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Cost of living

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to ask how to get my food and grocery budget down?

90 replies

undercoverPrincess · 16/03/2012 21:29

I have read posts on here about £35 pw grocery shops, how???

There are five of us, one in nappies, and I struggle with £150 pw. I do try and buy healthy food and cook from scratch as much as possible.

OP posts:
8rubberduckies · 16/03/2012 21:58

Ditch the frozen chips / potato products, get out the potato peeler, and use the space you have saved in the freezer for batch cooking.

ohbugrit · 16/03/2012 21:58

Importantly, if you shop once weekly (perhaps online) you can save more by buying all the week's bread and milk at once and freezing some to avoid the midweek top up shop which ends up getting costly.

undercoverPrincess · 16/03/2012 21:59

But are potatoes really cheaper than 'on offer' potato products....?

OP posts:
BIWI · 16/03/2012 22:02

If you are already buying supermarket stuff trade down to the Value/Basics/Smart Price level

And see how many meals you can do from the freezer/cupboards without buying more stuff.

See how much of what you're buying is actually pre-prepared/processed that you could make yourself for less money

Kennyp · 16/03/2012 22:05

I make tomato sauce in slow cooker and freeze it in bags.

Shop online. I am usually 80-90 quid but well over 120 on the two occasions i have shopped in store in the last two years

We are vegetarians two meals a week, i e dinner

Make your own cakes. So much cheaper than shop bought

Check whats in your cupboards, re sort your cupboards and really see whats there and what you can make out of it.

givemushypeasachance · 16/03/2012 22:07

Potatoes will be cheapest at a greengrocer or farm shop for a whacking great bagful or sackful, but even at Tesco a 5kg bag of white potatoes is £2.49 or 50p/kg.

Having a look on the website, stuff like frozen potato letters are £1 for a 500g bag, so £2/kg. Tesco own potato waffles are £1.48/kg. What sort of "on offer" potato products are you buying and what do they cost?

Heswall · 16/03/2012 22:10

I think the children have to start eating cottage pie/stew type meals, what do they eat exactly ?
Mine moan about not having chips and nugget meals every now and then until I point out their backsides will be the size of a bus their friend who is served that shite most evenings if they don't eat properly.
Meat is our biggest expense, chicken breasts are so expensive but I refuse to compromise on the quality of life for the chicken so I have to get over it.

undercoverPrincess · 16/03/2012 22:10

I normally buy whatever they have for £1 chip wise and roast wise. I do buy proper potatoes too (a bag for about 1.50).

I guess I do want my kids to have the things their friends do so won't budget the lunch boxes.

OP posts:
givemushypeasachance · 16/03/2012 22:11

Comparison: Tesco Value penne pasta is 60p/kg. Tesco own brand pasta in big 3kg bags is around £1.20/kg.

4kg bag of Tesco own brand rice, £1.18/kg. Again you can get cheaper giant sacks elsewhere - Indian or Chinese supermarkets, or even in the "world food" aisle.

Buying in bulk is not always cheaper, but it can be. Have you ever heard of Approved Food?

TheSecondComing · 16/03/2012 22:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

undercoverPrincess · 16/03/2012 22:13

We eat pasta, rice meals, fish, roasts twice most weeks, sausages, meatballs, homemade pizza....

I can't make them eat things they don't like and believe me I've tried and given up!!

OP posts:
undercoverPrincess · 16/03/2012 22:15

thesecondcoming wow i'd like to see your shopping lists?

OP posts:
cabbageandbeans · 16/03/2012 22:15

Lidl washing liquid is £2.50 for 28 washes and it smells LURVELY! Aldi's is about the same cost but doesn't smell as nice.

Have you ever eaten a cheesestring? they are absolutley foul. If you ate one you would stop buying them unless on a very special offer!

givemushypeasachance · 16/03/2012 22:15

Getting five a day can be an expensive part of your shop. Lurk around the reduced sections and pick up short dated bargains of fruit/veg, or ask at greengrocers for whatever veg is going cheap and make giant pots of random vegetable soup for pennies and chop up all the fruit and pour juice over it, voila - fruit salad. As a kid I was always awkward about eating fruit if it took effort to cut up/prepare but would eat bowlfuls of fruit salad since it was quick and simple!

undercoverPrincess · 16/03/2012 22:18

what do you eat average mealtimes though? That is my main issue what budget meals I can produce (fairly quickly as I work nights).

OP posts:
bronze · 16/03/2012 22:19

I would too
I have one fully in nappies and spent about 400 a month for six of us. I really scrimp on some things but I can't bring myself to on others. My ethics can't stand it. I buy pings by the half and have a freezer full of of pork and our own chickens to help on that side of things

realhousewifeofdevoncounty · 16/03/2012 22:20

You can get massive 3 kg bags of pasta in asda, and I base 2-3 meals a week around that which is good as dp and dd love pasta and would probably eat it at every meal... Plus I am veggie so that keeps things down. Evening meals are veggie and if dp wants meat he can have some at lunchtime and prepare it himself!

