Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Food/recipes

For related content, visit our food content hub.

Original poster

Eating on a budget - how do you do it????

50 replies

oldwomanwholivedinashoe · 27/05/2007 13:53

Seriously! In a recent thread posters were sayingt hey could feed a family of 4 for about £40 a week. I spend a fortune but we're trying to cut back on spending. Let me into your secrets!

OP posts:
charliecat · 27/05/2007 13:56

Potatoes rice and pasta arent expensive Chicken to last 2 days, Roast then Stirfry the next etc.

Dottydot · 27/05/2007 13:56

I can do a £40 - 50 shop for 4 for a week sometimes - but definitely not every week these days. Probably about once a month, and then expensive stuff like washing powder/washing up liquid comes into play and scuppers it. Probably means £60 a week is much more do-able.

Lots of basics so you can make meals - veg, lentils, rice, pasta. Cheese and other dairy and not much meat. Tinned tomatoes and tinned tuna added to the above means lots of different sauces. Sounds boring but means you can have sauces with rice/pasta/jacket potatoes for a week every now and then to save money.

Idreamofdaleks · 27/05/2007 13:58

I think it's an option to buy a chicken and eat it for 4 or 5 days in various formats

Vegetable soup is healthy and filling too.

Menu planning is a key component of budgetting effectively I think.

Original poster
oldwomanwholivedinashoe · 27/05/2007 13:59

I probably spend a fortune on nappies and wipes actually. And Im not a very inventive cook.

OP posts:
SenoraPostrophe · 27/05/2007 13:59

mince.
dried beans and lentils (I have a really good recipe for bean chilli, and one for lentil bake that cost less than 30p each per portion).
veg that is in season, and pref bought from the market.
no biscuits etc except home made ones.
porridge
shop on a sat afternoon, buy all of the marked down meat and freeze.
salad is a good cheap meal: baked spud, green salad, hoem made coleslaw, boiled egg and half a tin of tuna.
save leftovers as much as possible and freeze, even if there is only half a portion: you can add portion halves together later or bulk out with a tin of tomartoes or something.

I'm pretty sure I could manage £40 a week using a combination of all the above tactics. I don't though - I spend about £50 a week and buy some treats: butter, posh cheese, a steak etc. It makes it easier to budget long term.

charliecat · 27/05/2007 13:59

Oh and put a list on the freezer so you know whats in there, so that you dont go and buy it again.

Original poster
oldwomanwholivedinashoe · 27/05/2007 14:00

What do you do with the chicken to make it last so long (sorry for being dense about this!!) I could make it last for 2 but no more.

OP posts:
SenoraPostrophe · 27/05/2007 14:00

wipes are a waste of money. even if you don't want to use terry nappies, what's wrong with a flannel?

lulumama · 27/05/2007 14:01

when i am being good, i can do a weekly shop for 4 for £40

Lidl - half price fruit and veg is a life saver, and their washing powder and cleaning stuff is excellent too. good for fruit juices and tinned toms, tuna, fish

meal planning helps

eg like charliecat we do roast chicken for dinner with potatos & veg, left overs for stirfry, carcass for soup! so 3 days meals for the price of a chicken and some veg!

tinned toms reduced with some basil, garlic and olive oil makes lovely pasta sauce,or thinned down with some stock, makes soup

leek & potato soup is very cheap to make

pasta is fab with all sorts of sauces or just grated cheese

ommlettes, frittatas and other egg based meals

unless you want meat every day, it is doable!

Original poster
oldwomanwholivedinashoe · 27/05/2007 14:01

I hadn't even thought about not using wipes - but I see what you mean senora.

OP posts:
lulumama · 27/05/2007 14:02

and shop around ! is convenient to buy everything under one roof at tesco and asda and have someone pack the gorceries for you ,but shopping at lidl and aldi will reduce your bills, but not quite as nice surroundings and no bag packing

also, lidl & aldi nappies and wipes are around half the price of pampers

Original poster
oldwomanwholivedinashoe · 27/05/2007 14:05

I usual;ly shop at asda but im off next week and im going to try lidl and aldi after what you've all said. Im ashamed to say that most weeks I spend £100 ish im determined to become more thrifty. cant afford baby number 3 till i save up for a maternity leave!!

OP posts:
lulumama · 27/05/2007 14:06

you can probably , quite easily get that down to £50 - £60 a week....do a list, plan some meals and learn to love Lidl !

Dottydot · 27/05/2007 14:07

Meal planning is essential. We sit down and list out the days of the week and write a meal by each day, then write out the ingredients listed - and just buy those things!! Meal planner then goes up on the fridge so whoever's cooking tea that day knows what they're doing. Really cuts down on your food bill and shopping time.

Dottydot · 27/05/2007 14:08

Leftovers - also essential. Keep everything that's leftover and use for lunch the next day. I either get stuff to take to work to re-heat, or dp will fry stuff up at home the next day - pretty much anything will heat up again!

SenoraPostrophe · 27/05/2007 14:08

or, if you don't fancy planning then doing lots of smaller shops helps too - just buy enough for a couple of days at a time and you find you buy fewer frivoulous things.

Original poster
oldwomanwholivedinashoe · 27/05/2007 14:09

yes and DH could cook if Im not there! lost count of the number of times im late so we end up having a takeaway cos he didnt know what we were having.
Ive just calculated my takeaway spending was £134 for April

OP posts:
Dottydot · 27/05/2007 14:10

We have takeaway about once a month - and that's when ds's Dad comes and buys it for us!!

SenoraPostrophe · 27/05/2007 14:11

another thing is to cook up things like spag bol, chilli, stew etc in bulk sometimes. Then you can freeze portions and eat them when you would otherwise have a takeaway.

lulumama · 27/05/2007 14:11

£134 !!! did you eat any food you made at all !!

Dottydot · 27/05/2007 14:12

Or buy a pizza and stick it in the freezer so you've got something quick and easy to do. I try to have 1 - 2 'extra' meals in the freezer so that there's a bit of variety just in case we fancy a change to the meal planner!

Original poster
oldwomanwholivedinashoe · 27/05/2007 14:12

you're all so good at this. Im feeling very ashamed. Off to look in my fridge adn freezer to see what I can do with it

OP posts:
lulumama · 27/05/2007 14:15

you just need a change in your habits , that;s all !

burstingbug · 27/05/2007 14:17

We buy reduced items, bogoffs, any thing cheep that'll freeze. We also buy own labels and el cheepo value & smartprice items. Any thing to keep costs down. We use Asda own active fit nappies when we're not using re-usables. boots always have 2 packs of wipes for £1.99.

Dottydot · 27/05/2007 14:18

When dp and I were really broke (as oppossed to just broke) we would go shopping with a calculator and weigh all our fruit and veg and add everything up so we knew to the penny how much the shop was going to be. We'd take cash only - say £40, and if it got to over that we'd have to decide what to put back. Made shopping very difficult but it might be worth giving it a go just once or twice so you get a feel of what your limit is - it's easy to not realise how much stuff adds up to that you put in your trolley.

Actually, i should probably start doing this again!