Need to cut food budget, any ideas?

[kerfuffle]

My maternity pay has just stopped, but I want to stay at home with dd for another 6mnths if possible. I have been thinking of ways to cut my grocery budget. I am going to cut down on buying wine and other luxuries, but I am hoping for some advice on cheap meals. I am buying loads of fresh fruit and veg in a bid to be healthier but the grocery bill keeps going up and up. I've been looking in my ww cookbooks for some inspiration but often these recipes need many different ingredients which all add up.Any ideas?

I sign up for every single offer I see going and get vouchers sent in the post. Also, no newspaper or magazine is allowed to leave the house without a visit from my scissors first - you would be surprised how many money off vouchers you can find.

Any cheap meal ideas? I will definitely buy big bags of dried pasta, and will invest in a student cookbook. Tabitha - great site I have added it to my fav's thanks.

Unfortunately we don't have waitrose in the midlands.Thanks though.

I find to make things taste good on a budget is a bit like dieting -- you need to make things spicy to give them some depth of flavour that you would normally get from other ingredients... so I would invest in a good set of spices... my current fave is smoked paprika that adds a lovely warm flavour to sauces and stews... I chucked some in a tomatoe and tuna sauce the other night and was very nice... I would get a curry/spicey cookery book from library to get some ideas... things you might not eat are fab when spiced up... eg lentils made into dahl with rice, chickpea curry, mince make into goulash etc..

a fave of mine is a nigella pasta recipe where you fry some garlic and chopped chillis in olive oil and pour over spaghetti... add some parsley and it is divine...

risottos are good and bakes.... potatoes and onions layered up with other veggies and covered in cheese... thick soups with bread are good for lunches and I make soup out of chicken carcass so getting another meal out them..

try porrige for breakfast...

mancmum, you're a genius.

don't know if anyone has said this, but up your bean and pulses recipies...are massively filling and can be delicious and dead dead cheap!

if you saw how expensive my food bill was, you would not say that!! Am good at the idea of reducing costs but crap at acheiving it!!

roast dinners (highish upfront expense, but you can get three meals out of a large chicken)
casserole made with leftovers from roast
chicken soup with noodles
bacon and lentil soup
vegetable crumble
root vegetable and split pea curry
mung bean and coconut soup (sounds foul, but isn't -- the kids and even dh love it!)
roast vegetables with pasta
pea risotto
pumpkin or squash risotto
sausage casserole (bulked out with lentils and lots of onions)
tuna rice
pizza (I make the dough in the breadmaker)

I also shop at Lidl for basics, get a box or organic fruit and veg. each week and use our local Turkish supermarket for pulses and yoghurt.

Tabitha-just signed up on your link-bloomin hell,it takes alot to post!-can't understand most of it-think I need some more time to get round the site!
Just to add to what people have said I do a variety of shopping at different places-so Lidle and Aldi for tins/sauces/cheap cheese and fruit and veg-Butcher for meat-local Asian shops for cheap milk(cheapest so far 89p for 4 pints)and fresh herbs like coriander and basil. Deffo agree with investing in some good and varied dried herbs. Then I do rest of shopping in either Morrisons or Asda-get some cook books out of Library to get some inspiration-I recommend the Quick and Easy cookbook for stuff that is simple but would be good enough to serve at a dinner party.

Not read other posts so I'm probably repeating but I do it like this:

Make a meal plan for the whole week on a Sunday night - work out what I need to make our meals, kids meals, packed lunches and make a list to cover only what we need.

Make the order at Tesco.com on a Monday and order only from the list. I always use a code - the lowest coupon I've ever used is £5 and so I always cover at least the delivery charge (but usually more as I often use £10 and £15 vouchers).

The other thing that probably helps is that we don't eat pre-prepared food and I always cook from scratch. The stuff I do is simple and quick usually (strogonoff, chicken cous cous, chicken caesar salad) or it's something I can prepare earlier in the day and just bung in the oven (lasagne, spinach and ham pasta bake).

Not only are we saving money on our bills but we are eating better as the meals are planned and the ingredients we need are always in.

What do you mean you use a code? Where do you get the five pound vouchers?
Bump

I substitute a few ounces of meet with vegetables when preparing any recipe. It's healthier, lower in fat and calories and the spare meet goes into something else.

If you've a garden then garlic grows rapidly just about anywhere. Onions grow quickly from sets.

Good ideas everybody. Cheers

kama, good idea! I always get really nervous at the butchers because I cant figure out the weights! I end up asking if they can show me what a lb looks like!!

kerfuffle - people post codes on MN that you just enter when you checkout at Tesco.com. You can find them on this website - hotukdeals.com (or .co.uk).

Thankyou

the Dhal and rice idea is good. It is one of very few meals that all of mine will eat, and its very cheap!

I live in Switzerland & we are having terrible problems with our food bills. It is sooo expensive here & I realised that between dh & I, we've been averaging somewhere between CHF 2,000 & 3,000 a month! Don't know the rate of exchange but it's a shocking amount of money, believe me. Anyway, I'm now using lots of fresh fruit & veg & the idea of roasting a leg of lamb, for example, is great because you can get quite a few meals from it. I also make pasta & add grilled red peppers, rocket, a bit of garlic and some parmesan. Most of my cheapo recipes come from Good Housekeeping. Otherwise I use canadian cookbooks by Anne Lindsay (check on Amazon.co.uk) whose recipes are very healthy & inexpensive to make.

Gobbledigook- can anyone use these vouchers, it seems too good to be true?
Sancousi - lucky you living in switzerland! I have never looked in a cnadian cookbook, thanks for the tip.

If the books aren't available in the UK, I can give some of my favourite recipes to anyone who wants them.

Kerfuffe there are quite a few waitroses in the Midlands - where do you live? waitrose website lists all their branches.

Nuneaton

Lidl is good mroe more than just cans: if you get there early enough, their veg selection is very good - their tomatoes on the vine are cheaper than ordinary tomatoes in a supermarket!

ALso good for:
Jaffa cakes 9better than the real ones!)
Muesli (so Mum and Dad tell me)
Fruit juice - 8 mini cartons of apple juice ofr 89p - plus also large cartons
Bacon
Olive oil
Fromage frais
Mozarella
Parmesan cheese
Emmenthalle and other hard cheeses
A good Nutella subtistute
Jams (although not bought any for ages, as am working through our home made stuff)
Mini fromahge frais
Salamis, chorizo, prosciutto etc
Ultra cheap small bags of crisps
(New) Kettle chips for hald the price of "real" Kettle chips from ordinary supermarkets
Cava - cheap (normally £3.49, currently £2.99) but perfectly respectable
Chicken nuggets - not for ds - our Friday night slob in front of the TV supper with nuggets and dips - but they are made from real bits of chicken breast
Frozen chips

I have halved our grocery shop since I started shopping at Lidl. I do a weekly menu, then shop at Lidl weekly and Sainsbury's once a fortnight for the more "luxury" items. Occasionally buy meat at Lidl, but tend to go to the butchehers for that or get a free range chicken in Sainbury's. We don't actually eat much meat during the week - it's usually variations of pasta, risotto, egg dishes or left over from a roast at the weekend.

I've got a great recipe for left over lamb of you want it - it's really tasty and strethces a small amount of lamb to antoher full meal.