I remember the days of getting ‘3 for £10’ meat deals and making that the basis of our meals. Now my toddlers are teenagers - still fussy, one with coeliac disease. Our chickens are now organic / free range, and obviously portions are much bigger.
We now both work outside the house (I was a sahm for quite a long time) which means we need to be more organised.
We have a vague week long ‘plan’ that makes life easier or cheaper - and is moveable depending on who’s in and what we’ve eaten previously that week so we get a balance of salad / veg / carb etc.
At the weekend (or on a Monday) we have a roast - whatever is left we make a noodle / fried rice / risotto / curry dish the next day.
We have ‘something made of chicken breasts’ such as curry / Cajun / Levantine marinade. There’s always left overs - which we’ll have at lunch.
‘sausages’ (toad / with mash / ‘with egg and chips and beans ‘!)
‘Italian’ something made of pasta’ (lasagne / carbonara / grated cheese / meatballs/ bolognaise) which we have with garlic bread and salad usually. I cook a huge portion of ragu probably once a month - pad it out with veg. Do the same with tomato sauce which is really handy to have for pizza / pasta / meatballs.
One night we have ‘spuds’ (jackets or chips - with a cheap something ) eg egg and chips , jackets with chilli / beans and cheese / tuna.
We have a curry night - eating dal plus chicken or lamb curry (made out of the left overs of a roast) and some sort of starters and poppadoms with cachumber.
i think i spend maybe £200 a week all in, including toiletries, washing stuff, bin liners and that sort of stuff, cereal for breakfast, wine and beer.
i used to be able to do this for less than half I do now. We can still ‘scale back’ brands / pad out with pulses / buy fewer snacks / not use branded toiletries and cleaning things.
if the bill passes £1k a month I’ll start to manage it better. We are lucky that £50 pp pw is manageable- but there’s part of me that thinks the supermarket is royally taking the piss’ 😂