To ask what people actually BUY on their weekly shop?

[BillHadersNewWife]

I struggle with getting enough to last for the week. There's DH and I but he works away Monday to Friday mostly and there are two DD's aged 15 and 11.

We eat what most people eat for meals...roasts, curries, home made burgers, salads, homemade pizza, baked potatoes, spag bol...that kind of thing.

I don't like buying a lot of crap snacks so tend to get fruit, eggs, cheese, plain crackers, instant noodles...also jam and peanut butter.

But what am I missing that my DD"s are always complaining their friends have WAY more nice food in their fridges?

I also struggle finding both girls things for packed lunches that they will actually eat.

Last week I gave up and got them those protein milkshakes on one day because I was so desparate for them to actually eat something during the day!

If I gave them something like Nutella sandwiches, crisps etc they'd eat that but nothing healthy!

I am going shopping tomorrow and want to reduce the time I visit the shops AGAIN during the week after my 'big shop'. Any ideas on what I am missing from my list?

Your 'crap snacks' = the 'nice' food in their friends fridges!

Hey op, it may just be your girls and their age? Grass being greener?

Surely they need to tell you that?

We make a list of meals we are having that week and buy what we need for them. Plus lunches etc. We buy fruit and biscuits for snacks. We don't buy lots of extra snacks tbh, but my children are 3 and 5 so they are not at the help yourself stage.

If your children don't eat their pack up you could either give them the snacky things they want for lunch and have less snacks at home, or stop the home snacks so they are hungrier maybe?

It's a nightmare tbh if people are fussy! Me and DH have always done it this way since pre children to reduce waste, but my dad won't meal plan, he always has to have what he fancies on the day, so they end up chucking lots away and shopping all the time!

My kids have things like cheese and dips (forgotten what they are called 🙈 but they live next to the cheese strings), jellies, donuts, crisps, sausage rolls, pork pies, mini cakes... I swear they have healthy dinners though and aren’t over weight.

I do a big shop once a month and a top up shop once a week. Big shop is all the tinned, frozen etc and the top up is fresh stuff for the following week.

My DD (8) helps with the shopping list and is allowed to put things she wants on it - so far there has only been one item I've taken off (massive bag of lollipops when there were already lollipops in the cupboard!) - so she can't complain that she doesn't have the "nice" snacks she wants because she chose them!

If she won't help with the list she gets what I choose and I won't tolerate moaning about it.

My friends always had a full biscuit tin, ice cream in the freezer and snacks. My mum gave us fruit or yoghurt as dessert, no biscuits or ice cream unless a special occasion. She also cooked every day and we never had takeaway! I was obviously a very deprived child!
I never get a food shop to last a week. I don't have a big fridge/freezer and I have two teenagers. So I always top up.
Fortunately my daughter gets school lunches as she doesn't like sandwiches and my son cooks his own but I never seem able to plan more than three days ahead, and not much fruit or veg (other than frozen) stays fresh for a week.

If they didn't eat their lunches my reply would be "be hungry then.."
As long as it's standard lunch type food and you're not asking them to eat leftover snails they're old enough and sensible enough to eat if they're hungry. The 'nice food' is probably crap, if you don't want to buy it then don't!

Take the DDs shopping with you then and get their input?

Tomb That was my mantra....eat it or be hungry but their concentration is very poor when they're hungry and last week after caving and buying some protein shakes I noticed DD aged 15 was MUCH better in her performance all week. She would otherwise eat a pack of crisps or nothing at lunchtime and that's no good is it?

Are those protein milkshakes terrible? They're marketed as a sort of treatish looking thing but the health star rating is good...we're in Australia by the way.

Dirt they would just choose crap though...crisps and chocolate etc.

My kids have things like cheese and dips (forgotten what they are called 🙈 but they live next to the cheese strings), jellies, donuts, crisps, sausage rolls, pork pies, mini cakes.

See, I'd struggle to justify getting things like that weekly...it's all bad! Not judging you...but that's all so processed.

BillHadersNewWife what would they like for lunch? Or do they just do the annoying "I dunno.. "?
Pasta salads? Wraps?
I certainly wouldn't be adding cake, donuts etc to the snack menu but if they're going to complain they need to come up with their own ideas for food.

