Eat for £12 a week?

carriebradshaw

sootypea wrote: »

I work shifts and have just got in tesco 6 loaves of there finest brown bread 5p each 1 large chicken 60p 3 packs fillet steak £1.50 carrot's 5p 5lb potatoes 30p asparagus 10p double cream 5p cheese milk 10p chicken fillets 99p fresh salmon 75p it can all be frozen and it can be done if you look at this time of night i am off tomorrow so will make meals for the week with these fresh ingredients and what I have in the store cupboard

well done, you are so lucky to be able to get your hands on these knds of bargains,but if you live in out in the country like I do,then it's just not possible to do it. We live in a village and have a choice of 2 small shops and a butchers which are all really expensive,but supermarkets are about 70 miles away from us one way and 50 miles away in the opposite direction.We shop once a month and try and stock up on what saves us the most money and use the locals for odds and ends.I love where we live but shopping is a nightmare and we can't get home delivery either

Angelina-M

carriebradshaw wrote: »

well done, you are so lucky to be able to get your hands on these knds of bargains,but if you live in out in the country like I do,then it's just not possible to do it. We live in a village and have a choice of 2 small shops and a butchers which are all really expensive,but supermarkets are about 70 miles away from us one way and 50 miles away in the opposite direction.We shop once a month and try and stock up on what saves us the most money and use the locals for odds and ends.I love where we live but shopping is a nightmare and we can't get home delivery either

You see thats the problem, I've managed to feed my family cheaply because I made full use of the reduced to clear section. If you cant get access to this then its going to be much tougher.

I've bought bags of peppers and mushrooms for 10p, tin of sweetcorn for 20p, tin of tomatoes 15p then gone home and made up some pizza dough (pennies when you make your own) and done a pizza night for the family and my son's friends. They loved it and its so cheap.

I was lucky enough to buy some old cast iron plates complete with wooden trays at a catering stall at the carboot sale for a pound. I slice up all the veggies and put them in dishes, give everyone a rolled out dough base on a cast iron dish and they assemble their own pizza. Once the pizza are ready, we put them on a wooden serving tray and eat them straight from the cast iron dish to keep them piping hot.

Pizza night is now a great favourite in our house. The kids love designing their own and we all sit down together and decide who's looks the best. But the best thing is its one of my cheapest meals as 'pizza nights' arent planned, they just happen when the reduced section is full of vegetables.

HariboJunkie

LittleTinker wrote: »

Wow!! £7 something a week for three?? How on Earth do you manage a healthy well balanced diet for that? I have to know!! :-))

Black Saturn's evening meal planner

Another budget recipe from Black-Saturn

luxor4t

sootypea wrote: »

I work shifts and have just got in tesco 6 loaves of there finest brown bread 5p each 1 large chicken 60p 3 packs fillet steak £1.50 carrot's 5p 5lb potatoes 30p asparagus 10p double cream 5p cheese milk 10p chicken fillets 99p fresh salmon 75p it can all be frozen and it can be done if you look at this time of night

Not round here anymore I am sad to say!
People wait by the 'reduced' shelves and the stores know it, so items don't go so low. 8pm last night there was a crowd waiting for 'bargains'. I bought £1.99 potatoes for 25p and £1.37 doughnuts for 40p, but there was nothing you could create a balanced meal out of & the atmosphere was tense.

moanymoany

luxor4t wrote: »

Not round here anymore I am sad to say!
People wait by the 'reduced' shelves and the stores know it, so items don't go so low. 8pm last night there was a crowd waiting for 'bargains'. I bought £1.99 potatoes for 25p and £1.37 doughnuts for 40p, but there was nothing you could create a balanced meal out of & the atmosphere was tense.

I love that 'the atmosphere was tense' . Eyes moving from side to side - working out the opposition - hands ready to flash in snake striking manner to get that pack of reduced sprouts - elbows newly sharpened to reach optimum passage through the tense and palpating crowd....

Whew!

celyn90

I'm lucky with reduced stuff often, but it tends not to be veg. Last week I got two free range chickens for £1 each, a huge chunk of smoked gammon for 1.20, a pack of two sirloin steaks for 50p and two pork joints for 80p each. That is enough meat for us for two months easily - thinking about it most the of meat we have is from the reduced section. I was veggie for years and still don't eat a lot of meat, so it tends to last. OH doesn't mind veggie food.

