Grocery Shopping budget thread

tigerfeet2006

We are a family of 5 (DH, me and 3 DC's 9, 5. 4) I am doing the Grocery Challenge and I am trying for £500 this month. That is to include food, toiletries, cleaning stuff etc. and I have two who need a gluten free diet. I use Doves Farm flour and usually have a good results with that. I don't buy things like the specialist fishfingers etc.

We have cereal for breakfast. Though the GF cereal can be a bit pricy, I tend to use a bit less of this and put some dried fruit on top.

DH has soup or left overs from the night before or from the freezer for lunch. I have soup or sandwiches. The brood have pack ups with sandwiches/rice cakes, yoghurt, HM cakes, HM biscuits, fruit, dried fruit, popcorn, cubed cheese etc. The bread is HM, both normal and GF.

Dinner is always cooked from scratch. I use the slow cooker a fair bit. Puddings if needed are HM cakes, crumbles, icecream, tinned fruit etc.

My menu plan for this week was Chicken done in the SC with veg. Chicken, mushroom and rice One Pot, Pork Yuk Sung, Sausage and mixed bean cassoulet, spaghetti bolognaise, cashew curry and hotdogs and beans. The LO's are boxed for DH or put in the freezer and I sometimes do a pot luck freezer week to keep things cheap.

I baked gingerbread biscuits, chocolate chip cake, brownies and fruit bread as well as normal and GF bread.

All the above were GF.

SunshineBear

2 Adults, 3 children, 17, 16, 12 all eat like a starving mare.

We have a budget of £75 per week to inc all food, pack-ups, toiletries, cleaning ect.

When its gone its gone.

Takes some doing.

tigerfeet2006

Have posted on your other thread.

LJM

we are a family 2 adults 2 young children and i as main food shopper average £180-£200 a month some may vary sometimes little less or more

LJM

think i replyed on an earlier thread similar but we are a family of 4 and spend between £180-£200 a month

sparrer

For myself, 2 cats and a small dog I try to keep to £20 but sometimes creeps up to around £23/24 when my ice-cream loving DGD comes for the weekend!

Pink.

Hi woozyfloozy,

As your new thread and the original grocery budget thread are both now on the front page of the Old Style board I've merged them together to keep the replies in once place.

Pink

mardatha

Isn't it getting terrible how much things cost ? You come out of the shop with two tiny bags and thats £20 :eek: But working it out in your head before you go in, it comes to £12.40 !:rotfl:

woozyfloozy

tigerfeet2006 wrote: »

We are a family of 5 (DH, me and 3 DC's 9, 5. 4) I am doing the Grocery Challenge and I am trying for £500 this month. That is to include food, toiletries, cleaning stuff etc. and I have two who need a gluten free diet. I use Doves Farm flour and usually have a good results with that. I don't buy things like the specialist fishfingers etc.

We have cereal for breakfast. Though the GF cereal can be a bit pricy, I tend to use a bit less of this and put some dried fruit on top.

DH has soup or left overs from the night before or from the freezer for lunch. I have soup or sandwiches. The brood have pack ups with sandwiches/rice cakes, yoghurt, HM cakes, HM biscuits, fruit, dried fruit, popcorn, cubed cheese etc. The bread is HM, both normal and GF.

Dinner is always cooked from scratch. I use the slow cooker a fair bit. Puddings if needed are HM cakes, crumbles, icecream, tinned fruit etc.

My menu plan for this week was Chicken done in the SC with veg. Chicken, mushroom and rice One Pot, Pork Yuk Sung, Sausage and mixed bean cassoulet, spaghetti bolognaise, cashew curry and hotdogs and beans. The LO's are boxed for DH or put in the freezer and I sometimes do a pot luck freezer week to keep things cheap.

I baked gingerbread biscuits, chocolate chip cake, brownies and fruit bread as well as normal and GF bread.

All the above were GF.

wow thats alot of baking:) i also give the left overs to hubby for his lunch and bake a few things like gf muffins and apple tarts etc but i never have any success with the doves farm bread flour for making bread, it always comes out too heavy and more like scone consistancy so it gets eaten just not as its meant to. Although i find this bread flour better for baking cakes as it already has the xantham gum in it.

we have just knocked puddings on the head mid week to cut food bills and our waist lines. we have a slow cooker but i dont trust it, as funny as that seems, i dont like the thought of leaving the cooker on while im out the house. I cook from scratch on the days i dont work and throw together something using a jarred gf sauce for the days i do, which i find very expensive!

quintwins

mardatha wrote: »

Isn't it getting terrible how much things cost ? You come out of the shop with two tiny bags and thats £20 :eek: But working it out in your head before you go in, it comes to £12.40 !:rotfl:

:rotfl:

see from doing the dtd i'm so shocked just how little u can get for £20

woozyfloozy can you not get him on prescription here if he lives and works here? i'm not really sure how it works but my uncle gets 4 free loafs a month, depending on how much time you have could you not make homemade fishfingers and yorkshire puddings with special flour? also if you have a slowcooker it would be worth looking on 365days of slowcooking website i know theres quite a few gluten free recipes on there

other than that just the norm of shopping at reduced times, and cooking in bulk