What am I doing wrong?!

[TheDetective]

I want to cry, stamp my feet, and shout. Todays Aldi shop came to £100, then the bits we can't get at Aldi came to £37 in Asda. We will need £5-10 worth of fresh fruit, salad items and bread midweek also.

I just added up the previous 2 weeks shopping bills. It averaged £200! I can't justify this cost! It's insane!

We have 2 adults, one 12 year old, and a 1 year old. 1 year old is on a dairy/soya free diet. Cat and large dog also.

I'm guessing it doesn't help that me and DP have been doing slimming world for a year. So we sometimes have to get the more expensive non aldi item such as frylight, which there is no alternative for at Aldi. Add to that the seperate toddler food we often have to do as low fat meals which aren't dairy free just aren't suitable for him. Older DS eats the same meals as us however.

I'm happy to spend £110 a week. £100 main shop, £10 top up. So, any advice?

We meal plan, take a list and completely stick to list by the way.

30-40 sprays of fry light? I've never heard anyone use so much! We use about 8 sprays when making chicken fajitas as a comparison.

I think your portion sizes are too big and too many treats! You really don't need sweet potato with chicken and potato.

Good luck and well done on the weight loss so far

When you say £200 in the last two weeks, do you mean £200 per week or £200 in total?

The first is a lot, the second sounds to be OK, within your expectations?

You also mention lots of £5-10 daily spends by your DH. Obviously, that adds up and sounds like it is the problem . Is this causing financial difficulties? Can he stop this spend?

It's the type of amount that adds up to a huge yearly amount, that would pay for a holiday or other big treat, so it's infuriating, if one person spends such a large, off budget and avoidable amount on themselves. Does he have the type of job where he can take leftovers for his lunches? That can save loads.

Is he cheating and getting 'off plan' lunches? Does he still want to and/or need to do SW?

Agree your portion sizes look big too. You might need to start adjusting them down now you have lost weight. Are you stopping when you are just full, not stuffed? We'll done on the fantastic weight loss BTW.

You say I think mabye we just eat too much
If you are meal planning and ate all the food, then I think you just eat too much.

How about cooking more bean based dishes. You can get bags of them really cheap from asian grocers. Otherwise no suggestion really.

I don't think you're going wrong at all. All your food, if I read it right, is being made in the home. The things most people omit when they say they have cheap grocery bills are school lunches, takeaways, staff canteen purchases. If you are covering every single meal I don't think £100-ish is unreasonable in the slightest. You could try a few simpler dishes, I suppose.... soup, omelettes, porridge oats... but I wouldn't worry otherwise.

Congrats on your weight loss - four stone is amazing! I am guessing that with that degree of success it must be quite scary to think about deviating from the strict slimming world rules as you will be worried the weight will pile back on. However, the thing about slimming world long term in my own personal view is that it isn't a terribly healthy way to eat in the long term. Muller lights are full of chemicals and fry light has nasties in it, too. I think you'd do really well switching to real yoghurt with a spoonful of jam in it and olive oils sprayed from a bottle. And as for the junk treats, have you considered switching to dark chocolate? Aldi do a really delicious brand, Moser Roth, and you get your own little bar rather than squares so it feels like more of a treat. Absolutely delicious melted over a banana or strawberries!

I also notice you don't use quark which, if you are going to stick with slimming world, is a very good staple. It costs about 99p a tub and you can use it to make mac and cheese, lasagna topping, etc. Tastes nasty on its own but mixed with a bit of cheese and cooked it's not bad. You can also bulk out meals with red lentils. And yes, cut down the portions if you can. I know SW says you can eat as much as you want of certain things which is a big appeal of the plan, though.

I am trying hard to eat healthily. We are a similar sized family - 2 adults and 1 ten year old (and 2 rabbits!). Our shopping list this week -

strawberries
lemon
apples
bananas
red grapes
spinach
kale
cucumber
sugar snap peas
cherry tomatoes
green beans
broccoli & asparagus steam pack
carrot batons
sweet potatoes
parsley
stir fry veg
eggs x 12
almond butter
pitta bread
bread
salmon
cooked chicken breast
chicken drumsticks
greek yogurt
milk
microchips
popcorn
dark chocolate
kitchen roll
rabbit food

We already had quinoa which I batch cooked for meals, cheese, butter, fry light, almond & peanut butter, couple of other things. I get Method liquid detergent from Amazon and we bought a 24pk of toilet roll a couple of weeks ago.

