Desperately need tips to reduce almost £800 per mth food bill.

[Mumof3almost4]

I am stressing about mat leave pay and how low it is.
Just going through my income/outgoings and my main drain is on food. We are a family of 5, two adults, DC 18, 15, 13.
I am spending between £700-£800 a month on food. Is this ridiculous?!
I do cook mostly from scratch but will use a few pasta jars etc. I shop at local market for fruit and veg and the butchers for meat. We all like a big evening meal usually with meat or chicken and I always make sure there's salad or veg on the plate. I shop at home bargains and Asda for cupboard stuff, mainly use the freezer for left overs and don't like to waste anything.
I do try and plan meals but I think I've got in a habit of not doing this properly and then money gets frittered nipping to the shop. I then spend £30 easily feather than just getting what I need.

Reading this back I know I need to get much much better organised but really need your tips on how??
How do you plan meals without getting bored of it being repetitive?
We all eat well, no fussy eaters apart from a dislike of cheese and eggs.
Any advice for me to save a massive chunk of money please??

Also I hate Aldi. I'd never get a full shop in there

I think my husband alone would eat a while chicken.

@AlternativePerspective

£28 on fish for a fish pie.... You can buy a 300G fish pie mix in sainsburys for around £3.50, that will serve two, so even if you’re serving a bigger family you can buy two of them, lots of mashed potato and serve with plenty of veg and you can still do it for about £12 max.

I do agree that we seem to have lost sight of what portion sizes should look like. I also think that too often we dish out too much and then food goes to waste. Better to serve what looks like a portion and then have some left if people want more, but if they don’t then that can be frozen for another day.

I have separate mini casseroles and lasagne dishes for lasagne and cottage pies, that way I cook an exact portion and add veg but then the ones that I don’t cook go into the freezer for another day. I currently have a lasagne, a cottage pie, and two chicken pies in my freezer which were additional portions in fact the chicken pies were ones I made from left over roast chicken. I made four and two went into the freezer. Similarly the cottage pies, DS already ate one of the extra ones and there’s another one left in the freezer for another day....

I also think portion size is part of it.

It was just me and DH for dinner last night and I did a tuna pasta bake with added veg and a garlic bread to share on the side.
Quite a big pan, but if I'd just shared out the whole thing, we'd have eaten it and been stuffed. But instead, I give us both quite small portions, with the clear understanding that you can go and get more afterwards if you want it. Both of us did go and get a bit more. But there was more than enough for my DH to take the leftovers off to work today, saving the cost of a lunch. :) Neither of us had a supper last night, so clearly what we did have filled us up!

I think we've turned into a society of mindless eaters, but it takes time to re-set that and get back to grips what what is "normal".

@stairway

I think my husband alone would eat a while chicken.

Well that's nice if you can afford it. However, most people can't so they have to make the best of what the budget allows.

And as the OP is looking to reduce her shopping bill, she's probably not in a position to be serving a whole chicken per person, which isn't anywhere near necessary anyway.

Or are you suggesting that the man should be given all the meat while the rest of the family makes do with the sides and the scraps?

Barbaraofseville it just seems a bit miserable to scrimp on meat when she has growing children. Frozen chicken can be cheaper.

But surely no-one thinks that serving less than a whole chicken per person is 'scrimping on meat' .

A large chicken is more than enough for a roast dinner for a family, that's about double the recommended portion of meat per person for a start and doesn't even get into 'Mumsnet chicken' territory if you make the entirely reasonable suggestion that there should be leftovers for a second meal that is less meat heavy, like a pie, curry, pasta or rice based dish.

Is that food alone or household stuff too?

I think that's reasonable. We are a family of four, we spend about 700.

I could never be a vegetarian. That has to be a lifestyle choice.

But there are still ways of cutting down the prices of meat/fish.

Chicken is much cheaper than red meat, frozen fish fillets are cheaper than fresh ones.

