Food Spending is ridiculous and I can't seem to reduce this.

[spababe]

Ok so I cut back last month and had to have a big shop on 1st Oct but so far this month I have spent £400 on groceries and have £30 to last me until the end of the month. I also have spent £80 on school lunches.
I vary my shops between Lidl and Tesco online (where I can track what I spend as I order)
I have 2 teenage sons and DH so 4 of us but the milk bill alone is £30 a month as they get through 4 pints a day.
We do not eat meat or much processed food. We live rurally so no takeaways.
I do meal plan.
I do have quite a bit in the freezer to get us through the next week but then we will have to survive on the last £30 through half term - tricky.
It's ridiculous really but I have no idea how to reduce this.

Also (sorry to keep asking questions) how much food waste do you have?

I revamped my menus when I realised how much I was chucking out. Menus are less varied now but everyone eats them

Too late for this month but if you're veggie, why not eat more ethnic? We go to the ethnic supermarket and stock up on lentils, chapati flour, gram flour, polenta. We often have home made dhal and chapatis. Pennies to make and delicious. Bulk out everything with red lentils - stews, bolpgnese, chilli, the lot. Frozen veg from Farm Foods is great and cheaper than fresh. I still go to the market for fresh fruit and veg as well but frozen is a regular as well. Veggie doesn't haveto mean quorn - it is ludicrously overpriced IMO.

Full fat yoghurt will fill them up longer than low fat as it's got less sugar etc in it.

I'm struggling to see £400 worth of food in that (sorry!). I suppose they like massive portions though?

My bill is about the same and it's all the fresh fruit and veg. I don't often cook meat, but a bag of pepper, bag of courgettes, 3 onions, pack of mushrooms a handful of cherry toms, feta cheese and pasta is not a 'cheap' alternative dinner (for example). I eat 5-8 portions of fruit and veg a day, so does my DH, it's expensive.

As those meals arent particularly expensive I can only imagine it comes down to either;

1. meal sizes? Or
2. ingredient choice eg do you buy prepared/organic/tescos finest carrots rather than loose etc etc?

Also to me burgers and jacket potatoes are evening meals rather than lunch. We always try to have one cheap meal a week such as jackets and beans or plain pasta and sauce.

Frozen veg here too because I don't waste it - if I have left over fresh it gets chopped up into chunks and roasted in the oven with some herbs and spices and some cheese chucked over the top and that's a quick tea some night stirred into pasta.

Also, reduce the veg and up the carbs - more pasta than it says on the packet, more rice, make curries a bit "runnier" so they have more sauce and more rice but less of the dearer protein/veg

I never buy "dear" veggies or fruit. Always what's on offer or the frozen stuff. I would never buy sweet potatoes or courgettes or aubergines because they are way way too expensive. Never organic either - I can't afford it.

Yes Quorn is very overpriced.
We are restricted on where we can shop as Tesco deliver and Waitrose is nearest.
Aldi, Morrys, Sainsb and a market is a 10 mile drive so petrol costs.
Asda is 40 miles away lol
No farm foods or ethnic supermarkets.

Lidl baguettes are 39p for 2 but take your point about the oven

Lidl baguettes might be 39p for 2 but that's a lot more than two slices of lidl loaf which is 59p or thereabouts for the "best of both" equivalent that I use.

I shop mostly at Lidl and some bits out of Tesco - but Tesco is too dear for all but value stuff. Value pasta is OK from Lidl but anything other than Basmati rice sticks.

Bet your risotto rice is dear too - that's why I stopped making it - the Arborio rice was v expensive.

How much cheese do you use? Cheese is fricking expensive as well.

39p for 2 baguettes still isn't as cheap as 2 slices of bread for a sarnie though.

I have given up my organic veg box and switched to Tesco and Lidl loose veg but I tend to buy
onions, potatoes, courgette, aubergine, tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, leeks, butternut squash, garlic, cauli, broccoli
apples, bananas, pears, oranges,
frozen peas, sweetcorn, mixed roasted veg packs, summer fruit when on the 3 for £5 offer

I never buy olive oil - use ordinary frying oil all the time. No one has noticed. Although veg oil is getting dearer too.

