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.

Oh... So you don't actually feed 6 people for 3 meals a week for £95.

There's at least one meal "missing" being replaced with a takeaway...

What are you making your curries with? Just near, rice and sauce (Obviously not vegetables ha ha)?

It could be, if you wanted it to be.... Roasts don't have to be meat feasts. We tend to have lots of veg etc and Yorkshire puddings and all that.

A large chicken is what..around 1.8-1.9kg. let's say 1.7kg, and it yields 50% meat. So you could expect 1700g meat minimum..
1.7kg between 14 isn't hugely generous portions admittedly, but it is 120g or more. And kids won't eat huge amounts, we already know one of the. Is 2, and now know her kids don't eat much because they're full of sugar cereal and biscuits so 2 should be plenty.

It is when you're the one paying!!!

One pepper, one cucumber and one onion for 6 people is crazy. However often do you cook from scratch during the week? Any recipe like a spag bol requires one onion, and a batch made with 1 onion is usually not enough for 6 people. Same for 10 eggs between 6 people for a week. So each person only gets to eat 1.5 eggs per week?

Saving money on food is really not worth the health of your family. All kid's cereal is incredibly unhealthy and processed, and wreak havoc with blood sugar. The remaining "food" seems to be mostly UPF carbs and prepackaged snacks.

Also puzzled why you only order 1 tin of beans and 1 tin of soup? Do all of those get shared between 6 people?

This post is insane. 2 chickens will feed 14 people?! A family of 6 survive on nothing but cereal, biscuits and a sniff of broccoli?! Multiple loads of laundry of day in a house full of mold?! I can’t keep up 😂

Food shopping is so expensive, after googling the national average for a family of 5 in the Uk I’ve been determined to bring ours done within the middle of that range.
Things I have done is to meal plan, we don’t eat the same meals every week but probably over 2-3 week rotation .
I’ve cut down on meat, we eat meat 2-3 times a week, fish twice a week and then veggie for however many are left.
I bulk out with vegetables if it’s a meat ie spag bol has loads of peppers, mushrooms etc in. Risottos and pasta dishes are really easy to increase for numbers relatively cheaply, I do a salmon and pea one that is really lovely but you only need 2 salmon fillets instead of one per person.
I bulk buy our dogs and cat food from Amazon on a repeat buy as it’s cheaper that way.
The main thing I’ve found that helped me save the most is that I stopped doing ‘top up shops’ I was going mid week for extra fruit, bread etc and then I was grabbing other bits at the same time.
Now I shop for the week, if the kids eat 12 packets of crisps in 2 days, they don’t get replaced until I’m due to go shopping again. If I run out of soft fruit as they’ve eaten all the strawberries, grapes etc they have to eat the apples, oranges and bananas that they overlook in favour of the soft fruit.
It does mean that initially they had a bit of a shock by Wed, despite me telling them I wasn’t going to keep replacing it, and their packed lunches looked a bit sad ie sandwiches and an apple because they’d munched everything else but they soon learnt! I also brought them some thermos food pots so they can take soup etc for lunch to make their lunches more interesting, a batch of soup is quite inexpensive to make but really tasty and they’ve said how nice it is on rainy days it is to have something hot.

Im guessing the soup is one lunch probably for OP, the beans go in the chilli

Ive got about 20 tins of various beans in the cupboard!! So my shopping list wouldnt even show that if I set out what I need to make a variety of foods. I could literally feed us for months on what we have in the cupboard and freezer.

Im not necessarily saying that is the case here!!

£300 for 6 people really doesn’t seem that bad, especially including a massive roast. I’d say on average the shopping bill for 2 of us (just adult DD and I at home, I’m vegetarian, DD has a few portions of beef/fish) is £150 per week. I’m not sure how you could cut down without heavily reducing level of nutrition/quality of food.

Veggie stew or veggie pasta bake
home made soup

Prawns, rice, stir fry sauce, onion, broccoli and whatever other frozen veg is in the freezer. Or egg noodles.

Also I would definitely run a dehumidifier if your home is damp, 3 loads of washing is a lot. We do one a day, and we are only 1 less person… I actually go through what my children throw out for washing, obviously underwear, pjs and school shirts get washed after wearing once. But the amount of hoodies, joggers etc that were in their laundry bins having been worn once was ridiculous! I could literally still smell the fabric softener on them and knew I had only just washed them. So I started folding those things back up and putting them back on their beds for them to put away. They always assume it’s stuff I’ve washed again but it’s the stuff I’ve sifted through without a mark on it 🥴

For all of you on 250g prawns? (which shrink considerably once fried), and the broccoli is then used up.

Do you have a big pantry to pick from?

Trying to answer all questions. Had beans left over that weren't used from week before. I use half an onion in a dish I would say (husband isn't keen I am) the pepper was for the stir-fry only. The soup is for me for lunch I work 2 days a week and normally take a soup each day again has some from week before that I didn't use. Believe it or not we normally have left overs and husband takes some for lunch each day! Girls get a school lunch so yes I do agree there isn't as much lunch food there.

