How frugal can you be with food shopping?

Sarahsaver

I average about £20 a week for me and 3 kids. Bread is half 'economy' stuff half homemade. No processed food except for treats occasionally, fruit and veg from market, own eggs from our hens, dont have meat every day. Write a weekly meal plan and stick to it, i don't mean the same each week either. Yesterday we had rice, stir fry veg and omelette, with homemade dutch pancakes for afters, today it's chicken curry, rice and hm naan bread, the chicken was £1.33 in somerfield and will be used to make stock from the bones. tomorrow its hm pizza, sausage and mash on thurs, and kippers and veg on friday. Kippers are SO cheap and good for you! Also I have proper ground coffee and the kids dont have fizzy pop except for parties.
The £20 includes toiletries and cleaning stuff, i usually make my own laundry gloop as a detergent.

starlite_2

Thats impressive sarahsaver!
what does the laundry gloop contain? I've tried searching for it but can't find it.
Not sure it would be any good for me as my skin doesn't like soap!

Bargain_Rzl

sooz wrote:

also think there is a weigh and save shop in eltham [s e london]. but the only time i was there was over 2 years ago...might have moved by now.

Cheers sooz, that's really handy for me! Whereabouts? On the high street or somewhere else? Might have to pop over at the weekend.

starlite wrote:

We always get taste the difference sausages from the reduced section in sainsburys..paying around £1 for 6 ,I do the same with new covent garden soups - only buy reduced and then freeze them.

Oooh those taste the difference pork sausages - I got a pack for 50p last week, chopped them up and fried them with onions, and served them with pasta for a quick meal. They're sooooo tasty!

And I totally agree about the ncg soups too, though I sometimes buy them on BOGOF rather than reduced. Tescos and Sainsburys both always seem to have at least some of the varieties on special offer. Having a large appetite I always need a whole carton for lunch, and frankly there's no point having a whole full price ncg soup for £1.80 or whatever when I could have had a dish of HM pasta for 30p!

starlite_2

The sausages are good!
both the sausages and the soup always seem to be reduced, and it's especially good if they are on a 'buy two for x' offer and also reduced as the till removes the full discount so you get them for pennies.

black-saturn

Sorry everyone for not replying sooner. I've been away this weekend with my boyfriend to Holland and got engaged :beer:

Anyway, a Weigh and Save is a huge shop full of barrels of dry ingredients which you can weigh out into bags. You cn buy as little or as much as you want but you don't pay for the packaging costs with it and all the other hidden costs there are. They sell all kinds of things such as flour, sugar, washing powder, soup mix, dried vegetables, biscuits, herbs and any other dry loose ingredient you can think of.

I'm surprised there are a lot that have closed down. I live in Lowestoft and there is one at the end of my road (lucky me) which is always busy. I hope that doesn't close down :eek:

Bargain_Rzl

black-saturn wrote:

Sorry everyone for not replying sooner. I've been away this weekend with my boyfriend to Holland and got engaged :beer:

:jCONGRATULATIONS BLACK-SATURN :j

sooz

Bargain_Rzl wrote:

Cheers sooz, that's really handy for me! Whereabouts? On the high street or somewhere else? Might have to pop over at the weekend.


Oooh those taste the difference pork sausages - I got a pack for 50p last week, chopped them up and fried them with onions, and served them with pasta for a quick meal. They're sooooo tasty!

And I totally agree about the ncg soups too, though I sometimes buy them on BOGOF rather than reduced. Tescos and Sainsburys both always seem to have at least some of the varieties on special offer. Having a large appetite I always need a whole carton for lunch, and frankly there's no point having a whole full price ncg soup for £1.80 or whatever when I could have had a dish of HM pasta for 30p!

can't remember exact address. but on high street there was big cross road with wetherspoons and mcdonalds on 2 of the corners. [pub says child friendly - least child friendly place in the world. the locals shouted as i came in ''ooh look darlin' it's not a f#####g nursery'']

anyway, other side of road to that, little further down the road was the world's worst shopping centre. it's half covered,half not, very small 60's concrete monstrosity and it's in there. sounds lovely doesn't it!!! was next to a health clinic for babies doing private jabs mmr without the junk etc. i chose not to use them, after seeing their fine establishment!


sorry to anyone who lives there, just had a bad experience there that particular day. i drove through london to get there...and came back most of the way round the m25 because it was faster...only an extra 80 miles!!

anyway, i love the ncg soups, but have you seen how much salt they put in them?????

and why does anyone buy ice. it's sooooooo easy to make. just add water. [ok i now have an ice machine in the fridge, so it does it for me.....]

starlite_2

Congraulations Black-saturn!
Was it a surprise?

I remember weigh and saves from when I was small, but thought they had all closed..I'll have to take a trip to Eltham and see if it's still there, though I have to agree..it's a pretty dire place!

We buy ice as we have a chest freezer so can't make it in trays...
I'm only getting through so much at the moment as it's another strange pregnancy craving...I have it in all sorts of drinks...even milk!heheheee

Bargain_Rzl

sooz wrote:

and why does anyone buy ice. it's sooooooo easy to make. just add water. [ok i now have an ice machine in the fridge, so it does it for me.....]

Only time I buy ice is if I'm away from home with no access to a fridge - e.g. if I'm having a picnic or something similar. Incidentally it's much better to get it from the nearest Tescos (about 80p a bag) than from an off licence (about £1.50)!

In the summer when I spend Saturday and Sunday afternoons on the steps of the Royal Albert Hall queueing for the Proms, we go and buy a bag of ice early in the afternoon to chill the communal supply of wine

PS I can picture now where you mean in Eltham, will have to go and see if the place exists.

squeaky

starlite wrote:

Thats impressive sarahsaver!
what does the laundry gloop contain? I've tried searching for it but can't find it.
Not sure it would be any good for me as my skin doesn't like soap!

It's in the Cleaning section of the MEGA Index - listed under Gloop