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!

[MisForMumNotMaid]

I commented up thread about was the pastry ready made. It wasn't to try and embarrass, I buy puff myself about half the time, it was to illustrate the term cooking from scratch is very open to interpretation.

I try not to feel guilt for the odd nugget and chips meal balanced with lots of home made meals.

The Lidl frozen puff is very good and cheap. I can't make butter puff for the price of frozen.

[EverythingsDozy]

Gileswithachainsaw - I tend to buy filo pastry as I've heard it's difficult to make and use 2/3 sheets, cut to about 2.5 inches wide. Put the curry onto the sheet and fold into a triangle. If you fold the edge over the curry so it's like a triangle with a long rectangle on one edge, then keep folding it over in a triangle way (sorry, I'm so bad at explaining things!!) Then I shallow fry them until the middle is warm and the outsides are crispy.

[Gileswithachainsaw]

Sounds yummy!!!!

[jenniferturkington]

I agree with you that it could be much cheaper to live off frozen pies and oven chips than fresh home cooked meals. However, I have to join the masses in saying try Aldi again!
I switched at new year as we were spending £130 on a weekly shop and still topping up in the local coop during the week. This is for two adults, a six year old, five year old and one year old. We are now genuinely spending £100 max a week and that includes me buying some brands (hellmans Mayo, Heinz beans, muller yoghurts and a few others) from sainsburys as we didn't like the Aldi versions.
It took me about a month to go from thinking Aldi was an awful experience that I wasn't going to be able to stick out, to thinking Aldi's great and all other supermarkets are money grabbing bastards!

[HoVis2001]

HighlanderMam

Approved Food looks amazing! My DH was just treated to me muttering about what they had on offer and how products such as chocolate wouldn't last long enough anywhere near me in our house for the best before date to matter.

[olidusUrsus]

I spend under £50 pw for two adults, a young child & a toddler. We eat shite and a packet of sausages is a treat but we manage fine. OH is having chemo and so is never that hungry, I only hit nearer £50 on his good weeks but rarely go over.

[clary]

I made chili con carne tonight with £2.50 mince from Aldi, 24p kidney beans, 34p tin of tomatoes, onion (?15p?), chili (?20p?), a few spices, a red pepper (30p from Aldi) and about 30p-worth of Basmati rice.

I am sure a ready meal of chili and rice costing a similar £4 would not be big enough to fill up the five people who live here (the youngest is nearly 11).

I did the food shop for the week yesterday at Aldi for £60 and will have to go back midweek for bread rolls, milk and maybe bananas/tomatoes, so another £8 or so. I really do think buying ready meals to fill us all would cost a lot more. I could spend more than that of course, if I shopped at Sainsbury's, but that's a different matter.

My £60 includes meals for every night but several are veggie - chick pea and sweet potato curry, pasta with tomato sauce, baked potatoes stuffed with mozzarella and cheddar then baked again yummy, etc.

OP please don't stop cooking nice food for your family, you know a £3 lasagne that actually feeds four hungry people cannot be a Good Thing.

[Takver]

"Any ideas for making pulses more child-friendly? "

I'd say its mostly what dc are used to - I mix in very hippy circles, and a plain red lentil dahl + rice is probably as safe a meal as any to feed to random children.

OP, I'm not sure that cutting meat by replacing with quorn type things would work out much cheaper, generally meat replacements tend to be pretty pricey.

Could you have one baked potato based evening (mince chilli bulked out with red kidney beans goes a long way on spuds) and other cheap evening (veg soup with dumplings is always a big hit here, half a mug of lentils and some barley makes it suitably filling).

When people compare eg shop bought lasagne to home made, I agree home made will be more expensive (as said above, proper meat etc). But, I wouldn't ever consider making lasagne as an everyday dinner! To me a proper lasagne is a special meal - every day dinner is rice & dahl, cauliflower cheese (not that that's cheap), soup & dumplings, pasta with leek & cheese sauce, spuds with chilli etc etc

[nkf]

Thetallesttower, I had that bean aversion with my children. To be honest, in my ultra broke days, I would make a casserole with say chicken and chick peas and I'd eat the chickpeas and the children would have the chicken. Have you tried falafel? Looks enough like a burger maybe.

A bit difference to shopping bills is snacks. Some families eat them, others don't. If you are eating three meals a day and no snacks then it's much easier to keep your grocery bills low.

[deakymom]

morrisons have apparently started a price war so it will soon get better

get a freezer find a good butcher and buy in bulk xx

[gilmoregirl]

minesapintotea which own brand washing powder do you use that does 365 washes?.. I want some

[Waltonswatcher1]

Do Aldi and lidl do fair trade, organic or free range ( not outdoor bred ) ?
Morrisons and Asda used to before the recession hit and then it disappeared from the shelves soon after .

[racmun]

This is interesting there are 4 of us me, dh, ds 3.5 and dd who is 4 months.

I don't see how you can do shopping for £50 when you have to buy all the household cleaning products and toiletries.

I''ve just started doing a big shop of household items at the beginning of the month from Asda so nappies, wipes, soap powder, formula, toiletries, drinks, sauces, tinned items etc and it averages £150-£180.

I then do a weekly online shop for fresh food and meat etc from Ocado and I'm careful what I order lots of 3 for. £10 meat offers. I probably now spend about £50 on the online shop And then another £10 during the week on bits and pieces.

