Cutting Your Food Bill

At the moment our grocery bill is minimal Thanks to the alottment and greenhouse supplying all our veg and salad stuff

If you go on to the Old Style forum and look for the sticky with the current month's Grocery Challenge, you will find loads of meal ideas and recipes in the first few posts.

I am very lucky to live close to a supermarket that reduces stuff by 80% early evening but it's very tempting to buy stuff I don't need just because it's cheap.

This year was my first year ever of growing vegetables. I'm rubbish at growing things from seed so bought everything as plantlets from the garden centre or scouts summer fair but it has definitely saved me some money and I've enjoyed it too.

I find being a bit creative with the presentation enables me to get away with serving something snacky as a proper meal, I batch cooked chilli earlier in the month and froze it in portions small enough to use to top nachos and cheese. I've been known to serve up YS sandwiches with a bowl of chips on the side and call it dinner

I pad out things like spag bol with grated carrot (an equal amount to the mince)

a stick of value garlic bread stretches pizza a lot further and just looks like you've made more effort

For all the odd bits and pieces and part packs that end up in the freezer, serve them all on separate plates and call it a buffet.

Leaving shopping till nearer closing time in the supermarkets can see a lot of reduced items up for sale that are nearing there best before dates, if you buy a few of these ingredients that can be used to make large batches of food that can be cooked and then frozen they go a long way for making cheap meals. A pound of mince, 2 onions, large tin of kid beans, large tin of plum toms and half a tube of tomato paste and a cup of rice each time = 3 chilli dinners for under £6, this could be augmented with a crusty loaf and could feed 2 adults and 3 children in one sitting.

If you are lucky enough to live near a food producer with a factory shop look there for some real bargains compared to normal shop prices.

Meal planning and always shopping to a list are my two top tips. I'd also add to that try to just shop once a week to avoid the temptation of extra supermarket trips leading to added impulse buys.

Alsi & Lidl are great as everyone knows, and to take that even further you can keep an eye on their Pick of the Week/Super 6 fruit and veg offers each week and then use those as the basis of meals - so cheap butternut squash might mean risotto one day and curry another. Cheap mushrooms = Pasta & omelettes. When they have garlic cheap I buy a couple of bags of it and roast the whole heads in the oven when I have something else in there. Squeeze out the cloves once they are sort and freeze individually on a tray and you have a ready supply of delicious roast garlic in the freezer ready for use - cheaper than buying the squeezy tubes of garlic or buying a whole head of garlic for a single recipe.

Agree on the coleslaw - I made a batch last night using a Lidl POTW beetroot, a couple of carrots that were languishing in the fridge, quarter of a red cabbage and a small red onion. Bit of mayo and a dollop of value low fat yogurt. Yum. Reckon the whole bowl full probably cost 60p tops - and it's a lot nicer than the supermarket value tubs of the stuff. There's at least 6 portions there too I'd say - probably more like 8.

Ignore the mild cheddar cheese in favour of buying something with a bit more punch - you need less of it then so it's better for waistline AND pocket!

Better to buy ingredients for things like pizza bases too - you get a far nicer result, you know exactly what's gone in, and you don't pay the premium for someone else mixing them up or making the bases for you! Also means that everyone can choose their own thickness and any extras like herbs etc they fancy in it.

Above all, really think about what you need to buy - don't just use a standard list and buy those things regardless - that also enables you to shop seasonally as well, which can make a big difference to your food bills. Farm shops and market stalls are particularly good on that side of things.