those of you who shop for food monthly, could I pick your brains for a mo please

[lucysmam]

I am debating whether this would be easier than fortnightly or not.

Could I be nosey and ask roughly what you spend on a big shop if you don't mind?

And what sort of quantities of beans/tinned toms/flour/eggs you get through?

And if you have any tips I would be grateful

TIA

we have a lovely older gent who drives around the village selling very reasonably priced own grown veggies that are fab! & my oh is mates with a butcher in town, so would buy more from him & get more discount than we already do hopefully

I roughly spend between £280/£300 on a monthly shop and was hoping to spend around £40 per week topping up on fruit/veg/butchers etc, but this keeps turning out to be around £70 per week.

Initially, I looked at what I had already in and topped it up to make 4 ie. so I had 4 bottles of laundry liquid, softener, jars of coffee etc, as I would go through 1 in a week.

Kids would only have beans on a Friday night (I go to work and DH takes them to guitar lessons so it is a quick tea), but if on offer say two packs of 4 for £3 then I would by 2 and then the next month I would not buy any.

I get through loads of eggs and flour etc (but our butchers is far cheaper on eggs), so I would buy 1 doz from him as I go along. With regards to flour, I would buy 2 x 1.5kg each of plain and self raising, 2 bags caster and 2 icing sugars, 1 bag sultanas, I also make sure that I have in a bag of coconut, mixed nuts, pecans then you can bake to your hearts content.

Tinned toms - get through loads of these, so I would buy 2 x 4 pack and if on offer would buy more at one go (I do like Napolina if they are on offer, but otherwise use supermarket own brand and this week have used basic brand as I am trying to cut down).

I would get 4 packs of cheese (sometimes not had to replace the whole 4 packs)

If there is anything else, please ask (oh and I have just made some fab biscuits that I am sure you would like - will post recipe in a minute for you)

are you planning on going to the shop or doing it on internet? I do latter, so then can add to list as I go along, also don't have to load it all in the car. Find excellent. Supplement with delivered organic box. Haven't been near a supermarket in ages and ages!

Forgot to say, I also order 2 x big things of Stork for baking, 2 Clovers.

This recipe is from the bero book

Shrewsbury Biscuits

8oz self-raising flour
4oz caster sugar
4oz marg/butter
2oz currants (I used raisins)
1/2 lemon, grated rind and juice
1 med egg beaten

Mix flour and sugar, rub in fat.
Add lemon rind, juice and add sufficient egg to make a stiff dough.
Roll out and cut into 3" rounds, bake for 15 mins until golden at 180 (mine is fan so turned to 160)

I was slightly heavy handed with the egg, so dough was a bit sticky, but I added a little more flour. I did not roll the whole thing out, but cut it into quarters which made it easier to pat the dough out instead of rolling.

thanks bella, will look forward to the recipe!

Am hoping to cut us down to £150 ish for 3 of us but maybe not very realistic. I just don't know where to start. Do you meal plan a month at a time as well as shop?

oh, x-post

cheers, will try them later on

poppy, internet definately, trips to supermarket involve my pita fil driving us n I can't be rsed with him atm

lucysmam - is that £150 per month including everything ie meat?

*arsed

nope, we'll be getting that from the market.

Usually manage to get loads from oh's mate for £10 or £15 that I can split into 2 weeks worth

It was just for tins/jars/cleaning stuff/ cheese/yoghurts etc etc

Have been debating frozen veg as well so there's less wastage & then buy fresh from veg man for soups/roasts as and when I want or need them

Am just thinking about Miaous thread -

this one

This was a fab thread with loads of money saving tips - they did a lot of home cooking/baking/using reduced stuff

I think you could do it Lucysmam. My shopping bill is probably over the top?, but on some things I buy branded ie. baked beans, ketchup, salad cream etc.

I use own brand for laundry liquid/softener unless say Persil/Comfort is on offer for same price. Same for toilet rolls.

We also like to keep our wine/beer topped up - so depends if you drink or not as this will also make a difference to your budget.

On Friday, I went through my freezer and looked at what I had, so I managed to spend just £38 on necessities to go with the freezer stuff. I bought basic dried lasagne sheets instead of going for the fresh stuff. I was quite pleased with myself

I have read that one before, the shopping list on it looks a bit like mine at the moment. Not much reducing goes on in our local co-op really unfortunately, there's maybe 10p knocked off stuff until just before they close & when they reduce it loads you can't get near for oap's!!!

The one decent thing I have had from there recently was a 5kg bag of spuds for 20p instead of £2.something

Maybe I ought to write a meal plan for the month & then do a list & then do it online

Should give me an idea of how much I am looking at & keep me busy for a while while the lo runs around like a loony toon!

