To ask for your thrifty tips on keeping the food shop down

[savingsavvy]

Absolutely everything in the food shop has gone up and not just by 10% in some cases a lot more. The 20p here and 50p there is adding up and I'm keen to be as thrifty as I can to retain our current shopping budget without having to increase it too much.

I already intend to to the following but there must be more that you can share and we can all help each other:

Buying bigger/bulk packs such as pasta, toilet roll, where it's cheaper it buy a bigger pack

Stock up on non perishable items when I see them on special offer

Convert a bit of the fresh items to frozen and stock up on the freezer - tends to be cheaper and don't need to worry about things going out of date

Downgrade where possible, I've done this with bread so far and will try some of the cheaper butter/spreads

Over to you!

Freeze left overs or make an extra plate up every meal then have a week every 6 weeks, or so, eating out the freezer
Buy stuff from the bargain bucket and freeze even if you don't want it that week.
Make 1 or 2 meals a week a cheapo one, such as beans on toast, or some random stuff out the freezer

My best tip only works after Xmas but keeps you going for 6 months. Load up on festive trays of assorted cheese, biscuit tins, pâtés and posh sauces at 75 per cent off.

Freeze (cheese and pate freeze better than you think) and dig out as required. Easy cos they’re often portioned, fun cos you’ve forgotten what you’ve got.

Cheese is pricy, saves a fortune.

My biggest change has been to buy the cheaper cuts of meat but make sure the cooking of them doesn't cancel that saving out by needing hours to tenderise.

I use the slow cooker once a week for a curry, casserole or bolgnaise with cheap cuts of lamb, beef or pork and that will give us another 2 nights' worth for the freezer.

I do stir fries twice a week so it's just one ring being used for 10 mins, plus the microwave to heat rice from the freezer.

If I need to use the oven I plan to cook multiple things. So last week I had a chicken roasting in the bottom oven. On the bottom shelf I baked two batches of biscuits during the first hour, then in the top oven (as the heat from the bottom oven was already getting it hot) I made 4 different cakes in loaf tins as they slot in better than round tins. So the oven being on for two hours for a roast also gave us a month's worth of cakes and biscuits for the freezer and also loads of roasted veg for lunches this week.

Before anyone says I could buy cakes and biscuits dirt cheap...I can't because DS has food allergies so it's almost impossible (and extortionate) to buy them.☺

I add a tin of green lentils to mince and shredded vegetables with a few tins of tomatoes to bulk it out. That's the base for a few different dishes such as chilli, bolognese and lasagne.

I buy frozen veg instead of fresh now so I only use what I need and freeze the rest for another day.

Morrisons own brand baked beans are nicer than Heinz and nobody noticed when I switched! I take advantage of deals when they're on offer and buy multiple packs.

Make bread. It makes very simple meals much more substantial.
Eat very simple meals a few times a wk, eg. egg or beans on toast, eggy bread and beans, egg and mash, frittata, jacket potato, potato bake, soup.Pasta and tomato sauce.
Get every morsel of goodness out of that roast chicken .
Only buy reduced price or cheap fresh fruit and when it is very cheap buy , prep and freeze. If you can, pick the free fruit that is out there, freeze as much as you can - blackberries, raspberries, rowan berries, crabapples, bullaces/ damsons. Aldi and Lidl have cheap tins of peaches, satsumas, pineapple and fruit cocktail, Sainsbury’s often do a line of cheap tins of pears.
Get down to zero food waste.
Could you rehome ex-caged hens for your own supply of eggs?
Could you grow your own salads in tubs? Or learn which wild ( or garden)foods you can put in your soups and salads? There is loads of foraging info online.

Give up lots of stuff that actually aren’t really needed:

• kitchen roll (use a cloth)
• cut right down on baby wipes if you have small kids, or eliminate completely, by using cloth wipes even if just for hands and faces
• mouthwash - no evidence that it does much
• multiple hand soap/body wash products - just buy bars of cheap soap for everything
• fabric softener
• colour catchers
• ironing water - if you’re fussy about scale then use leftover boiled water
• multiple household cleaning products - just get one multi surface antibac spray, and pink stuff. Does 99% of jobs

can also do the same with snacks/treats, I don’t believe in total deprivation though but stop feeling like you have to always have one of everything in stock. Eg some weeks don’t buy crisps, or biscuits, or whatever else you tend to snack on. Just choose one treat to have that week and then something different the next week.

For our “treats” I no longer buy branded chocolate bars etc (like for example packet of kitkats or club biscuits) and instead buy the cheap own brand biscuits, you get a big pack of custard creams for like 30 p! So we have brought back the good old biscuit tin and saved so much whilst still having a treat!

I don't make crumble topping anymore because butter is too expensive. I buy ready made crumble topping from Morrisons for about a £1. Just add a handful of muesli or oats and then whatever fruit you're using.

We always have an extra loaf of bread and pint of milk in the freezer. Reason for this is it stops the ‘£30 load of bread’ when we pop to the shop for just these items and end up spending a shedload!

