"Normal" people who cook from scratch everyday - tell me this gets cheaper

[Frequency]

By normal, I mean excluding those who can feed a small African village with one can of chickpeas, an egg, and a tomato. Normal people, who eat normal portions of normal foods.

We've canceled Hello Fresh to save money, so we've started meal planning with a recipe-building app instead, otherwise, we just cycle through the same 5/6 meals all the time.

One child is away this week. The remaining child has picked;

Cheesy broccoli pasta bake, Piri piri chicken wrap “fakeaway”, easy creamy chicken curry, penne arrabbiata with roasted peppers and pancetta, easy chicken jalfrezi curry.

£75 fecking quid.

It's not even a full shop. I'm not eating breakfast or lunch coz the price now just for evening meals is way too much. I've added a couple of yoghurts and crappy pizzas for the kids lunches and breakfasts and we already have cereal in.

I bought cat litter and cat food earlier or that would have been added too.

Admittedly, we had to buy a lot of spices because Hello Fresh used to send them in handy little packets and DD has used most of the ones we did have jazzing up her instant noodles. But, the spices only added around £10ish. That's still £65 without breakfasts or lunches.

Obviously, next week we won't need as many spices and should have some butter and oil left but still...

If this is the best we can do I am going to have to consider rehoming a child.

As you seem to eat a lot of pizza, have you considered making them from scratch? A 1.5kg bag of strong flour costs me £1.30. I usually make a deep pan pizza with 300g of flour which feeds 3 adults well. All you need apart from the flour is some yeast, water, salt and optionally a spoonful or two of sugar and olive oil. Then what ever toppings you fancy. It's very easy, especially if you have a bread machine or stand mixer to reduce the effort of kneading. You'll also end up with far better pizza than any you can buy premade. There are tons of pizza dough recipes out there and they are all much of a muchness but this is the one I settled on with the addition of a tsp of sugar or syrup (adjust quantities as required): Pizza Dough Recipe | Street Pizza | Gordon Ramsay Restaurants

You'll also end up with far better pizza than any you can buy premade

I disagree with this. I cook a lot and for a lot of things, what I make is at least as good as most premade food, with the exception of good restaurants.

However, for pizza, I'd never make it myself because it takes ages and is messy. So we eat out or have Crosta Mollica from the freezer.

Maybe don't let a child choose the menu? It will be much more efficient if planned by you.

This! I mainly cook from scratch but have two starving gym obsessed teenagers so also spend a small fortune on snacks. My weekly shopping bill is only ever under £100 if I've forgotten something!

I totally agree and it mildly annoys me when people say 'grow your own' like it's cheaper than the supermarket. It obviously isn't, especially when you factor in the time you spend, the tools you need, stuff like fertiliser and slug pellets - and the fact that there's only a really short harvesting season, and you need a lot of space and time to grow enough veg to feed a whole family.

I like growing things and have a veg patch myself but this just means there are a few weeks in the year when I don't need to buy tomatoes or courgettes. I do it for fun, not to save money.

£75 a week for a family isn't much any more.

I have what i call my "skint week" budget shopping list where i can feed 2 adults 2 dc for £60 but its much more basic than what you have there - spag bol made with frozen mince, a basic chicken curry using one chicken breast bulked out with chickpeas, sausage and mash with baked beans. It relies on us eating nothing but porridge for breakfast, only apples/pears for fruit unless other stuff in season/cheap, and lunches are cheese/egg/peanut butter sandwiches, cheap yoghurts and home made biscuits. It relies on making the bread in a breadmaker and the only drink is tea or water.

If you do like to eat "around the world" then you should stock up on essentials in ethnic supermarkets - yes you will end up with 1.5kilos of chili powder, but it will cost cheaper than 25gr in Tesco.

Oh, turned out to be double post! So not to take space in vain - overnight oats is an amazing inexpensive breakfast and soups are good for lunch.

