To ask how you've lowered your food shop?

[coffeecoffeecofffee]

Recently come under a crap time, can't work due to chronic health condition, lost our UC payment each month of £400 as my partner now earns above the threshold (but still doesn't take home much due to debt he has unfortunately) & had my PIP review recently (I used to get £430pm) and may have that reduced/taken away completely.

I'm trying to think of ways to reduce my outgoings and have decided to reduce my food budget to £25pw. (used to have £35pw)

My partner and I buy our things separately but share the cost of regular household bits, cleaning and usually salad! We both eat two completely different diets, me vegan & him a meat eater. So about £6 per week of each of our budgets goes towards cleaning & toiletries.

Left with £19 for food for the week.

I already buy a lot of frozen veg and the only fresh produce I buy are apples (whatever's cheapest), strawberries or blueberries, tomatoes, salad (spinach, kale & rocket), avocados& sweet potato.

I usually buy 1 dairy free milk (£1.40) which lasts me most of the week as I don't eat breakfast every day.

I eat a lot of wholewheat pasta w/ no added sugar pasta sauces (tomato based & pesto) as it goes a long way, no added sugar & is cheap and delicious as well as healthy as I don't eat a tonne!

I also buy a bag of plain frozen fish for the week at £3.30 for 5 fillets.

I tend to find the fresh stuff & toiletries like body wash take up most of my budget, I've tried shopping at my local Lidl and Aldi but the fresh produce is often going off when I'm in there! Let alone getting it home, hence I find Morrisons/Asda/Tesco better for that.

Anyone got any smart ways to reduce/meal plan for a vegan? I don't like beans, lentils etc so that's annoying as I know they're really cheap!

I use an all-purpose liquid cleaner from whatever supermarket I happen to be in. Sort of own-label flash.

Ok, and dilute that 1/20? Thanks

Also it is a false economy to buy cheap toilet roll. You just use more.

Aldi double-length rolls cost £2 for a pack of 6 rolls and a pack lasts our family of three about a month. They're nothing fancy, but perfectly adequate for the task and not discernibly different from Asda or Tesco own-brand, apart from lasting much longer (much more than twice as long, it seems, which is very odd and not actually logical).

@Jinglejanglefish

Why would you bother reporting a thread about food budgeting? MNers are bloody obsessed with 'reporting'.

I reported because it became clear the OP is a well known troll/PBP. Shall I run it by you next time, just in case you disagree and want to weigh in?

Not read all the comments yet but Asda do their own brand version of the oat/almond etc milks that are only £1
If you’re using the milk for porridge could you do half water half milk so that you use less milk too.
For fresh produce I usually find Asda is a lot cheaper too, grapes are £2/3 in Tesco/Sainsbury’s whereas they were only £1 in Asda last week

TotHappy stuff like zoflora or Milton.

Also, vinegar is also really good

Milton solution is only good in a steriliser for 24h. I think it's a very mild bleach and bleach breaks down over time (when exposed to sunlight?). I adore Milton, I use it regularly as it properly kills germs but is also safe enough for babies' bottles, but I wouldn't make up a solution in a clear bottle and use that solution for more than say 48h.

I use a £1 cleaning spray, which lasts ages, or washing up liquid. I've never felt the need to economise any further than that.

TotHappy

I use the value disinfectant at 90p a bottle it's "pine" flavour, but makes no odds. It's the value version of Dettol. So fine around babies etc.

Zoflora smells nicer, but is more expensive. But then still cheaper than buying sprays all the time.

You could also just use watered down lemon juice or white vinegar I suppose :)

killpop

And so what? It's a thread where people are discussing shopping budgets and money saving tips, hardly goady or offensive.

And then to complain that MN didn't respond quickly enough, like they owe you, one of the thousands of subscribers on a free website, some kind of special consideration for your report. It's pathetic.

I haven’t used any surface spray cleaners in years. Dishwashing liquid cleans everything round the house including the kitchen, diluted bleach does the bathroom. Honestly no need for anything else. White vinegar gets rid of limescale.

I found the only way to save money is to stop buying rubbish carbs like biscuits and the like and cook everything from scratch. Healthy for you and very healthy for your wallet.

JingleJangleFish
Why do care so much if people report. It takes a second and gives MNHQ a chance to check threads. Obviously no one would bother reporting this thread if they thought it was just about cleaning tips. 😕 People correctly reported because it looked like a troll and begging thread and thought MNHQ should check. Unfortunately some people get sucked into fake threads which discredits the forum and can result in people getting scammed.
Its MNHQs forum and it's up to them how they run it not you. They want it moderated and they want people to report dodger looking threads. Like I said earlier if you don't like a moderated forum then there are plenty of others.

LOL, goady or what JJF

I did a recent SAR to Mumsnet, and discovered I was once reported - and deleted - for saying I'd rather shit in my hands and clap than shag Mick Hucknall.

Mumsnet specifically ASK people to report any threads or posts or posters for a number of specific reasons, this was one of them. Turned out I was right, and MN agreed with that. I asked to know a bit more about how that worked behind the scenes and how these decisions were made. MN saw that, and responded to me accordingly.

Now please, don't actually think and give any special kind of consideration for your next response. It's pathetic.

Because I am fed up of every other thread being deleted or taken down to 'look behind the scenes' never to reappear again. Sometimes threads that have run for pages and pages and aren't even about the OP anymore just vanish. I couldn't give a shiny shit if someone was a PBF, we don't even know what they were banned for.

Oh MN ASK do they? Oh then we must! 🙄

JingleJangleFish

If you are getting so fed up then maybe try other forums. It's a bit daft to be on a moderated forum then complain when it's moderated. It's your choice.

JJF Do let me know once you've set up your own forum, sounds great fun.

You won't be invited, only adults who can handle being on the internet without running to mummy MN will be allowed.

A girl called Jack has renamed itself 'cooking on a bootstrap'.

Thanks for the cleaning tips! I am woefully uninformed on the science of cleaning so I go for the cheapest spray which says 'multipurpose' so I know it's ok in kitchen and bathroom and 'antibacterial' so I know it kills salmonella (hopefully). But I'd like to stop buying spray bottles, a large value Dettol would hopefully use less plastic.

If you've been chopping chicken or something in the kitchen, is it really ok to just use washing up liquid or vinegar after??

OP you are a bit stuck then if your health conditions mean you feel too tired to make more effort wrt cleaning and cooking as really all the tips are going to come down to buy raw and cook, no tins or packets, and cheap detergent/ bleach with lots of elbow grease rather than extortionately expensive cleaning wipes. But if you can’t physically put in any more effort, it is a bit of a non-starter, isn’t it?

TotHappy

"If you've been chopping chicken or something in the kitchen, is it really ok to just use washing up liquid or vinegar after??"

You wash the chopping board and knife with washing up liquid. So why wouldn't it be fine for the work surface?

Beware the brand name cleansers if your anti-animal testing.

The big companies still test on animals.

Waitrose, Aldi & marks and Spencer’s own brand ranges are leaping bunny approved.

00100001

Good point!