Need help newbie os...

carlih1 · 15 April 2006 at 4:48PM

Hi

I have been v good today and written my soa on the dfw board. A lot of people have suggested cutting my shopping down but my brain just can't get to grips with it. At the moment i shop for myself my dd who is 6 and my ds 2, myself and ds eat the most ds hardly eats anything!!!!

I spend about £300 a month on food shopping always drawn to the 'other aisles, e.g. homewares toys, etc.

I would love to do a meal planeer but am just not very good at these sorts of things. Especially when it comes to writing out what i need for my shop. i just go in and grab stuff, then go back for more when i have forgotten something. Hence the high shopping bill always getting things i don't need.

Would anyone be prepare to tutor me through this as you all seem to be so brilliant at it.

Carli xx

comping_cat · 15 April 2006 at 4:56PM

I would start by saving all your till receipts, then you will see exactly what you are spending each month. You will also see what you are buying that you dont need/dont use!!!! Once you have done that, hopefully, you will be able to stop buying the things you arnt using. You will also see what you are using, and then start writting a meal planner, to help encourage you to only buy what you need!!! There are lots of lovely recipes on the indexed thread (on the blue bar) to help with your meal planning as well.
I would also look at maybe shopping on line instead of going in yourself, if one of your problems is the toy aisle!!!!

elona · 15 April 2006 at 5:00PM

For a meal planner just decode what you and your family will eat and then shop accordingly.

If you try the search facility Penny Pincher posted her meal plan on old style a while ago and black saturn also came up with some good ideas.

Rough example

Breakfast

Cereal or egg and toast or porridge

Lunch

Beans on toast or cheese on toast

or jacket potato or home made soup and bread roll

Tea

Home made spaghetti bolognese

or lasagne or shepherds pie
or egg and chips

or sausage and mash

basically work out what you will all eat and plan from there.

There is also a thread that reckons you can clean almost anything with Stardrops cleaner and microfibre cloth and hot water.

bulchy · 15 April 2006 at 5:12PM

To avoid the kids getting bored with your menu, sit them down and ask them for suggestions, might help you with the daughter that is a fussy eater.
Also, go through your cupboards and freezer, see what you can use up before you do your shopping, its amazing what you find lurking in the freezer, and its good fun seeing what you can throw together. I always find having the cash in my purse to pay for the shopping is better than using my debit card, if I'm using my card, its easier to throw things into the trolley, but if I have a cash limit, I dont go over it. I hate parting with cash :rotfl:
Sue

angchris · 15 April 2006 at 6:00PM

i literally had to ban myself from buying rubbish expensive ready meals and convienience foods as i was at work during the day i`d get home and "couldnt be bothered" to cook hence how my shopping bill was so high, this ban has been in place for about 2 months now and if i want to eat i have to cook! i have never eaten such a healthy and varied diet as i have this month ranging from homemade soups to stews to homemade puddings, i have discovered that i actually like cooking and eating the end product is the best feeling especially when other half or my son asks "is there any more?" a few basic ingredients from your storecupboard can make several different dishes its just a case of being inventive, i rarely buy anything other than mince unless its reduced down cheap in the meat dept every month i buy a extra large chicken and if im lucky i can make that stretch 4/5 meals, we eat alot of pasta and rice dishes now which are delishhhhh and i scour my local sainsburys for dirt cheap prices at about 7ish and freeze as much as i can,and i make my own washing powder, anyway the moral of this story is you can do it! my shopping bill rarely above the £80 a month mark now for 3 adults which if i do say so myself isnt bad, this then frees up the extra £200 odd i was spending to go towards debts etc :j

carlih1 · 15 April 2006 at 8:21PM

Hi

Thanks for the comments i will keep shopping reciepts and use up stuff in cuboard first, just not very good at forward planning so we'll see how it goes.

btw.... you make your own washing powder????

Carli x

sophistica · 15 April 2006 at 8:40PM

Hi Carli
Thanks for your kind words about my cat...here are some ideas to help you plan. I go along with Elona on this. I get out my cookery books and make a meal plan (for 2-3 weeks) based in general on what I have in the fridge, freezer and cupboard and what I feel like eating. As I live alone many of my meals do for more than one day.

example

Monday
Breakfast - Banana waffles, yogurt, fruit
Lunch - Smoked salmon and cream cheese pitta with geherkins
Dinner - German sausage with homemade potato salad

Tuesday
Breakfast - Muesli and strawberries
Lunch - Home made mushroom soup, pate and toast
Dinner - Fish, tomato salsa and mushy peas

Then as I am working through, I write on the right side anything that I need to buy to make the meal.

If it all looks too expensive, I change the recipe, or plan something else. I then get out my calculator and approximately add up the cost of all my food for each week and anything else I need like toilet paper or cat food and enter the amount against each week.

