Help cutting the budget

Gemmzie · 2 September 2006 at 5:29PM

Okay, we've tried and the lowest we can get the food budget to is £100 per week. This is for (basically) four adults.

The problem is, father and brother eat pretty much anything as long as it is meat.
Mother is on Weight Watchers, doesn't like ready meals but eats anything healthy.
I am allergic to cow's milk (which causes waaaaaaay more problems than you'd imagine), nuts and spicy food :rolleyes: and don't eat meat but am a huge lover of seafood.

Mum generally eats whatever I make for me - fish, tofu, quorn etc and we never buy ready meals for us but the boys eat them.
The £100 includes soap, toothpaste and shampoo but any other toliteries we buy ourselves.

Any tips?

Smashing · 2 September 2006 at 6:09PM

Where are you doing the main bulk of your shopping?

newleaf · 2 September 2006 at 6:19PM

And do you meal plan?

Littlemiss-lotsofdebt · 2 September 2006 at 7:07PM

This sounds pretty do-able, there are lots of good home cooked food that can be made in a low fat way and bulked out for those with big appetites:

Fish Pie
Baked Potatoes
Quorn Spag Bol/Chilli
Stirfries
Pasta with various toppings

Also, shop around at different places like Netto, Farmfoods and Lidl. I've heard Farm Foods are pretty reasonable for veggie products and ready meals.

Sarahsaver · 2 September 2006 at 8:30PM

£100 per week is loads, could you maybe post a shopping list? £100 would last me a month! :rolleyes:
Dont buy ANY readymade meals, not even a pizza, thats my no.1 tip, and second no biscuits/crisps/pop as they are empty calories and therefore a waste of money!

You will make huge savings, just stick around here;)

Kerryc82 · 2 September 2006 at 10:15PM

I tend to buy toiletries from places like Bodycare and Quality Save, they are soooo much cheaper then food stores for things like toothpaste, shampoo etc.

seraphina · 2 September 2006 at 10:27PM

Given the differences in the family's tastes, I would suggest a "house meeting" or something to find out a list of core meals that everyone is happy to eat. This will avoid the duplicate meals scenario where the meat-eaters turn their nose up at a quorn stew or whatever and then go off to cook seperate meals.

I think everyone has to accept that they can't have what they want every day. but if everyone compromises some of the time they can have something to eat that they like most of the time!

I second what the others said about cooking from scratch - do NOT buy anything ready made meal at all. I did weight watchers and it is much easier to cook your own once you get into the hang of counting points. Although I am vegetarian using low fat mince would be an option for sheperd's pie/lasagnes etc. Cut your mince half and half with textured soya protein or Quorn mince - you won't notice the taste difference but it should be much cheaper. As you're allergic to cow's milk it makes more sense to cook for yourselves anyway.

Fish pie is a great way of making a little fish go a long way, as are fish cakes etc.

rainbowrisin · 2 September 2006 at 10:44PM

Gosh - £100 is a lot!
What sort of meals do you normally have?
We tend to have toast and stewed fruit / porridge / bacon and tomatoes for breakfast, HM soup / sandwich and fruit / yoghurt for lunch, then something like spag bol, HM meat pie n veg, chicken casserole, pasta n sauce, bean casserole, roast dinner, cold meat with chips n salad followed by a fruit pudding of some sort.
I know there's only me and the littlies, but even buying good quality meat and veg (with some organic if we can), that only comes to about £30 pw, and i really don't skimp or cut back drastically - i suspect if i dispensed with the organic stuff it would work out at nearer £20 pw, but I like organic for the littlies.
It might be worth looking at your portion control as well - sometimes something simple like halving the amount of meat in a casserole and just adding more veggies can save money, without compromising the taste - from memory you only need 2-3 oz of meat / person for a meal, so if you're using 1lb mince for spag bol for the four of you, maybe use 8 oz and chuck in some carrots, or peppers or TVP to bulk it out - if you blend it first the carnivores will never know the difference.
I don't want to dictate what you eat, but i find if you buy "single" ingredient groceries then cook with them it works out a lot cheaper.
Lidl is very good IMHO as you can still get good quality stuff (like brand name washing powder, coffee etc) but it's much cheaper than tescos.
If you swop to the "basics" range for most things then that can save a fair bit - i buy a lot of "basics" for my tins and they seem okay.
Hope some of that helps.

jcr16 · 2 September 2006 at 10:46PM

i can see how ur spending so much with all different needes needing to be met. but i really think that with planning and a bit of time u should be able to get it down. even if u only manage getting it down a few pounds each week.

have u thought about maybe shopping for 2 weeks at a time. i find for me the less i go into a shop the better. unless i plan i can get trolley happy far to easy, and my shopping budget goes totally to pot.or online shopping. i'm sure with O/s mse behind u, u will be able to do it.

Gemmzie · 3 September 2006 at 7:45PM

Smashing wrote:

Where are you doing the main bulk of your shopping?

Tesco and Sainsburys as they are nearest.

Asda run, once a month if we can for seafood stock.

Gemmzie · 3 September 2006 at 7:46PM

newleaf wrote:

And do you meal plan?

Three meals a week for me and mum, not for the boys because they sometimes eat at lunchtime so they vary.

Rest of the time its a whats in the freezer that we can throw in the pan time

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