AIBU to be confused when people say it's cheaper to cook from scratch?

[Blueskiesandcherrypies]

(Sorry another 'weekly food shop post'....)

I just don't think it is! I struggle to get our weekly food shop below £140pw. That's for me, DH, ds9, dd7 and dd1 (and soon to be newborn ds). We all love our food, though I tear my hair out every week planning meals everyone will enjoy rather than refuse and sulk about tolerate, and cook from scratch (just things like spag Bol, curry, carbonara, puff pastry 'pizza', roasts...) but I often think blimey if I could just chuck a few ready meals in the trolley and loads of bits from the frozen section (burgers, nuggets, kievs!!) we'd be quids in! But then we wouldn't be eating so healthily and I wouldn't know exactly what we're all putting in our mouths.

Weekly food shop includes packed lunches, loads of fruit for snacks, cat food, household bits, nappies.... but not alcohol, that comes out of DH's 'own' pocket rather than our joint account even if it's wine for me. We never have leftovers so can't stretch a meal over 2 days (DCs have growing appetites).

I am green with envy when I see people saying they can feed a family of four for £50 a week! Just....how?!

And ok, before you ask, I have been shopping at ocado lately but I haven't seen a huge price diff than when I used sainsburys.

Please help me see where I'm going wrong!

oops wrong threat not sure how that happened sorry

Wow £140 a week? That's double what I spend on 2 adults, 3 kids (no toddlers) inc packed lunches, household cleaners (washpowder and dishwasher tablets too).

We eat v basic home cooked (from scratch) food. I search around for deals and don't shop all in the one place. I would consider sainsburys and ocado fairly upmarket and pricey - maybe some good deals but to do a whole shop there might end up expensive.

Try shopping around more. We tend to do a mix of shops Aldi for meat and some baking ingredients /Iceland - frozen veg & milk and cheese before anyone thinks junk food!/ Tesco - basic Tesco brand tins of beans etc. Bread flour Sometimes Lidle for mega boxes of wash powder. My local green grocers is cheap on fresh fruit and veg with new deals daily.

Tesco basic passata makes a good pasta sauce base to which garlic, veg, meat, and basic Tesco dried herbs can be added.
Cheapest tomato purée was from Aldi - 35p for 200g tube. I don't use this in pasta sauce though, I use it for pizza sauce when mixed with passata (neat purée is a bit overpowering as a pizza sauce) and tomato purée is great in casseroles (cooked in the slow cooker).
I make the pizza dough myself too.
Making our own bread works out at 25p a loaf.

I don't have an aldi and I work full time. Shopping around is impossible. 140 is a good week for us - I expect next week I will spend less as I really stocked up (12 tins of tomatoes as on special offer). Oh and I bought new Venus breeze blades - if anyone knows how to cut the cost of shaving your legs and armpits do let me know

I'm often not in until 7pm. I don't see how that is a long time from walking through the door. Do other parents of teenagers not get through industrial amounts of: shampoo, cond, toothpaste, anti-perspirant, San pron laundry stuff (10 washes a week at least; probably 10 dishwashes too). I find it adds up and I certainly don't have time to shop around!!

Yeehaw

I used a cheaper razor yesterday. You could do dot-to-dot on my legs!

I like the idea of soup but everyone is hungry ten minutes later, never seems to work in our house, even if I do bulky soups with beans and so forth. Risotto seems to do better but the rice can come expensive.

Thinking over this past weeK; we have had one roast chicken and one luxury roast shoulder of lamb as a family celebration. from that we have had roast dinner (obv) twice; chicken pie and shepherds pie; chicken in tortilla wraps; risotto. The meat's gone now; tonight is homemade pizza. We wouldn't get the lamb normally, though. Quite often it would be stew from the freezer, or put a pastry lid on it and call it steak pie.

I do a lot of bulking out meat meals with veg, ppl know that if they eat all the roast chicken it will be a pretty thin pie next day so they control themselves .

But I dont have a car, and Aldi and Lidl and Morrisons are all miles away. I get Ocado once a week and top up at the Co-op on my way home. Back when I was a SAHM I did a lot more home baking etc, but the kids were smaller and ate less anyway, so not sure how comparable that is, now I have 5 adults to feed, basically.

I think often people aren't comparing like with like- some people on this thread are talking about feeding two adults and a toddler (basically two adults and a bit extra) and others have three teenagers who eat more than the adults! Thats's five whole adults to feed- more than twice as much as the other family.

I can't shop around, no time and I envy people whose children eat beans/pulses in stews, mine pick the meat out and eat it separately. Shopping at Lidl though is the best way to save money.

Thinkiing about it, I spend more on veg than I do on meat, not sure if that means I am paying over the odds for veg . I will say one thing for ocado, though, I never have to throw anything out. What I buy, gets eaten.

We got 2 large chickens for £6 last night from Turkish Food Centre. Someone upthread said they have food standing by the road side - The little independent turkish shops often have food outside but TFC is a chain and the 3 near us don't do that. It's more like a grocers with a butcher in store.

