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

[undercoverPrincess]

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.

Was going to say the same as googie. Divide it as soon as possible and put the rest in the freezer

To get the kids to eat new foods they 'don't like' serve dinner an hour later than usual.

Really interesting posts. There are 5 of us and 2 in nappies. I shop online as it stops me buying rubbish and is easier with my LOs. We buy a large chicken to roast and use this for two further meals. We always have something with mince, something with stewing beef, and use chicken thighs and sausages. We make our own pizza using a mix. Tinned tomatoes are fab and value tins make a good base for a sauce. I have a slow cooker for stews and casseroles. Frozen veg are great. I try and vary the meals some days things the boys like and other days something they are not keen on. They won't starve! I also buy frozen and tinned fruit to make puddings and milkshake. Check the labels carefully. The biggest is not always the best value.

just be more detremined and stop buying preprepared stuff!!

-set yourself a target goal of how much money you want to save in a month (eg £200), and take this money out of your account at the start and put it somewhere else. if it's not there u can't spend it
-when unloading stuff from trolley to till at the supermarket, put things on in order of importance, with unnecessary "luxury" items at the end. tell yourself you cannot spend more than X (say £50), then watch it add up. if all your essentials go in and you still have money left, let the lady carry on. if not, apologise but say you can't afford the rest. i do this all the time, probably drives the ppl in lidl insane but it stops me going over budget.
-don't buy alcohol.
-use onions, carrot + celery/a root veg as your base for everything eg this week i used those plus lentils and cabbage, pressure cookered for ten mins with water and a stock cube. took out, split into 3. first lot i added 2 cans chopped tom+puree+garlic+green herbs= pasta sauce. next night got out drained, added sweet chilli dipping sauce+garlic+ginger+noodles=stirfry. third night added milk,cheese, marg salt, blended and had as soup. = three meals 4 3 ppl total cost less than £1

-stop having pudding-this is not essential. .
-make squash lollies instead of bought icecream

if you do all this i recon you will save a good £50 a month.

thanks everyone 4 the other tips, i am enjoying the thread and def will start making jelly pots-bargain!

ohbugrit - would you like to share your soup recipes please ?

We do about £60-70 and thats for 4 not the cheapest here by far. One shop a month will be higher as this is the stocking up week. Its all old fashioned ways really, we have a well stocked store cupboard the kitchen cupboards and a space in the utility room which is currently just a big plastic box of cans and rice and such (like Nigella's pantry but the aldi version) and the freezer is so well organised it makes the former rebel in me sob. Sorry if i repeat what others have said.
Shopping around too for offers online and in shops, currently have vouchers for sainsburys where if you spend £60 you get £12 off tesco currently has a spend £40 get £5 off next forty pound shop.

Ingredients this is my best tip, cooking from simple ingredients, rice, pasta, lentils, couscous, baking cakes and biscuits, making soup, freezing half, making left over stew into soup, curries.

Phasing out crisps...

fizzy mineral water supermarkets own brand in a little pure juice is half pop half juice and lovely.

I've found medium sliced bread lasts longer, we only need two loaves a week now, I bake bread as well but am not good enough to get it right for sandwiches.

proper planning see what you have in, what can go with it, after a while you'll know what your staple foods are what you rely on. A proper meal planner and list.

We all use same soap, baby soap, baby shampoo and I borrow the matey bath!

I don't make separate kids meals

A basic cake and a basic pastry recipe are live savers

some of my always have in staples are parmesan (its expensive but goes a long way and is as useful as salt) a mixed bag of chillies, flour, eggs, butter, honey, porridge, mixed fruit, pasta, rice, risotto rice, garlic, onions.

cheap basics chocolate to tart up home baking. (I'm making rocky road later)

i'm such a bitch, undercoverprincess there was a time my oldest wouldn't eat things like stew and cottage pie, but he just had to learn to, youngest has been raised on a budget (her mummy and daddy grew up a little) :) there are loads of cheap ways round food, it doesn't all have to be like old school dinners.