No. But my cupboards aren't empty each week I do have some beans, sauces etc. Yes the prawns do us all. Not the baby she won't eat that. But she likes the rice and broccoli.

Chicken! I had chicken! Fine. We will cut back the cereal.

Fair enough if you have small appetites. Im genuinely interested though as I love food and cooking and experimenting and Im intruigued about how that all makes a weekly food plan (and I dont mean you have to plan on paper, I just mean what your dinners are and what you put in them)

I use about 2 onions each time I make something, with sofrito also, then other veg, then the protein, possibly pulses/lentils in with it depending on what it is

If I did a prawn stir fry I would want fine beans, onion, peppers, broccoli, egg, way more prawns, possibly spinach depends how I feel. Lots of soy or other sauce, garlic, ginger, spices (I assume you put these in but didnt mention)

No I just had some eggs left over from the week before same with beans etc. I check each week what's there before I order.

Cook from scratch- well if you mean make the chilli and boil the rice, most nights. It's likely learned behaviour as this is what I was brought up on and we ate a lot of cereal! I am taking on the advice though. I've never said I am super healthy. Yes they probably have too much sugary cereal.

Sorry not read all the replies. But here are some ideas. Hopefully save you some money but I do this to save time as well as we both work full time…

Chillo con carni. Bulk out with kidney beans and mushroom. Serve over 2 nights first night with rice and some tortilla chips. Second night with jacket potatoes and cheese.

Beef stew with lots of potatoes and vegetables. First night night with dumplings. Second night in a large (homemade - so cheap to make) Yorkshire pudding.

If I roast a chicken for a roast dinner I use the left over chicken in a pasta the next. I made a delicious chicken pasta last night from ‘mummawhocooks’ on Facebook - she does some great budget meals. I have found loads of great meals on her page.

Same with roast pork. I will make pork (pulled) for a Sunday dinner. Then the following night heat it (thoroughly) in BBQ sauce and do pulled pork sandwiches.

Some cheapies….

Quiche, chips and salad. I make the quiche from scratch and fill itv with whatever I have left - ham, leeks, mushrooms, onion, bacon, broccoli.

Tuna quesadillas- tuna mixed with mayo and a small amount of tomato puree. Spread on half a wrap some sliced red onion and a bit of cheese.

Home made soup and toastie (cheese/cheese and onion/cheese and ham).

Quick pasta dishes
-pasta, broccoli, cheese, pesto, garlic, mayo.
-macaroni cheese: pasta, single cream cheese and crispy bacon

Hope this helps 🙂

Yeah I mean dont just drop the cereal and not replace it with anything, it seems like you're barely eating anything anyway!!!

It makes me wonder about my intake, I have a very small appetite, I cooked myself some egg muffins today 12 of them, I will eat those over a couple of days, perhaps 3 or 4 days actually, Ive eaten 2 already to test them out. I used 9 eggs in those and tons of cheese and an onion and a pepper. Just for me, just for snacks really.

That would be nearly your whole weekly egg shop!

Can you not buy your washing powder/capsules in bulk and possibly online where they are cheaper?
Same with your mould spray?

No we genuinely only have a take away/meal out once a week. In the curry I would have chicken, onion, curry powder, chopped tomatoes, garlic, cumin, frozen veg. With rice. Something like that?

Look I'm not saying we feed 6 people 3 meals a day every day. Every single week. I'm simply saying I spend £85 a week every week on a food shop and don't need to top up much extra so £300 seems a lot to me. Every family is different and I'm sure when others say they spend £150/200 a week- they also eat out sometimes or have lunch at work.

But how is it as low as that every week, surely this week that you posted is a lean week, you clearly have lots of frozen veg in the freezer, various other bits of veg you didnt need to buy, tins of things you didnt need to buy, any frozen meat? More eggs you said?

But in other weeks when that is run down, you would spend way more than 85 quid? Surely

I think one of the things thats important (and Im sure people would find this really boring and mundane) is how to keep a stock of stuff, freezer and cupboards

Ive always been a squirreller, some people might not be, I have a massive spice cupboard for example and jars of various things.

Do people know how to manage that and stock up when they're able or are they lving more 'I need things for this recipe' and just go out and buy that? Like another poster says she's given up following set recipes and just uses what she has.

Yes I agree we could do better. I do like avocado and normally have that on the list but the others you mentioned we tend not to eat. And I can afford to spend more. I will follow this thread and make some changes ☺️

Yes! Your shop is so processed, you barely have any actual food on there.

Less meat, do things like a stir fry but bulk out with loads of veg. Only 3 of us but that would be x2 chicken breasts with a lot of veg. When you make a chilli it’s a third beans, we are not vegetarians but I do a meal with just pulses every week. DH also objects but I say well go without.