Our shop came to £63. Also included some allergy tablets, toothbrushes and toothpaste for holiday next month, and a couple of treats for DH & DS. We'll need to top up fruit later in the week but meal plan is

Mon - b/fast Greek yogurt, strawberries, apple and almond butter, lunch salad, dinner chicken drumstick with asparagus/broccoli & quinoa
Tues - b/fast eggs & toast, lunch chicken salad, dinner salmon green beans & quinoa
Wed - b/fast Greek yogurt, strawberries, apple & almond butter, lunch beans & toast with carrots, cucumber & tomatoes, dinner stir fry veg & quinoa
Thurs - b/fast eggs & toast, lunch chicken salad, dinner sweet potato with cheese, cherry tomatoes and spinach

We've also got a stock of freezer stuff so didn't need to buy too much, DH is not quite so committed to healthy eating and often dips into freezer. He also works shifts so he will have takeaway one night at work, will take beans snap pot & bread another night and sweet potato to microwave & cheese another night. 3 of the nights he's at work so just me & DS to feed.

Portion size has been my massive problem. That and snacking - not just eating extra portions of toast and cereal for example...

But eating healthily is much more expensive than eating crap.

I'd say your eating the right stuff, just too much.
On that roast dinner, have you got parsnips, mashed potato, roast potato, and some swede/sweet potato?? Take half of them off!
Ditto with the chicken and wedges - take half the carbs off (and I'm a dedicated carb fan!).
3 eggs per meal seems quite a lot - I have 2. Kids have 1.5 if scrambled, just one if boiled (5 and 3 yrs).

Could you have some veggie meals to reduce the chicken bill?

I don't know exactly what we spend atm, but we had a massive incentive to spend £110/week at tesco for 4 consecutive weeks. It was a challenge, but well worth the £60 cash back! So, I imagine we spend under 100 on average. 2 adults, 5yr old, 3 yr old, cat. All cleaning and toiletries. DH gets lunch a work. kids gets lunch at school/nursery. That will make a difference.

So:
Breakfast: Me and kids slice of toast or me toast, kids bowl of cereal and half a slice of toast. DH toast with fried mushrooms or an egg. Weekend. Chocolate croissants.
Lunch (only me): sandwich or salad to work. 2 bits of fruit, homemade cake / biscuits. Weekends for all of us, similar, or noodles with veg and chicken / pork, or fry up.
Dinner: spag bol (500g mince does us all twice), fajitas (6 between us), egg fried rice, roast on a sun, chicken drumsticks / thighs with potato wedges, spaghetti carbonara, pasta with prawns in tomato sauce, steamed fish.
Yoghurt, homemade cake / biscuits, jelly for puddings.
Kids snacks: cheese and grapes, fruit, yoghurt.

Not sure if that will help or not!

I actually think the issue is because you are doing Slimming World. Their portion size are massive, so they are expensive.

It is actually the reason that would put me off doing it. Yes I need to lose weight (well actually I need to eat more) but there is no way I could eat that much food.

A jacket potato (a good size one) with filling and salad should be enough you shouldn't need to add more chicken to it. You would be better to replace the chicken with tuna in the potato.

But I do agree with your dp spending more when buying lunch. My DH used to do this because it was 'only £5'. It was only when I pointed that it may only be £5 per day but that £25 per week so £100 per month. So about £1000 per year it was only when he saw it as an overall amount rather then the 'the only £5 per day'.

Waves at det

I think you really have to reduce how much meat and potatoes you eat. We have meat twice a week only, the rest of the week we eat veggie. Lots of casseroles involving tinned beans, also pasta and rice based dishes using chopped tomatoes/passata and all kind of frozen and fresh veggies. I also make pasta sauces using tinned tuna, one can is enough for 4 people (just add coergette, pepper, celery, sweetcorn, peas). Also we eat lentils a lot as well as split peas. I also use less cheese, instead of 35g I just add 20. My food bill is also high as I have no car and rely on tesco delivery (and we are abroad and food is very expensive here compare to uk). I'm intruiged of your fry light usage, I have had the same bottle for over 4 months now, I only use a couple of puffs.

I have a slimming world plate which shows the correct portion and it is tiny. It's the same size as the ikea toddler plate. But you get used to it after a while.

The think i've noticed when you describe your meals is that its always 'and and and'

if you have ever watched masterchef or great british menu or anything like that there is always a cook thats described as putting one too many ingredients on the plate.

Most people would have soup and toast as a meal. Not soup and toast AND 3 boiled eggs AND veg sticks with Salsa AND a yoghurt and then your syns as well.