I also forgot to say, we do grow a lot of stuff ourselves (well DH does), cucumbers - just got the last one today, chillies, peppers, strawberries, blackberries (had over 201bs of these last year, slightly less this year as we have cut them back), toms (normal and cherry), salad leaves, carrots, potatoes, courgettes.

I use the blackberries to make oat bars which the boys have for breakfast on a morning. (You could use any berries really for this)

Do you have anywhere to store the extra stuff?

My dad made some heavy duty shelves (and put them up) in the garage for me.

£38 is good going! That's what I've done this week & have enough to last until next Sat with only about £6 worth of top-up stuff plus milk. Was quite impressed actually!

We do like to have a drink but there's always offers on at either co-op, tesco, netto, or somerfield garage which are all nearby so I send my oh to get that out of our 'treats' budget (usually a tenner or so after everything's paid for or accounted for)

I don't think I could cut back any further is the only trouble, we use basic own brand or value for everything really apart from stuff like bread flour which they don't do in value brands. It wasn't so much about cutting back really though, just making life easier for myself getting all the stuff I need barring fresh stuff at one time

my cunning plan is to clear out my pot cupboard which is huge and full of shite really useful stuff that's never seen the light of day & swap it with my store cupboard which is teeny tiny (&also rammed full of junk)

Was going to get some baskets from wilko's for stuff in packets to go on top of the cupboards too, that way it looks neat ish but is still accessable

Ok I spend about 120 a month for the big shop in the supermarket about 25 at the butchers then throughout the month dh picks up fresh fruit, bread and sometime veg depending on how crap the garden has been.
Normally comes in at under 200 for the month.

We can do cheaper for really skint months like this month when it'll probably be under 150 all in.

that sounds more like what I wanted to spend bronze.

How do you plan it if you get what I mean? Do you meal plan for the month & then buy according to that? Or do you buy certain things and then meal plan around them? Or just bung it all in & see what you come up with?

I would like to spend that bronze, what sort of meals do you have and have you got any tips?

FWIW - I do cook from scratch and enjoy cooking/baking.

We are having meat pie for tea tonight (DS1 does not like stew, but eats meat pie!), the stewing meat cost around £5.80 from the butchers.

I dont meal plan each meal but I do know well what does get eaten and what doesn't, there arent many options that everyone will eat.
I've just started shopping with tescos (3 months now) so throughou the month I sort the basket on their site and use the favourites bit a lot.
When I go through I have a look first to see what got used etc and adjust it accordingly.
I wish I could mealplan but someone, normally DH will always throw a spanner in the works.
He did help though as last birthday I was given joy of joys a deep freeze for my birthday which means that I can keep a lot of stuff in stock.

I would love cooking ideas from you. I couldnt make a meat pie with confidence. I do cook from scrath but quite often its simple things like lasagne or shepherds pie or falling back on meat and two veg. Its hard as DH is such a carnivore and I could quite happily not bother with meat.

I have recently started cooking from scratch too & am finding that simple stuff is often the best.

I suggested to my oh that we try a couple of veggie dishes a fortnight, as much for variety as saving pennies (I actually explained to him we can't always afford meat) & he happily tries what I suggest. Although often he would rather have it as accompaniment to a meaty dish iykwim.

The only meat pie I can make is chicken & mushroom or veg in a creamy white sauce with a little bit of white wine if I have any in. Although I forgot to write down how I made the sauce, just used mn as my recipe book on that occasion.

What sort of stuff would you like to try bronze?

I suppose we all play to our strengths, mine is making a good meat pie and yours bronze/lucysmam is knowing how to shop fantastically well but keeping cost down.

Right, here is my meat pie -

1.5lbs stewing meat
1 carrot (finely diced)
2 sticks celery finely diced
handful of mushrooms, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
seasoning

Coat meat with flour, heat oil in pressure cooker pan and brown off meat, add rest of ingredients. Meanwhile, dissolve 2 oxos and 1 chicken stock cube in 1.5pts hot water (you need enough liquid to cover meat etc), put this in with the meat, bring to boil, put pressure cooker lid on and I time for around 20 mins.

Drain meat from gravy and I break down the cubes of meat a little.

Pastry

12oz plain flour
3oz butter/marj
3oz lard
seasoning
cold water to mix
beaten egg to glaze

Make up pastry and chill.

I use a metal pie plate which has a lip, diameter measures 9.5" from lip to lip.

Grease plate, half pastry, roll out one half and line pie plate, fill with meat and then use egg for edges, roll out the other half and cover, crimp the edges, make a slit in the top for the steam. Brush with the egg.

Put into the oven - mine would be 190 for about 35 mins until golden brown.

this here is a cheap recipe and I have used chicken thigh meat as well as breast.