I then shop for all the dry things and the perishables in the first week and then just buy the remaining persishable things on the list for the remaining weeks. As I shop, I note any price differences as I am going along (compared with my approximations).

My food bill for the whole month has been just £30 (as I am using up things which I already have). If you haven't got a freezer see if you can get one as you can save loads. Another tip which I got off this site is to freeze any vegetables (in fact anything) which is hanging about in the fridge which you are unlikely to use as that can be used the next time you do your plan (instead of throwing it away). And thanks again for being so reassurring about my cat.

angchris · 15 April 2006 at 8:59PM

washing powder is ever so easy to make it takes about 10 minutes tops, get an empty container and throw in
1 mug of washing soda crystals (53p @ tescos)
1 mug of any old grated soap
1 mug of borax (£2.19 in boots)

mix it all up together and i use 1 tablespoon per wash 2 if mega dirty, this mix lasts me months and months and is soooo cheap you dont even need conditioner as the washing soda crystals are a water softener so all my clothes come off my airer nice and soft, give it a go you have nothing to lose, with 2 adults and 1 veryyy dirty minger of a teenage boy who is forever skidding around football fields sideways this has saved us a fortune

:j

jcr16 · 15 April 2006 at 10:50PM

would it help if once u have planned your shopping list , u shoped online. ok so delivery is about £4-£5 but if it save u money u would waste in the other homewares and toys aisle then it might be a wise investment.

i could get very carried away in tesco's homewares aisle. i just have to now aviod them , or tell myself i can spare £2 and that is it. i don't need anything from their i just like buying it. doh ! i go around with my calculator , so when i have reached my weekly limit , then i head to checkout.

oops_a_daisy · 15 April 2006 at 11:21PM

Hi Carlih - I started just over a month ago. This is for 1 adult and 1 teenager and I spent £360.00 in January :eek: last month I spent £140.00 and this month will be about £100.00. Firstly I went through my cupboards and freezer and planned as many meals as I could with what I already had in and then made a shopping list of the other items that I would need to make up meals for the rest of the week.
Some of the meals we have are spaghetti bolognaise with garlic bread, lasagne with veg , chicken dinner with veg, leftover chicken curry with rice, corned beef hash n dumplings with veg, mince with veg and yorkshire puddings, chilli con carni with rice. Some of the puddings we have are jelly, black saturns fruit cobbler, biscuits, fruit crumble and custard, custard and banana, jam steemed pudding with custard, HM rice pudding with jam.
My daughter has school lunches so I have HM soup with HM bread, Tuna sandwiches, cheese and pickle on ryvita or anything else that I have in that will go on bread or ryvita. I make 2 batches of soup per week, some of them are golden veg, lentil, carrot and tomatoe, 5 bean soup, carrot soup, leek and potatoe.
Breakfast for me is porridge with honey and my daughters is ricicles ( couldnt possible get her to give up her ricicles :rolleyes: )
We have bananas, apples and grapes for snacks too as well as crisps for my daughter ( ok and the odd pack for me ) I even get a cheap bar of chocolate per week and some cheap sweets. We drink dilute juice and tea.
The difference is that I home cook everything now - we actually eat better for a third of what I was spending. I also use money off coupons wherever possible and get bogof's for things that I need. I go to the shop with a list and do not deviate from it at all - and I only go to the shop once a week. I used to go every day and always threw out loads of uneaten food every week. Also use a calculator untill you get a few receipts to work out what you are spending.
Hope this helps give you some ideas

carlih1 · 16 April 2006 at 8:40AM

jcr16 wrote:

would it help if once u have planned your shopping list , u shoped online. ok so delivery is about £4-£5 but if it save u money u would waste in the other homewares and toys aisle then it might be a wise investment.

i could get very carried away in tesco's homewares aisle. i just have to now aviod them , or tell myself i can spare £2 and that is it. i don't need anything from their i just like buying it. doh ! i go around with my calculator , so when i have reached my weekly limit , then i head to checkout.

Hi

I would shop online but unfortunately Halifax decided to 'update' my solo card with a visa electron which mean i cannot use it for home shopping, only ocado? who are think are expensive as it is waitrose!

Incidentally i cannot pay my rent or council tax with this new card anymore either and that incurs a trip to the local shops which i very rarely go to. Sorry going off track here but am wuite angry about this.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who posted, i am trying, to do a meal planneer, i did roast yesterday as don't have both the kids today. And am planning what to have for tea tonight with what i have in the cupboards. Once i have done that and used all the stuff i will look at what i have been cooking and make a list, am finding it very hard to plan for over a week though. Maybe i should just do a weekly shop! It's trying to remember everything that i have gone back to the shops for in my shopping list.

Thanks again.

Carli xxx

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