweetmeats and all the scraggly bits etc. to share out

Should be enough really..

I actually think this is an important conversation, its about how, when people say they can eat on the cheap, they are making compromises. Now thats fine, its for each family to decide how they eat but this is what its come to in this country of people eating like this and viewing the cost of that weekly shop as fairly normal

I actually think people generally eat too much portion wise so its not that people need to be eating huge amounts but your calorie intake is cheap because of the cereal and biscuits and snacks

You could up your nutrition by swapping out £ for £ the cost of the biscuits and cereal by adding in healthy fats (nuts/avocado/oily fish in tins) and cheaper proteins (chicken wings etc)

It really is not enough. Come on.