Our food budget is low because we don't buy any household cleaning products (my dad runs a business selling the stuff), I also get lunch provided at work. Other stuff we buy in large quantities - a sack of rice from the indian deli cost us £7 and lasts us a year. We eat a lot of pulses, which I also buy dried in large quantities. Milk is our major expenditure as OH drinks gallons of it. Fruit and veg from the market or from Lidl. I'm happy to ask at the market if they have any squishy tomatoes for example - as I'm only going to make chutney with them so often get them cheaper because they wouldn't sell them otherwise.

We travel a lot, so we tend to bring back wine, chocolate and fancy things rather than buy them here.

Bargain_Rzl

Given that this is a really old thread, and that we've seen large increases in wheat and dairy based "basics" (bread, flour, milk, butter, pasta) in the past 12 months, I would be very interested if those who posted when the thread was new - especially black-saturn - could come back with an update on their weekly/monthly costs at today's prices.

Austin_Allegro

One of the easiest ways to save money on food is just to buy less.

I've read (sorry, can't remember the source) that one third of food we buy is wasted, and of the the two thirds remaining, we only need half of to remain healthy.

So if my maths is correct, most people could get by on 1/3 of their current food.

The digestive system is highly sensitive (it's called the 'second brain' by some doctors) and therefore gets into habits in the same way your brain does, so you get used to a certain amount of food each day or you don't feel 'full'. This is usually far more food than your body needs (hence all the obesity around these days).

Nowadays most people are in sedentary jobs so a. they don't need much food but b. they have lots more time to eat it (eg you couldn't munch on biscuits if you were working as a boiler stoker, but if you're at a desk all day the only downside is crumbs in your keyboard).

With a bit of self discipline you can gradually cut down the amount you eat and your stomach will get used to it.

Sunnyday

We never seem to time it right for reduced items in the supermarket as we work shifts and it`s difficult to get there at the right time.

I now cook everything from scratch and never buy processed or ready meals or anything part prepared, we manage to eat well on around £40 per week for 2 adults 2 big dogs and a cat. This includes 3 meals a day for myself and DH as we both now take a lunchbox to work so that we don`t get ripped off by the dinnertime spend anymore.
The secret really for us is buying on special offer and storing, we do this with cat food and dog food where we can and last week i bought a big free range chicken cooked it and stripped off the meat and froze it so that when we next decide to eat chicken if there isn`t any on offer and all the other meat is full price we will eat the one out of the freezer.
I got a nice pork joint from MrM`s this week for less than £3 and it`s huge - thats in the freezer too now.
Meal planning and bulking out food with extras like lentils and breadcrumbs makes a lot of recipes go much further without noticing any difference at all.
I`ve just poured 2 pints of cravendale semi skimmed milk into a 4 pint container and watered it down by half and we won`t be able to tell the difference once it`s been standing in the fridge for a few hours, the opened carton is now in the freezer to do the same with again.
All the tips i have learned from this site, i was a bit dubious about some but everything i have tried so far has been good and a big money saver.
We had a huge change in circumstances a few months ago and without the help and ideas from everyone on MSE i think we would have gone under pretty quickly, as it is we are doing fine and eat far better than before and spend less than half of our previous amount on shopping.
Thanks guys.
SD

luxor4t

Bargain_Rzl wrote: »

Given that this is a really old thread, and that we've seen large increases in wheat and dairy based "basics" (bread, flour, milk, butter, pasta) in the past 12 months, I would be very interested if those who posted when the thread was new - especially black-saturn - could come back with an update on their weekly/monthly costs at today's prices.

I costed out the original menu using My Supermarket.com, and it came to £26.49 for the list although there was enough chicken for 2 meals (£2.99 for 1 kg ) and I could not find tiined cream so priced up 4 cartons of fresh double cream (4 x 73p). Cod was the best value fish @ £4.19 for 700g. i chose value items where possible & used tesco as this gave the best price (Sainsburys was over £32!)