WordsAreNoUseAtAll · 16/03/2012 22:20

My top tips:

Approved food - it is a website that sells bizarre bulk things. You are best off getting together with someone else, as the boxes can be huge, and of course it depends what they happen to have in at the time, but they have been the source of many a meal at less than 1p a portion. Particulary good for ridiculously huge bags of mix to make stuff - eg just add water scones. I was aginst this at first as mixes are usually awful and expensive, but they are perfectly fine for making snacks and the cheapest thing ever.

Less fancy veg - it might seem boring, but a huge bag of potatoes, huge bag of carrots and a couple of bags of mixed frozen veg are really really cheap. I like leeks too - for some reason there are sometimes HUGE ones in the shop. Cook the veg lightly so you can still taste the flavour

Yellow stickers - every time you go to a shop, even just for a paper, check the yellow stickers. There are usually at least two areas to check - one chilled and one normal shelf. Put stuff in the freezer. We have two freezers, which sounds ridiculous (they are both in our kitchen, which is where we eat as well) but they mean we can eat so much nicer food than we could normally afford/be arsed to make

Buy dry stuff in bulk. Put in plastic containers so it doesn't go manky. Soup mix, lentils, flour, oats, sugar, dried fruit.

LENTILS. Add to all sorts. A handful in with mince doesn't change the taste but makes it go further. Just remember that lentils taste of nothing, so make sure there is actually some flavour in stuff before you put lentils in.

Alternate your shopping. I do online shop once a month at tesco or asda, then I go to Aldi one week, Iceland the next and then just the local row of shops. That way you get the best of each shop - eg Iceland is brill for things like huge blocks of cheese for cutting into smaller blocks and freezing, then using in cooking, plus frozen but not very exciting stuff like pizza, chicken nuggets etc. Aldi is excellent for tins of beans, bread, veg, foreign stuff. Local shops have bizarre short dated stuff, huge vegetables and offal.

Ooh, my best tip is to not see it as "depriving" yourselves, see it as a challenge. Me and DH are always showing off, saying "this meal was only 2p a head", "well, yesterday I cooked at 1p a head" etc and getting ridiculously excited at a bargain. It means we get to have more treats because we have saved money.

Soup soup soup. We cook up a big vat of soup every now and again, or pasta sauce - essentially enough to make about three of four times the amount we will eat at one sitting. Then freeze in small portions for lunches, quick teas, etc. Label it, or you end up defrosting the wrong thing (this happens far too regularly in our house)

Learn to mix fresh with dried/tinned/whatever. That way you still get healthy food, but you can bulk it out with cheaper stuff.

I think that's it. Oh, be always aware of what is in your fridge. So instead of thinking "what shall we have for tea, let's have x so we need to go and buy all the ingredients", think "ooh, we have x in the fridge, we could combine that with y from the cupboard and just buy z from the shop and it will be brill"

bronze · 16/03/2012 22:21

pings pigs

SquirtedPerfumeUpNoseInBoots · 16/03/2012 22:46

I would rethink the kids lunch boxes. They must be costing a lot.

Your cleaning products needn't be branded. I'm using tesco cheap washing powder and laundry conditioner, and no one has noticed, and it is clean and smells good. No one with sensitive skin, but DH would imagine an allergy if I told him. Although I do need a good soak in vanish for mucky rugby kit.

Also, menu planning for your lunch sandwiches will help. A chicken (or whatever roast) for a Sunday, will do sandwiches the next day too. Same for other meals during the week. It's cheaper to make one extra chicken fillet when cooking, or an extra portion of pasta for a salad the next day.

Buying a ham joint to roast at home and carve and freeze will give you a serious amount of ham for sandwiches. You will never buy packets of sliced ham again! And it's way cheaper. Although its tricky to slice it so thinly, I'll admit!

wearenotinkansas · 16/03/2012 23:07

If you are eligible - Costco is well worth investigating. You have to bulk buy but the unit price seems to be much lower. Especially good for nappies/wipes and also cleaning stuff.

TheSecondComing · 16/03/2012 23:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cakewench · 16/03/2012 23:16

A couple of people have mentioned large quantities of yogurt, and someone mentioned considering buying a yogurt maker, so I thought I should add that you can make yogurt at home in any large pot. My grandmother always made it that way, and I've done it myself more than once. You can find the directions online. You just need a lot of milk and a starter yogurt, for the live cultures. You might also need a thermometer for the first few goes, though I just followed some visual cues mentioned in a recipe on what the milk looks like when it simmers properly.

It's worth a try, and it's much nicer than store bought, I think. :) Really only for people who use a lot of it, though.

bronze · 16/03/2012 23:20

I buy dried/tinned from bookers in bulk
buy pigs by the half
Will be buying whole lambs
and have grown our own chickens
grow stuff dependent on where we are living (move a lot)
make bread (or bakers)
buy fresh stuff very regularly so it gets used and I can keep track
make yoghurt
my chickens are supposed to lay eggs but try telling them that

I do one shop from supermarket a month and the rest I buy throughout the month. I am a sahm though so have the luzury of walking into town most days

Shopping around definitely keeps costs down even though I try to be ethical about the shopping

NoDontLickThat · 16/03/2012 23:21

Eat less.