I just found a recipe for a chicken casserole which serves six and contains 1KG of chicken thighs, so that’s £5 if you’re buying skinless and boneless in Tesco, then add in carrots/onion/celery and any other veg you see fit. Bit of mustard, stock and some halved new potatoes, chuck it all in the slow cooker and you’ve fed a family of five for about £1.50 each.

Similarly soups/pies. If you don’t have leftovers sainsburys sell a 500G pack of thighs/wings for £1. Roast them in the oven, strip the meat, onion/carrot/celery/stock/cream and you have soup. Or alternatively onion/bacon/stock/splash of milk, pack of puff pastry and you have chicken pie.

Even if you double the amount of chicken to feed a family of five that’s still less than £1 a person even if you add in mashed potato and additional veg on the side.

Eating a whole or even half a chicken isn’t need, it’s greed.

That’s too much. Meal plan better and swap shops. I reduced our weekly shopping bill to around 100 per week for four, including boys, by changing from Sainsbury’s to Aldi.

Vegetables are an especially expensive way of getting calories.

The so-called "staple" foods are the cheapest calories: bread, pasta, whole potatoes, butter, milk, rice, wheat flour, lentils....

Cheese, chicken, inexpensive Meat are medium price calories.

Very processed foods like crisps and of course ready-meals/restaurant meals are most expensive calories... can be similar calories/£ ratio as low calorie veg like lettuce & courgettes.

@Mumof3almost4 can you tell us your basic weekly food menu

@bluejag never thought of that. Well I buy chespest wash up liquid and a bottle of domestos every week and floorcleaner once a month. You dont need anything else just elbow grease. How much...less than £1 a week.

I don't think the amount you're currently spending is excessive, but if you need to reduce it then planning the menu and buying only those things is the only way.
I did this when I was very short of money. I used different recipe sites and cookery books as inspiration to stop being repetitive. Didn't necessarily buy the ingredients as listed in the recipe, depending on what I had in cupboards already.
Don't buy snacks, they can spend their own money on those!

@honeybee88 - you can clean pretty much anything in a home with washing up liquid and bleach, can't you? I buy other stuff because I like the smell, but on a budget, those are the only two you need.

Pretty sure you’ve got the wrong thread @AlternativePerspective

@monkeyonthetable you are quite right but like to get a shine on my oak wood flooring😲😀
and the smell of pine.........

Family of 2 adults 4 children one baby on milk only

Spend £100 a week on food including nappies

But chickens vary in size, a large bird could be twice the size of a small one. Referring to 'a chicken' is about as useful as talking about 'a joint'. Could be 1 kg. Could be 2kg.

@CrunchyNutNC

... or a Spliff as the youngsters refer to them these days. So a young policeman (we called 'em bobbies in my day) told me.

Cheaper meat is chicken thighs, ground meat, sausages which are all tend to be popular.

I think £800 is about right for five adult sized bodies plus household items.

Be careful if you sub out meat for carbs. Processed carbs aren’t cheap, and they make many people want to eat more and more. Meat is satiating. I’d dump cookies, granola bars, cereals and baked goods before I dumped meat.

The protein leverage hypothesis:

optimisingnutrition.com/eat-like-the-animals-the-science-based-diet-book-with-a-controversial-plot-twist/

Try to buy enough to last between shops, if you must do a 'top up shop' then do them at a smaller local corner shop. And while you may pay slightly more say for 4 pints of milk, but because you have less to choose from you are not going so buy extra things you see.

It's so easy to go in to Asda for example for milk and and bread and instead of spending say £3 you wanted and end up spending £50 on extra bits you don't need.

@CrunchyNutNC

But chickens vary in size, a large bird could be twice the size of a small one. Referring to 'a chicken' is about as useful as talking about 'a joint'. Could be 1 kg. Could be 2kg.

That's what I need! a 2kg joint

As you were...

That's what I need! a 2kg joint

That won’t save you snack money though!!