Meal plan, and batch cook and freeze.
don’t eat meat or fish. Add lentils to chillis and grayed to carrot to pasta sauces etc. Limit cheese.
don’t drink booze. (Or anything but water. I’m still fizzing mine, but once the canister runs out I won’t replace it)
don’t eat a ‘proper’ meal every night - fillers like beans or egg on toast, omelettes, soup, egg fried rice and jacket potatoes are very cheap and filling and generally on hand. Not everyday, but some days.
Eat some crappy food. Things like cheap biscuits, cheesy chips or hot dog sausages are often really cheap (I was a cook-from-scratch foodie. Oh how the mighty have fallen!). Not in addition to your meals, but instead of them. Don’t snack at all.
shop once a fortnight, if possible.

Consider if you want three meals. I don’t. It’s enough to eat mid-morning and have an early dinner with DD. Occasionally I might top up in between, but not usually. I always have veggie soups in the freezer if so. I could eat three times a day, sure, but it’s don’t NEED to.
Raid your freezer and cupboards for all the things you bought when you had more money and use them all up.
learn to love bread, pasta, potatoes and rice.

By doing all this, our shopping is down to £20 a week for two people for all our meals, and my daughter is still having all her usual foods and snacks (I feed her meat) I won’t lie, it’s not at all fun and carbs are awful for me, so I’m putting on weight. Can’t be helped. Got to get through this somehow, and just at the moment economy is my number one priority, even over my health. I’m doing my best to keep DDs food nutritious and the save as usual.

The Lidl loyalty app is pretty good, in a calendar month if you spend £100 you get £2 off your next shop, then if you reach £200 you get £10 off the next.

I find shopping at Lidl pretty dull, but the incentive of it being cheaper in the first place, plus the extra month off, PLUS I rarely go off list as they don't have the biggest selection makes it worthwhile.

Then the odd Asda shop seems like a huge treat in comparison

Absolutely. You need the initial outlay and storage space but we have the premium bamboo and it's great. And cheaper.

Be careful, these big rolls don't fit all toilet roll holders. We have a fixed holder in one bathroom so the roll won't 'roll'. They're fine on the holder that pivots.

I pay for the Tesco Clubcard Plus subscription. It costs £7.99 a month and you can get an extra 10% off two shops per month up to a value of £200 per shop. I max out these shops making sure I buy all the store cupboard/cleaning/healthcare products and meat (which goes in the freezer) and just buy fruit/veg/milk between times. You only need to do two x £40 shops for the subscription to pay for itself so anything else is a bonus! You also get 10% off all the time on Tesco brands like F&F and Go Cook.

Also check that you are buying the best size product to get value for money, particularly when doing an internet shop. It's very easy to work from a stored list but you could be missing out. For example, this week Tesco have had Jersey Royal potatoes on offer at 59p for 450g but 1kg are £2.50. But people still buy the bigger pack!

Some good ideas on here. I love my who gives a crap loo roll!

Thanks @Solmum1964 I hadn't looked into the Clubcard plus but it sounds like it might be worth doing.

I do the bulk of my shopping in Tesco, so we save a fair bit. I receive an email each month telling me how much I've saved. It's also easy to stop and restart if you're going to be away/unable to benefit one month (or more). Only downside for some would be that it's for use in store only.

Cut out chocolate sweets cakes and crisps. Cook from scratch.

@Solmum1964 that's a shame as I'm hoping to go back to Tesco but to do click and collect

@TheLadyDIdGood does it work out cheaper? I was just thinking that a block of butter is about £1.50 for 250g? You could make some crumble mix by adding 500g of flour (45p ?) and some granulated sugar (30p?) and make a load of crumble mixture. Stick it in a freezer bag and keep in the freezer.
Obviously, you'd need the money for the bulk ingredients and a bit of freezer space.

If you have the time and inclination only buy food for the next couple of days .
It’s shocking how much food I wasted buying a weekly shop …as a family our plans change on a daily basis!

The cheapest box of 48 400 sheet loo rolls from who gives a crap Is £44. Aldi Everyday Essentials 6 pack of 400 sheet loo roll is £1.93 so if you bout 8 packs to make the 48 rolls then it would be £15.44 so even if you used twice as much it would still be over £10 cheaper. Ok the packaging isn’t as pretty but then how much time do you spend looking at your stack of loo rolls?. it is thinner but still you only wipe your arse with it and flush it away. Plus you don’t need to store a whole box of loo rolls and can buy a smaller quantity and still stock up once a month. I have 3 bathrooms and 5 adults using them and still only get through 1 pack of 6 per week so I think they are excellent value.

Me too.

Costco own brand loo roll is about £14 for 40 and it's much better quality than aldi and lidl etc

I find if I go to the supermarket early, there are good markdowns. I generally only buy store brand now and make just about everything from scratch.

Dd buys Costco bog roll and yes it’s better than Lidl but not as good as crap online bum paper