To wish that healthy eating was a bit cheaper to do.

[hiddenhome]

I'm spending at least 20 quid a week extra on food now

We shop locally at the butchers and fruit store, but it's still working out expensive. We're not buying poncey stuff, just bog standard fruit, veg and fish/chicken.

Dh has ordered a juicer as well. We're gonna be skint by the end of the month

I agree that healthy eating is more expensive.

I disagree that supermarkets don't do good offers on fruit and veg.

In Morrisons today I got BOGOF on big boxes of grapes, box of strawberries for 99p, 2 for £3 on mango/melon/pineapple combos and bags of sugarsnap peas and mangetout for £1.

In recent weeks I've also had BOGOF or half price on clementines, raspberries, bagged salads and carrots at either Tesco or Asda.

When I finally (one lot disintegrated, the next lot got eaten up by caterpillers) managed to grow strawberries one year, a fucking cat shat on them. I haven't had the heart to try again.

Do you have a local market with fruit and veg stalls? We used to go every week and it was so much cheaper and better quality than the supermarkets. The one I went to had big bowls of things like peppers, courgettes, broccoli, carrots and tomatoes for £1. Think we used to spend between £10 & £15 each week depending on what we needed.

Rommell that's exactly why I won't grow in my garden. I'd have a cat shit on me if I went outside and stood stk for long enough! . However, I did once get (and failed to finish) the window boxes that come with the seeds etc from B & M.

goodbye, I used to live near a market that did the £1 bowl thing and I agree they can be very good. Our local one is sort-of alright but I do have to watch what I'm getting. I've learned, for example, never to buy pears and to be very careful about bananas. There is one stall that only sells what they grow and what they sell is great; it's just not that big on variety. One really good thing about the market though (and this is true of every market I've been to) is if you wait till towards the end of the day they practically foist stuff onto you. So as long as you don't have anything too specific in mind you can get good bargains.

Yes Rommell. 3pm on our Market is Foisting time .

Frozen broccoli and peas are your friends. They have naturally higher vitamin contents than fresh because they're frozen as soon as they're picked. Plus, they're about a quarter of the price of fresh.

You song get an overload of sugar if you juice celery/bark coil/spinach etc tho

Mushing up is being confused with smoothies

I'd have a cat shit on me if I went outside and stood stk for long enough!

I feel your pain! We don't have gardens here, so the buggers dig and shit in whatever they can find ie my frigging plant-pots.

I don't have any pets despite constant pleading from the little picked. I have enough mess to clean up after them too never mind making more work for myself! . It's an Estate and every other sodding neighbour has at least two cats. Why do they always do the feline version of sticking their fingers up at you making sure you SEE them spray before they casually walk off your Path/Garden? Lemon and Pepper are meant to be good deterrents I'm yet to try it. Sorry for hijacking OP.

Can I please hijack this thread to ask for lentil/bean alternatives? I wish I could use them because they are so cheap and healthy, but I have IBS and cannot tolerate them, sadly. Is there anything that's just as cheap and healthy but, well, not a bean? I'm suspecting not

Healthy eating is definitely not cheap if you have a bowel/digestive disorder

Of course out of season fruit flown from the other side of the world, and prime fish is more expensive than frozen lips and arseholes.

However, it is possible to eat well for very little if you meal plan, cook from scratch and use things like pulses, eggs and seasonal vegetables. Look at the A Girl Called Jack blog for ideas. Build your store cupboard carefully over time.

Mince is not always crap if you get steak mince from the butcher and can be bulked out with lentils and vegetables in meals like bolognaise and lasagne.

Frozen fish can be a lot cheaper from most supermarkets. Also a block of creamed coconut can be bought for less than a pound and made up into the equivalent of four tins of coconut milk. It lasts for ever if wrapped well.

Buy spices from ethic shops or the ethnic aisle in the supermarket for a fraction of the price of schwartz jars.

