Whats cheapest - cook from fresh or ready meals?

andygb

newlywed wrote: »

I'm reading this with interest as I have a protein hungry hubby and 2 step kids at high school and can't ever seem to get our shop down below £80 a week

OH also tries to cut down on carbs, so no pasta dishes :rolleyes:

That includes cleaning stuff, toiletries and loo roll etc though.


I do find it hard to shop round all the shops as I work full time so shop in my lunch hour (busy evening dropping off and picking up kids - and I refuse to spend my weekend doing food shops unless it's to lidl 2 minutes away).

Try "Poundshop" or "99p" shop for all the toiletries, because they are branded goods, work as well as any, and are a fraction of the price.

Sunnyday

There are only 2 adults in our household and on average we spend £40 per week but that includes everything, toiletries etc.
We also have 2 dogs and a cat and their food is included in that too.

The single two biggest savers i find are meal planning based around whats already in and buying offers in bulk and saving them until we need them.

Some weeks we spend more than this and some weeks we spend less so it averages out along each month.

One quick and easy meal i make is paella, 2 packs of value golden savoury rice with a handful of prawns from the freezer, some peppers sometimes fresh sometimes from the freezer and either chopped salami or chorizo depepending whats in. The rice is only 24p per pack so when you work out the other bits added it works out at less than £1 for 2 huge platefuls and only one pan to wash up afterwards. I make toast and add garlic granules to butter and mix it all up to spread on the toast and there you have a very cheap and tasty version of garlic bread for a few pence.

Join the grocery challenge and don`t try to make huge cuts all at once, once the basics for different meals are in you will be surprised at how cheaply and healthily you can eat.

I threw the rest of the salami in the freezer last week so now when i am making the paella again i only need the rice - probably get another meal out of the salami too.

There is also a mealplan thread too which you can have a look at for new ideas, another one is the rubber chicken thread. One chicken can make many many meals.

HTH

SD

newlywed

andygb wrote: »

Try "Poundshop" or "99p" shop for all the toiletries, because they are branded goods, work as well as any, and are a fraction of the price.

I do tend to stock up when they are on offer in the supermarket, and buy hand wash and bath stuff from Lidl/Aldi. Will check poundshops though (but I have sensitive skin so am fairly product loyal for some things )

seraphina

I agree with newlywed - it's not practical to shop around if you work full time and have children - all the "local" shops around my way are only open 9-5:30pm so I have no chance of getting to them during the week, so that leaves me with Tesco or Morrisons. I also refuse to spend my weekends traipsing around doing food shopping.

I would suggest making your own cakes/biscuits/muffins as I think simple cakes etc work out cheaper/unit than shop bought equivalent. Don't get me started on puddings like cheesecake etc which are indeed cheaper to buy than make!

Have you tried going meat free a few days a week? It might be worth posting a typical shopping list here for hints and tips.

Sunnyday

This thread has got me thinking about things that i`ve not made for a while

When you make your next roast dinner make a good amount of extra mashed potatoes.
The next day mix it with some pepper and a tin of drained tuna, roll in toasted breadcrumbs and cook in the oven. Serve with hm wedges and peas and there`s another tasty inexpensive meal.

I save the old crusts off bread and blitz them in the food processor - shove them in a freezer bag and leave them in the freezer until needed.

SD

MortgageMamma

milliemonster wrote: »

Well, we are a family of 4, our kids are 10 and 6 but the 10 year old eats like an adult, we can get our weekly spend down to around £50 and I know it could be lower if I really needed to.

I don't tend to buy ready meals mainly because you don't get much and I would have to bulk them up with other veg etc anyway.

Do you shop around? by that I mean do you go to different shops for your food? yes this is a pain but if I did my weekly shop all from Tesco then I would easily spend £90 a week. Instead I first make a mealplan for the coming weeks meals based around what we already have in the cupboards/freezer. Then from this I start a shopping list.

Then I have a white board in the kitchen where I write during the week things we have run out of and will need when I go shopping.

I also am signed up to some of the supermarkets emails so I get emails each week about their special offers. This helps me decide where to get certain things from.

So when I go shopping, I will get my bread, milk, coffee from farmfoods, then go into Lidl for fruit and veg, then usually Tesco last for anything I can't get. Sometimes I will go into Netto if I know they have something I need on special offer.

Mealswise, I will cook things like, shepherds pie, spanish stew, lasagne from scratch with salad, stir fries (for instance sharwoods stir fry sauces in tesco are 99p but in B&M they are 29p!!!), roast dinners, curries, spag bol, chilli, loads of things in the slow cooker like beef casserole etc.

A lot of it comes down to planning, sticking to buying only what you need and not what you fancy, not doing extra shops during the week (once we run out of biscuits/crisps etc, thats it until the next weekly shop) and then being prepared to go to different shops for different things which is time consuming but necessary if you want to keep your bills down.

We all have healthy appetites aswell and like indulgent things like chocs, biccies etc, so I tend to bake a lot aswell, oh and yes I do work full time!!!

Milliemonster what is spanish stew that sounds NICE mmmmm

MortgageMamma

narabanekeater wrote: »

Can I just say hi Lisa how you doing?

Skint but happier than ever! how are you?

MortgageMamma

some really good ideas here thanks a million everyone. I'm going to do some investigating round the forums tonight and lookfor the meal planner thread - it will dome no harm whatsoever to get more organised

Seraphina I agree with your sentiments entirely on cheesecake, I sometimes make my own "baked" summer fruits cheesecake and it can cost up to £6 a go to make! scary when you can buy one (nowehere near as good mind) for £1 in asda

thriftlady_2

Re the expensive to make cheesecakes.

I think it depends on your recipe. If you are following a recipe from a TV cook like Nigella then they will almost certainly require you to buy mascarpone cheese, crème fraîche and other expensive ingredients.

Look out for older cookbooks that call for simpler, cheaper ingredients like plain cream cheese (around 70p for a 200g tub and is exactly the same as Philadelphia). The same applies to other recipes a chocolate cake from my mum's old 1970s cookbook has cocoa powder in, whereas modern recipes tend to use chocolate.

milliemonster

Spanish stew is basically tinned tomatoes, paprika, butter beans, chorizo and sausage, onions and a few carrots, its gorgeous and the kids love it! I'll dig out the recipe, the butter beans I just buy tinned from B&M which is about 39p a can, hubby makes it and its not spice as such just really warming, cheap to make and fills you up