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!

what is cooking bacon? i buy it and it is veyr cheap, but i dont understand, when dont you cook bacon?

asda is cheap for pasta, 50p for spaghetti and lots of pasta shapes, 50p that is for 500 gm.

It's for cooking in things rather than whole, I suppose - carbonara rather than fry-up. Scrappy ends rather than perfect slices.

Supermarket bacon is revolting. Our butcher's bacon doesn't shrink and doesn't sweat - it's a revelation. So although it's more expensive per kilo, it's cheaper per serving.

We havn't got a aldi anymore, our aldi went to make way for farm foods, farm food is good for frozen meat and fish but would still rather have aldi . We have several LIdl near by, they are all quite small stores though so it's hit and miss if you can do a full shop there, I often have to go somewhere else to get the bits I couldn't get ( we can only use Persil washing powder as others bring me out in a rash and the dd's will only drink one type of fruit squash from tesco ). I'm going to attempt a full shop in LIdl this week and see how much I save not using Tesco, I'm also going to clean my freezer out to make room for any meat I find on offer.

I'm doing slimming world at the moment and it has made my shopping bill much bigger, mainly due to the amount of fruit I am eating, when I go into tesco I often buy the pre prepared pineapple mad melon but now I have realised I can buy a whole pineapple or melon for 99p rather than buying a pot of it for £2.50 in Tesco, just means I have to chop it all up but it's worth it ( I now have a big tub of fruit in my fridge for snacking on ).

I think it's interesting how people define their standards vs. value. My 'lower limits' are fairly random but there are rules I won't budge on. Within this framework I decide what my food bill is.

You can ask people to economise by buying poor quality foods but it's really a false economy if it makes them miserable or unhealthy. In the end it's about making lifestyle choices. I would rather have less of a decent quality food than more of the cheap one that's full of salt/additives/water. We turned to cheap rice recently, it was vile and turned to instant mush. Big mistake.

I think supermarkets are crooks to force poor people to eat crap because they overcharge for decent quality food. The price of decent basic foods has gone up completely unchallenged by government or anyone else. Most people are too busy working (on a low wage) to be able to shop around in the markets and wholesalers and quite frankly I don't think they should be forced to either.

I use ocado and spend far far less than if I go into a supermarket. Even Aldi. With Ocado I buy what I need, not what I fancy. And I haven't noticed any substantial price differences either to be honest.

Sorry , I haven't read all of the replies yet, but....
I have been cooking from scratch for 2 years now and have shaved £50 a week off the shopping bill. I used to spend £150, but now spend £100 including all toiletries and cleaning products and special free from dietary foods for one member of the family. A chicken only lasts us one meal and we eat meat, fish or poultry every day. I think convenience foods are very expensive unless you buy the really cheap ones with cheap ingredients and small portions so for me cooking from scratch is definitely a lot cheaper. The gannets in my house would need 2 ready meals each to feel satisfied.

We had cheap 'extra large' fish fillets yesterday. There was probably more soggy breadcrumb than fish in each piece. A while ago I made my own and it was so much nicer and probably cheaper. They are apparently (just checked) only 50% fish. So a 200g piece of fresh white fish (around £10/Kg) would cost £2.00. I thought I was getting a bargain for £3.00 with breaded ones.

Once you've got the flour-egg-breadcrumb thing sorted you can save a lot of money and eat very much better. It's also quicker to cook so saves on fuel.

I had a heated "discussion" on a different forum once when a poster was spouting that people should home cook all their foods and it was crazy to believe that you could buy processed food for less. We very rarely buy processed food but during a lean period I had started to use Tescos meal for 4 deal. It was £5, had a lasagne/ cottage pie/ chilli dish, a side (normally garlic bread) and a cheap pudding (this was a few years ago!) I argued that by adding some salad, wedges etc I could stretch the meal across 2 days for me, DH and DS (5 or 6 at the time) There was no way to home cook that meal for that amount, even taking into account bulk buying and batch cooking.
A compromise on quality can reduce your bill but IME it needs to be a huge compromise in order to make any appreciable difference.
Now I shop online at Waitrose, meal plan and order exactly what I need. Not impulse buying stuff has shown me my biggest savings :)

You can make a huge pasta bake or a big batch of chilli and a pudding for much less than £5 and garlic bread is only 39p at aldi for a baguette or you can make your own for less if you have the basic ingredients in the house as bread is very cheap to make.

