Got myself into bother need help getting out of it.

leiela

I'm mum to 2 wonderful little boy's and a wife to a wonderful husband.

Ok our situation is not much different to many peoples we spend more than we earn and it's starting to reach a point where we needed to do something to fix it NOW! before we ended up in real trouble.

Me and my husband sat down last night and looked at our finances and it's fixable we arn't in major trouble YET! we are at the point where there is still hope of return.

Looking at our finances one area is causing us bother, food we are paying an unreal amount of money on our monthly shopping bill.

Now we come with a unique set of problem's in this area in that im a proffesional dancer/figure althelete and my husband is a body builder we require very specific diets depending on the "stage of training" we are at and it's usually different, we also need to feed two small boys "normal" food so as a rule im cooking 3 different meals every meal time.

The Difficulties

1) neither me or my husband eat ANYTHING processed, chemically preserved or otherwise artifically tampered with. think of it was a caveman diet if my great great great grandmother wouldn't recognise any of the ingredients in the list we can't eat it.

2) We both eat an insane amount, im currently eating 8 meals a day 4000cals, he's eating 6 meals but for around the same amount of cals.

3) We both eat an alot of meat, in order to build and maintain muscle, what many people concider a days worth of protien we both eat in one meal. (example i need an 150g chicken breast per meal, for 8 meals a day, my husband needs 2 full breasts)

4) carbs are a sensitive subject, we both eat them, we both need them. However we can't eat bread, pastry etc. all our carbs come from whole grains or potato's and veg and they arn't eaten in vast quantity's generally 20% or less of a meal is carbs. (atm my husband only eats starchy carbs once every 3 days getting the rest of his carbs from veg only, while im eating starchy carbs at every meal right now) However "bulking out meals" with things like lentils, beans, barley, potatos or oatmeal generally isn't an option.

Protein sources are the biggest problem for us right now, between the 2 of us and the kids we are eating about 500g of protein per day (equivelent of about 15 chicken breasts) which as you can imagine is where 99% of our problem with money occures.

Buying cheap fatty meat doens't help, i know for example that asda do a smartprice mince but if you look at the label it's 50% fat and because we have protien requirements we'd have to eat so much of it to meet that requirement we'd end up turning into fat blobs from all the exess fat cals.

Anyone have any suggestions of where i can perhaps buy meats in bulk? buy cheaper meats? Cheaper cuts of meat?? but ones that aren't hugely fatty and good ways of cooking cheap meats im not much of a chef but i do have a reasonably well equipt kitchen including slowcooker.

purpleivy

liver would be good from a protein point of view, as it's very cheap. Only good if you like it though.

thriftlady_2

Is fish on the menu? I'm thinking of oily fish like mackerel and herring which are cheap. Tesco are selling bags of frozen wild Alaskan salmon for a £5 at the mo - 8 fillets a bag (pretty small fillets though). Tinned mackerel and sardines are great and cheap but maybe canning is too processed for you?

My other thought is offal -usually cheap and full of protein -liver, kidneys are the most mainstream but thins like sheep's hearts are really cheap I believe (keep meaning to try them but haven't got round to it yet).

Eggs are a good source of protein and not expensive.

Ask your local butcher if he will do you a good price if you buy in bulk for the freezer. Mine does.

Also look into buying half or a quarter of a cow/pig/sheep. Lots of onlie organic butchers do this. Only good if you have a big freezer of course, and you will get the fattier cuts as well as the prime ones.

ascot64

What about using whole chickens rather than just the breast. Prepared carefully ie roasted and stripped of skin and fat the would'nt be too fatty but would be a lot more economical. Could you do the same with turkey?

Do you have a Costco near you. You would be able to buy large quantities of chicken breast and skinless boneless thighs for less than supermarket prices.

newlywed

Tuna has a fairly high protein level - we have tinned in spring water (OH does 5 meals a day, all of which have to have about 30g protein for non-competitive weight training)

Also Aldi do frozen cooked chicken breast pieces - no skin or flavouring or anything on them - 100% chicken - they cost £2 for a 400g bag. This works out quite easy if you want to eat the chicken cold - just defrost it. I have also added it to pasta with a white sauce and heated it successfully too.

Also I know carbs are an issue but lentils and kidney beans etc all have a level of protein in them too, with little fat.

