To wonder if people actually spend 200+ on a weekly shop

[pleasemothermay1]

Watching eat well for less and I just can't believe people actually spend 200+ a week on a food shop

One lady was giving a teen 20 a week to get chips and chicken 😟

We have 6 in our family

One baby
One toddler
One teen
Me and hubby
And a cat

I spend £65 a week including nappies and toiletries

This gose up to £90 during holidays and the teen is eating at home not collage

It's mad what are these people feeding there kids

My children have breakfast lunch and dinner I don't encourage grazing all day they can have fruit in between meals and I cook from sctrach pretty much 5 days a week junk on a Saturday then roast on a Sunday

[And what Freedom says. The 'bolognese' thread is interesting for this - while I might do multiple onuions + 3 tins of chopped tomatoes for a 400g or smaller pack of mince, others do just 1 onion and a squirt of tomato puree]

Bolognaise is an interesting example really as it must be made a million different ways in a million different households, the only common element being mince and tomato of some description :o

We don't pad out so much with veg in a bolognaise as hide carrots in it as DSs are veg refusers. Ours would be Onion chopped so fine it's almost a pulp, mince, squirt of garlic puree (lazy arse!), beef stock cube (organic of course , a carton of tomatoes and a jar of Lloyd Grossman tomato and basil sauce (both blended as DS2 wont eat tomato lumps) a bit of water (for the added stock cube) and a couple of finely grated carrots. From a standard pack of mince 400-500g that will do 4 of us 2 meals but we love it to be more pasta than sauce. We eat plenty of other protein.

DSs and I are both "high tasters" and DS1 has food texture and colour issues (borderline aspergers). So it works for us.

RE meat/vegetables etc. Like others, I try to eat a healthy balanced, diet, and in truth I am a lot less vocal and strict about this than a lot of Mumsnetters, many of whom have mentioned, repeatedly the importance of their 5, 7 or even 10 a day.

So eating vegetables with a meal is part of that - your meal should be as much if not more vegetables than meat. Recommended portion sizes for meat are much smaller than most people imagine (red meat 85g, chicken a bit more). We're not supposed to eat red meat more than a couple of times a week.

I also believe that we should eat all the animal and not just the steaks and chicken breasts. It helps that I actually like chicken thighs, lamb shanks and liver more than chicken breast or fillet steak - much more tasty.

So as well as eating steak and chips (which I would have with tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and salad anyway as it doesn't seem to be much of a meal otherwise) I have things like spaghetti bolognese (with onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots and celery, because that is how it is supoposed to be made), stew with lots of veg in it or on the side, cottage pie, again with peas, onions, mushrooms and carrots.

One of my quick easy meals is Chinese curry using instant sauce with peas, mushrooms and onions as well as chicken and/or prawns or stir fry with one chicken breast between 2 and loads of veg. It's almost exactly like what comes from the Chinese takeaway.

It's not stretching or padding for cost reasons, it's just what I genuinely thought meals were supposed to look like and be made up of to be a proper, normal, healthy balanced meal.

BTW, typical weekly menu for us:

Breakfast is always cereal + milk or yoghurt.

Weekday lunch is always bread product (rolls, home-made bread, wrap, bagel) + sliced ham, cheese, cream cheese, plus lettuce / toms in summer, home-made lentil or veg or tomato soup in winter, followed by fruit in season. Packed lunches get home-made flapjack or similar, a few days a week DS has a packet of crisps and DD has hummus and breadsticks or cucumber. Might have something like tuna pasta salad at the weekend.

Suppers: a seven day selection from

• The 'mince collection' (3 days): cottage pie / bolognese / chilli OR bolognese / chilli / lasagne OR
• The 'chicken collection' (3-4 days): roast / curry or pie / veg risotto made with stock, a salad as well if it was a large chicken OR
• The 'ham collection' (4 days): roast / salad / pasta sauce or Spanish omelette with added ham / ham and pea risotto OR
• Meat casseroles / stews (1 of these, and only when we haven't had a roast meal): beef in beer; chicken with leeks, carrots and bacon; beef in red wine with mushrooms, onions, lardons
• The 'chorizo collection' (2 days): pork - 1 or 2 pork steaks from a multipack split and frozen - plus chorizo and lots of peppers and chilli in a tomato sauce / Spanish omelette or a pasta sauce made with chorizo.
• Curry: egg or mushroom or chicken. Sri Lankan, Thai, Jalfrezi or others to taste, all with lots of veg, rice and appropriate sides.
• Stir fry: using either a breast of chicken or a handful of prawns
• Pasta: carbonara or blue cheese and vegetable or mushroom based sauces are our staples; tortellini if we're pushed for time; gnocchi and pesto.
• Fish: fish pie or breaded cod + chips and peas or small portions of baked fish (e.g. salmon) with lots of baked root veg (winter) or summer veg.
• Sausages: a couple of really good sausages each either in a casserole or with baked squash in season + courgette-based ratatouille-like stuff or with mash and baked beans.
• Pulse-based dishes: lentil moussaka; a lentil version of bolognese; mixed bean chilli.