Pork ìs often cheaper than chicken plus you can make some nice dishes with sausages.
I do feel your pain though. It's hard work meal planning, making sure no food wasted, nothing goes off, etc.
I tend to meal plan first then rework it as I shop and see whsts on offer.
Fish is another one that's really expensive now. I recently swapped out haddock for basa and it's way cheaper and lovely to eat. Fish mornay or pie or fishcakes might be cheap to make using this.
Another thing I remember from my student days is my "paupers cookbook" (yes actually called that) and certain dishes that go a really long way.
Italian tomato sauce just made with tinned toms and cooked right down. Also a large pork shoulder done in the slow cooker as pulled pork gives me enough to go with jacket spuds, as a nice addition to a mac cheese and enchiladas so 3 meals.

Where are you shopping that makes that food list £75?!?!

We're also of the buy reduced as we see & use / freeze camp. Have a loose meal plan, but it can change - eg: found Asparagus (4 packs) for 15p per pack & 3 x large lemons 35p > Aspargus & pea risotto with half and froze both the other half of the asparagus & the leftover risotto. Lemons last for weeks in fridge.

Fri night, bought kale & 2 x broccoli for 20p. Made a vege chilli as planned (some vege mince padded out with lentils, pearl barley & cannelini beans). Today will add kale & borlotti beans to pad out again. We had jackets Thurs - but cooked the whole bag & half were made into wedges for chilli. Tonight having with rice & garlic bread leftovers from freezer.

Bought loads of the 15p veg at Easter- pots, carrots, onions, cabbage. So as well as using pots, made loads of hm coleslaw to go with above dishes & will add grated broccoli stems to this mix today.

Tonight massive cottage pie (for tues/weds teas) with some veg mince, lentils, barley & yellow split peas) topped with the 15p mash. Served with the reduced broccoli. And so on lol....

To add, buy a lots of tinned & dried goods in either Farmfoods or in ethnic aisles. Big tubs of value plain yoghurt are 35p in ALL supermarkets.

We have a strict budget of £75 once per week with £25 available for top ups until the next shop. It's very tight but we usually get 7 lots of veg (obviously for 7 meals), a large chicken (not a cheap one, bit of a false economy I think) usually for about £12, plenty of yoghurt, fruit, snacks, bread and veg for weekly soup lunches. This also has to cover toiletries and cat food. The chicken gets broken down into bits which equals 2 meals plus stock (not sure how the typical mumsnet 4 meal chicken works!) and then we have one beige freezer meal and pasta for everything else. It's always really tight but shopping at Lidl helps!

@Frequency Sorry if I'm repeating others, but I've not yet read the thread, just some of your 1st posts.
My tips, if they're any use to you, are as follows:

I substitute a lot, so I might swap eg, mozzarella or parmesan for strong cheddar, if I don't have any in.
I tend to keep the dried tub of hard cheese in, as it keeps well, and will substitute that if it's available. For many recipes, it's the cheese flavour rather than the type of cheese that really matters, so where possible, I will use what I already have.

Again, with oil, I use vegetable oil rather than olive oil as that's cheapest, and it is usually rapeseed, which is good for you. I would only use olive oil on a salad dressing, so it lasts a long time, and that way I can buy it when it's on offer.

I tend to buy what's on offer, and adapt recipes to suit/fit.

So for your meals this week, to save on the cost of jarred peppers, I'd have bought a large bag of cooking peppers (making sure they're not all green), and I'd have roasted 1 in the air fryer for the penne dish. I would then use the rest in the other meals.
For the chicken, I'd have bought some boneless chciken (on offer) for the wrap meal (which allows 1 wrap oer serving on that app). You bought 2 packs of 8 wraps, so more than enough for several meals and lunches.
If the recipe states 640g and my 2 packs add up say 800g, I'd either freeze the extra or use it for lunches or a soup or something.
I also tend to add less meat than suggested and bulk it out with a few more veggies, so in this case I'd use, say 550g chicken, and save the rest for another meal.
I buy spices in the world food aisle or in Asian supermarkets, as they're much cheaper and you generally get more for your money.
I have an extensive collection of herbs and spices, but if I don't have something I'll substitute it for a similar flavour. If you're not sure, you can type it into Google and it will give you alternatives. Eg, lemongrass substitutes

I will also buy cheaper cuts of meat eg, chicken thighs, rather than fillets, or I buy in bulk/when on offer and freeze in portions. For example, our local butcher sometimes sells 5kg of chicken breasts on offer for £25, so I'll buy that and then freeze them in bags of 2, ready for use.

