Dreaded food shop!!

[Mumofboysteamginge]

Hey!

We are a family of 6, we have 4 boys that seam to never be full!

So our monthly food bill is coming out around £950 per month and it just isn’t feasible anymore!

We normally shop at Aldi for the majority of our food but go to farmfoods and home bargains for the bits we can’t get in Aldi. I go weekly and spend about £200 then we spend about £30 per week on bread and milk and top up stuff.

My boys are 10,9,4&2 but they have large appetites. We cook as mush homemade meals meat and veg as we can and the kids love their fruit!!!

Just wondering where people shop, where do you find is the best value and how much you spend roughly per month!

Seriously I must be doing something wrong 😂🤦‍♀️

Hit me with your ideas!

what you’re spending for 6 doesn’t sound that terrible, but considering the kids are still so young it’s only going to get worse.

we have 2 boys aged 18 and 16 and the amount that they eat now compared to about 4 years ago is immense. Time to get on top of it and instill good habits!

Protein fills them up for longer. Buy big tubs of whatever you can, it definitely works out cheaper.

Things like bolognaise and chilli can be padded out with extra veg and beans / pulses. No brands needed - the cheapest chilli beans, lentils, chickpeas, tinned tomatoes etc are fine.

Eggs are fabulous and so versatile. We get through at least 4 dozen a week!

Muffins and crumpets with peanut butter and bananas seem to fill them up well and protein shakes are your friend. If they have porridge before bed - grate an apple in it or add (yet another) banana!

it a bit trial and error to see what keeps them feeling full. Good luck!

I've got 3 boys, all adult now, but I do know how much they can eat!
So I would say use porridge instead of cereal, it's more filling and cheaper. Make veg soup for a filler after school as already suggested, you can use carrots, potatoes, whatever you've got really.
If you are making spag bol, you can pad it with an extra tin of tomatoes, grated carrot, celery and lentils - put through the blender if necessary to deceive fussy kids.
Stop buying any drinks other than tea or coffee, they don't need it, and fruit juice/fizzy drinks will rack up your shopping bill. If you really must get something flavoured, buy squash. I eventually managed to get mine to drink water by getting them wide-necked water bottles and making sure plenty of ice was available.
I find mushrooms are a good filler and an acceptable alternative to meat. If I still had the boys at home I would be making pancakes regularly, and make better use of lentils and chickpeas and nuts. With blackberry season coming up, I would be preparing to scavenge and freeze as much as possible, and make good use of the freezer for yellow-stickered items. I used to buy Tesco's value scones for a cheap and filling treat, or make rock cakes ( though it's probably cheaper to buy ready made. )
Bear in mind that not every dinner needs to be meat and veg: baked potato with cheese/beans/coleslaw/mushrooms is filling.

@Muchtoomuchtodo

please tell me what you do with 48 eggs a week 🤣🤣

no wonder you have that username! You must be busy making eggs

I have no idea what the post said that you replied to but I can imagine.

People will always judge, I can afford to feed my children if that’s what they were getting at. My husband works super hard for us as a family, we do nice things and make quality memories which are so important to us. Life is too short.

Food has gone up massively as with gas and electricity, in the winter they were wanting over £350 which is double what I was paying 2 years ago. I couldn’t have predicted it however I wouldn’t change my family for anything. Thank you for your message supporting this.

We were simply interested in what others in a similar situation were spending and trying to see what bad habits we had got into with our food shop… to better our family, suppose that’s what birdie couldn’t understand!?

❤️

I would love to know what the post said. But then again whoever it is, is clearly not a very nice person.

Im open to criticism and can be my own worst critic but will never apologise for asking questions and just trying to do our best ❤️

We have had so many great replies with amazing suggestions which may not save us much money but will be fun to find out and try new things! I’m so greatful for the suggestions.

They know nothing about me and my family and I know we can hold our heads high!

Family of 5 (3 teens) and we spend about £700 a month. Though 2 get free school lunches still so we save a bit on lunch and most of us don't eat breakfast (DH and I fast, DD can't eat that early).
Only DS2 eats fruit, really (unfortunately) so we don't buy much fruit as it ends up being wasted. Our dinner portions are pretty big, but they don't snack much. We don't have cereal, apart from occasionally DS1 eats shreddies, as I don't think it's very nutritious or filling.
We do get though a lot of noodles, tinned mackerel and frozen sausages! The air fryer is great as they can make a sausage sandwich or pizza toast or something.
I'd love if they'd eat more fruit and veg, but I'm lucky that they do all eat things like lentils in stews, curry and casseroles so I tend to bulk out meals with lentils and veg.

I think food prices have gone up a lot over the last 18 months. I know inflation is lower now but food prices are not coming down. Buy the large tubs of Greek natural yoghurts instead of lots of smaller ones. My teen has Greek yoghurt, a banana sliced into it and 2 handfuls of granola. I find fruit is expensive but I grow raspberries and strawberries in my garden. They work out much cheaper and you just pick what you need so they are always fresh. If a lot ripen at once I just freeze a few for fresh fruit smoothies. You could grow your own tomatoes easily too.