Well we had chick thighs aand drums (in a yummy sauce) on Sunday with roasties (thigh and drum each) - again on mon with pasta and broc. Tuesday was salmon fillets with pasta, pesto and salad, last night Kievs (bought), chips and salad, tonight is sausages (12 - two packs with a few left over for Brekkie), mash and beans, tomorrow will be spag bol. Can't remember what we had last sat. Soo, not exactly high end luxury but I accept a goodly quantity of meat. We also have cheese, ham, juice, cake, fruit, bread, olives, yoghurt, milk, etc - and tthere is never more than a heel of cucumber left by Saturday morning. DD and I have packed lunches out of it.

Yeehaw buy men's razors, not women's. For some reason the pwetty pink handle adds a quid or so to the price

Certainly don't buy special shaving foam for legs.

Or go hairy. Much cheaper.

ok I am not going hairy although I do tend towards the woolly in the winter. I don't buy shaving foam. I LURVE the spa ones as you don't need to put anything on legs and armpits, just stand in the shower and whizz up and down, done. Men's ones arent that much cheaper and don't have the soapy bit so I'd have to use conditioner or soap or something

my meal plan is this (sorry if dull)
tomorrow: fish pie, peas, broccoli from garden
weekend: turkey meatballs and pasta, chili, soup, jacket potatoes, packed lunches (rolls, homemade cake, chocolate bars - we are at a sports thing all day on Sunday)
Monday: probably left over chili and jacket potatoes
Tuesday: pea risotto YUM and maybe leftover meatballs or chili for one or two children
Wedneday: something - pasta with tomato and basil and garlic bread probably, I also have a tin of crab so might make crab linguini for me and dh
Thursday: veg curry with chickpeas and homemade chapatis
soup for lunches,
biscuits, homemade cakes will all be eaten
breakfasts are porridge, toast and peanut butter, eggs, pancakes, cinnamon toast, fruit, yogurts, baked beans, sometimes dd2 has a tin of heinz tomato soup [random]
we might have a bottle of wine but I don't drink much
lots of water, tea, coffee, hot ribena at the moment as dd3 has a cold and it is a medicine in our house but we don't have it normally

It's not the dinners (I allow about 10 per day for them, incl lunch and breakfast - perhaps a bit more at weekends). It's all the other stuff. My shop last weekend included:

Bleach 4
Bogroll - 12
toothpaste
Shower Gel
Comfort
Sanitary Towels
Tin foil
Cif for bathrooms
Spray winow polish
Crisps
bread
Bertolli
butter
eggs
ham
cheese
Pepperami sticks
cake
Juice x 2
cereal
Fresh coffee
Almond milk
salt
2 mother's day cards
ketchup
pesto
black olives
bag of brioche
bacon
creme fraishe
bunch of daffs
crackers

As you all were.

yy to other stuff
this week I have bought:
shoe laces, tights, pants and bras for dd1, batteries, a new dog lead as lost one, a muffin tin as the old one was so rusty it was disgusting, a measuring jug as the old one got smashed, a mop head, some windowlene

rock and roll

and two books for dd1

I SHOULD save money by going to the library but I always forget to get the books back on time and end up with extortionate fines

How old are your DC truffle ours are older teenagers

Our house consists of 4 adults and a 5 year old.

nearthewindymill there is always plenty to eat in our house. It's just not crisps, biscuits and crap. If someone wants a snack there is always bread, baked beans, spaghetti, cheese, fruit, porridge, usually some cooked pasta or rice in the fridge, frozen yoghurts, homemade cake/biscuits/traybake. DH and DBIL have a "coming home from work" routine which involves finding food. Nobody in our house goes hungry looks sadly at size 20 bottom

Risotto seems to do better but the rice can come expensive

I make it paella-style with pudding rice. Much cheaper and a perfectly acceptable alternative for home cooking. We only get carnaroli or arborio if I'm feeling flush :D

We now have Wagon Wheels as a treat for this week. With my tesco clubcard coupons (one voucher for 45p to use twice and a 35p off coupon) and waiting until they were on special offer at 1 a pack I've just paid 70p for 2 packs that are usually 1.69. Walked to the local mini tesco in my lunchbreak

I do a lot of couponing, mainly search for deals in my lunchbreak at work as I eat at my desk and surf the net (as I'm doing now)

My daughter is not 5. She's 4

But truffle you do know teenagers eat more than adults don't you? I'll never forget the year our son grew 9 inches in about 12 months. And when I say crisps they get one packet of six each week and when it's gone, it's gone.

I would be minded to ask you - does your bill include all the other stuff and do the other adults also bring in food to a greater or lesser degree. Surely you aren't responsible for buying food for ALL the grown-ups who live in your house whilst also working 45-50 hours each week.

If I had to I'm sure I could feed us for 50 a week. In fact I did once when DH was away - so actually one adult and a teenager. I managed it by buying daily and buying reduced and was proud to have done it. The children hated it though and heaved a sigh of relief when the experiment was over. I also found it very heavy on my time and we didn't eat as fresh or as well.

see I buy none of the following

bleach
fabric conditioner
sanitary stuff
cif
window polish

I know from previous threads that a lot of people seem to spend a significant amount on cleaning products each week.

souljacker I agree to some extent.
All these expensive spray cleaners are a waste of money and cleaning can be done for a fraction of the price. I clean my windows with vinegar and old newspapers and the result is better that all the glass cleaning products.