NOW CLOSED: Tell Sainsbury's your top tips for cooking on a budget - you could win £200 of Sainsbury's vouchers

[AnnMumsnet]

Mumsnet have been asked by Sainsbury's to find out your top tips on cooking for your family on a budget. They have put together a basics range to help families who are looking to cut back on costs without compromising on quality and taste.

Sainsbury's want to know what are your tips for cooking good food for your family and watching the pennies.

Please post your tips below. Everyone who posts a tip on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one lucky winner will receive £200 of Sainsbury's vouchers.

Many thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

Eat Veggie. Carrots and onions are always cheap so use them as much as you can without boring yourself to death.

Buy basics and if any family members are precious about this don't tell them and they won't notice.

Do packed lunches at the weekend as well as in the week. Keep a stock of basic flour, butter, sultanas, oats and make your own cakes and biscuits rather than buying them.

Some of the most popular meals in our house are all about leftovers: bubble and squeak, bread and butter pudding etc.

Plan whole week's meals, get your hands on wartime cookery books, buy in bulk especially from Asian stores, get acquanited with Indian and Middle Eastern food - cheaper. Meat and 2 veg meals are expensive. Bulk out foods with oats, lentils, rice, bulgur wheat etc. Minced meats are great value. Tinned sardines are cheap, cheap, cheap and versatile. Grow your own herbs and veg where possible and finally, try not to waste anything - bananas that have gone black make wonderful banana cake or bread. And reuse teabags - I do!

Add lentils into your spaghetti bolognese aswell as half a cup of extra water then cook the bolognese as usual by the time its done fussy eaters won't be able to see the lentils and you won't be able to taste them but it adds to the protein content and you can get away with less meat.

Bulk cook and freeze in portions that way instead of buying a take away or ready meal you can just grab some good home cooked food straight from your freezer.

Shop later in the day so you can get hold of reduced for quick sale food which will be going out of date that night. You can freeze most of this for a later date and can get a 75% saving on the normal cost.

its simple and obvious, but it is something that i have recently discovered that really helps with portions.

buy bigger packs of food - say mince, especially with meat, this works out cheaper. then before freezing, divide into smaller portions according to the meal you are planning to make.

this is especially good when you are on a different eating plan from the rest of your family, or you and your dh eat something that your kids won't touch.

ALSO - it saves a huge amount of room in the freezer if you take out of original packaging and decant into ziplock bags

that wasn't clear at all, i mean divide your portions and put into a ziplock bag

I tend to go to the market, but my seasonal veg, then look up meals around those ingredients and get the bits I need from a supermarket. Eg, I got a lovely deal on cabbages 2 for a pound, then went out and got some nice pine nuts and made a fab winter coleslaw. I always meal plan and my other tip - use lots of beans, lentils and chickpeas! Can slash a weekly shop in half by buying dried beans and going veggie!

Urm, quite a few things.

Firstly we shop online. Although you pay for delivery it stops us picking up 'extras' in the supermarket that we don't really need and means we are more in control of the budget.

Check prices carefully. I often find that some weeks it's cheaper to buy one big pack of something and another it's cheaper to buy two smaller packs.

Also bulk out meals so meat goes further. e.g. When I make spag bol or chilli, I add in loads of veg. I also add things like chickpeas.

Use stuff up before it goes off. With veg you can make soup or sometimes (esp if I haven't enough to make soup) I chop it & chuck it in the slow cooker with a tin of chopped tomatoes. Then you can either use it or freeze it.

If I'm making bolognese I save some of the sauce in small portions and freeze so we have a pasta sauce for the kids (if say, we're eating something they don't like).

Try own brand stuff. It's usually cheap enough to try one and it might save you lots in the long run.

Buy seasonal fruit and veg only when in season as this is (usually) when they are cheapest. Eg don't buy strawberries in March, as will be more expensive compared to June/July.

Look to back of shelves/chilled cabinets for food with longer sell-by dates. Nothing worse than getting a 6 pack of yoghurt for packed lunches the following week, only to find they all have tomorrow's sell-by date.

Once you have paid for your shopping, check your receipt before leaving the store, so that any errors can be rectified promptly. Eg make sure that BOGOF and any other special others have been honoured (though I have found this is a bigger problem in Tesco, I am forever queueing at customer services in Tesco as a special offer hasn't been recognised at the till, this does not often happen in Sainsbury's, am pleased to say!)

Set yourself a weekly budget - and STICK TO IT. I see this as a bit of a challenge but it means that when I pop in for milk towards the end of the week I don't buy £30 of other things (as someone else mentioned down the thread and something I am otherwise guilty of) as it would mean losing that week's challenge.

Don't let your dh shop. On Sunday he spent £20 on dried fruit and nuts. Yesterday when I asked him to pop in for two carrots and a sweet potato he also bought £10 of wine.....

There are some great ideas on this thread - must have a proper read and write some of them down! I particularly like the one about preparing veg straight away so it doesn't go mouldy in the fridge.

Buy seasonal fruit and veg, be vegetarian, bulk out with lentils, grow your own herbs. Check out local Indian or Chinese super markets for cheaper specialist food. I get stuff like coconut milk for half the supermarket price.

For any Sainsbos bigwigs reading: I am peeved you switched the three tins of beans for 99p deal to five tins for £2. Although if I followed my own advice I would buy the beans dried and soak them I guess.