"You can make a huge pasta bake or a big batch of chilli and a pudding for much less than £5 and garlic bread is only 39p at aldi for a baguette or you can make your own for less if you have the basic ingredients in the house as bread is very cheap to make."

My issue is that I feel a lot of people shop stupidly hence why there shopping bill is so much so for instance

I often see people buying fajita kits for around £3 when you can buy tortillas for about 50p for a pack of 8 and you can freeze then and buy and massive tub of fajita seasoning that would last you about 20 meals for £1 or people buying bloody boil in the bag rice every area in London has a Asian coumminty you can buy a massive bag of tilda rice that would see you trough a neclular winter for 3 months for £14

"You can make a huge pasta bake or a big batch of chilli and a pudding for much less than £5 and garlic bread is only 39p at aldi for a baguette or you can make your own for less if you have the basic ingredients in the house as bread is very cheap to make".

Can you? Much less than £5? How?

poster Impatientismymiddlename

French stick
Salted butter
Mixed herbs
And garlic

And you can freeze the French stick once you made your garlic butter

Value tinned tomatoes
Value kindly beans
Mince that had been sectioned up after bulk buying the mince from somewhere like costco
And chilli mix which is 50p

I hae got my food and just food down to £50 per week. I buy Tesco value meat so main meals based around these:

Mince x 2 meals £2.49
Roast Chicken £2.49
Stewing Steak £2/3
Pork Shoulder steaks £2/3
Frozen Battere Fish (my 'cook free' night) £3
Bacon Lardons £4 for pasta bake/soup
Frozen chicken fillets £4 x 1.5 meals

So about £20 on meat
£10 on sandwich stuff cheap bread, cheese, tuna plus eggs
I buy Value rice and Pasta and Pitta £2
The rest £20 on piles of fruit and veg, always get value broccoli, carrots and pots.

I have 2 adults, DS and toddler - I have to work harder inthe kitchen to prepare and cook food. Eg I have to be better organised I never pop to shop for shop fry stuff or pasta sauce - I have to get stwing steak into slow cooker for stews, goulash or chilli.

I reckong you could do just pure food for £75 per week accounting for your large famly and the need to double up on certain packs of meat.

It can be done, I feel guilty if I buy the process expensive crap now like the 'lasgane kits' good lord! Macaronis cheese is so much nicer homemade, stick some broccoli and caulifllower in (possible frozen value brand) and you have a more balanced meal.

OK let's see this huge pasta bake meal deal for £5 with quality ingredients and cost breakdown preferably from one or two shops and not involving bulk shopping from wholesalers.

I can do it for

Mince 3.50
Toms, puree £70
Oil & seasonings 20p
2 onions & garlic 30p
Pasta 50p
Carrot 10p
Cheese 50p

£5.80 Just the bake without the bread.

I agree fuse and remove the packaging beans is beans!

I understand that some may not want to go down a brand for the meat, I think you can tell better quality beef and pork, Im actually not that sure about chicken but we always eat it heavily spiced/sauced.

I know it's madness you have people buying frozen jacket potatoes ffs

Also I know this is very old fashioned but we also make things with our left overs

Pasta 27p
Toms 90p
Oil and seasoning 10p
Onions and garlic 30p
Carrot 5p
Cheese 10p
Mince 2.50

yes thats under £5

Lidl often do mince for £1 at weekends. For 500g

My cheapest meal is chickpea curry and parathas. Now that is less than a fiver.

That would be to serve four full sized portions (2 adults 2 teens).

I could halve the amount of mince but would have to add mushrooms to bulk it out, so it would save me only about 70p.

This is an interesting thread - forgive me but I haven't read the entirety. Sadly no Aldi or Lidl anywhere near me. But there is a Morrisons which I've never been into (it's just that little bit further away, but would if told prices are significantly less).

Is Morrisons really cheaper than Sainsbury's or Waitrose? Would appreciate opinions. Thanks MNers!