I'll also substitute say, beef mince for pork or turkey mince, which is often cheaper. Same for any veggies in a recipe. I'll try to use what I have rather than buying a particular veg just for 1 dish.

Also, if you can shop around, Asda isn't always the cheapest. I've attached what a lot of these items cost at Aldi atm, and not including the collect fee (which I wouldn't use as I'd go there and shop myself) it comes to just under £36.

I'll have a think and share more tips later.

Family of four here, never getting take aways, never going out to eat (because… toddlers 😅). Our weekly shop is £195. IT was £100 two years ago!!! This includes hellovalot berries (because.. toddlers!), treats, nappies and baby wipes, different snacks and a crate of beer for DH.
most days it’s porridge for breakfast (cereal or pancakes) with berries and fruit. Lunches always sandwiches, crisps and fruit+veg, dinners are easy (nothing like yours OP!) but because we all like different things I end up doing 4 dinners (or variation of the same dinner adapted 4 ways lol). Snacks throughout the day too. So no advice of how to make it cheaper… I actually wanted to get Hello Fresh to save some money 😩

@Frequency Best advice I had was to view 'meat' as a garnish rather than the main ingredient. So a couple of rashers of bacon, crisped and crumbled on top, gives a bacon-y flavour to a stew made mostly of beans and veg. I make a hybrid version of a naan and pizza: naan breads topped with masala tomato sauce, spinach and potato, some grated halloumi, and a sprinkling of lamb mince keema curry. A 500g pack of lamb mince does about 12 portions. Or yorkshire pudding 'beef' strogonoff: the smallest high quality steak you can find - fried, left to be cold and very thinly sliced. Mix with yogurt/mayo/horseradish plus lots of sliced mushroom and finely sliced cooked potato. Warm through and serve in a yorkshire pudding. It's like Sunday lunch.

Also our supermarkets have a 'world food section'. One part of it is nicely packaged small quantities of British labelled ingredients (small expensive jars of spice, small bags of rice etc) but opposite is the more traditional stuff - huge bags of chilli, or lentils, or chickpeas - and quite a lot cheaper, especially useful if you've got a spice loving dc.

We never have done Hello Fresh - we have adolescents with hearty appetites and it seems better value to cook their favourites in substantial quantites.

We aim to be economical, but we are in the very fortunate position of not needing to be very tight with our budget.

Today we will be having braised feather blade steak which cost less than 1/3 the original price (short date reduction at the butcher's counter). I will freeze any left over meat if we have any.

Tomorrow we will have peri peri chicken (whole chicken to which I will add peri peri spices and roast.) We also think buying a whole chicken is the cheapest way.

Weds will probably be either burritos or fajitas with the left overs from Mon and/ or Tues.

Thu - possibly will defrost the top quality sausages I bought 1/2 price and froze last week. And so on.

So the growing kids get quality protein, but affordably.

Unfortunately, they are not keen on being veggie, other than possibly pasta in tomato sauce with cheese (and hidden chopped Mediterranean veg) and pizza (to which Ds will want to add pepperoni or chorizo)

I’m not sure you can do a full shop for 3 or 4 people for your budget. I eat pretty much all meals and snacks at home and I’d have to really plan well to stick to that budget for just myself. I live in an expensive area though.

Does the app you use suggest meals that use up leftovers and spread your ingredients across different meals to save waste/money? The one I know that does this is called Sidekick by Sorted Food

The reality is, if you want exciting recipes every night then yes it is expensive. I'd do 1 or 2 recipes a week that are new and interesting and then the rest cycle through cheap options like stir fry, veggie chilli, jacket potato's, spaghetti, lasagne etc. Make bulk loads of tomato sauce (onion, garlic, celery, carrot, tomatoes, oregano) freeze in portions and you can use for spaghetti, pizza, lasagne,meatballs etc. We only eat meat a couple of times a week because we like to cram in the vegetables and that massively cuts cost too. I love a good recipe book and trying new things, but if you're buying brand new things for every single day of the week it's crazy - adults don't live that way even well off ones, save it for special and buy things that last the week, can be portioned out and frozen etc.

I tend to the verbose, so buckle in...!

The short answer is, building the pantry and learning what you can change/omit is not super cheap.