If you can't bare cooking go the way of the basics ranges, but we would have to spend so much on feeling full if we bought ready made things, we eat less now but its filling. So maybe if one night we do have hotdogs (and we do) only a bit later we are all starving! so its tricky not to have to spend again on a snack. If you are blessed with small appetites this isn't so important. :) DH makes homemade popcorn, so cheap. Kids love it.

Filling up at meals saves so much money. For us. You'll find a way for you, everyones different.

(the basics blue cheese in sainsburys is very very very nice I'm making potato cakes with it later, and this on my eldests birthday.. so flash here, but we are going to the theatre afterwards)

Hi! Write down everything you buy in order of importance. Put the rough price by it. When you get to £35.00 Decide what you can't afford or what you can do without.
Buy one expensive thing a week, like washing powder/coffee/ meat for a special meal. Buy in bulk and share with friends. I have a 'treat' cupboard were I keep BOGOF things and special bargain treats. Give up processed food...it costs the earth! and it's not great for your family's health. Don't waste food: if you are putting in the bin, you don't need to cook it or buy it! Give children smaller portions and give extra if the plate is empty.
Above all be proud you can manage....Go for it! All the best.

Really interesting to read all these tips on here. We spend a lot on food even though we don't eat meat (it's the trouble with having two Waitrose stores within walking distance as well as cooking tea for DCs when they get home and then a separate dinner for me & DH later on). But we have so few other expensive habits (don?t smoke, don?t drink, very rarely eat out, make sandwiches when we go for family days out, never go abroad etc) that I try not to feel too guilty about this one pleasure in daily life. And I never throw any food away, it all gets eaten.

All that said, food prices have gone up so much I would like to get the food bill down a bit and was recommended this website for cheap family meals by a friend ? not to follow the £100/month shopping plan (yes, £100/month for family of four!) slavishly, but to get some ideas for cheap recipes to serves 1-2 times a week. Made a nut roast last week ? not at all bad but was rather windy the next day with all those onions!

internet supermarket shopping is good for being able to go back and edit if the total is bigger than you would like. I think it's easier to see the bargains as well, and plan your dinners around them.

I alternate supermarket and Lidl shopping. I don't view Lidl as slumming it however, some of the things they have are far nicer than the big supermarkets. And things like the bread flour are half the price of Tescoburydas.

Internet is good for me because it cuts down the impulse buys a bit

What a fab thread!! I actually love shopping to a budget as I like a challenge & it feels good!! I don't eat meat so hardly buy it preferring to cook fish for me & my 2 sons. Mackerel is a great inexpensive fish & is wonderful with a simple tomato sauce with veggies in it. I've found that, if I plan my meals for the whole week & only go to the supermarket once a week, that I spend far less money (& less time!). I wasn't sure if it would work as far as fruit & veg were concerned but I buy fruit that doesn't perish & I cook the veg asap to either freeze or I have the meals that require fresh veg sooner. I buy the bulk of my food from Aldi & buy their 49p veg range & fit my meals around the veg. I find that buying a lot of this veg I can cook up a lot at once & then freeze extra portions before it gets to the table & eaten! I don't have a lot of time as am a single working mum & this means I have healthy food ready to take out of the freezer. A big bag of spuds can be used for about 3 meals done in different ways. Also if you go to the bigger chains a couple of hours before they close they sell stuff off at ridiculously low prices. Just be careful you only buy what you need otherwise it's not a saving! I now throw so little (if anything if I'm honest) away. Keep the ideas coming! :o

We are a family of 6 and spend around £80 a week, we try to eat healthy so we make all of our meals, for example, lasagne, spaghetti bolognaise, cottage pie, taglitelli carbonara, these are all simple and cheap! sometimes if we are busy I buy either frozen breaded fish or fish fingers etc, but it always helps to have lots of pasta and potatoes in! I make a jam sponge cake which can be also used for a desert with custard, I also give the children pasta for their packed lunch as I think is more filling, with some fruit and a sweet snack. Pancakes are also a cheap desert and filling. I find most ready meals or sauces from the supermarket are tasteless, also full of chemicals and preservatives, I think its finding whats easy to cook and sticking to it, also making a list, which saves money!

