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!

Food is expensive. It’s just me and dd (18) and we spend around £70 a week, rarely eat red meat unless it’s beef mince, we eat a lot of fish and some chicken, dd is on a lactose free diet so cheese, milk etc..costs a little more. We grow our own veg so we save a little in the summer/autumn but this year hasn’t been great for growing. We have cut out unhealthy snacks and replaced with fruit but it’s not really saved any money.

We have 5 grown up sons and a daughter and I well remember these times. I would limit the grazing, esp for the older 2. Fill them with scones, pikelets and toasties. But make sure they have a couple of hours from the last snack to their meal so they are hungry. We used to live on apples. Strawberries and grapes are treat fruit- I wouldn't buy them, (I do now as they are all off our hands!) No orange juice or fizz, they don't need it. Explain to the older ones that too much money is going into food. Our kids knew we were on one income and that food had to be budgeted for. We did have a grandmother who baked and dropped treats off every now and again But make everything simple, carrot sticks, apples cut into slices, sandwiches morning and afternoon tea. Meals not finished we would keep until kids said they were hungry again at 7pm and reheat. OR a slice of bread with nothing on it. Sounds hard, but the kids never complained.
Now we visit our grandchildren and give them the odd treat . All the best.

You could cut out the takeaway pizza and make homemade pizza. It's delicious and cost about £1 per pizza. Toppings could be grated cheese, chorizo chopped up, cherry tomatoes chopped in half, chopped peppers, bits of chicken.

I'd be aiming to save £25 per week on food. Less strawberries, raspberries and avocado more apples and easy peelers. Buy the huge tubs of Greek yoghurt and add half a chopped banana instead of buying individual yoghurts. Buy pork mince instead of beef mince or buy a smaller pack of meat and add some cooked lentils to pad out the meat. I make a Rainbow Bolognese and use half meat and half different coloured chopped peppers. Cous cous is cheap and filling. A chicken for Sunday is cheaper than roast beef. You could alternate. Toad in the hole with Yorkshire pudding with sausages in is a cheap dinner with frozen mixed vegetables. I don't buy crisps or biscuits no nutritional value anyway so just offer apples, cucumber sticks or carrot sticks with hummus or cottage cheese to dip. Offer more vegetables which are cheaper and a bit more potato/rice/couscous and a bit less meat. I saved a lot by growing stuff in my garden. I grow raspberries which are so easy you just plant them then pick fruit in summer. I grow herbs and salad leaves and I grow cherry tomatoes in hanging baskets.