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?

Firstly I think it's best to actually budget per item. You've said you're putting £1k in an account for food and discretionary spending - separate that out so you've committed to spending up to £x on food, otherwise it can easily run away with you.

Planning is absolutely key - even if you can't be bothered meal planning (I can't!) aim to only buy things that you know will get eaten, whatever is to your family's tastes. If no one will eat chickpeas don't buy chickpeas for instance.

Write a list and stick to it. Shopping online can help with this.

Don't do top up shops and especially not at a "local" very expensive corner shop type place.

When you cook double the recipe and freeze half. The freezer is your friend - milk, bread, just about everything can be frozen.

Can you switch your DC to packed lunches, should be able to do them much cheaper.

It sounds like all food and drink out of the house is a big spend for you, so concentrate on avoiding this. Maybe allow yourselves a takeaway on pay day or once a week at most if you avoid them the rest of the time.

Take food with you before you go out, or eat before you leave and have something quick and easy or leftovers/batch cooked when you return.

Make sure everyone has a flask or insulated cup if they want a hot drink out and a water bottle for water - buying coffee and water out is hugely expensive.

Look at supermarket meal deals/frozen pizza as an alternative to takeaways.

Do the Moneysaving Expert money makeover to thoroughly reduce your budget and cut costs where possible, to free up money to pay off debt (also look at balance transfers etc)

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

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Make sure everyone in the household is on board with reducing spending, but providing you can afford more than the minimum debt repayments, include a budgeted amount of spending money per person so they can have some treats without derailing your paying off debt plan.

If you want something try to find it secondhand for sale or free first. So for pretty much all clothes and shoes I use Vinted and usually never pay more than £3-£10 per item on much better quality stuff than I could afford new, some of it with the tags still on. I've had amazing Whistles wool coats that would have been £400 new for £10 for example, this is great for any kids, especially teen's clothes too, give them a budget and get them searching for what they want themselves, will save you a fortune. We also go to car boot sales sometimes which can be a goldmine for even cheaper clothing (50p-£2 an item usually), this is especially good for baby items and clothes which people are often very keen to offload cheaply.

For bigger household, garden, furniture type stuff I use Facebook marketplace for most things. Set up alerts for anything you want/need and it will notify you when they get listed in the price range and distance you set. I often go and pick up items further away when we're going there anyway for something else.

For example I've been looking for a Delonghi stainless steel espresso machine and yesterday one came up on there for free and I'm collecting it tomorrow, I'm so chuffed as I was thinking I would need to spend £40-£50 even to get one secondhand.

Last weekend I picked up a sewing machine and a long handled tool for cleaning the windows too, both for free and on the way to an attraction we were visiting! The week before that I got a free Kenwood Chef, it's from the 70s but so well built and still going strong with loads of attachments, it is truly amazing what you can get for free.

I've had so many great pieces of furniture and other items for dirt cheap and free off there, it's great. I always make sure to offer anything we can't use on there too, it's so much easier than taking to a charity shop or much worse the tip.

Lots of good ideas here already but it can help if you go through your cupboards and see what you have already and then make a point of using it all up before you buy any replacements.
We did this for everything - starting with the bathroom. All the ex-Christmas gifts were added to the stock and we systematically used up every half used shampoo, conditioner, shower gels and moisturisers - we actually had about ten bottles of partly used shampoos 😳not to mention the other stuff.
Do the same with the cleaning materials under the sink - we had loads of different cleaners for all sorts of different jobs and really a couple will do most things.
Finally. make a list of everything in your food cupboards and freezers/fridges and meal plan from those only buying the essentials you may need to turn them into a meal. You will use up stuff and best of all will be spending a lot less money to do so.

Meal planning and online shop.

Evening meals: 3 decent ones, 3 cheapo ones eg jacket potatoes and one 'random/ leftovers' buffet which can be...ahem...interesting but also fun.

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions.

I am trying to get everyone on board with being less wasteful and more frugal.

I checked out Aldi today - I haven’t been since pre covid. Some good deals inc pine nuts as I wanted to make some pesto which is great.

