Food is expensive

[goldenorbspider]

Went to aldi got few bits for the week and not a big shop for me and one infant. Spent £40 and it's not even a big shop. What do people do to save money on food? I can't imagine spending much less. I know it would cost waay more at other supermarkets.

I was going to write the same thread OP. I spent over £147 quid in Aldi yesterday. The 30.quid robot, ds gave me money back for and i did buy a £20 bottle of gin, but argh!! Can someone critique the list please?

Don't buy premade jar sauces, you can easily make a white sauce in the microwave more cheaply.

Buy cheaper local fruit - at this time of year you need to living on apples & pears.

Use less meat/fish & cheaper cuts - thighs or de-boned drumsticks are usually cheaper & tastier than breast fillets.

Alternative milks are often terrible for the environment and expensive. If you aren't using dairy just go without.

lipperfromchipper South Wales where childhood poverty is the highest in the UK. And food in boxes is better than empty boxes. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Don't worry though sometimes I swap the crisps out for slices of cucumber or carrott chips/Battons maybe some popcorn. I'll give him some tinned fruit salad and a yoghurt in place of a busicuit.

Don't panic too much 🤣

In what world is dairy milk kind to the environment?

@SeperatedSwans

Why do you only give carrot battons when they are reduced? Why not just chop a carrot?

He will survive,I grew up smashing E numbers down my throat and I'm still alive.

I survived sunny d and lunchables 🤣 I'm just happy seeing my kid eat. Warms my heart when he asks for seconds

Only a suggestion, and only if you think you will like it.....why not cook a largish pan of a nice casserole, using lots of veg like carrots, parsnips, celery, peppers, frozen peas, onions, mushrooms then add either a bit of meat of your choice, or give the meat a break and try Quorn pieces instead. Season with stock cubes, tin of tomatoes, something like a Chicken Chasseur mix, and you will have enough of a really tasty meal for the both of you, for a couple of days. We often do this, have it with a bit of mash one day, maybe chips the next, or Yorkshire Puds. Very filling, very tasty (you can stick in anything you fancy basically) and you get lots of veggie ticks on the healthier eating chart. Saves on cooking from scratch as well for an evening. Nice in Winter.

My DM is disabled and can't chop veg. She buys them all chopped and frozen - cheap and much better than the chopped and fresh. Different supermarkets have different frozen chopped veg so if you have a choice, there is almost everything you want.

Make your own pasta sauces & lasagna sauce - jar sauces are a rip off! Also that fruit would be expensive at a supermarket - is there any fruit and veg market near you ? I get berry’s and things like that for £1 a bowl!

Do you meal plan OP?? I think you could do well to batch cook and plan and then the food would last longer :)

Anois because I work a 40hour week and it's a chore I hate doing chopping shit up. I don't mind a cucumber it's a 30second job for slices but my knife skills aren't great and I shamedly struggle to chop the carrots in to Battons so it's me lazy option to just buy them 🤣 I'm not ashamed to say it out loud. I'm a lone parent that works a 40+hour week, I am lazy sometimes 🤣

It all depends what you actually buy. For example there are at least 4 different types of quiche in aldi - there fancy ones at around 2.89, the crestwood ones at £1.43 and the Crimp and Pring ones at £1.19. I haven't bought the tiny ones so dont know there price but even with that one food there is a range of prices.

I wish people would stop buying cheap meat/eggs from animals that have lived awful lives. Don't you care?

I do my main shop in Lidl. Every time I get to the checkout I am delighted to find the total cost is way less than I expected.

@Boredbumhead straight off the top of my head looking at the list: you’ve a lot of quinoa on there and a lot of vegan things. 1) use rice instead 2) do you have a vegan in the house or can you swap for non-vegan, cheaper versions of the same thing.

You’ve also been middle aisled - I see a pizza tray for e.g. I’m not judging, I bloody love the middle aisle - but that kind of thing will bump your total up beyond what your normal shop would be.

I wish people would stop buying cheap meat/eggs from animals that have lived awful lives. Don't you care?

Sadly due to austerity that's been going on forever, some members of our society can't afford to care about animal welfare. It's buy cheap or starve.

@username108 unfortunately not everyone can afford to care.

We just seem to go through food!

You buy food and then it gets eaten? Um, I hate to break it to you OP.....

My mother was spending £50 a week on shopping for her and my sister in 1989 in Aldi. Relatively speaking I don’t think it’s too bad. Trouble is wages haven’t increased since 2000

@Boredbumhead well at a glance you appear to have spent 3 quid on an oven tray and 8 quid a wooden serving board?

Blimey op!

Salmon, steak, ready made quiche and two lots of ready made sauce.

Of course your food is expensive!

VirtualHamster and 20 quid on a bottle of gin

I think that’s a pretty good haul OP and fairly healthy. People are critiquing you on here, but in the real world the vast majority of people by far more shit.

Aldi jar sauces are super cheap, for those suggesting making your own would be a massive saver; it wouldn’t.

Looking at your list, I’d maybe think about a couple of meat free days a week. We buy salmon and steak from Aldi, but in our meal plan is one fish day and two veggie days a week.

Food in the U.K. is cheap - we have one of the most competitive grocery industries in the world.

I only but frozen berries / cherries whatever. They work out loads cheaper. Aldi sell huge bags of smoothie mix for a couple of pound that last ages.

@Boredbumhead

The first thing I can see on there is calamari and salmon - both of those are pretty expensive choices. Then you have quite a bit of ready-made food - pre-prepared pizzas and stuffed pasta, for example. Buying cheap bags of fusilli or penne and making your own pasta sauces is much cheaper.

But apart from that your list looks like a lot of meals - as in, it doesn't look like there's a lot of fresh ingredients or anything there. There's very little fresh fruit or vegetables, for example.