I don't cook much from scratch but I've found doing this has really helped me budget amd I don't get any expensive shocks at the end of the month eg nappies etc.

Since doing this I've saved about £200 a month!

[YNK]

My dd is used to helping herself out of the slow cooker.
I had removed the carcass from a batch of chicken stock which was going to become chicken and veg soup.
She later told me the chicken soup (without the veg) was really lovely!

[LaGuardia]

I think the secret is not to do all your shopping in one place. Shop around for offers and bulk buy boring stuff. And if you are skint, never ever go to bloody Waitrose unless you are going in for the free coffee.

[fuzzpig]

I think if you have ready meals a lot although the actual meals might be cheaper you wouldn't be getting the same nutrition and they wouldn't fill you up as well as decent home made stuff, so you might feel hungrier and end up spending more on extras/snacks etc.

[olidusUrsus]

I've done a shop as if I needed to buy all household stuff that week plus OH's appetite was reasonable - it's come to £53.14. I'm not particularly savvy with it either and could definitely make savings by being more careful/less lazy. But I would rather buy a pizza than soak lentils. Happy to post the list here if anyone cares enough as long as you don't judge my terrible diet.

[exexpat]

Has anyone mentioned the world food aisle at Tesco etc, or asian supermarkets for really cheap bulk rice and lentils? Works out much cheaper than small bags even of value-range rice. Also way cheaper for things like herbs, spices, curry pastes and coconut milk if you are trying to make something tasty with all the cheap lentils and veg. And if you have a greengrocer or fruit market locally, they are normally cheaper than the fruit and veg in supermarkets (possibly excluding the Lidl deals of the week).

[Monka]

We average 45 - 70 quid on a weekly shop for me, DH my baby, includes non food items like kitchen towels etc.. I make my own purées and meals for my baby and us. This includes breakfast, lunch and dinners. I prefer the taste of homecooked food.
Every culture has their own versions of cheap eats. Indian food once you have bought the spices works out quite cheaply. You can also make lovely tasting burritos loaded with more veg and kidney beans using only a small amount of chicken. I make my own pizzas and they are delicious and cheaper than the ready made variety. If I make chicken burgers a large chicken breast will feed my DH and me. I flatten it and smother it in breadcrumbs and herbs and spices and some parmasan. We would bulk out the chicken burger meal with salad and homemade wedges. We eat salad with most meals and all ingredients are designed to be used up as I meal plan.
It's hard work and we will add cheaper meals like jacket potatoes served with a lovely salad and nice toppings or chickpea curry once or twice a week as well. Something cheap like chickpea curry would be served with salad, roast Indian spiced potatoes and Greek yogurt. I would also use the Greek yogurt adding the fruit purées to it for pudding a few times a week for the baby.

[Monka]

And as expat just posted we use Asian supermarkets for basmati rice and Indian spices as they are much cheaper than any of the supermarkets. The vegetables including 2 cucumbers for a £1 are on offer at these Asian supermarkets but aren't always in easy reach for everyone.

[horsetowater]

Waltonswatcher yes Lidl do free range chicken breasts at £3.50 for two and whole chicken for around £5. They do outdoor sausages and chops.

Also organic carrots and onions, fair trade tea, coffee, bananas and chocolate.

I find them cheaper partly because there isn't as much choice. You whizz round in an hour and have enough to feed a family for a fortnight. Job done. It's never going to be exactly the same as the original make, but most people don't care that much.

Interesting about the off meat - I have had a lot of incidents of off meat from Aldi as well, so be careful with that. I take it back or go in and complain and they give the money back.

[horsetowater]

Monka and others, cooking for 2 for £70 a week is easy. Cooking for four really isn't. You need the whole head of broccoli, the full pack of pasta, the minimum 2 chicken breasts. It really does cost twice as much. And by the time babies are out of nappies you will have a pet that consumes the same amount of money. As soon as I found myself free from entering the nappy aisle I went straight to the pet aisle instead.

[AndHarry]

I used to spend about £35-50 on our main food shop each week but then switched me and DH to packed lunches and started doing click & collect so I make more of a conscious effort to buy everything in one go rather than doing endless top-up shops. The main shop is now usually £70-95 but it's a lot less overall compared to what we were actually spending on food throughout the week. That's for a family of 4 (2 adults, a 4yo and a 1yo) from Tesco. I cook from what I would count as scratch, as in I buy raw, fresh ingredients, but don't make my own pasta or bread.

I made a conscious effort when I was on maternity leave to cut down on the meat we were eating as it was so expensive but that was met with a lot of protest from DH We very rarely have vegetarian meals but I cook a lot of fish and use, for example, 2 chopped bacon rashers to flavour a dish rather than make the meat the main event.

I hardly ever buy junk food snacks so that brings it down a but and we're teetotal so there's no money going on alcohol, which from what I've seen makes a massive difference. DS is only in nappies at night and DD has washable nappies so that's a big cost saving too. I use the DC's shampoo so no mega bucks there. The bill still makes me wince though TBH.

[McFox]

Like Preciousbane I don't understand the need to buy cleaning products all the time. Buying a big bottle of vinegar, Castile soap and essential oils is so much cheaper, healthier and better for the environment too. It takes minutes to make up bottles of cleaning solution for lots of purposes around the house and saves a fortune.