Need to reduce food bill - tips, recipes, ideas please

[popsickle555]

I think we are spending around £200 a week on food! This is for DH, me and two DCs aged 13 and 10 (who eat quite a lot), DH also eats a lot. We rarely eat out, both DH and i are 100% WFH so that does include lunches every day for us. But I need to get our spend down and need advice and ideas. All my family are slim and if anything a bit underweight so I can't not feed them this amount.

I can't shop at Lidl or Aldi at the moment, I can only shop online because I am recovering from major surgery and can't drive for 3 months. We usually shop at Sainsburys, Asda or occasionally Waitrose (expensive I know).

We eat mainly gluten free as one of us is intolerant. DH wants meat every day (but will eat veggie a couple of times a week if I make him). Kids eat most things except anything too spicy.

Can anyone share any cheap (and easy) recipes please? Also snack ideas for the kids? At the moment the snack cupboard is all unhealthy and I want to change that. Their other meals are always quite healthy except on Saturday night when we tend to have a treat (pizza, burger etc), but not take out.

At the moment my go to cheap meals are Jacket potato, Mac and cheese and that's about it.

I need help 😂

The green ones stay whole, but the red ones virtually disappear into a ragu with long cooking - good if you need to disguise them.
Dried are much cheaper than canned, but do give them a thorough wash before cooking.

So you spend about £50 a week per person. I spend £55 a week for me and hollow legged ds 16, so it can be done for less, but I need to be careful.

I buy kg packs of sultanas and mixed nuts, then if I want a snack I have a handful of each, which keeps me away from buying biscuits.

For healthy but inexpensive suppers,
Simmer dried puy lentils in stock. Fry halved cherry tomatoes thyme in oil, then drain and mix in the lentils. Serve topped with a pan fried hake fillet. Using dried lentils and frozen hake keeps the cost to about £1.20 per serving.

OR

Remove the skins from some supermarket sausages and use them to stuff sweet peppers. Add in some chopped garlic. Bake for 30 mins, then add garlic bread to the oven. Bake for another 15 minutes, and serve. The peppers caramelise and become sweet & sticky. About £2 per portion

OR

Make cassoulet from some chicken thighs and cubed pork shoulder. Fry onions & garlic, add the meats to brown, then add a can of tomatoes and some stock and simmer for 45 mins. Then add a can on cannellini beans and simmer for another 10 minutes. Serve with brown rice . About £1.60 a portion.

Ocado! Believe it or not! They have a function to sort by “price per - low to high” that way you can choose the cheapest way of buying each ingredient and see any special offers. And if any given shop would have been cheaper at Tescos, they send you a voucher for the difference to redeem against your next shop.

We are a family of 5 and our one Ocado shop a week covers three meals a day for all five of us, plus all toiletries and cleaning products. I’m spending about £160 a week on average (down from a LOT more before I started doing this!) and we are eating Ocado/M&S food! It’s amazing.

I do mostly cook from scratch though, and in bulk and use my freezer to reduce waste. Frozen fruit & veg are great to keep in stock as you can use exactly what you need and the rest lasts for next time. We do eat a lot of fresh fruit, veg and meat too, so we don’t feel deprived. I often use the slow cooker to cook a big gammon or a whole
chicken, then strip it down and put some in the fridge for easy sandwich fillings and the rest into the freezer for a couple of days to do the second half of the week or the following week or to add into recipes later in the week. It’s much more cost-effective and nicer meat than buying pre-cooked, sliced sandwich meat. But you may not have the time/inclination to go that far. Good luck!

Soup, soup, soup!

Your meal list is good but if you want to cut down on cost write a list of very cheap meals and pick two every week. The ones we often do are tomato pasta (sauce home made from tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, onion, garlic puree, herbs), jacket potato cheese and beans, beans on toast, scrambled egg on toast, macaroni cheese with home made cheese sauce, mash bowls. Bulk meals out with cheap veg like carrots and filling things like garlic bread or bread rolls. Bulk mince dishes out by using lentils so you need less mince. Buy big bags of cheap potatoes.