Pudding is pretty much always fruit. Might do a crumble or similar one day in the week. Plain biscuits - digestives etc - fruit and dried fruit always available. Home-made cake made about once a week, no other snacks really.

Some of the individual meals - e.g. the meat stews / casseroles - are expensive as an individual meal. But the overall mixture, and the balance between e.g. pasta and sauce, meat and vegetables keeps the weekly cost down. The children drink water and fizzy water + cordial. Adults drink coffee, tea, and either about a bottle of wine a week or 4-5 cans of beer a week between us.

(I've just remembered about 14 meals that I've forgotten to list - the pastry ones such as home-made quiche, egg and bacon pie being a prime example. But you probably get the overall idea - one sequence of 'meat based' meals based around a single type of meat; one curry; one or two pasta dishes; a fish dish of some kind and a variety of 'extras' that we rotate through to keep our menus interesting)

"It's not stretching or padding for cost reasons, it's just what I genuinely thought meals were supposed to look like and be made up of to be a proper, normal, healthy balanced meal."

Exactly. It's like the MN chicken is what I thought everyone did with a chicken....

If I am not budgeting (which I need to get back to!!) then I can quite easily spend £200 per week.

We do an online shop for stuff like milk, nappies, heavy goods (tins, soft drinks, pasta, washing stuff, few bottles of wine or crate of Peroni) although we don't have to buy everything every week... I'd say the online shop is anything between £40-£80 so let's say £60

I then do a top up shop a few times per week for all my fresh stuff (meat, fruit, salad, veg) so that's another £60 quid. Plus £20 on lunches.... so £140 so far.

Can easily be more depending on many factors. Some weeks we share a decent bottle of red (£10) every other evening... so another £20-£40 [depending on what came with online shop] so yeah I can see how it adds up.

Apart from the booze I don't buy much crap. We have some crisps in the cupboard and a few packs of biscuits floating about. I bake muffins or cakes every other week. Most of out budget goes on fresh stuff - I do like to buy organic meat though.... we have meat 5/7 days.

I eat plenty of vegetables but I don't put my vegetables/salad in the bolognese (apart from tomatoes, onions and garlic) I eat them with the bolognese - so you can actually taste and enjoy them! Same with cottage pie (though that does have carrots and celery in, but not tomato or garlic).

That's not about "bulking out" that's about normal balanced eating and enjoying contrasting foods. But I can imagine that some people would be bulking out meat dishes with veggies/pulses to make them cheaper. Or using them to hide healthy vegetables. I do make some casseroles with a relatively large quota of vegetables, for a mix of health/budget/taste reasons. But on the whole I prefer to keep my meat dishes authentically meaty and have other meals that are totally vegetarian.

I mentioned earlier that we have 3 teen to late teen DCs so I'm feeding five. I've just done a tesco online and it was £180.

But that includes a bottle or rum, box of lager and some cider

There's enough meat and veg for 5 big meals, we'll probably have a takeaway one night and a freezer or pasta surprise another night. It also includes shampoo, toilet rolls and laundry liquid, I bulked up or cat food last week.

Im amazed at how little food some peoples teenagers seem to eat

A small bowl of cereal
A sandwich OR a bowl of soup
A casserole / stir fry/ pasta dish and a piece of fruit
1/7 of a piece of cake

would not keep any of my teenagers fed for a day And before you ask, no, none of them are overweight, they are all average or slimmer than average and normal height .

I'm not even sure if the above diet meets the minimum amount of calories for a teen . I can only assume that your children and teens all lead very inactive lifestyles and don't walk anywhere or do any sport .

WankersHacksandThieves - why do you add a jar of ready made sauce to your home made sauce?

Someone did similar in EWFL and Gregg asked about it. The man didn't think about the fact he was putting his own stuff in which was a sauce then adding a shop bought one as well .

