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.

We spend around £80-100 pw on food and toiletries etc for three people (2 adults and a 6yo). That's all meals, snacks etc except the 5 kid lunches at school. (She'll move to packed lunch after Year 2 as £3.45 is pricey for a ham roll, some sweetcorn and a cookie ... )
we also feed 3 extra adults once a week, on that as well.

Basically @Mumstheword1983 - stop feeding your kids rubbish food like cereal and chocolate biscuits and petit fillous all day, and swap them for fruit and vegetables and non UPF choices...

Please do consider the fact that your 6 person family's weekly vegetable consumption is barely enough consumption for one person a week...

Aim for the minimum 5 different per person per day. 😊

Oh right. Poverty take-away diet.

Oh yea... you're also giving them takeaway once a week, on top of the 1 or more boxes of cereal each person eats each week, and the 1.5+ packets of biscuits they each eat too...

The family would waste away if they literally just swapped all the biscuits and crisps and cereal for fruit and veg. Calorie for calorie its going to be a lot more money I suspect to replace with nutritionally healthy and varied snacks like nuts, cheese, olives, avocado, good toast etc

people cant exist on veg and fruit alone, they need fats, protein and yes, some carbs - gasp!

A filling and cheap meal is spaghetti alle olio & alio (olive oil & garlic). With some homemade garlic bread (a French stick with garlic & butter spread and baked in foil in the oven).

Lighten up.

This thread is actually useful when people are kind with their advice.

Expensive meals. Make same ones go further with veg sides.

Dhal/veg curry and rice super cheap meal I make all the time.

is they've eaten a cooked lunch at school, had cereal for breakfast and then probably eaten another bowl of cereal after school because they seem to go through a load of junk chocolate cereal. That poster is only spending so little because she's mostly feeding her children cheap cereal and biscuits and a school lunch each day, it's a poverty diet.

This is sad but true. It almost reads like an ARFID shopping list because it's clear the children eat an enormous amount of chocolate cereal. It seems to be their main "meal" at least twice a day. The rest is all filled with snacks, biscuits, crisps and toast. It sounds like the poster has given up trying to feed the children fruit or veg and just settling for whatever they will eat. The takeaways probably include chips, nuggets or other fried, beige foods that the children do eat.

It's not their main meal at all. They have cereal for breakfast or toast and banana, a school dinner then a main meal at night. Tonight it was chilli and rice with broccoli. Then before bed at 7 pm they have cereal or toast again. That's a bit of a harsh exaggeration.

For a take away yes they might have a Dominos typically or noodles from the local Chinese takeaway.

Who are the extra 8 on a Sunday @elliejjtiny

why do you host /pay every Sunday

3 loads of washing a day is insane. 21 a week for 6 people

what on earth do you wash

Lidl do the 2kg packs of chicken breasts for £12 ish. You get 10 large breasts for that. I buy for my son who is a gym bunny.
I make Chinese with sliced breasts cooked in sesame oil,Chinese 5 spice, mushrooms, garlic, onion, grated carrot, peppers, soy sauce, housing sauce. Egg noodles. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.Sometimes add chilli sauce for a kick .Son loves it. 5 breasts would do 6 ppl. Then I would make fajitas, buy wraps in Lidl ,seperate spice pkt, again mushrooms, peppers onions. Tomato puree,garlic. Bulk with lettuce, tomatoes and cheese.
Sausages with potatoe and leek gratin. Slice potoes and leeks,par boil, layer with cheese and tip a tub of Elmlee on and bake.
Use chat gpt to look up what to make with the ingredients you have.

I average 5 loads per week for 2 people (and a dog..). I wouldn’t say it’s that far fetched

Didn't think that deeply into it.

Pretty sure OPs children will also eat out at school/College or work etc even though they are spending £300 so it is till a relevant comparison. I mean I am spending less than most people whatever way you look at it and I agree I need to up the budget.

Just to add, thighs are a lot cheaper (and tastier in my view), particularly bone in although I would cook those and then add them to quick cooking food like Chinese as I like my thighs cooked quite long and slow.

