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 😂

Sounds lovely this one!

I'm here for solidarity with the meat eaters. It's really hard to eat cheaply if, as in DH's case, you have a legume allergy (among other food intolerances). I miss that lentil bulked spag bol / chilli / dhal etc. Our meal plan is mainly meat / fish with vegetables.

If you can get Costco membership and have the storage space it's worth it for household stuff, dry goods, bakery and some meats / fish are so much cheaper. Not all meat is cheaper but it is decent quality and not injected with water like a lot of supermarket ones.

Also agree with PPs about using all the different online grocers. If you use Tesco one week and say Morrison's the next, the Tesco system usually issues a voucher to tempt you back and vice versa.

Meal planning, batch cooking and cheaper cuts of meat / ingredients are the way to go.

Tesco do a 5 dinners for £25 meal plan on their website, there’s a few plans on there. https://realfood.tesco.com/weekly-meal-plans.html

some are meat free so your husband might want to buy a pack of chicken breasts to add to them he really can’t go without meat.

I know you can't drive at the moment but do look at Olio, too good to go and for a community shop / fridge.

My local community shop does 'mid week roast' deals, so a chicken or a joint of meat, potatoes, carrots and cauliflower or cabbage for £6. It isn't a huge chicken but you can make more than a roast with it.

They accept donations from a variety of places so they often have food that is out of date but still edible, they can't sell it so they give it way.

When my dad stays I get a Kellogg's 'variety pack' for him, but he doesn't eat the coco pops so I donate them, again they can't be sold because they are not in the pack any more so they will be given away.

Will your DH eat offal? It's usually cheap. I used to make chicken liver pâté but butter is now so expensive I don't but if he isn't keen or things like liver and kidneys then making pâté or terrine might be more palatable and ideal for a WFH lunch.

The most effective way to reduce your food shopping bill is to be organised from the start.
We have a list of meals that we like to eat. Every Friday, we sit down together and plan the meals for the following week, using the meal list to inspire us. We take into account who’s in, who’s out, who’s cooking. We also vary the types of meals throughout the week - veggie, meat, quick prep etc. Then we write the menu. After that, I make a shopping list from the menu. DH does the shopping using the list.
If there’s something like chilli on the menu, I batch cook double the amount and freeze half for another week. The only snacks I buy are biscuits.

i use frozen diced chicken and pad out chicken dishes with a tin of chick peas.

good food website has economy meals