The good news is that the more you cook/learn, the cheaper it can become. It does involve a little homework though.
I spend an hour or so on a Sunday making our meal plan for the next week. I start by looking in the fridge/cupboard to see if there is anything left that has to be used up (bread can become breadcrumbs/croutons; veg and pulses can become soup). Then see what you have in the freezer.

Then I'll look for any offers - we tend to shop mainly in Aldi as it's the only supermarket in our town. They recently had onions for 15p as part of their Easter offering, so I got enough to last a few weeks. Garlic, too.

Try buying the next brand down - I buy a lot of value stuff, especially where its going to be an ingredient, rather than being eaten in its own right (I prefer green giant sweetcorn to be eaten as is, but happy to have cheap corn in a fish pie, for example). I think that you can make a lot of cheaper food tastier
by knowing how best to cook it.

Next, look at where you're shopping. If you have access to a cash and carry, you can get chicken for around £5/kg. I also visit farmfoods perhaps on a monthly basis and get some of the mayflower curry sauce and whatever other bits are cheaper in there.

Finally, grocery offers tend to be cyclical. So if you see any offers of stuff you buy regularly, stock up. This will obviously cost a little more initially but will reduce costs going forward. Same goes for if you see any reduced meat (My mum got 5kg of chicken for less than £10 recently - sold in 5kg tubs, not her being greedy). Get home, prepare and freeze the meat ready for the coming weeks.

Bulk meals up with veg (I use half a bag of frozen veg in shepherd's Pie, for example) or pulses. You could, of course, eat more meat free meals. My OH is a meat-man and will eat very few meat-free meals, so I get sound it by using less meat and more veg/pulses in each meal.

I also buy and cook a gammonna week to use for sandwiches. Also cook and slice some chicken breasts for lunch.

Try having some cheaper meals - jacket potatoes, quiche beans.
Once you've mastered the basics, you can perhaps get into making different breads (it's genuinely not difficult once you know how), pastries, etc. I make pitta breads for about 4p each. I use pastry to make quiche, which again stretches fillings, to have with either salad or chips and beans.

Oh, another things is to grow your own herbs/salad leaves. Dried peas can be planted and give you fresh leaves for salads. That is super, super easy. I use a washed-out mushroom pot and some soil from the garden. You just push the peas (think BIGGA peas is one brand? but supermarket while dried peas work fine) about and inch into the soil and give it a water. Takes maybe a couple of weeks.

You can get the recipes off Hello Fresh for the meals you liked and just buy the ingredients from the supermarket. That's what I do as I got so bored of the same meals over and over from them

Allegra McEvedy did a really good show called Ecomony Gastronomy which is very helpful for meal planning from scratch. Rather than buying recipe ingredients for each day you look to using leftovers, so for example if you do roast lamb for Sunday lunch, later on in the week you would use leftover lamb and veg to do a shepherd's pie, or a lamb rice recipe like this one:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/leftover_lamb_pilau_49935

Or if you do roast chicken you can use leftovers in a stir fry the next day, then make a stock with the bones and use that as a basis for a risotto - pea and pancetta would be a good one in spring time

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You know what, if needs must, then continue to cycle through the same 4 or 5 meals during the week.
Nothing wrong with that.

If you buy yourself a cheap own brand breakfast cereal and a loaf of own brand sliced bread then you won't have to go without breakfast or lunch this week. That sounds very dramatic.

Cooking from scratch is expensive.

And in a lot of cases it's cheaper to buy a jar of prepared sauce and add some tomato passata/water and stock or something to pad it out.

If your kids will eat it then buy the Uncle Bens or Dolmio sauces, or find an own brand curry sauce and tweak it.

Instead of pancetta which is expensive, use Chorizo sausages diced or good old Smoked bacon (own brand).

Buy boneless chicken thighs because to have to bone raw chicken thighs is a messy nightmare. Except if you are roasting whole ones.

Entrance fee to the supermarket is £100!

Is it just me who seems to save money by using boxes like Hello Fresh? I hardly ever go to the supermarket, aside from the box I just eat cereals, eggs, bread, soup and fruit. I get 4 meals per week.

Would usually eat out at least once, and sometimes just have soup or eggs if DH isn’t home for dinner. Or I often have random yellow label items in the freezer for those evenings.

i think it’s because there are 2 of us at home, to buy ingredients for a meal for 2 is so expensive.