How to food shop?

Swans1912

I've never been taught how to food shop in my life, I moved out into my own home with my partner almost 14 months ago and it has been very trial and error!

I remember my first ever food shop, didn't really buy anything to make meals out of yet spent a fortune! We seem to be MUCH better now or at least until I read the shopping budget of some of you! :eek:

There is two of us, and two guinea pigs (they like veg!). The Guinea Pigs cost us about £4-5 so can't blame them! We both of us have are vices... we drink too much Coke Zero (£15 Worth, Each Week!) and find it very easy to pick up the Asda 'tastes' prepared food (u just stick them in the oven!).

So..... Each week we spend on average £100 EACH week, every Thursday at Asda!

I guess what I'm asking for is... what are the basics of food shopping. What could we get our weekly spend down too?

The things we find most difficult are: Lunch at work and food when we get home.

Lunch at work - Never find time to prepare food for work so end up either at boots or tesco!

Meal at home - Don't like cooking (lazy I guess) so the Asda tastes are ideal for us!

We do have a slow cooker that we have NEVER used... I'm off to find some good recipes!

DCFC79

You could make your lunches the night before you go to bed, you could create some meals and put them into freezeable containers and defrost them when you need them eg chilli, curry, another easy meal is jacket potatoe with beans and cheese, i know you said you shop at asda but you tried aldi/lidl as they can be cheaper for things

gairlochgal

Hi there

Have you tried shopping online? I find that a really good way of managing spend - I set a budget and fill my trolley against that target. Will then amend the trolley a couple of times over the course of the week but still within the budget. So if something goes in, something comes out.

btw we have guinea pigs too and we share with them. Really good way of making sure all the veg gets used up. So they'll get the outer leaves of cabbage, the green leaves from the edge of the cauli, pea pods in season. I'm not mad on celery but if I want some for a recipe I'll buy a small one and they'll get the rest. etc etc

Best of luck

Paul_Varjak

It seems you already know where you are wasting your money. You spend £100 each a week on food? That is rather extravagant!

Why not sign up to the thread (somewhere on here) about how to survive on £400 per month? You will find lots of tips on there about food shopping and cooking.

tessie_bear

have u tried buying a brand down for cola like asdas own brand ? do u buy more when its on special offer and use it over a few weeks ? have u got a recipe book ? u might find some dishes are as easy to cook yourself as put the tray in the oven.....im not sure what the readyish meals u mention are but if it is like chicken breast in a sauce u could have a go yourself and u might find it cheaper....do u make a list before u go food shopping ? u could write down the meals u want to eat such as a chilli and then under write down what u need to buy eg tin tomatoes mince onions etc as for work lunches its a pain making sarnies or what ever but i have found u save a fortune so that might motivate u to make them up

auntymabel

I suggest you take it one step at a time. Try cooking a meal from scratch one or two days a week at first then you can gradually build up a collection of recipes. look on the ols style thread for some tried and tested cheap and tasty ones. Same with packed lunches - once or twice a week to start with. Sunday night's a good time to do the first one when your not so tired.

PasturesNew

I'd suggest that you ONLY buy the drinks when they are on half price offers. When they aren't on half price, trundle round to the supermarket own brand and see what cheapo drinks they have there instead. You'll probably find a nice other fizzy drink to substitute. That's what I do: supermarket own brand cloudy lemonade if I can't buy Pepsi Max on half price.

To start cooking, why not look at what ready meals you are buying and set out to learn how to do one of those for yourself. Just try it small the first couple of times until you've got the hang of how you like it. If you have a freezer, then do a big batch of it and freeze it up in portions, but I realise not everybody has a freezer. If you do batch cook something though, kept in a plastic/lidded container in the fridge it'd be OK for 4 days or so and you could just nuke it.

Redbedhead

A few tips from how we shop:
I food plan. So each week before I go shopping we work out what we are having for lunches and dinners the following week. That then forms the basis of my shopping list. Prior to this I found I was doing similar to you, buying lots but never having the things to make a full meal and we used to waste lots of fruit and veg.

We only buy things like fizzy drinks when they are on special offer. If they aren't on special offer we don't have them or I get Tesco value lemonade at 20p a bottle! £15 is a lot to spend each week and Coke is really not good to drink in large volumes.

We batch cook certain meals (chilli, spag bol, fish pie) as it is often cheaper to buy larger quantities of foods (big bags of pasta or spuds for example) and I can then use all of them up, get no wastage and have a number of meals in the freezer as a fall back in case something happens (we are home late and I don't have time to prepare whatever we had planned for that night). I tend to factor in us eating one of these meals a week and then we can swop around meals on the meal planner as we need to.

valk_scot

Suggestions? GET ORGANISED. It's the only way!