I'm one of those who puts lots of veg in a bolognaise. My recipe is:

350g pack of beef mince ('cause the butchers I buy from sell it in that size)
1 carton of passata
A couple of rashers of bacon chopped up small
A glass of wine (whatever I have open) or cider (if I don't have wine open)
Onion, garlic, carrot (cut up really small in the food processor)
Whatever other veg I have available/need to use up, normally mushrooms, courgette, celery, tomatoes (also chopped up tiny)
A beef stock cube (assuming I don't have any homemade beef stock to hand)
a good amount of dried oregano.
A dash of worcester sauce/mushroom ketchup
some salt/pepper

That gets bunged in the slow cooker for a long time.

To give you an idea of proportions, I'll fill a 1.5 litre slow cooker. So there is a lot more veg than meat.

It's not about saving money, though it is about reducing our meat consumption. It's also about flavour.

KrIstina,

DD dances 12 hours a week plus school PE + school netball (winter) or rounders (summer).

DS plays football 2 x a week (winter) or cricket 2 x a week (summer) plus school PE.

Both walk 2 miles a day on the school run, plus more related to getting to after school activities.

Both eat what you describe but perhaps the quantities are different from what you imagine:

• Large bowl of cereal plus milk and dried fruit.
• Packed lunch with a couple of rolls (DS) or 1 roll (DD) with meat or cheese fillings (or equivalent in sandwiches / wraps / bagels), crisps or hummus and breadsticks, slice of home-made flapjack, fruit and / or veg.
• Teatime snack on return - slice of homemade cake or maybe a couple of pancakes / drop scones. Fruit and dried fruit always available. On 'long dance' nights - 3+ hours - DD may have a small bowl of tortellini + cheese, or a slice of cheese on toast to keep her going until main supper time.
• Supper - plateful of pasta with sauce + salad, or plateful of casserole + potatoes / rice plus 2-3 lots of veg, or a large bowl of stirfry plus noodles.

DD is a 5'6" size 8ish, well muscled - not a 'typical' ballet dancer type, as in not particularly slender, but fit and not at all fat. DS is a 6'3" stick of bamboo, but tbh that's genetic, and like his uncle and grandfather, he'll fill out in time.

WankersHacksandThieves - why do you add a jar of ready made sauce to your home made sauce?

Because it's really tasty and I bulk buy it when it's £1 a jar so not too much more than a carton of tomatoes (the ones I use also have garlic and basil in them :) ). I used to do it with 2 jars but thought that it was a bit extravagant so cut down to one plus the tomatoes. Basically it's to beef up the flavour quickly as it means that instead of simmering away for ages with added herbs etc. I can have it ready and tasty in about half an hour to 40 minutes.

So, in short/flavour and speed but at not too much extra cost. I've used some of his bolognaise ones and we don't like those so much. I always use the Tomato and Basil (and sometimes the tomato and chili when I've pulled it out by mistake...)

With respect, teacher, that's quite a lot more than you stated in your last post .

Now you've added fruit at breakfast ,multiple sandwiches at lunch , snack every day at lunch ( instead of a few days ) , aftre school large snack / small meal as well as supper ,

All these things add to the shopping bill

Sorry, I thought I had made it clear - it's interesting how you can misread it.

Fruit and dried fruit are always available, so are added to breakfast.

I'd listed the lunch ingredients, but apologies if you had assumed that the bread product was a single sandwich and instead of the home-made soup rather than as well as, or that the bowl of cereal was small rather than large.

The snack at lunch would be, say, 3 out of the 5 school days, and those would be the ones when the DC were doing more sport, but there would always be a flapjack or similar.

A home-made cake will last us much longer than 1 day! 3 at least would be usual.

And it is my assumption that all main meals come with a couple of veg and a starch - apologies if it isn't yours.

I think possibly your picture of my DC's diet and mine is oprobably different in terms of portion size! There was nothing whatever ion my post that said 'small' or 'single', but I can see that you might have chosen to put that in because it was your mental image IYSWIM?

That's interesting WHAT. I'll bear that in mind. The only jarred sauce I use is when DH and I have potato bake. I've never considered buying sauces in a jar fro bolognese, lasagna, shep pie etc.

If I'd had someone to teach me about food, cooking, etc I'd be doing a lot better now I think. There's so much I don't know but my kids do eat healthily but I know I might be able to make things better for them amd easier for me if I just knew more stuff.

I'm not sure percentage spent is very representative, either.
We have a fairly high income, but not much disposable cash.

Our monthly grocery budget is only about 10% of our net income, but only one of our 6 kids lives at home full-time. 3 are students, 1 is a weekly boarder (SN, goes to school 90 minutes from home, so here at weekends) and 1 is a termly boarder (in full-time ballet school, only home for school holidays).

