Feed me and dh for £30 a week

[Evianliveyoung1]

Advice please! Am really trying to cut down on spending. Me and dh spent roughly £70-£80 on weekly shops (hell of a lot I know, no judging here please)! We usually buy salmon, chicken fruit veg the usual bits and bobs to make meals but it’s getting ridiculous. Please could you give me some meal ideas or rough guides of your weekly shops around £30-£40 including healthy bits?

and YY to grated veg and lentils added.

Find out when your local shop reduces items which are going out of date. I buy the majority of our meat at 50% price or less, freeze in portions and use when needed. I also get a lot of fruit and veg that way.

For example at the coop yesterday O got a whole chicken for £1.17, blueberries for 20p, three pack peppers for 37p, eggs for 40p and crumpets for 10p. Apart from some sort of carbs to go with the chicken its nearly a whole day's meals for about £2.

I use Pinterest for all my recipe ideas.

Farmfoods have some brilliant deals on 3 for £10, Icelands sells Greggs pies for £1.69 for a pack of 2 or pack of 4 sausage rolls. It is probably a good idea to sit down and write down a set menu for the week and then go and buy your produce. As said Aldi's is really good and if hubby loves his steak, Lidl's is brilliant with 2 steaks for £5 and they are delish. Iceland sells 500g steak mince x 2 for £5 so you potential have 4 meals there.

Also if you enjoy asian food have a look to see if you have any asian markets for chinese or asian spices and ingredients nearby. You pay a fraction of the price for items like sesame oil etc plus they come in much bigger bottles too.

Also try musclefood you can bulk buy for the month and it is a really good deal and the meat is fantastic.

But do write up a menu for the week and then make a list of what you need.

Yes as said above @Emuntitled most supermarkets reduce their produce majorly between 4 and 5pm keep an eye you can get meat especially roasts etc at a good price. Asda and coop are particularly good, have a look at their reduced aisle and Marks and sparks too.

Suggest supermarkets after 6pm for yellow sticker reduced items. Make bread and butter hot pudding with reduced bread, eggs, milk, butter or margarine. If possible buy a sacks of potatoes, onions, rice. Fill freezer with reduced items. If you have a market go near closing time for fruit and vegetables, although it may not keep long, make soup, smoothies, freeze.Make carrot cake with oats or oat biscuits.

DH and I have porridge/wheatabix for breakfast.
DH has scrambled egg and toast for lunch, I have an admirals pie ready meal.
DH has a hot and spicy chicken breast steak wrap, I have a hot and spicy chicken breast steak with spicy couscous. We have protein shakes before bed and have low fat yogurts and fruit in the house.
Minus protein shake it's around £30 a week.
But it is repetitive, but definitely cheap and calorie/portion controlled.

Currently spending a bit more on Orange juice as I'm pregnant and need to bump my calories up with healthy and vitamin filled bit. Orange juice is cheap and got lots of vitamins (not too worried about the sugars).

Eat more veg.
Embrace leftovers
Omelettes
Freeze anything left over, like half tins of toms, to use in soups or stews
Buy joints of meat and freeze anything you can’t face eating for lunch

With all of these things it also makes life easier

Can’t face batch cooking but having a portion of leftovers in the fridge or freezer is a v easy meal!

Cook turkey legs in pressure cooker, remove the meat for whatever dishes you want to make and boil the bones up again in same liquid - makes a great soup base to which to add pulses and vegetables.

Our food budget is £50 a week for two and we usually come plenty under this, normally in the £30-£40 reigon!

We sit down on a Sunday evening with lots of recipe books and plan our meals - most recipes are for 4 so we both get a lunch the next day too. Breakfasts tend to be eggs/bread/oats which are fairly cheap!

Meat can be the expensive bit so we tend to have a couple of meat free dishes a week - we use the hairy bikers go veggie cookbook which has some lovely recipes.

We always look in the reduced section and if there’s any meat products we fancy we buy and pop in the freezer, then plan a meal around it next week.