Groceries and Finances

[Shoppingonashoestring]

Hi

We are a family of four with a hefty mortgage and a lot of debt. Luckily it is serviceable. However, we need to drastically change our attitudes to spending. We have created another account and are transferring £1k a month into it for all food and discretionary/entertainment spend. Excluded are children school lunches. So…I would love to pick your brains on:

1: what are your top tips for being frugal?
2: Could you share your budget meals that are healthy? We enjoy cooking from scratch.
3: how low do you think you could spend a month?

And Thankyou!

I need help with spending less! Pregnant with my third. Hoping for some good tips. I'm good good with money like saving it. I know I need to cut takeaways out and cook more etc x

I love this idea.
On the face of it 1k a month should be plenty but we spend way over that.

vegetarian meals
chick pea meals
pinto bean meals
lentils
black eye beans etc.,

Go to the supermarket after 8pm and go to the reduced section. A lot of stuff gets reduced at the end of the day. Build meals around whatever you find in there. Freeze items or meal prep then freeze those. Lidl and Aldi always have a great reduced section.

My DH used to be a bit of a brand snob but I've started buying supermarket own brand and he can't tell the difference or actually prefers the cheaper stuff. Beans ketchup, crisps etc.

Just a quick initial response - I have teen boys and realised that we were spending an absolute fortune on branded cereal each week (at one point, some Kelloggs cereals were close to £5 a box, but this seems to have come down a bit now. So an easy way for us to reduce cost of weekly shop was to get cereal from somewhere like Lidl, where it is much much much cheaper. And if you can get your family to switch to porridge for breakfast (buying the oats from somewhere like Lidl - then it is cheaper still.

Another one is to avoid spending a fortune on cleaning products, you can use a couple of capfuls of zoflora in an old spray bottle, and fill it up with water, and you have an antibacterial spray for literally a few pence.

Generally, I find that if I do a shop in Lidl it is around £80, but i seem to spend £140+ in Sainsburys. But it is time consuming, shopping around and doing it in person. Another way we waste money is having to rely on convenience shops around the corner when we run out of something, so I would say that being more organised with meal planning etc would prob help.

I think it really depends what kind of meals you like eating, and ideally if you can find meals that you could all eat together as it is always going to be more expensive if you’re buying 2/3 different meals each night.

I make lots of slow cooker type meals (especially this time of year) and you can make those really cheaply while it still being a good healthy home cooked meal, so we do spaghetti bolognese, lasagne, cottage pie, mince & dumplings etc. A big pack of mince will easily do at least 2 meals a week, sometimes 3. Stir fry, chicken curry and “fake nandos” are the same, a big pack of chicken will do at least 2 of those in a week.

Lunches can be harder but depending on what kind of things you like we have variations of tuna pasta bake, bbq shredded chicken wraps (again I do this in slow cooker), typical chicken & rice, sandwiches/wraps.

Also, do a meal plan before you do your food shopping, make a list from that and then when you do your food shop do not deviate from the list. It’s so easy to add extra bits or pick up this & that when you’re walking around, plan out all meals in advance and then just buy off of your list x

What do your kids have for school lunches? Do you know what they are eating and whether they are eating enough? If they are having a decent hot meal then you could be slightly more informal for the kids a couple of times in the week in the evening - like beans / cheese on toast, boiled egg and toast, or sandwiches etc, which may make your home cooked evening meals go further?

We have a lot of vegetarian curries. Last night we had nut roast. The teens like a lot of meat so we do spend a fair bit on that - roast chicken for lunches most days, things like lasagne which I'll make tonight. And berries! Although I do get quite a lot of frozen ones for DS smoothies and we had an apple and blackberry crumble last night - frozen blackberries and apples from the garden.
They like porridge, eg overnight oats which are delicious.

buy frozen fruit
frozen chicken pieces
seasonable vegetables
etc.,
absolutely go down a brand

If you eat meat, buy a large, slow roast cut, such as shoulder of pork. We have it as a roast, then in sandwiches, then as pulled pork burgers, then done as crispy pork with chilli noodles, then in tacos or wraps with salad and sauces. I can make it last virtually all week. It actually works out very cheap and you only have the oven on once.