That was the point I was making about the Jacket, chicken and salad before and the potato based pie with another potato dish on the side. You are eating 2 - 3 meals worth of food at a time instead of one.

If we have a stew the potato or dumplings in the stew would be the carbs for the meal, we wouldn't have an extra side of roast or boiled potatoes or chips along with it. Do you think you would?

Yes, when I said way back at the start about the things you were buying being fairly standard but just a lot of them, that's what I meant too.

I hesitated to say so though because I didn't really know how to without sounding like I'm criticising. But for example, as others have said, if we had something with potatoes in it, we wouldn't then have a side dish too. Or the side would be green veg or some salad.

Detective - do you have a market near you? I try and get all our fruit and veg from the market and it is incredibly cheap - eg 10 red peppers for £1, 4 lbs onions for £1, 7 aubergines for £1. Wastage is minimal - I go to the same stalls every week and they always chuck out anything that's going a bit off and give me something that's fresh.

Can you batch cook and freeze? This might be more appealable giving your irregular working hours and it often works out cheaper with less waste.

I know my friends swapped chicken fillets for turkey, and saved quite a bit on that. We're big chicken eaters too, and I've thought about it.

I was very much bought up on the 'a meal isn't a meal without a potato' line of thought...but it really isn't true. We used to eat a lot of potatoes as accompaniments to a meal but have cut that down a lot. I'd probably have half the potato wedges you put on your peri peri chicken, like wise on your Sunday dinner, so I do think your portion sizes might be slightly too large.

Nothing to add sorry, but your meals look delish on those pics

Just chipping in as no-one has mentioned it, invest in a really decent non stick frying pan. Expensive initially but will really cut down your fry light usage which does seem a lot per week. Sorry if this seems a daft suggestion but HTH.

Gradually reduce your eating of eggs - you are getting through 45 eggs a week. Try buying one box less per week and get the amount down first.

One boiled/poached/scrambled egg and toast is what I would have for a breakfast or brunch or serve a toddler. I make scrambled eggs - 1 egg per person is more than enough. With milk and butter added, the eggs definitely go further than boiled ones albeit more calorific. But....only one egg as opposed to 3!

We only have cereal, porridge or toast for breakfast on weekdays and only have the time luxury of eggs at the weekend. Try muesli - that's really filling and the aldi luxury version beats Dorset cereals according to dh.

If I read your earlier post correctly, you have 6 eggs per day quite regularly. You need to substitute celery and carrot sticks for snacks instead of eggs I think.

Instead of 3 tins of tomatoes, use 1 tin plus 1 box of passata. Bulk the bolognaise sauce out a little with finely chopped carrot, celery and onion and 1 pint of stock and reduce down for an hour with mixed herbs and a bay leaf. I would suggest that this wold be sufficient for 2 family meals. Add salad but no potatoes - you are having pasta after all.

I agree with others, it's not what you buy but the volume that you seem to get through per week which translates to daily portion size. Potatoes and eggs dependency could reduced - just see how you get on next week by buying one box/bag less.

Re the oat milk... I have to buy it for Dd(4) and I have found it at waitrose for £1.25 less another 10% with a waitrose reward card. Also as it has a long shelf life when tesco occasionally do a 2 for £2 on it I buy it in bulk!!

There is also a new brand of oatmilk now in waitrose on special at £1 each....

Firstly, huge congratulations on your weight loss!

I have had a look and you are right, it isn't what you are buying it is how much of each thing.

What is it that you actually throw away? We could try to help you with that part of it.

I shop at costco so lots of stuff is in bulk, ie chicken is a pack of 13 fillets which we portion and freeze. Peppers is a 6 pack, 2 red, 2 yellow and 2 orange. After I have just bought them they are used fresh (we meal plan) and then I chop the rest up with red onions, garlic and courgettes and roast it in the oven. I then portion it and freeze it.

I did slimming world and did their normal eat everything (meat, fish, chicken) just remove the fat type plan. If you lost weight on that then your portion size was considered to be under control. If you didn't then you went on original or green (?) to control the portion size.

I honestly think with you that "free food" has allowed you to lose weight but now you have to remember that even free food has a calorific value. The woman at our SW group lost over 5 stone and she had to make adjustments at the end. What worked in the beginning wasn't working at the end as well. What does your consultant say?

How many syns are you on a day? Has this changed at all since you started?

