What would be a realistic food budget for us?

angchris

hiya :hello: first of all as others have said plan your weeks meals around what you already have in the cupboards/fridge etc then write yourself a shopping list for the bits you need extra to get you through the week, hopefully by doing it this way you should have an uber efficient store cupboard and fridge and next to no waste.
sit down with a cuppa and have a trawl around old style for cheap recipes lots of them are really easy and cheap and feature as regular meals in my house.
once at the supermarket check out the whoopsie section first and adjust your weeks menu accordingly if you find a bargain
well done for ditching m+s thats a great start :T theres plenty of delish food out there without having to pay through the nose for it.
nappies are obviously a big expense for you at the mo, had you thought of washables? i know you said you havent got alot of time for faffing about but you could easily buy a couple of packs of terries (or more) and use them all week and just worry about washing them once a week on your day off (not that mums have a day off :rolleyes: ) even if you just use them when you can you will save oodles. my friend just washes hers once a week as she works and has 4 kids and she seems to manage ok just tackling the washing once a week.
i reckon you could easily manage on £50 a week, try cutting out buying the junk/cakes and biscuits and make it yourself. i tend to batch cook stuff like muffins and freeze enough for the rest of the month for lunchboxes etc.
if you can its well worth making your own bread, the hovis granary bread we like is £1.50 a loaf now :eek: so we make it instead using the panny breadmaker, it saves us loads as ds can easily get through half a loaf in one sitting the greedy...:rotfl: i swear teenagers have hollow legs :rolleyes:
why not come and join us on the grocery challenge, theres loads of recipes and great support all from people in exactly the same position as yourself.

belfastgirl23

I don't know if its any help to you but I've noticed the big difference happened when I got a breadmaker - it cut our food bills by about 10% I think. We would eat a lot of ciabatta and wholemeal bread and these are very expensive to buy but inexpensive to make with the breadmaker.

The other thing that helps is reducing your meat intake and increasing your beans and lentils intake. This can also be viewed as eating more healthily if this might help in your household.

Good luck.

MrsTinks

Silly little things like having a "cheap" day at least once a week really helps... we have a baked bean day usually once a week - either Beans on toast or jacket spud with baked beans - I also try to sneak a tin in if I do lasagna or sheperds pie - DH rarely notices and it's great for bulking things out. Personally I prefer Tesco's own (not the value ones) for some reason - I do add a dash of lea & perrins though Infact I sense beans on toast coming on for lunch

wendy+5

Mrs Cupier, I like your thinking! Very helpful post. Thanks!

buxtonrabbitgreen

I do a supermarket sweep once a month. Buy everything I can think of. £100 Then spend £20-£30 a week on fresh or things that have run out. 2 adults 2 hungry teens. No use buying the whole lot at once or they eat it all in the first week.
ps since doing a lot more baking, bread cakes jam puddings (I always knew how to cook but got a bit lazy) my kids ignore a cake thier dad might bring home from the shop occasionally and wait for me to produce the goods.

MrsTinks

Make use of "free" foods... grow rhubarb, pick blackberries (they freeze well... I'm just finishing off using last years crop from the freezer) and if you know anyone with apple trees, plums, cherries etc then either make jams or make the filling step of pies and crumbles with them and freeze. Then just defrost ready to put in a pie or crumble for home made puddings. And apart from a little butter and sugar it's FREE!
For treats why not pick sloes when they come into season in the autumn and make sloe gin... *hick*

Baileys_Babe

angchris wrote: »

nappies are obviously a big expense for you at the mo, had you thought of washables? ... and use them all week and just worry about washing them once a week ....my friend just washes hers once a week

Even cheaper get them from freecycle. We washed nappies every 6 - 8 days saved us a fortune with out much effort. We also used washable wipes - flannels either old ones or packs of 10 from ikea.

jackiegibbo

juliejay wrote: »

I've been trying to get control of our spending this year and what has really helped me is keeping a spending diary.

Find an old diary or notebook and take five minutes to just note down what you spent and where at the end of everyday. Keep it by your bed and do it last thing at night. Then you'll be able to tot up your weekly totals and get an idea where the money is going. I include everything, food, petrol, going out, presents but you could just do food.

I aimed to reduce my bills by £10 which was easy enough to start with but its quite difficult now so I reckon we're cutting back enough now. I keep ours under £125 a week but that is everything and we're OK with that much.

Its made a big difference to us this year. We've done quite a few jobs round the house with the spare cash. See what you think.

hi juliejay have you tried spendingdiary.com i found it on one of the other boards and its changed my spending completely:D

Ex-Spendaholic

You are all a pack of absolute stars. Thank you for taking the time to give me such fantastic ideas. :beer:

Here is what I have decided.

For the rest of July I am going to just do as I normally do. I know there is no time like the present for change but my thinking is that I will take this time to plan my strategy and also I will make a diary of these 2 weeks to see where the money is being wasted. This will shock me into action. I am also waiting on payday to come around so that I have the money to start afresh. My plan is to:

Monday 4 August

Withdraw £300 in cash - Do a big shop. By that I mean buy in all the meat/fish/chicken etc from the butchers ready for freezing for the month. I must point out at this stage that I rarely freeze these things. I go to the butchers virtually every day :rolleyes: and its a 4 mile car journey each way to get there. :rolleyes: This has to stop as I am returning to work in September and won't have time plus I'm wasting money on petrol I will also buy all the store cupboard stuff - pasta, rice, tins, cereal etc for the month. I will aim to spend £50 in the butchers and £70 on the other stuff. I will shop around and use Lidl/Iceland more rather than head straight to Tesco. I'll also make good use of mysupermarket.com. I'll also buy the fruit and veg for the week setting a budget of say £15 for the week. The remainder of the money will go into a purse and be divide over 4 weeks to see how it goes.

I will stop my trips to the corner shop where I spend £20 a go on nonsense - coke, chocolate, crisps and the rest.

I will investigate slow cookers and breadmakers.

I will look at the recipes on here.

I will have one cheap night per week where we have pasta, baked potatoes or something

I will sort out my spending.

juliejay

WOW just tried the spendingdiary site and its fab. Thanks for that jackiegibbo:beer: it's really good. I had no idea where my money was going til I started writing it down but thats even better. It sounds too simple but it really helps to understand whats REALLY needed in your house and whats just not worth the money. We've cut £50 a week off our bills and TBH nobody has really noticed the difference. We still eat well but most of its homecooked now. Everyone loves homemade soup, casseroles etc and theres loads of recipes here to try. Today me and DD made Twinks hobnobs and they've all gone (all 42of them) and the general opinion was 'fantastic' and it only used stuff that was lurking about anyway.

We're just trying to cut back a bit more each week and you'll be amazed how little you actually need.