That seems a lot. Some tips we follow to reduce cost of food shopping

• filling meals so fewer snacks
• high protein snacks
• no meat
• avoid packages goods

For example, we bulk buy natural yoghurt and take a tupperware of some yoghurt and frozen berries to school/work. Somch cheaper than individual yoghurts.
Snacks can be nuts (at home).
At least one meal a week is lentil dahl. Very low cost and filling.
I make salads for lunch. In goes houmous, seeds, lentils and always a boiled egg. Much more filling than a sandwich.
Cheap fruit and veg - bananas, apples, plums, kiwis, brocolli, cucumber, potatoes. No need for out of season berries (unless frozen) or avocadoes etc.
Oatcakes instead of cereal bars. Big box of crackers and decant a few instead of crisps.
I have found shopping and eating like this to be cheaper and healtier.
We do eat fish. Meals are based around tuna/lentils/chickpeas/eggs/potatoes/rice/ pasta.

Just to add, for anyone who might not have thought of it, once sliced the gammon can be sliced and portioned then frozen. I live alone and do this if I see a nice free-range joint on offer!

go for veggie alternatives, by which i mean lentils, kidney beans, etc. or add lentils to your spag bol.

porridge is a cheap breakfast

One son has 4 boiled eggs a night for supper, the other is a big fan of omelettes or scrambled eggs for lunch (home a lot as going GCSEs!). DH quite likes an egg mayo sandwich and I often have eggs for breakfast on the weekend and I like to bake too.

Rest assured that I cook a small minority of the household egg supply myself!

We have two adult DS’ living at home, DH cooks from scratch, we spend around £200 a week. The price of food has gone up a lot.

Switch to rolled oats for breakfast and make a big pan of porridge for everyone. Cereal is expensive and doesn't satisfy for long.

I have four boys of similar ages (10, 8, 5 and 2), we budget about 815 for food eah month but nearly always go over, so in reality it's probably more like 900. They eat a lot!

I try and do one or two cheaper meals each week, like jacket potatoes, and make sure we're not wasting. We almost never have take out. Ultimately though, I want to feed them good quality food because it is literally building their bodies, and four boys can eat a lot of it - recently I've just accepted that that's the food bill, and adjusted other areas of the budget to make it work.

Hey @Mumofboysteamginge we are also a family of 6 and our food bill is around £1000 a month all in. It is alot but there's alot of us!

I know someone's already mentioned eggs but they are pretty cheap we get 6 for £1.30 from m and s. My teens often have that for breakfast.

Own brand Weetabix is filling and cheap.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong OP, it's just that food prices have gone up and up...and up, and despite what we are being told about inflation levelling off, food prices have not come down. Many items are still going up.

I sometimes look around the supermarket and see people shovelling salmon and raspberries and litres of olive oil into their trollies and feel like the only one going at the prices, but actually many of us are feeling this way.

Could you increase protein? Eggs for breakfast etc.
When my DD moved back from Uni she almost permanently hungry. I did a frittata with bacon, cheese and veg, left that in the fridge for her to snack on.

Do you buy whole milk and full fat yoghurts?

In my experience carbs like a jacket potato don’t last long even though they are filling while eating it.

Op try Lidl for the cereal.....i have two teenagers and it actually lasts longer than a day. Big size boxes too (same as farm foods ones)

I don't think that's too terrible for 6, especially if it's 'everything' including cleaning/toiletries.

We have 5 adults and only spend about £50-100 less

We're lucky enough to have every shop available - Costco, Aldi, Lidl, Farm foods and all the big supermarkets.

I am extremely disloyal and buy wherever has the best offers - and then I buy in bulk. Basics such as rice/pasta - I buy the cheapest budget brands and I buy frozen fruit from farmfoods - they also do an excellent 59p bag of mixed carrots, celery and onion already diced which is fantastic for the base for so many dishes - curry, lasagne, spag bol, soup

Inexpensive dishes we like - Lentil curry/vegetable curry (with 69p naans)
Pork schnitzel with spaghetti (12 pork loin chops for £5)
Pesto pasta is super cheap - can add roasted veg
Tomato soup - veg pack as above, 2 x passata or tinned toms - team with home made bread (it's denser and I just throw ingredients in at night, leave it to fester and then bake in the morning)
Snacks - flapjack - oats, golden syrup, butter plus any chopped fruit/nuts
Toast with jam/marmite/beans etc
Toasties
Costco's frozen croissants - amazing in the air fryer (11mins at 170C) - like buying from bakery but much cheaper (@25p each)

When my sons were ravenous teenagers I made good use of my soup maker and we had home made soup as well as the main course, they also had bread with theirs. That filled them up each meal time and nutritious and cheap too...lots of lentil and tomato, leek and potato, mixed veg type soups.
The soup maker was programmed to do the soup as they returned from school so they could have it then if they were starving.

Also, don't bother with cereal, it's expensive and not filling. Do plain yogurt (Lidl greek is fab) with granola on top, or scrambled eggs on toast, for breakfast, or snack meals, good and filling. Smoothies made with frozen fruit, plain yogurt and oats is great in a lidded tumbler for breakfast on the go.

Plus, home made hummus with crackers for snacks...easy to make hummus with cheap tinned chickpeas few other things and a stick blender

@Mumofboysteamginge I think £950 is very good price to pay for 6 of you . I spend £130 on me and my partner only a week . So £ 520 a month , sometimes even a bit more , for 2 adults . We shop in Asda , Lidl , m&s and this includes 1 or 2 times takeaway a week .

You’ve got loads to read thru but…

Anything mince based I will add 2 tins of Green Lentils to. They are 49p in Tesco. You can’t taste or hardly even see them. But it bulks out Bolognaise, lasagne etc. no end. (I actually do it for nutrition value! )