Apart from the basics of bread, milk, butter, eggs, cheese and chocolate, we usually have a roast, a pasta meal (sometimes 2), something with mince (chilli, cottage pie, lasagne), sausages or chops, a casserole (beef or chicken) and one or two fish meals, plus bacon for a weekend breakfast and veg to go with them. Cold meat from the roast sometimes ends up being a dinner (we have both become inordinately fond of cold beef, jacket potatoes and baked beans for some reason).

If the roast was a chicken, we get 3 meals from it (roast, cold with salad and chips and a risotto, curry or pie) in true MN fashion. And if we're doing "cheap week", we'll have things like fish fingers, omelettes or corned beef hash.

It's easy when there's only two of you though, we don't have to deal with one child who won't eat A, another who won't eat B and so on.

Tombli both hate sandwiches of all descriptions, wraps or otherwise. They say they're horrible after being in a lunch box all morning...I have tried adding an icepack and I've tried letting them "build their own" by putting it all separately.

I think they'd both eat sushi and chocolate if they could...and protein milkshakes!

But sushi's expensive and won't keep well....I did think of making them veggie sushi but that's a lot of work!

When I do my shopping I work through I’m my head what we’ll need each day for each meal and snacks which seems to work quite well. My DH will complain that we don’t have random snacks for when he might be hungry on a Saturday afternoon but then if I do buy stuff like that it often goes in the bin. If your children are older can you not involve them in it and then if they complain they haven’t got anything to eat that’s their fault essentially

Snack wise, we’ve always got peperami, yoghurts, babybels, cheese, bagel flats, pancakes, cucumber tomatoes, crisps, popcorn and ice pops in....

These keep three kids pretty content

User I have tried to involve them but they choose crap. They both like junk...and I do sometimes buy crisps and icecream but not all the time...about once a week. And it's immediately eaten completely within a day.

So I won't keep replacing it. They both do eat fruit and I do buy a lot of that. But neither seems to like being given fruit for school lunches for some reason! WHY are they so bloody annoying!

My kids have things like cheese and dips (forgotten what they are called 🙈 but they live next to the cheese strings), jellies, donuts, crisps, sausage rolls, pork pies, mini cakes.

I don’t think I’d buy these even for a party tbh. One of them every couple of weeks maybe. I have noticed that my children get addicted to sugar very easily though and it wrecks their tastebuds. We had a terrible week or two after the Xmas holidays when they refused to eat anything remotely nutritious. We spent some time staying with relatives where they ate treat after treat. When we returned home, they looked at their plates, said ‘I’m not eating that’ and walked away. I made sandwiches, toast, yoghurt instead but it took weeks for them to eat properly after Xmas. Never again!

@BillHadersNewWife you need to teach them how to eat in moderation though, the bad things included. If you never have any treats in they can’t learn that.

If you don’t Teach them as they get older and have more control of what they eat they will just binge on the naughty stuff as they were never ever allowed it!

How about things like
houmous and veg sticks,
fruit but prechop it intocontainers so they are more likely to eat it as now faffing with cutting/peeling
Popcorn in little snack bags
Crumpets/bagels/toast
Falafel and dip
Different fillings for wrap - chicken, prawns, salami etc
Nice cheese and crackers
Avocado to mash on toast
Pizza pockets (they are square bread with a slit that you can fill with cheese and whatever like sliced tomato, ham etc and pop in the toaster

NameChange Maybe I'm overly fussy but babybels seem like crap food to me...insubstantial or something? Peperami....I avoid processed meat. I always have cucumber and tomatoes and cheese etc...popcorn I get the sort you pop yourself and that's something they do eat sometimes but it's a pain to make/.

Oh we also have diarylea dunkers and sausage rolls

They are old enough to be sat down with a pen and told a list of what protein, what fruit, what veg, what carb and what treats they'll eat in lunches. Buy a suitable amount of each and then tell them to make their own lunches.

If they eat all the crisps etc at the beginning of the week that's their choice and you don't have to top it up.

They are old enough to prepare their own lunches , and old enough to understand good nutrition ...wouldnt we all like to just eat crap
Dont cave in