£50 weekly food bill??? not in my house.

[6inchnipples]

Having read a few threads on the 'how much do you spend on food per week' topic and having read the 'i spend 40' 'i spend 50' chat i thought i'd really make an effort to try and get mine down a bit (currently spend about 80-90 average per week, 3 kids under 5 plus me and dp)

Just nipped to local co op whose prices are reasonable, do lots of good fruit offers.

I bought 2 packs of chicken breasts 2 for 7 quid offer, two 2l milks, a dozen yogs on special, clementines, strawbs,necterines, blueberries, melon, baked pots reduced to 48p and a loaf

Total 23 quid.

Pots , 1 pack chicken, blueberries, half the strawbs and half the melon gone already, eaten for dinner and pudding.... No way i could do it for 50 quid, not with freash fruit veg etc

HOw do you do it????

Where am i going wrong???

Also, do any of you use online shopping? If you tend to impulse buy, its great. The £3.50 or so for delivery can usually be recouped in money off codes (for tesco anyway - dont know about others) plus you will need to plan ahead, and cant impulse buy in the same way! I placed order last night for a load of fresh fruit and veg and got £10 off a £50 shop, plus extra points codes. Items were £51.24. Promotion savings £11.31 and coupon £10. Delivery was £3.50. Total cost £33.43. used a load of extra points things too, and got equiv of £4 clubcard points which will convert to £16 in deals (used towards stuff we would do anyway)...so £17.43.

Codes here

Great shopping tool for comparison between supermarkets, and for products within one supermarket like price per 100g here You can get ipoints shopping with them too. I dont know if you can do that when going directly through tesco.

I spend £10-15 a week on "top-ups" - but I don't have a big freezer and we go through approx 4 pints of milk a day, and a loaf of bread last 1 1/2 days - so I do need to top up.

Mousey - yes I use internet shopping sometimes. I agree it is very good for budgeting as I set a limit and once I reach it if I still have some things I need to order I go back over what's in the basket and consider 'do I really need it' or find a cheaper alternative. I normally pay a delivery charge of about £5 (it depends on the day/time) but I save more than this by not impulse shopping.

The downside is that sometimes they send substitutions which are not suitable, or some items are not available, and I have to go out anyway, which defeats the object.

I've used Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda on line in the past.

My £70 shop last week included two bottles of wine at about a fiver each. I do occasionally buy some fruit or a loaf of bread during the week if what we have has all been eaten but mainly the weekend shop is the only shop.

The reason I don't like online shopping is the short use by dates they send on some items. I want to buy meat that will last a week so I am not tied to cooking a particular thing on a particular day. My freezer is usually full of prepared portions of leftover meals for DH to take to work for lunch so I simply can't fit a chicken in there if they send me one which has to be used by tomorrow and it's not what I want to do.

applepudding I love flapjacks and so does ds. This site www.flapjackrecipe.com has some great flapjack recipes. Oats are really cheap and you don't have to use butter. Good way to use up tired bananas too.
I have only myself and ds to cater for and TBH I don't know how much I spend on food, but I don't really eat much meat. To be even more honest I probably don't eat enough and am quite happy to have cereal and toast for supper once ds is asleep.
Agree that Lidl not always as cheap as you might expect. Tesco value wholemeal bread 38p, Lidl 79p. Tesco pack easy peelers £1 Lidl £1.49 this week at least.
love this thread and very envious of you ladies who like to cook (I hate it).

love this thread, just thought i'd add a couple of my own tips which have saved us some cash...

we buy pork mince which is always very cheap and use it half and half with my nicer steak mince, it actually makes meatballs / shepherds pies / spag bols / burgers etc taste nicer than just using beef.

I buy a beef brisket joint (someone was asking about cheap joints from butchers - well this is a good one), cook it in the slow cooker and after a few hours' cooking it is delicious, then the leftovers are great for sandwiches or other meals.

Making fruit salads with the usual fruit e.g. apples, bananas, satsumas etc can make it seem a bit more appealing and interesting when you're feeling bored with it... you could also add in some tinned peaches or other things you don't buy fresh to jazz it up a bit. Serving with a little splash of single cream makes a boring dessert seem a bit more luxurious and isn't v expensive.

I used to feel we had to have meat every day but have recently started eating vegetarian a couple of nights a week and that can save a lot - it also means we use up any leftover veg in the fridge, rather than head straight back to the supermarket when we run out of meat. We make something a bit like cauliflower cheese but add other veggies in and top it with sliced potatoes, is delicious and we never notice the lack of meat.

A while ago we also decided to put a £1 per portion limit on the meat / fish we bought, so if we buy a chicken for £6 we make ourselves get at least 6 portions out of it. It's good because nothing is strictly off-limits, theoretically we can buy anything and just have to be creative about how we get our money's worth.

You're going wrong by shopping in the Coop, its much more expensive than even Sainsburys. My cheapest shop is always at Morrisons.

Lankyalto - thanks for the flapjack link. I've got some squishy bananas and a day at home tomorrow so I'll get baking!