Need to cut my shopping bill- give me ideas and recipes please!

[flipflopper]

This week I have spent £150 on my online shop at Tesco. I thought online would work out cheaper, but it doesn't seem to have done.

There are 5 of us- youngest is 8m old, so am buying nappies, wipes, extra food just for her.

I know I am spending too much on food, I love food and cooking nice things, I will buy little extra things that bump up the cost if it is needed for a recipe. I would like to try and spend less next week and I want to cook simple, cheaper meals. Must be with meat, unfortunately, as ds very fussy and a non veg eater!

I also seem to spend a fortune on packed lunch stuff, I cant believe how much money I am spending out!
Help!

[SpottyTeacakes]

This one is good and freezes well www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/96608/

[flipflopper]

ooh thankyou, that looks a nice recipe

[Anifrangapani]

We have started making the value added foods - chutneys, jams, marinaded olives, cakes, biscuits and bread and growing soft fruits and salad leaves.

We have so many fruit trees dotted around the garden and in the community orchard that we can last a year on a seasons harvest.

Jars are at a premium.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Is there a home bargains near to you? They are great for cleaning stuff. Have you got a market for things like fruit and veg, fish, cheese and bacon?

You'll have to let us know how much your next shop is and how you get on with your meal planning?

[Keepthechangeyoufilthyanimal]

Watching with interest as I need help with meal plans big time! There's only me and DH and the dog (who's food costs next to nowt anyway!) and our shopping bill is about £70 a week!

[flanbase]

For packed lunches I spend very little - I do cheese sandwiches, then slices of carrot/cucumber, some dried fruit (check for chemicals) & a yogurt. They drink water at school.

[sashh]

Use 'my supermarket.com' - it is just like using tesco but it will compare your prices with those at other supermarkets. It also tells you when you can swap to something cheaper so if you order toilet rolls, but this week one is on special offer it will tell you there is a cheaper option.


Once you have shopped your order is sent to tesco and pay in the normal way.

If part of your shop would be cheaper at,say, ASDA there is an option to split the order between supermarkets.

I have saved loads doing this.

[MyShoofly]

marking my spot because I also need to slash and burn our current food budget.

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

Marking my place too!

[gabsid]

Someone may have said that but I like to bulk out spag bol, chilli con carne or sheperds pie with soya mince or lentils - its cheaper and healthier, especially as lamb mince can be very fatty.

That usually leaves me enough food for 2 meals to freeze or in the fridge to have a couple of days later, e.g. chilli with rice, with baked potatoe and salad or in a wrap.

I do 1 big shop at Lidls per week and 1 at Tesco to get all the stuff they don't have or I don't like at Lidls. This has cut my bill by 1/3 - I kept a tally for a couple of months.

I am following such threads with interest as our income is not great at the moment and I am alway looking for way to economise.

[gabsid]

Packed lunches - DS wants/gets a sandwich with cheese, ham, chorizo and cucumber, a yoghurt and water to drink. I don't buy little packets of whatever, only as a treat as they are usually unhealty and expensive. I don't put fruit in as he doesn't eat it and it often goes to waste. I give DS some fruit when he gets home.

DS told me last week though that everyone has their lunchbox filled with stuff and packets of buiscits and juice? I wonder how many??

[gabsid]

spotty - that looks yummy. I do something like that occasionally, but change the ingredients depending on what I have in the fridge, e.g. add carrots, garlic, butternut squash, courgette ...

Also, DS loves home made pizza - I make 3x the Delia Smith pizza dough recipie and freeze half the dough.

[gabsid]

Baby food - I used to take some of our food, puree it and freeze in square stackable containers, no extra cost and little effort.

[chirpchirp]

I'm a recent meal planner convert and can't recommend it highly enough. I actually wonder how I got by before. In the last month I have not thrown away ANY food! I've saved loads and now have my weekly food bill down to £40 a month for the three of us. I shop on line but then go and collect it to save on a Saturday delivery charge. I've also lost weight and had so many different foods as I was totally stuck in a rut of the same six dinners permanently on rotation.

I started by going mental in my kitchen and throwing out everything that I didn't use or was out of date and was generally just cluttering up the place. Properly cleaned out the fridge and the freezer and made of list of everything that I was keeping so I knew what I "had in". After that I took a note pad and wrote down all the meals that I know off the bat and could cook with my eyes closed. Then I went a bit daft on pinterest and various receipe website and had a good look through my cook books and wrote down all the receipes I would like to try out. In general I avoided anything that needed a million ingredients as I didn't want to them have to buy them and fill up my lovely uncluttered cupboards!

Now on a Wednesday evening I print off a meal planner - www.theprojectgirl.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mealplanner22.gif
and sit down with my little book and start planning. I shop at Asda so try and make use of their 3 for £10 offer on meats and fish. Generally that will give me the basis of five dinners and we will have one either none meat or fairly low on meat omlettes/pasta/pizza/salad/baked potatoes etc. Depending on how late in the month is it DH might get a steak if the pennies allow it. For the most part I use value brand on first try and if it tastes good it stays. If not I move up on level (thank you Mr Martin Lewis for the tip!)

I used to spend ages wondering around Asda on a saturday aimlessly throwing stuff in my trolley that would often get thrown in the bin a week later and I hated it. Meal planning is the way forward!

[chirpchirp]

Erm, that should say £40 a week!!!

[chirpchirp]

Also just thought! The other step is to put the meal plan straight on the fridge once shop is ordered. That way it doesn't get mis placed and I can check the use by dates on the food as I'm unpacking it to see if anything needs to get thrown in the freezer.

[WilsonFrickett]

Do you have a freezer? If so, take advantage of offers and build them into your meal plan. For eg, lots of places have '3 for £10' offers on meat, so buy the offer, put it in the freezer, don't think about it this week - because you've already planned your meals for this week, right? Then next week, you go 'oh, I've got those packs of chicken thighs' (or whatever) and plan what you need to put with them to eat them.

Meal planning is great, I don't do it as fully as others as I like to have more flexibility, but I have a decent freezer for the first time ever now and I really, really use it well for offers and 'sell by date' bargains.

[ChoudeBruxelles]

Change where you shop. Aldi and lidl are both good. I do big shop at the beginning of the month at aldi - get all store cupboard and washing stuff there for the month.

I just fill in the bits I can't get there at sainsburys.

[Wishihadabs]

Don't be afraid to have a leftovers night. We did this for the first time last week. It was great, cleared out the freezer and didn't cost a penny.