For cheap desserts and snacks buy things like big cheap pots of yogurt and add banana or tinned peaches and a squeeze of honey, cut veg sticks with home made dip, cut up cheese cubes with sliced apple, apple dipped in peanut butter.

I like the Batch Lady, her recipes are not too time consuming. Most of what she makes are all available online as well so no need to get books.

I have only recently discovered Iceland - home delivery worked really well for me when I wasn’t able to leave the house sit to Ill health. I stock up on frozen veg from there, and they often to offers/deals on fish.

@CarrieOnComplaining and @oncemoreuntothebeachdearfriends thank you. Yes, people always add onto similar threads 'add lentils' but never explain what type and for what purpose.

@HoxtHun Thank you. I shall look at the link. I do use lots of legumes and yellow lentils, but never realised the green ones are best for replacing mince type meals.

I’m interested in what soups you bought and the cost. Soup can be so cheap to make.

This is great - we have space. I can set up a little veg area!

we do always do leftovers for lunch BUT honestly DH usually eats what I’ve cooked at the time. He eats quite a lot! If it’s something big like chilli etc there’s enough but many things he will eat it all on the one night. He’s 6ft and slim but exercises a lot so i think he needs the fuel. I do say ‘that’s for lunch’ but it falls on deaf ears quite a lot and I do understand he’s hungry. I’ll try and get him to have cereal or something Instead and leave leftovers for lunch.

Thank you - good ideas here. What is a ‘mash bowl’?

I bought one which is spiced cauliflower (think was £2.50) which is delicious as we’ve had it before, and the other was broccoli and cheddar (£1.25). We will get three portions out of each tub and have with sourdough (DH makes that). But I do make soup a fair bit as well when I have time, mainly as less processed.

I’ve used green lentils to stretch mince based meals for years, to the point that although I don’t need to do it financially now, but the meat eaters complain it doesn’t taste right if I don’t add them 🤣

My best money saving tip is to do 2 online shops a week. Minimum order is £40. It helps with meal planning hugely...so less waste..saves money. I do have a delivery pass though so don't pays extra for the delivery.

It means
I don't have to meal plan more than 4 days in a row (heaven)
I can adjust my meal plan easily...if plans change and I need to bump a meal I am not at risk of stuff going off as I am only buying for 3/4 days.

Everything is fresher.
No top up shops required (or v v v rarely). These were my nemesis spending wise. There is never more than a couple of days till the next delivery, so most things can wait till the next shop.

Less "discount-panic-buying"..I find it easier to be brutal and remove stuff from the online basket if I know I am getting another shop soon. Yes, toothpaste is on offer, but I am at £50..already...I don't "need" it this week, so I'll pop it in the next shop. I still get the discount...but it is spread out. This final one is important...and the biggest benefit.. "Do I really need this in tomorrow's shop?"...it is easier to ditch it if you are only ditching it for a couple of days iyswim.

I use Ocado and have a reserved slot every Tuesday and the book one for every Friday. Same bulk order of c£45 goes in and I just spend 10 minutes the night before adjusting it (brutally if I can). Again, because I am not shopping forcthecwholecweek, it is less painful. If I am ever under the £40, which happens occasionally, I will add in a basic store cupboard thing (tuna, orcsaybthe toothpaste) that I know we use, to bring it up to value.

I agree.
Good for 3 reasons:
You can make soup from cheap ingredients ( eg a kilo of carrots for under £1)
You can use up leftovers, thus cutting down on wasted food costs
You can use it as a meal or a filler - I always have a pan on the go now, if you ( or more likely greedy teens ) are hungry between meals, it fills them up more healthily than might otherewise be the case.

My other tips are porridge for breakfast, you can even make this with water if you are really skint, and chickpea curry - easy to make if you have the relevant spices to hand, very filling, and you could add hard boiled egg to it for extra protein. You can put spinach or peppers in it for additional veg.