Men tend to lose it easier than women in SW, I have seen wives seeth when their DH drops a stone in the first week when they have both eaten the same food

another thought is you could replace potatoes for rice if you need carbs
it would be cheaper calculating portion cost

I think you just need to adjust your expectations a little. If you are on a budget you can't eat fresh veg and chicken breasts all the time, however much you like them. It's far more economical to buy frozen veg you can keep for longer and use in smaller amounts in recipes if needed from somewhere like farmfoods or aldi. Same with chicken - either buy frozen fillets in bulk or switch to thighs or drumsticks. Or go veggie for the meal instead.

Also use lentils to bulk things out. For example in shepherd's pie and spag bol I use half mince half lentils and also add lots of veg. I might also make a paella with risotto rice and chorizo and use only one small pack of chicken mini fillets at about £2 for 4 of us and the chorizo I buy from the deli counter for just a tiny amount mainly for flavour. I'd then freeze half a batch for another day.

I rarely eat salad as I just can't justify the cost for lunch really. I eat things like apples and tinned fruit instead. I wouldn't dream of eating 3 eggs! 2 is fine at most.

The oil thing is crazy. Invest in some ceramic pans and you won't have to use hardly any oil at all. Then just get a teaspoon and fill it half way up and use that to drop a tiny bit of normal oil in.

We eat reasonably healthily but not as well as we could do on a larger budget. I have to balance out eating well with enjoying eating..For us we want to have treats too so I tend to spread the budget accordingly. We make a lot of cakes and eat a lot of rice puddings (cheap and easy to make) and also use a lot of birds custard powder for easy cheap desert.

I think the slimming world stuff is making it harder for you unfortunately. As is your dp spending £5 here and there on lunches!

You are eating a lot! Think you should be aiming to cut down your portion sizes - buy less, cook less, eat less.

I also wonder if SW is overcomplicating things for you. You're obliged to follow their recipes, which involve expensive ingredients like Fry Light (nasty synthetic stuff, just put normal olive oil in a spray bottle) and probably also include side dishes like potato wedges that you might not even miss if you didn't have them. These plans put so much focus on what you can/can't have that people get obsessed with having everything that's permitted, living from one "sin" to the next without thinking about what they really want and need to eat. You don't actually ever need to eat cadburys caramel, jaffa cakes, kitkats, sugary yoghurts, space raiders etc etc at all. All that stuff is expensive and unhealthy. It's cheaper and healthier to reeducate yourself to enjoy simple, natural, unprocessed food and to eat smaller portions.

Another thought - IIRC you are meant to have a third (?) of your plate filled with superfree food on SW. Potatoes, root vegetables, rice don't count as superfree. Is this something you are meticulously doing? I know that DH (who used to do SW) found having to have so much veg meant he naturally got fuller and wanted to reduce his portions.

I bought some measuring spoons, so I measure for example a tablespoon rather then guessing.

I'd say ditch slimming world and eat more sensibly and seasonally.

never eat low-fat food - means high sugar. Just eat less fatty food.
fruit is expensive out of season. Don't buy crap that has come round the planet on an aeroplane. Buy what is available - Aldi are good for that. Take the veg that are on offer.

why are you buying crisps (fat and air) and then paying for diet advice?

I would say that your toddler eats what you do but then I see that he has allergies. Otherwise there's no need for special child food, they are people.

yogurt is often solid sugar and is a treat, not an everyday food. Have muesli or porridge for breakfast to fill you up. The Aldi muesli is indeed excellent and not too sweet.

no food is a 'sin' - that's an AWFUL concept. Hate it.

I'm slightly surprised by the comments about you eating too much! That wasn't really what you were asking and I don't understand how you can compare what's enough or too much. You eat whatever you're comfortable with. Your issue if you get fat etc!

I suppose the only thing thing which is relevant in terms if quantity is whether your food choices are too expensive. Eating more carbs will probably cut your food bill, and big sacks of rice is cheaper than potato

I'm not a particular fan of meal planning. I operate by having a freezer full of meat, bread and other freezabke stuff and I take out what I want for that night, fitting what I have in the fridge/cupboard around it. That way you rarely buy special ingredients.

I also find bulk buying works out a lot cheaper, if you have space. So at the right time of year I buy a whole lamb/pig etc. I go to asda every 6 weeks and buy 10 boxes of cereal or huge sacks of muesli which I decant into smaller containers. Pet food comes from special discounted pet food shops which I pick up every couple of months.

Doing things this way does seem to result in less time in the shops, than a weekly shop does. And if I'm having a cheap month I can usually get by on a few hundred pounds.

I don't know whether it's helpful, it's just an alternative to weekly shops which are time consuming and expensive. The less you go to the shops, the less you spend!