live too far out to shop locally

exlibris

Try working backwards. You have your on-line list from last week (or maybe other weeks too). Try to work out how many meals you could get from it if it was stretched to include use of left-overs.

For the meal planning work out what you eat the most of and try allocating a day for each meal and any gaps try to fill with store cupboard meals. This will depend on your lifestyle.

Look at where you can bulk cook by padding out meat to get 2 meals from one lot of meat.

Don't despair if it doesn't all work - look at what you did achieve and do a little better next week.

I am off the wagon at the moment but must get organized before SAD sets in.

mardatha

I would never in a million years imagined you could make a meal/snack out of that! I always have too many carrots. Keep thinking "ooh I'll make soup" and then cant be bothered, or he says he doesnt want it.. so I can use them uo in stir fries (as well as grated into mince. LOL)
Pixie , I can never understand or find these codes. I asked already and was directed to a thread, but it jsut gave free delivery if you buy over £50 --which it says in the Asda site that you get anyway.
...exlibris i love that sig. Very very true!

mummysaver

Hi mardatha! Do you have a freezer, if you have leftover veg most can be chopped and frozen, especially carrots - then they can just be pulled out and used when you need them for a side dish or whatever. As for soup, would it be more likely that you'd make it if you just threw all your excess veg into a pan when you were cooking something else, with the addition of a couple of stock cubes you've done it! If you don't fancy chopping everything finely just leave as big chunks and then blitz with a stick blender.

I echo the meal planning refrain, that way you know what you need to buy and don't have as much waste! I often don't have a very precise meal plan, each week I usually have mince and sausages on it, but I leave it till the day to decide if I will make lasagne, bol, shepherds pie, burgers, or grill, toad in the hole, sos casserole. Also when I make something with mince I usually bulk out my mince and then freeze either the excess on it's own (ideal with bol sauce as can just defrost and tip over spaghetti) or turn into another lasagne or shepherds/cottage pie to freeze and create an easy meal for another day when I can't be bothered to cook.

As for making your own bread, I find it saves me a lot of money, and it really is a case of just getting into a habit of throwing the ingredients in at breakfast or before bed. Perhaps it'd be worth asking for one on your local freecycle as they are often listed.

Have a look at the feed a family of four for £20 for some menu ideas, not really feeding a family for a month for £20, because using up other stuff they already had, but very very impressive. Also have a browse of the meal plan thread that PennyPincher usually starts off.

If you make a list of all the meals you like and just shop for those for a week, you can see how it suits you, and whether you save much money.

Good luck!

mardatha

Ok ta, I will do. I have started off well a couple of times but then I wander off LOL

DCFC79

If you have the supermarkets leaflets delivered you could but the stuff thats on offer eg until today morrisons had utterly butterly on offer at 60p and i think the week before i cant believe its not butter was on BOGOF, if you only do internet shopping use say 2 supermarkets to get the offers (they may not have the same stuff on offer)

mardatha

no leaflets out here--no jehovahs, no mormons, no nothing I will use the online offers sites thank you !

DCFC79

mardatha wrote: »

no leaflets out here--no jehovahs, no mormons, no nothing I will use the online offers sites thank you !

just try and buy stuf thats on offer

rosieben

mardatha, I live out in the country and I'm now car-less so I'm very limited as regards shopping opportunities too! very frustrating reading about whoopsies etc!

I want to get back to my old system of having a tesco delivery once a month and then buying milk, fruit and veg locally. I have a good local butcher now, but the co op in the village here is horribly expensive and if I had to shop there all the time I'd be living on beans on toast (that's always supposing they didn't run out of bread or beans which is quite likely to happen! :mad:).

I could almost feel nostalgic about times when I've driven home from work past at least 3 big supermarkets .... but on the whole I'd rather live in the country

mardatha

I know how you feel. The co-op was fine before I had the internet and if I didnt see the supermarket prices. If you don't know any better.. but not any more. I think you will save a lot on petrol, my OH stopped work a year ago and we were surprized how much money we had (relatively speaking LOL) because petrol was costing us £50 a week.
The main prob is sweeties and choc. I like them ! and I cant stock up cos I just start at one end of the fridge/freezer, and munch until I reach the other end .:)