If you shop at Sainsbury’s you need a nectar card

Each week check the Nectar offers

There are a heap of snacks that they enjoy and I rotate them when they are on Nectar offer

At the moment Sainsbury’s have 1/3 off all meat joints

When there is a third off you could buy in bulk

or consider checking out your local butchers meat packs - some offer 20/30/40 portions for £50/£60 or so

also consider buying your regular favourites in bulk if they go on special offer

Bowl of mash made from cheap bag of potatoes, throw anything on like leftover veg, cheese, bacon bits or sausages. Basically loaded mash but made from cheap things in the fridge.

If your husband eats all the chilli and leaves no leftovers try portioning out a leftovers portion and putting it to one side before you call them to the dinner table….

If you can bear it, liver and onions once a week is a really healthy cheap meal.
We also make chicken liver pate for lunch with homemade soup. It's so cheap.

Don't let your DH eat seconds of things that can make a whole new meal. There are some cheap foods that were pretty much invented as 'fill-you-up' like pancakes. (My grandma used to give her kids a first course of batter with a fruit syrup which was to fill them up before the more expensive main course and I think this was common.) My DH stocks up tins of Aldi rice pudding which are supercheap and has that if he's still hungry when no one else is.

The other thing that works is to add beans - they're filling. Added to dishes or just white beans along with other side vegetables heated up with a bit of garlic and oil or chopped herbs.

From your list of meals it seems like nothing spills over into the next day - which would be a moneysaver. Like I would double up on mashed potato so I could do fish cakes the next day (with frozen white fish or Aldi tinned salmon).

You’re spending a lot because there is expensive meat in every single meal. You shouldn’t be eating red meat every day anyway - try a few veggie days and your bill will go right down.

A cheap but tasty meal I make is garlic mushroom noodles with a soy based sauce I make myself and air fried tofu cubes I marinate in usually a peanut/satay based sauce. Even the teen eats it all!

For a treat Sainsbury's do a £12 del of a main, a side, a pudding and a bottle of wine.

OK that's not really saving but I do think everyone deserves a treat occasionally.

Pasta is cheap and if dried lasts for ever, try frying some mushrooms, add some cream cheese and some pasta cooking water. You can also add in bacon or peas or what you have to hand.

I make an Asian broth made with boiling water, a cube of frozen ginger and a cube of frozen garlic.

That's the base, then you can add veg, meat, noodles, chilli, spices.

Use the stems of broccoli and cauliflower as a different veg. They taste the same as the sprouty bits and make a good base for a soup.

Add different things to your baked potatoes, not just cheese and beans but chilli, scoop out some flesh, put an egg in and bake, cream cheese and chives, crème fraiche tinned tuna.

Then repeat with sweet potatoes.

When you are working at home veg soup with bread can be cheap, add in some spaghetti / pasta.

Once a week have 'something on toast', it could be egg, beans, a combination eg beans and bacon, cheese.

Plan to have left overs too. Eg on the day you do baked potatoes cook more potatoes, the next day you mix the potato flesh with flour to make gnocchi.

Start watching Atomic Shrimp' on YouTube he does shopping and cooking challenges and has some good ideas to use things like beef paste in recipes.

I know you say you don't drink alcohol but are you buying bottled drinks e.g. juices, fizzy etc because I think that can really add up.
Also are you storing food correctly to ensure it lasts? Making sure your fridge temperature is correct, making discerning choices about best before dates?

There is a price comparison app called Trolley which features the deals of the week and allows you to check the prices for an item at all the different supermarkets. ( not just food but beauty products etc also) We use it to check for discounts on some favourite products that can be expensive ( our favourite ground coffee) but you could look up the special offers and menu plan from that. You can search by gluten free etc. I had a look & this gluten free pastry is an example l.

I just wanted to add this recipe as it is super delicious and it makes A LOT. The red lentils help it go a long way. I serve it with rice and it lasts two meals, easily. It’s vegetarian and honestly the meat-eaters in my family don’t complain, but if you have any leftovers from a roast or something - chicken, pork, lamb - anything is good with this sauce.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-27/sweet-potato-dhal-recipe-a-bite-to-eat-alice-zaslavsky/104385780

No we don’t drink anything other than water and herbal tea and coffee, the kids have innocent smoothies occasionally. We get one large bottle of fresh OJ a week.