Hiddenhome... 80 a week for four is a lot for healthy eating Tbh.

We don't eat processed food, just meat, vegetables, fruit, milk, yoghurt, fish, pulses, beans etc.

I use my local, high quality, butcher, Aldi and Asda - I never spend more than 50, and that's with free range (as in proper wandering around outside) pork, chicken and eggs, and 28 day hung beef.

That's for four people.

I find it cheaper to eat this way, but then I would never dream of buying cherries in February - obscenely expensive and tasteless to boot.

Hiddenhome, we have been using the Covent Garden Soup recipe book and its amazing how cheap it is to do all kinds of soups for very low cost.

You can add lentils, barley, beans even vermicelli pasta if you want it chunky or bung all the veg in the blender, quick whiz and done. Lovely and filling, with a warm crusty baguette or soft rolls for the kids. No additives so v healthy and can last 2-3 days or else pop in freezer.

Nom nom nom. Sorry, my only annoying legacy from Fakebook

gin frozen lips and arseholes . Sitting here, howling at that!!

I found one of those in a packet of pork scratchings once.

We get a fruit and veg box delivered. It's not one if the big organic brands just a local lad. There's enough for the three of us for a fortnight and stuff to give away too for £16. We could have added 30 eggs for £3 to our order and a kilo of broth mix for £2 too.

We get extras at Aldi and Morrisons. I find morrisons has by far the best supermarket meat. We have an excellent farm shop nearby, too expensive for everyday but good for stuff like sausages where we'd only eat one each. I buy cuts of meat like beef skirt for stewing. I make meat not the centre of meal but an addition like potato skins with crispy bacon.

My mam grew up very poor and although she has no need to worry about money now, the mindset sticks and she can make tasty meals out of nothing. Sent us something called tatie pot the other day which is leftover roast potato fried up with bacon, stock and onion. Delicious. She should write a book on budget cookery.

Come Waitrose bargain shopping with me!!

Broccoli 32p
Asparagus free
Mushrooms free
Spinach 29p

Aberdeen angus beefburgers 89p for 4
Smoked salmon 69p

We eat well!

Ruprekt how do you get the Asparagus and Mushrooms free? I love waitrose but my nearest one is a bus ride away in the City Centre.

I take the point about meal-planning which is something I'm so used to I thought everyone did it but can see reasons why they don't. But I still think that eating healthier is cheaper than eating crap, if you're on a normal low-budget.

Free veg from Waitrose - how??!

Southeast 'healthier' is subjective and gets complicated if you have allergies/intolerances/digestive disorders. For example my IBS means no beans/lentils/pulses, white bread/pasta only, limited cruciferous veg. My vegetarian protein options are made much more expensive by not being able to eat beans.

I agree healthier eating is more expensive, I've been trying to up the protein quotient in my children's meals but by the end of the month and money is tight, the cheapest meal is cheap pasta with tomato sauce- and cornflakes for breakfast, but a few days of that is waaaay too stodgy and carb heavy. Things like yoghurt or nice fruit drop off at the end of the month- but they still have to have a snack- again, piece of toast cheaper but stodgy.

I think you can be quite creative with the main meals, but mine don't love beans or lentils (the way I cook them) so they often end up eating just the rice.

Not sure of the solution!

Have you heard of this blog/ website- full of really cheap tasty and healthy ideas - true budget busting healthy eating. A girl called Jack

Thetallesttower replace the pasta with potatoes, much more nutritious.

A word of caution about the Jack recipies. Almost none of them contain enough calories for an adult in the serving size suggested. Eg her vegetable masala plus a portion of rice comes to around 450 calories each if you split the curry by 3 not even 4.

And the suggestion (which is in many of the posts) that 1 tin of toms, and 1 tin of chickpeas plus some veg makes a meal for 4 people is fantasy.

There are a lot of good ideas about eating cheaper, and more healthy from scratch, but the number of servings and have coatings are optimistic.