Reducing grocery spends

[mrskitty15]

Hello, I am looking for some help please with trying to reduce our grocery spends.

We are moving House shortly with a slightly bigger mortgage and we have a 2 year old and another DC due in March.

My toddler is still in nappies at the moment as she is not yet interested in embracing toilet training and as we will shortly have a newborn to buy nappies for and possibly formula too I need to try and cut our food spending in particular.

I used to be super organised and meticulously meal plan every week but I have got into bad habits and end up doing multiple shops instead of one big shop.

I am thinking about doing a couple of days a week meat free to cut down on costs, any other advice or tips would be massively appreciated. Thank you

What kind of meals do you all eat? Is this three meals a day or is one meal eaten out?

Start by going through your cupboards and freezer and list as many meals as possible using this food.

An eat down will save on moving hassle and save you money in the short term.

I love the app Wunderlist as you make your shopping list and cross things off as you get them. They are then listed underneath a d you can untick tham to put them back in the list. It gives a really good checklist of what you thought last time but can be used for any shop.

@Fluffycloudland77 We will eat pretty much anything. I like to cook from scratch wherever possible, it would be three meals a day. My husband buys sandwiches at work so we need to stop that as it costs a fortune.

MSE has a forum with great tips on this sort of stuff. A costs book (where you note where to buy cheapest eggs, milk etc etc can save a surprising amount.

Yes, do stop that. £3 a day is £15 a week, £60 a month, £700 a year.

Ok, my tips.

I shop at Waitrose online. I do 3-4 week shops for meat, fish, cheese, etc. Because I'm not ordering weekly they send me regular money off vouchers.
Grocery stuff is Aldi etc. They do better chips, white bread etc.
I buy 54lb sacks of spuds at the farm shop. £6. Bulk buy your main starch.
I have vegan lunches, usually spicy butter bean or red lentil soup with fresh coriander.
I have a breadmaker & do my own stoneground bread.

Dh likes marrowfat peas do I buy dried & cook in the slow cooker.
I buy big packs of spices, you can do Cajun, curry, spice mixes so easily.
I cook in lard or dripping. It's so filling.
Most veg is frozen or smart price, I cooked a roast recently that dn said was the best Sunday dinner he'd had. It was all smart price.

I buy sainsbos gravy powder, everyone comments on my gravy.

I make yorkshires, 2 eggs in a measuring jug, same volume of sr flour, same volume of 50:50 water/milk. Same cost as smart price but more filling.

Suet puddings. Cheap & filling. I use beef suet as I don't like palm oil products.
I buy frozen meat bar whole chickens. Mince, cubes of steak, mince. I look for the cheapest price per kg.

I am finding doing an online shop helps greatly. Yes there are always things I forget, but then I am more disciplined about just popping to the shops for those things. The online shop means I meal plan (at least to a degree) and don't do that whole thing of "ooh, that looks nice" or "I'll get that since it's on offer even though I don't need it" etc. Definitely bringing the bills down! And I got the Sainsbury's delivery pass on offer so it was half price for a year.

Aldi for nappies and wipes they are so much cheaper than other brands and just as good

I think that for two weeks you have to have really, really low standards about what an actual meal is.

At the start of each week buy in the milk, freeze if you can. And use up everything.

Stay out of the shops.

You can't spend if you don't go to the shops.

I do an online shop a week or so in advance. That way I can go back to the order and add or delete items as I either remember things or find I still have enough of an item.

Why is DH buying sandwiches? Is it a taste for fancy fillings or laziness stopping him for rustelling up a sarnie or two at home?

There's a cooking blog by Jack Monroe, her meals are very simple & mostly vegan. Obviously you can add cheese etc as appropriate.

I use her soup recipes & falafel recipes. Both of those are expensive to buy ready made but easy to make at home & much more filling.

My tips are

• rice comes from tesco in £6 for 5kg of basmati. Ditto their seeded bread, £1 or less per loaf. A chest freezer is excellent!
• tins from aldi : their stuff is excellent and cheaper than all the other supermarkets
• Cleaning stuff from wilko, home bargains or poundland, not the supermarkets.

Aldi for nappies + wipes.
Porridge for breakfast
Two "low-spend" evening meals a week - egg and chips, jacket potatoes and beans, frittata...
Husband to take homemade sarnies to work at least some of the week

Thank you all, very helpful 😊

Cupboard and freezer inventories before yoga go food shopping.
But your dh a lunch box and some freezer blocks to keep the food chilled. He needs to tell you what he likes for lunch and you guys need to shop for it.

Or, you know, you could tell him what you like for lunch.

Aldi is your friend here. Less choice and cheaper. We usually have one mince based meal a week which I bulk with lentils. Pasta based dishes are great for low cost days such as Pasta, pesto and sweetcorn or pasta tuna bake. Your dh could then take left over pasta to work the next day.
Frozen fish is good and their fresh basa fillets are lovely and not expensive.

Oh and using wraps for lunch as they stay fresher than bread during the week.

I do shopping at the Co-op about an hour before it closes most reduced items are 75percent off also same with Asda.