There are 4 of us - me, DH, DS1 (3.3) & DS2 (1 on Easter Sunday ) plus DCat. In February, I spent just under £106 (I keep an Excel spreadsheet!) on groceries including cleaning stuff, nappies, formula & cat food. March is shaping up to be a bit more expensive, with just under £175 spent so far (so estimate total of about £200 for March). However, I estimate that April will be considerably less again, as I have stocked up the freezers & have enough meat, fish etc to last for most of April, too.

My main tips would be:

-Buy value brand where you can - 90% of the time, the only difference I notice is that the packaging is not quite so fancy.

-Go to the supermarket at the end of the day (8pm at my local Tesco) & you could well bag some reduced bargains of meat & fish, bread, fruit & veg etc. In fact, I never pay full price for meat & rarely for bread, fruit & veg. I then plan my meals around what I have, rather than shopping for ingredients, iyswim. I also get treats this way eg cakes, different fruit etc.

-I use Tesco Value Multipurpose cleaner (about 30p/bottle), which I decant into an old spray bottle, rather than buy about 12 different cleaning fluids for different jobs.

-If you have a baby, sign up to various different baby clubs. They will all send you coupons for their products, be it formula (for over 6 months), baby food or nappies.

-I ask for shower gel, bubble bath etc for birthday presents. I know I will use it & I get a much nice one than I would have bought for myself.

-If you have them, farm shops can be a good resource. I can get a 25kg sack of potatoes, which I store in the garage, for about £7 at our farm shop & these last us 2-3 months. I have also asked around & found a farmer who will sell me a whole butchered lamb for the freezer for £90 (a huge saving on buying all the different cuts).

-Last but not least, write down every penny you spend! It really stops impulse buys if you know you have to be accountable for everything you spend (works for me, anyway)

There are 6 of us - 2 adults, 18, 16 and 15yo plus 9yo, dog, cat, 3 rabbits.

All I know about my shopping is it costs far too much with lunches as well though I cook everything from scratch including cookies/cakes etc. I can't eat wheat and avoid rice/pasta/potatoes as much as possible (aka the cheap bit) because they affect my asthma It's just the amount of everything we need, from loo rolls to washing liquid! I need to start to work out I just how much I do spend, scary as it sounds.

Batch cooking is a definite no as it gets quite industrial though dcs often take leftovers to school the next day as they get bored with sandwiches all the time, but sticking meticulously to a meal plan really does cut it down hugely.

Leftover crusts and slices of bread can be whizzed up into crumbs and frozen, use for coating chicken, fish etc to make goujons. You could cube it too to make croutons for soup. Make homemade pizza and homemade chips instead of buying frozen stuff, HM is probably better for you too.

We buy one chicken a month, roast for sunday lunch and then use leftover chicken and make curries, pies, casseroles, fajitas, enchiladas and the very last few bits chicken soup. Usually get 8 - 9 meals out of 1 chicken, you just bulk curries out with veg and chopped tomatoes rather than putting in loads of chicken.

We have Jacket Potatoes once a week, Pasta once a week and a mince based dish once a week (I make a big batch of chilli and freeze lots of portions), by repeating what you have each week but altering it slightly you are mainly using the same ingredients thus less of a cost. One of my friends has a pancake day or a beans on toast day with her kids when her DP is at work and they love it.

I think meal planning is the key but doing things like making pasta sauce and freezing some of it for another time (perhaps pizza base) helps too.

You mentioned that your kids don't like some foods which are cheaper. I vividly remembering saying to my mum as a kid that I didn't like mince and macaroni and it was horrible, same as sausage casserole....actually it just wasn't what my friends were having, scampi and chips! I wanted what I thought everyone else was having, I'm not saying that's the case with your children but you never know. Might it be worth getting them to help you in the kitchen and maybe then they'll try it.