Toiletries is another area that can save money - buying cheaper own brand versions of products (eg shampoo etc), and switching from hand wash to soap can save money. I have also started a policy of trying to empty my cupboards (using things up before I buy more), so am being creative, using things like tins of body butter (that I was given as a present) as a cleanser / cleansing wash for my face, and it is working really well (my face feels smooth), it’s saving me money not having to buy special cleanser, and it is using up stuff hanging around in my bathroom cupboard that I would never normally use! I think sometimes we don’t actually need so many different (and expensive versions) of different toiletries, but that may be a controversial view!

£1k a month seems very high! You need to plan everything, make use of the freezer, use cheaper cuts of meat, bulk out with lentils/beans/cheaper veg, don't waste anything (ignore use by dates, they're a lot of rubbish).

Plan a week's worth of meals. Write a shopping list. Consider how one shop could last a week (eg. meals at the start of the week use the fresher items, end of the week leans on frozen veg, freeze some milk/bread so you have enough for the week, breadmaker/milkman? What do you "pop out" for mid week - plan to avoid this. Be realistic about how much you consume in a week and maybe overbuy a little at first (it will still be cheaper than endless top up shops and takeaways). Hide crisps etc if it will all get hoovered up by day 2. Buy some treats so you don't chuck the whole plan in the bin because you feel deprived. Have some quick freezer food to quell a takeaway urge (frozen pizza, spring rolls etc to jazz up home stir fry etc. etc). Decide where and how to do your one true shop (in store/online, which supermarket?).

Once you have mastered this, you are ready to tinker with meal plans, look for cheaper meals, cook a dinner and roll leftovers into the next meal etc. etc. But the main thing is One Shop. You are at war - every foray into enemy territory is beset by risk - the military-industrial complex will stop at nothing to get your blood/money.

Make sure you're not keeping too much food as an inventory - go through the freezer, write a list and aim to eat from the freezer until you've got a sensible amount.

If you're shopping weekly, you shouldn't need to keep more than a week's food on hand ( plus a few frozen emergency options). If you have to go through your fridge and throw stuff away before you shop, you're buying too much food.

The final week of the month, aim to avoid shopping altogether and just eat storecupboard meals, eg lentil soup.

When you have something that needs using up, eg chickpeas and an aubergine, google 'chickpea aubergine recipe bbc good food' to bring up all the recipes containing those ingredients. Beware random food blogs though, as their recipes aren't tested, are often disgusting and therefore a complete waste of money.

Look at you're throwing out - stop buying it entirely, whether it's bananas or bagged salad. Any food wasted is money being wasted, and stuff that is left to go off isn't as popular in your family as you think.

Look into keeping basics spares frozen eg bread, milk, to try and stop top up shops as this can mean overspending.

Limit cuisines - keeping the ingredients on hand for thai, Indian, Italian etc can mean a lot of money is just sitting in your cupboards in the form of sauces, spices and oils, which are often not used up in time.

Don't necessarily bother looking for yellow stickers - if you've planned a menu, throwing it out of the window because you've got 20p off a ready meal which will expire the same day is not prudent shopping.

Luckily for me I get my meat free

Do one online weekly shop. Walking into a supermarket is a disaster for my finances as I chuck a load of extra stuff in the trolley.

Meal plan and buy the ingredients for those meals plus basics for breakfast and light lunches. Rather than go for cheap meals we don't enjoy as much, my focus is that our main meal is really enjoyable. We're less likely to eat crap if we are looking forward to a nice dinner and feel satisfied with it.

Snacks cost a bomb. I always make sure there's fruit, salad stuff, cheese and wholegrain crackers for snacks but aside from that all our snacks are baked from scratch. Much cheaper and less likely to over eat.

I don't buy any empty calories as it's just not satisfying and makes us want more stuff like it. We do have treats and sweet stuff but they're proper food with normal ingredients that are likely to make you feel like you've eaten something.