Im not sure its fair to attack people like this and slag them off. The poster has identified a few changes they want to make, its in 'chat', she never proposed its the greatest diet in the world and she didnt ask for advice she was just answering someone elses thread. .

its actually been very helpful I think to identify what really goes on in the weekly shop and how it can be managed differently.

i do 2 loads a week for 2 people sometimes 3 if doing both beds

lights bedsheets
darks towels

Love his hearty chicken stockpot.

It's not insane if you have a sporty family!

2 x loads towels each week
4 X bedding
7 loads of darks (uniforms, school sports kits, other sports kits, regular clothes)
2 loads whites (school shirts, blouses and some PE tops)
3 x loads of lights (sports kit, general wear)
1 X dogs bedding.
1 X woollens (mainly mine and eldest DD)

That's 20 without even thinking about it!

I am taking in the advice. We are going to Italy for 3 weeks this summer- I'm hoping we can take on the med diet 🤞🏼

Can you swap to Aldi or Lidl? Or at least drop any brands to supermarket own? Do you bulk buy on offers etc? Find a wholesaler or Costco for washing products?

Why do you do so many wash loads?? That can’t be cheap and could also be contributing to your damp problem.

Not sure why you need to run the dishwasher twice a day either that seems excessive!

Less washing - 3 loads a day is 21 loads per week which is crazy. 2 loads pp pw equivalent would only be 12.

Everyone has already said that 14 people for a roast every weekend seems unsustainable.

I stopped buying all processed / packaged snacks and breakfast goods when I needed to cut grocery spending (or rather, not increase grocery spending in the face of ever increasing prices). I now make all snacks and breakfasts from scratch as well as other meals - It takes me at least 1/2 a day a week in batch cooking and I appreciate that not everyone has that to spare.

Finally, batch cooking and portioning saves us a lot. If I made a 4 person recipe in years gone by, we'd eat 2 greedy portions and have one small portion left in the fridge. These days, I put half straight in the freezer for another night and we eat 2 proper sized portions.

My last thought is that my other half and children would also rather not eat as many chickpeas and lentils as come their way but they understand that I'm not a miracle worker and that beans cost less than chickens. It's a balancing act and everyone needs to grasp that there are compromises needed on all sides.

Good for you for taking this battering in your stride!

FWIW I would start by adding in the cheapest veg in volume. Big bag of carrots, whole cabbage, big box of mushrooms, can of lentils or cannellini beans. You could get all of those for a fiver. Peas and sweetcorn in the freezer. Don't wait for holiday, you will need a break then not a project.

Cheap meals;

• gnocchi (Lidl do a long life pack for £1- feeds 2) make a tomato and bacon sauce (use cooking bacon as cheap). Grate carrots or chop mushrooms in
• pasta (either with a white sauce and stock base or a tinned tomato base) and add bacon/sausage or chicken
• phily cheese steaks with the thin sizzle steaks and a bumper pack of mixed bell peppers
• chicken fajitas
• chicken fried rice
• frittata
• curry, rice and homemade flatbreads
• salad, homemade potato salad and basa/basic fish cakes
• chicken burgers in homemade breadcrumbs
• lamb kofta (sounds expensive but literally lamb mince/fresh parsley and a few spices) serve with chutney, salad and homemade flatbreads
• sausage mash and veg
• toad in hole
• Sausage casserole with baked beans /butter beans
• macaoni cheese with bacon (use bacon sparingly) and use the cheapest cheese block (600g for around £3.90, use around half of it)

hth (obvs all bulked out with seasonal/rediced or frozen/homegrown veg).

Absolutely. Great advice. I can add this in this week. It's not an affordability issue. Quite the opposite. It's more learned behaviour (was like this growing up) and habit. I tend to stick the same foods in the online basket each week as I'm busy and stressed and hate taking 4 kids food shopping. I will make changes. I do always have frozen veg in the freezer but your other suggestions I will try ☺️