Baked goods I do - cupcakes, krispie cakes with 30p chocolate out of tesco as a treat, flapjacks as a snack.

Value biscuits all the way for them to eat when "there's nothing here to eeeeeaaaaaat" - Tesco do a "biscuit barrel" that's got 4 different sorts in bourbons and nice and the like and it's good value.

Yes get through 2 large packs of cheese a week
I brand switch to get the 2 for £5 deals on this

My food bill is fairly cheap (£75/week including nappies and all cleaning stuff) but I still book risotto and buy courgettes and cheese (one block a week). Obviously I could probably get it cheaper but I like food and this is our max that we can afford so I get what I can with it.

Pilaf is a cheaper alternative to risotto though and really nice.

Roast veg packs are an utter rip off !!!! Do your own!

Summer fruit I only buy when it's summer. Frozen fruit I don't tend to keep much - there's usually an apple strudel and a chocolate gateau in the freezer for sunday pudding and they're around £1 each from Tesco.

Are you using ALL the food you buy?

I can see your point about the cost of baguettes vs a loaf
Will take that on board

Is frozen veg cheaper than fresh? I have bought some frozen leeks as an experiment this week

Or make a steamed pudding with syrup in the microwave - easy and cheap as chips - and v v filling for teens.

Frozen isn't always cheaper, but it's always there and it never gets wasted, whereas sometimes I buy fresh, life intervenes and the meal plan goes to pot and the veggies go off...

Will switch from olive oil to vegetable oil - thanks for the tip
Will look at alternatives to risotto rice as well - thanks

What are you buying Op for that amount.

We spend under £300 a month and there is 7 of us.We eat meat as well,we also buy fresh salmon and Cod every month.We get through tons of milk as well.The 5DC use it for cereal and for drinks.Our oldest DC18 can go through 2 pints in a day on his own.

We use our local market for fruit and veg,butchers for our meat the rest we get from Lidl/Asda and Iceland

Actually. To fill teenagers you need to think stodge.

So steamed pudding and custard for afters.

Lots of pasta. With way more pasta than sauce.

Potatoes x a million with every meal.

Rice the same.

It's the carbs that'll fill them - not the fancy sauce you're putting over the carbs.

And that'll be cheaper than more of what you're giving them as an ordinary dinner.

I am not explaining this very well

I can't see how you are spending that! Half the food listed is what I call ' party food' ie fish fingers/ choc moose etc

We are family of 4 also ( although younger children). We buy all our meat in a London organic butcher ( so not that cheap), and the rest from Waitrose, and organic where possible. We spend about £100 a week.
I can't see how you still spend £100 a week when no meat and in lidl.

One thing here is no one snacks, do you spend a large amount on snack food?

Typical meals here:

Breakfast : porridge with fruits and nuts, or poached eggs/ tomatoes/ mushrooms

Lunch : homemade soup and roll, large salads with chicken/ avocado/ goats cheese, baked potatoes, or bread/ cheeses/ pates/ salads

Dinner : typically a meat or fish with veg ie steak with creamed leeks, broccoli, and green beans. Or something like lasagne/ risotto/ curry etc

Children have Greek yogurt and fruit if they want a desert

It's about £35 in butchers and £65 in Waitrose/ ocado

I'm not sure about your rural areas like, but what about looking out for markets?

We discovered a local market near us a couple of months ago, we go every week for fruit on season and get a massive selection for cheap, (e.g today I got 11 apples, 10 oranges, 2 punnets of grapes, 15 plums and 2 large bunches of bananas for a £5). We also get our veg from there, they sell massive bulks which we take home, put the effort into grating, chopping etc to freeze.

Fruit in this house is the "cheap" fruit plus whatever is the offer - so bananas, apples, pears at the minute, and strawberries and grapes etc are only ever for a treat. This week was a reduced pineapple.