Food Budget Crisis

gunsandbanjos

Desperate_Housewife wrote: »

Last night I made felafels, soak a bag of chick peas overnight then next day drain, rinse, whizz up with fresh coriander, coriander seeds, bicarb soda, s&p, dried cumin, dried chilli, onion and garlic, make into burgers and fry both sides till brown. We had them with pitta bread, natural yoghurt and a salad, kids htought it was a snack/junk type food treat and i was nutritious and cost about £1.50-£2 for 4 of us!

They sound yummy, could you give me a rough idea of quantites of ingredients?

Fire_Fox

To anyone who knows their shopping is going way over what others on this website are managing, but doesn't know how - it's a case of looking at a lot of different areas.

Firstly next time you shop sit down with the receipt and add up what you have spent in different areas: I found meat and cheese was by far the biggest spend on my bill, with an awful lot on snack foods too. So attack that - make the meat go further with extra veg/ lentils/ oats, bake your own cakes with the kids, buy cheaper crisps.

Secondly look hard at what you throw away - either bits off the plate that kids left, carcass from roast chicken or veg that ended up in the back of the fridge. Some have kept a notepad by the bin for a week and written down everything! I would have said I didn't throw much, but it's more than you think. I have started to plan meals around what needs eating - yesterday bacon and lentil soup with slightly suspect bacon and banana loaf with three brown bananas.

Thirdly do a storecupboard challenge on the Old Style board, write down everything in one or more cupboards (I just did baking cos I had out-of-date stuff) and work out what you can cook to use things up.

Fourthly consider pricing up meals - even if you don't do every last item, but just the bits you know are expensive. When we have fresh fish I try and ensure we have, say, Spanish omelette the same week. :money:

Lastly maybe type out everything you bought on the last receipt - item, brand name (if it's own brand, which level), rough size and price and post it up for comments. I bet you'd realise how much branded stuff you buy (Walkers, Heinz beans, HP sauce etc.) and get ideas for cheaper cuts of meat etc.

Obviously some of this is time-consuming, but I have managed to reduce our bills by up to half by doing this, and still I am nowhere near the Old Stylers!! :T

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

gunsandbanjos wrote: »

They sound yummy, could you give me a rough idea of quantites of ingredients?

here it is (felafels)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2002/sep/08/foodanddrink.recipes
I put fresh coriander in mine and use dried 500g chick peas

tiff

I have a good stock of storecupboard items and add to it with some fresh fruit and veg each week. I try to make meals based around the storecupboard/fridge/freezer ingredients. So if its coming to the end of the week and there is only a head of celery in the fridge, then I will make celery soup and bread (always keep flour, butter, yeast etc in) and thats a meal. I am sticking rigidly to my budget of £50 a week so I dont buy much meat at all. We like Quorn and always stock up on offer so at the moment a lot of our meals are based around that. I never just go out and buy what I fancy, I also use coupons when I can but dont have a printer so just use the ones I can get through the post.

We all eat the same meal and sit down to eat together. If the kids dont want/like what we're having there is no other choice. They eat most things now though so its not a problem. They drink squash, water or milk (breakfast and last thing at night) and I now buy powdered milk which is nowhere near as bad as people think. It tastes very much like skimmed milk and costs half the price of fresh.

It can be done but you need to look at where you can cut back and think and plan a bit more.

rosekitten

We also get everyone to eat
the same as well.Nothing more
costly than everyone expecting
something different at tea time.

we have a food slicer and when we cook a
joint of meat we slice it on that,it seems
to go so much further.Its only one of those
Kenwood ones but works really well.
We buy smaller pieces of meat these days
or chop it in two and freeze half.Also we
have a good store cupboard of dried,tinned
packet stuff .I have never totaled up what
we spend but we have decided to start at
the begining of next month.

We alway buy a large bag of spuds once
a month,pick out the large ones to use
for jacket spuds,peel & boil the rest and
make salmon fish cakes and cheese ones.
Whats left over we to use on top of
sheperds pie.We freeze the whole lot for
later.

Happydaze

After having read these posts, I am shocked at what I spend for 2 adults + 2 kids - I set aside £300 when I get paid for food & petrol then budget another £200 when OH gets paid fortnight later. From our budget we also include a Costco shop every 3 months or so we stock up on Costco mince, chicken, beef, pork, salmon etc which fills the freezer and lasts for ages howver I can't seem to to get the cost of the in between shops down. OH doesn't think a meal is a meal unless it contains a plate of meat - baked potato or soup would not fill him up at night after working all day. Kids have packs at school we rarely have a pudding(unless we have a M&S £10 dine in) I think its time I started menu planning!!!

bubbs

I spend roughly £200 a month for 2 adults , this includes all cleaning stuff, but i do have a freezer full, store cupboards full and the fridge full, i usually 9 tines out of 10 cook from scratch, but as my husband detest pasta and jkt pots i cant do a cheap meal there, although i really shop around for food.
Last week i just happened to say at work how long could you live off your cupboards and freezer for, 1 said ages, i said 1 week and they spend £160 per week on food for 3 adults!!! 1 said not even a day as i dont even have milk in the fridge, but she thinks its funny, has a takeway everynight as not worth cooking for 1 and its cheaper.....i said WHAT? when you was moaning it was £11.99 for 1 pizza for 1 person's tea? i said you could live off £100 a month and eat well, she said i cant cause if i go food shopping i like to go m & s and its £8.00 for i steak, then all the veg and salad :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: i have tries talking to her it judt dont work!
Anyway when i got home i said to hubby what id said at work , he said straight away we could last a month and just by veg n bread etc.

finnigan

There's 7 of us and I realised we spend £800 per month at the supermarket :eek: after going through one months bank statement and adding it all up. (that included petrol, clothes, nappies etc)

So this month I menu planned and cooked my little socks off and produced 28 meals for £180, all now safely tucked up in my freezer. This is main meals only but each one feeds all 7 of us.

Have to see how I go with the weekly top ups .

ikkleosu

Just for 2 adults I spend abouot £200-240 a month and that is too much. it really NEEDS to be about £160. Especially as hubby eats out 3 times a week.

I do spend about £5 a week on soft drinks for myself becuase I don't like plain water, tea, coffee or alcohol. And I can't get out much, so hubby gets to have a burger/kebab/curry takeway (he spends about £5 on whatever he choses every Thursday) and I get to have soft drinks.

There are several issues I have to get around.

1) we have totally different tastes. He likes meat, spicy and more meat. I can't handle spicy food but I love veg and salad (which hubby hates). So most weeks I end up throwing out fresh food (largely salad veg) because I can't eat it quickly enough.

2) I have IBs and find a lot of things like pulses etc just kill my bowel.

3) I have M.E. so can only get to 1 shop, 1 shopping trip per week (and more often than not have to get a delivery) so I can't buy cheap meat from one shop, veg from another etc etc.

berniesmaster

i have 2 adults,2 kids aged 6 and 5, 2 dogs, (one 16 stone) and a cat.
i spent approx £400 per month but thats food and cleaning products.
we usually have either take away pizza and meals out maybe three times a month.
i allways like to bulk buy on offers (i have 7 bottles of the huge fabric conditioner thats on offer in asda at the mo for £1, and still using the baked beans that was on offer at 10p at xmas)