Write a menu plan for the week and only buy the ingredients for these meals.

Batch cook two meals at the weekend ie make bolognaise sauce, have lasagne that night, freeze one extra lasagne plus two meals worth of sauce for use later. You don't use all of this in the following week, of course, but your stocks will build up.

Partially prepare veg the night before ie break cauliflower or broccoli up, put in airtight microwavable dish with butter and seasoning on top. All these daft fancy quick cook veg in prepacks are just this.

Potatoes you can't do in advance, but you can cook rice in advance, cool immediately by rinsing with cold water, drain and chill for 24 hours. And rice freezes very well in portion sizes. You could make up ready meal packs with a bag of frozen rice and a curry you'd batch cooked at the weekend.

Make up lunch bags the night before and leave the non-perishables out on the work surface and perishables on a specific shelf of the fridge to grab. I used to do that for my Hubby when he had the 5am starts. I would leave two pieces of fruit, pack of snacks, biscuit or whatever in the bag and in the fridge would be his two filled rolls plus yoghurt plus a carton of fruit juice. (Cold juice helps keep the sanwiches cold.) You can buy small insullated bags anywhere.

Other shopping necessities: Aim to only shop for non-perishables ie toilet rolls and washing powder etc only once per month, so that you can buy a big shop then just do food shopping the rest of the time. Bigger packs work out cheaper per item. it might be worth doing a special shop at Aldi or Lidl for this.

Finally all that Coke Zero may not be fattening you up, but it will have other nasty effects on your health like the acidic fizz taking the enamel off your teeth and reducing mineral absorbtion. High intake contributes to osteoporosis, so you especially shouldn't be drinking it. (I'm making the assumption you're female here.) There's also the toxic effects of too much aspartamine and of course the high caffine intake. No-one should be drinking more than one can of coke of any sort per day (or indeed any other fizzy drink) and for children this should be about twice per week. If you're drinking several cans per day then you really should cut it down, not just change to cheaper alternatives. (Google the above up if you don't belive me.)

Hope this helps and I don't mean to moralise, just comment. Finally, if you don't like cooking, how about your partner? You could change the weekend housework division so you allways clean the bathroom and hoover while they do the batch cooking. This is a guaranteed way to make you feel more interested in cooking, btw.

Cape_town

Firstly - If you are both working it is not unreasonable to have some " instant" meals in the week - ( I am pretty frugal but I would die if I had to come home and cook every night! ) - so don't think it is all or nothing

but some ideas...

Cook a couple of extra meals at the weekend.... -- cook double so it is quick to heat up another night ( or freeze if you don't fancy it again straight away

I never got on with the slow cooker ( couldn't be bothered to do it in the morning before work ) - but DO use casseroles as much as possible - and I just put everything in - potatoes as well - cook and cool and it is ready to reheat a day or two later. ( doesn't look very beautiful - just like a hearty stew - but tastes delicious) Cook double and freeze half for another week.

Batch cook bolognaise - or other pasta sauces - freeze in bags - defrost to use. It only takes a few minutes to cook spagetti and heat your sauce.

Buy a blender and learn to love home made soups.

I try and have home cooked meals at the weekend and Monday to weds ( mainly with pre cooked stuff) and then give up and go for convenience thursday and friday.

good luck!

DCFC79

cape_town wrote: »

Firstly - If you are both working it is not unreasonable to have some " instant" meals in the week - ( I am pretty frugal but I would die if I had to come home and cook every night! ) - so don't think it is all or nothing

but some ideas...

Cook a couple of extra meals at the weekend.... -- cook double so it is quick to heat up another night ( or freeze if you don't fancy it again straight away

I never got on with the slow cooker ( couldn't be bothered to do it in the morning before work ) - but DO use casseroles as much as possible - and I just put everything in - potatoes as well - cook and cool and it is ready to reheat a day or two later. ( doesn't look very beautiful - just like a hearty stew - but tastes delicious) Cook double and freeze half for another week.

Batch cook bolognaise - or other pasta sauces - freeze in bags - defrost to use. It only takes a few minutes to cook spagetti and heat your sauce.

Buy a blender and learn to love home made soups.

I try and have home cooked meals at the weekend and Monday to weds ( mainly with pre cooked stuff) and then give up and go for convenience thursday and friday.

good luck!

why drag up an old thread