I want to be able to do one big shop and not have to go to the supermarket at all during the week...

[PussinJimmyChoos]

I write a list out of all that I need, have a memo board etc etc but still find mid week that I'm stuck for ideas and end up popping into supermarket for something for dinner!

Foodbill is getting beyond a joke!

Help me please wise Mumsnetters!

me too me too!!

write a weekly meal plan and stick to it

ditto posieflump.

Meal planning is the only way to avoid this. And remember to plan to use any things that will go off/wilt/go rotten earlier in the week (because I never do!)

I have done this since beginning of the year.

Like you, was MAJORLY pissed off with visiting supermarkets all the time.

Have set budget. Have managed to (kind of) stick to it.

Get milk delivered now to stop the "have run out have got to pop to supermarket (and buy more things)" occurences

Ditto veg (get a box delivered weekly)

If it runs out it runs out... we have got used to lentils and tinned tuna

Meal plan!
Use the BBc Good food site to plan your meals; work out what to cook at start of week when food is fresh, and what to put in freezer or to cook at end of week when food is not as fresh. Only cook quick , easy meals and it is easy to do. Buy from a decent place where the fruit and veg is of good quality and store it properly.
I went shopping on Saturday and am working 4 days this week. This week we had
Sunday- roast chicken
Monday sausages and yorkshires green veg
Tues- tuna meatballs and spaghetti
Wed- turkey stir fry
Thurs- tuna steaks, chips and veg (dh cooks!)
Frid- roast veg
Sat- I'll go shopping or do a risotto if I decide to shop another day. It is all down to the planning. Keep your meal plans and reuse the best dishes. All I will need to buy in between might be more milk.

You know what the depressing thing is - I get the BBC Good Food mag on a monthly basis, I have stacks of cookery books and we still end up having farking spag bol or other stand bys!

Why?!!!

the key is freezing nearly everything!

do your meal plan, shop then freeze everything. I freeze all the butter, bread and milk I need for a week.

Obviously some things don't freeze so well - these are the things you'll have in the early part of the week. Every day check your meal plan and take out of the freezer whatever's for dinner. Keep a few tins in the store cupboard then you'll never be totally out of food.

Thursday night is our "left-over" night and then Friday is my big shop day. (and I'm blowed if I'm going back to the supermarket again during the week unless it's a dire emergency!)

Echo what others have said about meal planning.

It must be for the entire week in advance, meat/fish and veg components. And I usually have two same meals X 3 + one single meal (7 meals in total). This reduces the number of recipes you need to come up with, and the amount of cooking. Assuming you are not precious about leftovers, you can cook the vegetables for 2 meals, eating half and the other half on another day. Dh and I also use the weekends to bulk cook and freeze/store food for the week. So that cooking during the week is reduced and everything is pretty much prepared/cooked by Monday.

We both work so have to be quite organised. We pack our lunches for the days we don't have any lunching out planned. For me, it is leftovers from previous night's dinner, for dh it is sandwiches. Those are added to the shopping list as well. Saves us lots of money and time.

It's the occasional visits that bump up the costs particularly with our set up of 2 or 3 student age children around. I order on Wednesday on line. If the children/cleaner haven't put down what they need by then tough. It's delivered on Thursday morning when the cleaner is here so she puts it away which is usually fine except the day I ordered 30 x 12 eggs rather than 30 eggs and they weren't rejected. (We ate a lot of eggs for ages).

If people run out of food they can always have baked potato with tuna fish - no need for emergency expensive interim shop and if they don't have much food in the house by Wednesday that will make them appreciate Thursdays all the more. We get milk delivered and keep butter in the fridge. The bread for those that eat it is in the fridge or my son sometimes buys some from the bakers when he's out.

You all sound so organised! I can't even stomach doing sandwiches the night before but I know that going to the supermarket for a sandwich does end up with other impulse buys!!

I've had 23 years of being a mother to get better at it - it's just time that helps and experience. Also going each week on line to the list of foods we've ordered before and knowing what we need every week. We don't even eat conventionally in the week anyway as my son cooks for his younger brothers and I cook separately but it seems to be working okay at the moment. My 23 year old makes her lunch every night for the day after simply because it's so much cheaper to make your own (and I pay rather than her!). We still seem often to spend £180 - £200 a week but that includes all bathroom products, cleaning products and most food eaten in (we virtually never eat out).

