To ask what are your food shopping essentials?

[jennie0412]

When you're on a very low budget?

I think while I'm still starting out I can use oil/spices etc, but maybe next week I'll buy some.

Please any reviews on this list!
Full fat milk (4 pints, £1.09)
Wonky carrots (1kg, 35p)
Tea bags (savers, 55p)
Sugar (1kg, 65p)
Flour (Morrison's own, 80p)
Onions (1kg, 65p)
Spam (350g, £2.50)
Grapes (wonky, 400g, 85p)
Banana's (5 ripen at home, 75p)
Frozen chicken thighs (1kg, £1.75)
Frozen lean diced pork (445g, £2.45)
= £12.39

Again, this is what I've already got at home:
2x udon noodles
7x instant noodles
Mirin
Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Spring onions
Oranges
Gochujang
Sesame seeds
Walnuts
Dates
Readybrek
Cereal

I would leave either the Spam [shudder] or the diced pork for next week, and add some extra green veg or fruit and 6x eggs. You also don’t have any carbs (rice? bread? sweet potato?) although I know you’ve got some noodles in.

What meals are you intending to make?

Look a Jack Munroe. She has bootstrap cooking.

Tin of peaches
Tin of tin Tom
Tin of chickpeas

Makes about 3/4 portions of curry. Need oil, onion, curry powder in addition. It’s really yummy.

In fact, I wouldn’t buy EITHER of the pork products as that’s £5, almost half of your entire budget so not good value when you could have different protein and more fruit, veg & carbs.

I forgot to write ive already got sweet potatoes and rice at home which I can use! Oops
I really love spam and it's sort of my treat out of all the other sensible stuff I've got on the list!
I have about £2 laying around somewhere which I can probably spare for more vegetables, as next week I won't be needing to buy sugar or tea bags or flour probably, so whatever I add now I won't have to spend next week, if that makes any sense at all?

Pasta, tomato's, spices, cheese, eggs, bread, potatoes, frozen veg, fruit & milk. Or each week choose a different meal for example spaghetti Bol and then make 5 portions of that, freeze them, and then the week after choose another meal and repeat until you end up with a different meal each day. That's what I did at uni!

Spam at 2.50 isn't a great deal imo.

I think a packet of ham would be cheaper and you could do more things with it

Or a whole chicken usually costs about 2.50 and you'd get loads of meals out of it then you wouldn't need to bother with the frozen chicken thighs

@jennie0412

I like rice, i eat a lot of fried rice (kimchi fried, egg fried etc), my favourite thing at the moment is rice, spam and omelette I also like carbonara, sweet potatoes etc, and udon noodles with meat and stir fried vegetables. Most days I eat a blueberry muffin or an omelette for breakfast, but I'll probably buy some frozen blueberries and I can try and make my own muffins (I've already got sugar, flour and eggs on my list). For lunch I usually eat a cold panini (grill at home and then put it in the fridge), a nakd bar and grapes, but nakd bars are very expensive usually, and I already have dates and walnuts so I can probably just take those instead since that's basically what they're made of And then for dinner I eat something of what I've written for examples of what I like to eat.

Do you have access to an Aldi? Their foodie market raw bars are similar to nakd and cheaper.

Oh! I've also got that lazy garlic and lazy ginger stuff, so I won't be needing to buy any of that either!
I'm adjusting my list right now so I am taking on board the suggestions!

As long as you start to think a bit long-term you’ll be OK. Because what you have in this week already - once you’ve eaten that, you’ll need to replace it out of the £12.50. And you won’t have ‘spare’ money for extra fruit & veg etc. So whilst you won’t need to buy tea bags and flour you’ll probably need to buy noodles and sweet potatoes etc.

So just be aware that a high spend on meat products isn’t going to be sustainable on £12.50 long-term.

@Marmite27 no, sadly not I'd have to get on the train and spend 1/4 at least of my budget getting there!

If I brought oil out of my extra £2, I can get a litre of either sunflower or vegetable for 99p. Which is best for normal cooking?

@Lowkeevslucille I’m amazed that you’re amazed about these, especially the onions. I put them in 90% of what I cook.

@jennie0412

If I brought oil out of my extra £2, I can get a litre of either sunflower or vegetable for 99p. Which is best for normal cooking?

Whichever one your muffin recipe uses!

Okay! I gave in and took spam off the list and replaced it with a whole chicken!
So far:
Full fat milk (4 pints, £1.09)
Wonky carrots (1kg, 35p)
Tea bags (savers, 55p)
Sugar (1kg, 65p)
Flour (Morrison's own, 80p)
Onions (1kg, 65p)
Eggs (medium, 75p)
Grapes (wonky, 400g, 85p)
Banana's (5 ripen at home, 75p)
Whole chicken (£3)
Frozen lean diced pork (445g, £2.45)
Frozen green beans (750g, 49p)
Frozen mixed peppers (500g, 69p)
= £13.07

Added peanut butter to the list for £1.30 which makes it £14.37!
Things add up so quickly
I'm just thinking that a jar of peanut butter will last me for about a month so that's £1.30 less for the next 3 weeks, flour will last me (hopefully) 2 weeks if I'm only really using it for muffins (a tray of 12 will last me at least 2 weeks, hopefully) so that's another 80p less, sugar will hopefully be the same as the flour so another 65p, etc etc.

Chopped tomatoes
Onions
Potatoes
Carrots
Broccoli
Frozen peas
Any seasonal veg/whatever is cheap that week
Dried red lentils
Tinned beans
Frozen beef mince
Frozen chicken
Frozen white fish fillets
Pork shoulder steaks if budget stretches to it
Bread flour & yeast sachets
Milk
Butter/spread
Eggs
Basic peanut butter
Oats
Apples
Any seasonal fruit- whatever is cheap that week
Sugar
Plain flour
Bicarbonate of soda

Sainsburys basic peanut butter is only 85p

What meals are you intending to make?

For instance lunches - you usually have a panini but no bread...

coffee
milk
oats
sultanas
bananas
apples

bread
eggs
cheese
peanut butter

brown rice
red lentils
olive oil
tinned chickpeas
tinned red kidney beans
tinned tomatoes
tinned coconut milk
tomato paste
spices

carrots
sweet potatoes
onions
cauliflower
frozen peppers

not all in the same week

I sadly don't live near a Sainsburys the only shops near me are a small tesco, small co op and small Morrison's (Morrison's is the best near me)

Ps supermarket own label versions of spam are half the price

I forgot butter

Chicken thighs or beef mince depending on budget, beef mince better for iron.

I did exactly the same as you when I about 14/15 I even bought my own fridge frezzer and a food cupboard that i kept in our celler as i got fed up with family 'borrowing ' my food. The hight of luxury for me was a small box of coco pops grin

Ooh! I definitely need my own fridge!
My luxury will be when I can afford spam without having to miss out on vegetables!