I cook in bulk a lot, ie: double the amount of chilli/spag bol/stew - eat one lot and freeze the other, saves time for another evening. Bulk them out with an extra tin of tomatoes/lentils/own brand beans.
Buy BOGOFs - only if you buy those products normally, and freeze them.
Buy discounted veg, blanche them and pop them in the freezer.
Meal plan of course!
Always have a shopping list on the go,for when items run out ie: toiletries/household items. Then STICK to the list!

Rigid adherence to the shopping list. DH is much better at it than me and if it isn't on the list it doesn't go in the trolley. I'm much more of an impulsive shopper, and see the list as a starting point!

Also, don't go shopping when you're hungry!

Meal planning, bulking things out, having a few veggie meals in the week to minimise the amount of meat we buy and using herbs and spices to brighten up an otherwise dull meal all help things go further.

We also buy some of the basics ranges; DH works in the food industry and does lots of product testing (of all the majors), so has a good idea of what's good and what isn't in the cheaper ranges.

His job also involves a fair amount of freebies, which helps

Buy a CD writer pen and write on the front of packets what the use by date is - especially for long term stuff like rice - then you are more likely to spot it in the cupboard and think 'ah must eat that'.

Meal planning, special offers can be incorperated into meal plan.
Don't take kids shopping with you, they just want stuff that you can't afford.
Never go shopping whilst hungry, you buy more than you need.
Defrost your freezer regularly and use up all oddments.

meal planning - so food is not wasted

dont go shopping hungry or with tired DCs - you will be tempted to spend more

purchase cheaper cleaning products (toilet roll/kitchen roll etc) they are just as good

grow your own herbs - these can be quite expensive to buy but very easy to grow your own

check prices as you shop - often 2 for £2 might only save you 10p, is it worth it?

Look at the price per kg on the shelf, or the price per unit ( eg dishwasher tablets) to work out which is the cheapest - sometimes two smaller packets are cheaper than one big one ( eg 80p for 500g of rice or 1.99 for 1kg.

Baby food is expensive compared to baby led weaning.

Buy big pots of yoghurt, not the individual ones, as small children often need smaller amounts. And try to steer away from the yoghurts specifically targeted at babies/ toddlers- often way the most expensive. Buy plain yoghurt in bulk and stir fruit in as necessary.

Never buy individual packets of raisins, cheese, biscuits etc.- just decant from a larger packet.

Have 2 fruit bowls, the normal one for snacking and another for fruit which is getting a bit old and in danger of over-ripening the rest. I use this fruit for puddings/crumbles/pies/cakes, etc. It saves on fruit being thrown away, just because it's gone past how my family like it.

Collect a few recipes/idea for using up a roast (e.g. with leftover beef, I'll usually do a stir-fry or pie, depending on the cut).

Freeze leftover casserole/cottage pie/curry etc. in single portions for when you're late home and just need something heated up with bread for dipping.

make baby spaghetti by placing some normal spaghetti in a bag and breaking into tiny pieces.

Meal plan and write list of absolutely everything you need for the week.

Set a budget for your weekly shop and take cash out of the bank - leave your cards at home.

It really helps to focus your mind and keep costs down.

• we buy larger packs of fresh meat, especially when they are short-dated. We used to just freeze them but now we always separate them first - that way we know they don't all get used up at once!

We bulk out stews etc with tinned pulses and grated carrot.

Some people look down on it but I think frozen veggies are great. Apparently they are more nutritious than fresh as the vitamins are 'locked in'.

Bread is kept in the freezer to make sure it doesn't go off.

Shop online as you are less tempted by impulse buys.

I've just bought a slow cooker, as we are planning to do stews and freeze half.

Buy enormous bags of rice/pasta as they end up cheaper.

There's a load of things we do to save money on the food budget.

Menu plan for a couple of weeks and space out when we need to buy storecupbard ingredients like herbs and spices so they're not all on the list at once.

Write out a shopping list based on the menu. Buy staples like pasta and rice in the larger packs and when we go shopping buy nothing that isn't on the list.

Make stews and casseroles that we can use cheaper cuts of meat in - things like beef bourgignon, beef in beer with capers and anchovies are both favouites here. Stew pack veg - it doens't need to be pretty! We also use chicken thighs instead of breast for tastier - and less dry - slow cooked chicken dishes. Make double and freeze.

We bought an extra freezer so we can store bread when its on offer and buy in any other food offers, like meat. This cuts down the food bill on other weeks. We always have a couple of different veg with every meal and have a draw of frozen veg to add into dishes or have separately.

If we plan properly, it means we get away with just buying the fresh things.

I plan most of the meals shepherds pie and stews (with pearl barley) are cheap and filling but look for offers Sainsburys have loads of fab half price offers at the moment.
Bake biscuits and buns/cakes instead of buying them.
I often have a small budget to feed 5 and a dog, and I do the shopping on the bus with tthe pram and have to do at least two trips.

Agree with most of the stuff here.
One thing we do that I don't think has been mentioned is keep a list of what is in the freezer - use blank sheet of paper in plastic sleeve and a whiteboard marker. Write down what is in there, wipe it off when you use it. Keep list near the freezer and use it when menu-planning.

Soup, soup, soup! Use up all your veg that wont last much longer.

If you have the space, buy loads when things are on offer, eg. pasta sauces, but not chocolate cos you will eat it.

Go shopping after you have eaten then you wont buy more because you are hungry.