Need to cut shopping bill to £50 a week for 4 of us, is this possible?

[Blossomhill]

Usually spend between 75 and 100 a week.

We eat a lot of fruit and veg.

I shop about 2 times a week.

Can this be done? My 2 dc's are 8 and 9.

Thanks

YEs.

What is a typical weeks shop?

where do you shop??? ialways go to aldi for my fruit and veg....much cheaper and is much fresher and tastier imo.Its the only place i can get fresh vine tomatoes for 80p anyway

yep if u shop @ Netto, Aldi or Lidl (they are improving alot). Too expensive in Asda.

since i started shopping online and planning meals we spend alot less. Fruit and veg from the market too...soooo much cheaper.

Yes, I do it, fruit and veg from market, the occasional cheap cut from the butchers and pulses. You will probably find that if you're scrupulous enough you will generate less food waste.

another vote for netto. saves me £15 a week on shop, and their meat is actually better than tesco

I'm sure it's manageable, but I would find this difficult... I spend about the same ach week.

I would suggest making a list and sticking to it rigidly. No sweets, treats, processed, convenience foods (too expensive). Ditto booze. Buy lots of bulk items like rice, grains, lentils, spuds...stuff you can make hearty meals from, and that you can use/freeze leftovers of. Get inventive with rcipes! (God knows why I am suggesting this, I am the World's most Boring Cook)

i was about to say the market, just so you can buy only the amount you need for the week rather than whatever amount the supermarket wants to sell you.

also if you have to carry it home in a rucksack you buy a lot less

Never buy liquids if you can possibly avoid it - you are only paying somebody else's water bill.

LIDL for fruit and veg - they do organic now. check money saving expert . com and search LIDL/ALDI and you'll get a kind of 'best of'.

shop after 5pm for reduced same day meat/pizza in asda/sainsburies etc then freeze the lot. if you get there at the right time they reduce their (nice!) 12" pizzas to around 63p down from £2.00 or so.

I chuck load away and have a freezer full of rubbish. Cupboards full of odd bits too.

perse ~ that's a good idea with the reduced stuff. Need to get a bigger freezer I think.
Thanks everyone am taking all of your tips on board!

Make a list of everything in your freezer and eat it up. Buying a couple of bits here and there if you need to.

I tend to spend £50 a week on food/household stuff/nappies/cat food etc for 3 of us and that includes quite a few luxuries (coke, ribena, alcohol, fruit juice etc).

MEat/fish are expensive - how much do you buy a week?

I have 6 sausages but have been in there 3 months (is that too long?)
veggie curry burgers (dh turns his nose up!)
frozen veg and rice
Cupboards things like noodles, rice and cupper soups. A few random jars of sauce too.

Freeganism?

I think I need to start baking again. It was so much cheaper and handy as always had the ingredients if we run out.
I have this real thing about running out of food. I like the fridge to be full, same with cupboards and fruit bowl. Don't get me started on how many boxes of cereal we have

3 months will be fine (stuff stays in my freezer for up to a year).

Can use up the frozen veg and rice at each meal.

Sausage rice and random sauce - add a few frozen veg and you've got a meal.

I have a similar thing, but can get round it by having a loaf of bread in the freezer and a couple of tins of beans - then I know we have enough for a couple of meals if the worst happens (harks back to when me and dp used to risk this weekly).

Make a list of everything you have got - freezer/cupboards/fridge and then try to plan week's worth of meals using as much as possible.

i also find it cheaper in the long run to buy things like passata and chopped tomatoes, garlic puree and frozen herbs to make my own pasta sauces.

growing herbs saves a lot as well (and you only need a windowbox) and whipping up a sauce with passata barely takes longer than heating one out of a jar.

Plus there are 1001 uses for mince.

yeah mince is great

spag bol
chilli
home made burgers
home made meatballs
meat and tater ash
mince n onion pie

absolutely frogs - would have mentioned it myself, but don't want to be all evangelical until i am in the position to report back from my urban foraging.

buy own label plain flour and some bicarb, add an egg, some milk and a nob of butter and you have pancakes. my kids LOVE these for breakfast at weekends ( my boys are similar ages to your dc's and i have a supervising DD aged 12) much cheaper than sugary cereal. i find supermarket own label cereal doesn't fool them ( although i have been known to decant asda 1/2 sugar frosties into an official frosties box, to see what hapenned...

I think I may start a cheap dinner thread too as that will help!

When are you going, Persephone? Please do pop back for an update.

I really need to know whether freeganism is a cool 21st C lifestyle choice, or an updated version of old ladies with shopping trolleys retrieving bruised tomatoes from the markets at closing time.

I am very tempted. But dh is really anal about hygiene, and would kill me. Then again, what he don't know...

You must return to let us know the outcome.

My secret is to find a good pig farmer or butcher and ask for bacon trimmings. A HUGE pack of them can be had for about £1.20 and they just make a soup, any soup, special.

My other secret is tofu. It's dead cheap and you can get it in Sainsbury's. Freeze it first, then defrost it and squeeze all the water out of it big time.

Marinate it in pasta sauce, teriaki sauce, etc. overnight and use like mince.

Bulk out meat dishes with pulses.

Lidl is great for staples like couscous and huge bags of rice.

I bake everything - all baked goods and DH makes bread. We buy flour and leavening in bulk in Costco, ditto stuff like dried apricots, cherries, mixed fruit, etc.

As well as stuff like canned toms (they sell organic), baked beans, etc.