Tonight was a fantastic chicken curry with enough left overs for packed lunch. Not sure how rice will do in a thermos with a butter chicken for kiddos lunch, but I will report back!

I have every herb and spice in my pantry and all the staples. To the posters asking if I could use up my store cupboard, this isn’t about short term frugality; it’s about living in a budget and managing it effectively. I tend to have lots of plain, SR, strong and pasta flour in my pantry. Similarly, tinned toms and puree, pasta, rice, lentils, chickpeas, sugars and oils. So in theory, we could probably spend next to nothing for several months…but I like buying the basics in bulk so we never have to worry about the basics. Every so often I do a top up of them.

sainsbos do a massive pack of std chicken breasts for a tenner, about 1.6kg So I have bought one of those and will be doing a week of chicken dinners! Any inspo for the best way to use it?

thanks all!

I've become a fan of an all in one chicken curry and rice bake. Tonight I made satay (ish) sauce with fresh ginger, curry powder, garlic, peanut butter, soy sauce, coconut milk. Whacked it in a baking tin with some frozen chicken breasts, onions and rice. Added extra water, baked for 45 mins. Served with a cucumber salad.

Ooh, @Seaside3 that's something I want to perfect because I love curry, but if I make one on the hob it seems to take ages chopping and frying onions (it takes a lot longer than most recipes say to cook them properly).

I have this vision where I whiz up onions and spices and use these to coat chicken pieces and bake in the oven with rice and perhaps veg like peppers, cauliflower or even potatoes, carrots, chick peas etc. Do you have any links to recipes like that?

I've got into the habit of shopping for fruit and veg on Uber eats fresh Mondays (50% off fruit and veg from selected supermarkets) and also Deliveroo 50% off grocery favourites on a Weds. I mean the original prices are bumped up but with 50% off some items are really well priced.

i often add chick peas to chicken curry,
this is a great dish
Fragrant chicken curry with chick peas recipe | Good Food (bbcgoodfood.com)

I find my lot eat an evening meal and then seem to snack all night, it drives me crazy.

It started in lockdown and I felt powerless to shift it as one parent is leading the behaviour.

I am interested in this thread as I am also feeding a split house between veggies/carnivores. It's exhausting trying to adapt meals into this split, adding meat and fish at the end etc.

DD's favorite meal is spaghetti bol but my dh can't stand mince😩.

Sorry for thread hijacking just to moan, I really appreciate these suggestions!

You can get boneless thighs cheaper than chicken breast and it tastes loads better, especially in a curry. We switches to veggie about 4 out of 5 days and it is loads cheaper even if you buy nice veggie stuff like avocados.

Feed Your Family for £20 a week has lots of low cost recipes, and costed meals plans - they are updated fairly often. There is also a sister FB page.

Maybe you could add a pudding to your menu - it might stop the snacking.

But my DH can do that - eating a meal seems to trigger the 'must keep eating syndrome' all evening!! I have switched to having healthy snacks now like fruit and nuts - if he's going to eat snacks then make them healthy-ish!

My dh treats most healthy snacks like they are dishes of filth....

@wildfellhall dishes of filth 😂😂😂 I’m finding if I make a double portion of something my husband overeats! I have called him out on it, but apparently it’s my fault as I am such a good cook 🤪 to be fair, he isn’t over weight, but it’s still annoying when I have pencilled something in for two days of meals!

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads thanks for the link, that’s a good shout - Thankyou. We get stuck in a bit of a meal rut and need to add some variety!

@Bjorkdidit it was this reel yhat inspired me to put it all together https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9ey2aYob2c/?igsh=MXhreGhiZ3ZuNDI4dw==

@Geneticsbunny irritatingly my husband only like last chicken breast, sometimes i make something with thighs and just give him left overs from something else.

My husband and son often snack later on. Luckily it's things like a bowl of cereal, or greek yogurt with dried fruit, ot oat/rice cakes with peanut butter. I don't mind as long as it's not food bought for a meal, and only once in the evening.

@Shoppingonashoestring take your 2nd portion out as soon as its cooked. Put it in a tupperware and outbof sight. Mine will just eat everything that's there, so the only way is to remove the portion immediately in my house.