Oh there's hope for me - I've barely had 2 years at it! lol!

I do find that by the time I've done the dinner etc, its so late I haven't got the energy for sandwiches and I'm not a getting up early in the morning type to make them either....you could argue that DH could do them but DH doesn't food - he can't cook! lol

There's also the sexism element. When I was married I think my ex husband for a good few years did the weekly shop (or the nanny). I suppose our systems have developed over the years depending on the current lifestyle.

If you don't cook he will learn. If you do cook you in effect damage yourself and enable the sexism in the marriage and he fails to learn - lose/lose all round. Anyone who can read can cook. But more importantly why should you be lumbered with that job unless he is doing more than you in areas like toilet cleaning and ironing of course.

You are right...I've made a rod for my own back by doing the cooking - its my own fault that I find it painful to watch him trying to chop etc and it takes so long, that I don't bother asking....

Not exactly the right way to go about it is it! lol!

Im quite new to this, well nearly a year!! But hardly have the energy to do anything in the evening except bed. It's only when I feel guilty that I've given my boy mince and sweet potato 3 days running that I manage to have a massive cook and freezing fest and my shopping bill is huge. Tried online once to cut cost and time but spent 3hrs deciding what I wanted and then wrong items came.

I know -I'm spaced out by 7.30pm when DS is in bed and I just want to do stuff for me - no house stuff, no sandwiches etc....I like to mnet

I do it on line, I search all special offers first so can save money, plus it tends to be cheaper to buy a jumbo sized washing powder but dont have to carry it home. I still impulse buy but I set a budget and if I go over I review and delete some of the nice but not necessary things. They even bring into my kitchen, they don't put it away though (lazy sods). I have been really trying to keep out of supermarket during the week because I am very greedy, pop in for a few bits spend £40+ and still don't have anything for dinner. I also use goodfood website but not in an organised way, i will pull something out of the freezer say chicken breasts and type it in search engine, a load of recipes come up and I choose or adapt one depending on other ingredients.

do you have milkandmore.co.uk in your area?

Its good for getting emergency bread and yoghurt without going into a shop.

Also don't make such a fuss of an evening meal. We found both working full time, 5 children, over 18 or 19 years, children out all over the place some evenings, one or other of us working late or doing something social many evenings the early stage of marriage meal in the week just didn't work as time went on although it is supposed to be very good psychologically for the family and I'm sure tha tis so (and cheaper than eating separately). The nanny did the meal for the 5 children and we ate later but in the week it was never anything that really required veyr much chopping - life is too short to stuff a mushroom etc unless you love it and have the time and money for it of course.

Sorry but lol @ Xenia's 360 eggs! I've done that before but with potatoes!

Meal plan.
One weekly online shop.
Freeze bread and milk so you dont run out.
At the end of the week have a takeaway.
Dont go back to the supermarket for one thing as you always buy more. Go to a garage or corner shop if you do run out as they are less well stocked.

I am starting to think I am wasting my time visiting the supermarket daily

How do you freeze enough bread without a chest freezer?

Now that I'm on maternity leave, I do visit the supermarket (almost) daily. When I worked, I used to chuck out an appalling amount of food because I'm a terrible impulse buyer, don't plan meals, and am the only cook (Xenia, so true, so true. Trying to remedy this causes awful rows).

The daily shop means I throw out practically nothing now, because I only buy what we need for the day. But when I go back to work I'm going to have to change fundamentally how we eat, and learn how to plan meals. I'm really dreading it.

I do a 2-weekly shop & have it delivered, we have a 2-week meal plan which is a bit boring but at least you don't have to go out to get butternut squash half way through the second week.

Use breadmaker for all bread so only need to freeze one sliced loaf for toasties/emergencies.

Tip - for top-up shop of milk, salad etc, go to somewhere like Aldi or corner shop, much less time to get round so you're less likely to get extra things. (although with Aldi there is always the risk of impulse buying a bargain set of garden furniture)

Funkygoldstar put it so much better!

Just about to tell you when I saw this! Then saw it was your thread, me too but I am a hopeless case, I've been to sainsburys twice and the co op in the last week.