We spend around £80 a week online shopping for 4 of us. (2 adults, 2 adukt sized teens).
We generally grab a lunch out somewhere (just 2 of us) as cheaper than evening meals out.
I may pick up meat from the farm shop where I work, if its reduced.

Meals in our house...
Frozen chicken 1kg £6 from tesco. Makes 3 meals like curry, roast chicken, noodles etc

Pasta with veg sauce

Beef casserole or minced beef.

Baked potatoes

Salad

Picky Tea

Sandwiches, soup, beans, eggs yogurt, rice crackers, cereal, fruit, left overs for lunches

We always have an emergency freezer meal, like frozen fish/veggie burger and chips.

Meal Plan, Meal Plan, Meal Plan.

You should easily be able to cater for 4 for £400 a month - menu planning was the best for us - batch cooking and simple meals.

We are now under £300.00 for our family of 4

You are all amazing! Such wonderful ideas, I really appreciate them. I expect our budget could be trimmed further, but from our starting point which includes takeaways, too much alcohol which leads to laziness, I think just naming a number and seeing how we stick to it will be a good first start. And by keeping the funds in one place, we can certainly track and understand it easily.

i have 750g of minced beef, so I’m going to turn that into a tasty ragu which should get us a lasagne and a spag Bol.

i was then going to make Pizza as it works out at £3 for four pizza’s (I do Jamie Oliver’s pizza dough recipe with tipo00 easy)

and then I’ll do a butter chicken.

im going to make a massive pot of tomato and lentil soup for my lunches this week.

and we love porridge which helps!

I am in agreement @MrsBobtonTrent 😅 it’s true though. Maybe that becomes my tactic; stay away from the shops. I popped into town yesterday to get my son new school shoes and we stopped for a quick pret. £19!! That really made me think how we need to cut back. I’ve spent my adult life being a spender and I’m seeing some of my slightly older friends who have always been more careful paying their mortgages off and talking about taking a sabbatical. The time has come where I take control and responsibility for my finances! I’m a bit excited.

We also use either gousto or hello fresh to help - just keep switching between them to play the discounts.

That’s a good idea @grimupnorthnot. I’ll check them out. Oh wow, if I could get it down to that amount it would be wonderful as I could get rid of the debt faster. Thankyou.

We found we save with the food delivery companies beasue it stops those little shops that turn into much bigger shops and it stops the last minute take away as you've not thought what you're having for tea>

also we rotate around our kids so each week one person picks the meals and we share the cooking and washing up it involves them more (they are older now)

One thing I did to cut the budget is to place a shop weekly. Occasionally I stretch it to 10 days, if things need using up.
Online adopting weekly means we rarely run out of things, meaning we rarely have to convenience shop.
And, if you like your wine and an easy tea, get a meal deal. £12 in tesco, gets you a bottle of wine and a meal. Not the cheapest, but much cheaper than a take away.

I spend more than I need to on food, but when I had to feed a lot of people on not enough money, I got good at it. My aim was to batch cook to save fuel and cut down on shopping trips.

• definitely more vegetarian
• plan at least twenty meals that can be cooked from what is usually in your cupboard/fridge/freezer. Plan a week of meals - even if you don't stick to it, you'll have the wherewithal for meals.
• Aim to fill teens with potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, veg in cheese sauce, yorkshire puddings etc
• Batch cook a pan of tomato sauce and freeze in flat bags - I always have small bags with enough for pizzas and large bags for pasta.
• If you don't want to batch bake, make one for now and one for the freezer. Or double up mix for bean burgers and make enough to use for dinner and freeze a few.
• Make bread - a breadmaker requires minutes of your time to make a daily loaf, but even focaccia can be made quickly and left overnight to be baked next day. If you have an empty shelf in the oven, you can put in a tray of cookies, scones or bread rolls to freeze for later.
• Bulk out stews and curries with lentils. Top bakes with cheese and breadcrumbs.