Our outgoings break down something like this:
mortgage: 35%
maintenance payments to adult children (students): 20%
boarding fees: 10%
commuting/travel: 10%
utility bills: 10%
groceries: 10%

Which doesn't leave over much for haircuts, holidays, eating out etc (especially after the cost of ballet supplies)

Thnak you for explaining teacher . Although it wasn't just your post that gave me the impression that many families on this thread eat very little . Some people said they had just a cereal bar or A rice cake for a meal - to me that's not a meal. A cereal bar is a high sugar snack .

My teens ( and all their friends ) have at least three snacks a day - mid morning , aftre school and supper. This is in addition to three meals .

Before reading this thread I understood that many families in the Uk don't eat well because the can't afford it . Now I'm suprised how many people eat very little ( or very little healthy nutritious food ) even when they CAN afford. it, but just choose to spend very little on food .

I guess we all make different life style choices . For everyone on this thread who is appalled at how much I and others spend on fruit, vegetables, meat etc, there will be someone else who is shocked at how much they spend on make up or handbags .

I know I might be able to make things better for them amd easier for me if I just knew more stuff.

I wouldn't go by my botch efforts :o

I work full time as does DH. teen boys do (and always have done) loads of evening activities. So, as a consequence we do have some short cut recipes that are a bit of a compromise between home made and ready meal. We do however try to buy good quality sauces rather than complete crap :)

If anyone is interested, they had some of Lloyds new range of pouch type cooking sauces on special offer last week so I picked up a chicken and Chorizo one. You need to ad chicken. I also had some mushrooms about to be past it and a small piece of chorizo left which I also bunged in. We had it with new potatoes and carrots and it was really nice. I'd definitely get it again.

One of my favourite recipes is www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1167651/chicken-and-chorizo-jambalaya

You tend to need a bit more liquid than it says, but then I can be a bit heavy handed with the rice. Also I like using a tin of the whole pomodorino tomatoes so there isn't as much liquid in those (apart from inside when you bite into them so be careful!).

I am someone who "stretches" meat sauces with veg. If I wanted to actually stretch them to go further, it would include things like lentils etc or a lot more veg.

But I add lots of veg to make sure that we get plenty of veg generally and eat healthily, and also ensure a variety of veg in our diets.

So my spag bol has, roughly:
600g mine beef
2-3 onions, diced
4-5 cloves garlic, diced or minced
2-3 carrots (diced in food processor)
Half a courgette (FP)
8-10 mushrooms (FP)
2 tins plum tomatoes (chopped - or maybe whizzed in FP) or a bottle of passata
1 tin tomato puree
Half a teaspoon of sugar (to offset tinned tomatoes acidity)
Couple of teaspoons each dried basil and oregano
Often a handful of thyme from garden
Good grind of pepper, salt if needed
A very scientifically measured "glug" of red wine
A decent dash of balsamic vinegar

Very similar for lasagna sauce, except it's a bit drier (so less liquid tomatoes and more puree), and has a packet of bacon lardons in it as well.

Cottage pie has diced carrots, peas, onion and garlic, with a small amount of tomato, dash of Worcester sauce etc.

And I regularly do stir fry type dishes (fry up meat/fish, a variety of veggies, add some sauce and serve with rice/pasta/couscous depending on the other ingredients). It's actually rare enough that we would have a plain "meat, 1 or 2 veg and potatoes" meal as a main meal in our house. (Apart from treating myself to a nice steak on occasion!). And often, even those meals have a stir fry or oven roasted mixed veg as a side dish. And we often use up leftover mashed potato by mixing it with onion, frozen peas, butter and extra milk and then roasting that (DH's invention and speciality!).

We look on those as using what we have, getting a good mix of nutrition and not wasting food, rather than trying to "bulk it out". So yes, the quantities of spag bol I mentioned above feed the 3 of us for 1 dinner and I freeze enough for at least 1 more dinner for 3 from that as well (usually a mix of 1 and 2 person portions as DH is away a lot).

Oh, and we spend a LOT on cheese. DD comes in from school, raids the fridge, and eats a few slices of cheese and a few slices of cured meat, along with some crackers or brown bread, maybe a couple of cherry tomatoes, on a VERY regular basis.

Or grabs leftover cold chicken, mayonnaise and curry powder to mix together and eat in spoonfuls.

In a way, that seems like wasteful and far more than "snacks" to me, but as she is underweight and her appetite is generally so poor, I end up buying in those things to make sure that they're there when she might actually feel like eating real food (and not just allowing a packet of crisps).

Reading some of your posts and recipes makes me realise why my Italian 'homestay' students come into class crying about the food every morning.

yes I also had one Italian student who was very polite about the cooked breakfast....
they are very well brought up...