Turkey breasts often work out cheaper than chicken breasts - diced turkey thigh even cheaper, but sometimes that can be a little more fatty so you have to check and trim it. We like diced turkey thigh cooked in a curry - tinned tomato, added veg, lentils etc and a couple of spoons of curry paste - even better if it's slow cooked.

OH also has boiled eggs and grilled low fat bacon for breakfast - giving a good kick of protein.

Also, as you have to cook so many meals, would it be easier to batch cook and stock up your freezer with your own "ready" meals that you've made, ones for you, for kids etc - gives you a night off once in a while

nesssie1702

Like Ascot64, I was going to suggest that you visit your local Costco and become members there, as the food deals are normally pretty good.

leiela

Ok so im debating setting up an excel spread sheet to track the food we have in our house and most importantly out spends.

Now in order to do this i'd to go though my cuboards and record every scrap of food i own, this is VERY daunting but im pretty much convinced i already have enough food hidden in those things to feed a family for a month....

'm just thinking that because of our lifestyle i've always done "food plans" because we need to know we are getting all the correct nutrients daily so taking it a step further and planning food based on what we already own and then in the future buying food based on only what we need might not be that hard, once the inital records where made.

Does anyone keep track of food like this? does it work or does it seem alittle exessive?? im not talking about tracking herb, and spices or other silly things, because i stand no chance of getting my husband to record every gram of what he uses.

However when i shop i do already "split, bag and freeze" things into "portions" and im already a huge fan of bulk cooking (trust me when your family eats 18ish meals a day all different it's the ONLY way to go).

Anyway my thinking is sort of like this...

example today i visited the butcher buying 4lb of lean steak mince. now 1 portion = 125g so tonight ill cook up all of the mince and make it into something (im thinking chill) once thats done i split it into portions that contain exactly 125g of protien plus what ever other ingredients i use, i do some with starchy carbs (usually lentils or rice) and some without... but generally speaking i end up with XXX portions which i label and pop in the freezer. Next time we eat them i get 1 portion kids share one portion with while my husband who needs more protien would get 2 portions.

but say i made 7 portions with carbs, 7 portions without carbs, i could record those portions on the spread sheet rather than the indervidual ingredients that went into them, and although in the early days i might have alot of random things on the spreadsheet like 3 bags of rice, as i got into the habit of buying and cooking it straight up the amount of random items on the sheet would get less and the amount of "meals" would grow.

make any sence or am i just making this hard on myself???

Bitsy_Beans

A quick Google shows that lentils contain anything between 9g to 23g of protein. Added bonus is they are a damn sight cheaper than chicken breasts.

Can recommend Costco (although you have to fulfil certain criteria to become a member). Their chicken breasts cost around £14 for about 10-12 depending on size etc. They don't shrink when cooked either as they are not pumped full of water.
Not much to help you but have a toddler climbing on my back as I type!

LameWolf

This is only my two-pennyworth, but personally I think if you and your DH need to be so careful about getting the correct type of nutrients, then a spreadsheet would be an excellent idea.

Might be a bit of a pain in the proverbial setting it up, but as long as you keep it updated daily, you'll probably find it a great help, and it might well help you identify areas where savings/economies can be made.

This is from a self-confessed spreadsheet geek, by the way.;)

leiela

Ok i've just arrived home from work and im looking at the cuboards * sob* what kind of detail do people go into i mean i have at tons of stuff.

im guessing people don't measure to tomato ketchup?? do i even bother putting tomato ketchup on the spread sheet? or do i just put 1 bottle?? even though there is less than half in it???

Im thinking perhaps recording sauces , spices and other condiments is taking things abit far???

but what about other stuff .. i have half a bag of flour now that could be use to make a pie or quiche if i haven't got it listed i might forget i have it and not use it ... like i have for the last 6 months....

ARGH this seems tooo daunting and simply impossible.

Im going to throw a load of stuff in pots to cook and then get recording i guess

greenbee

Start your list one cupboard at a time, otherwise it'll be too daunting!

I'm sure that you're well aware that it's the quality of the protein that's important, just as much as the quantity - the higher the quality the less you will need (within your requirements) and vice-versa. Have you tried substituting meat with tofu on some days? It's a high-quality protein, and is generally cheaper than meat of a similar quality.