Cutting down shopping budget further for family of 3

black-saturn

You could have a look at my menu planner:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=157526&highlight=black-saturns+menu

culpepper

How about having ordinary cereal for littley and offer dried fruits of her choice to put with it,then you could have some of the dried fruit in jars which will keep ages.Honey is nice drizzled on cerealand keeps well.Mine love homemade yoghurt and that is nice on cereal too.

Jo_R_2

ScoobieGirl wrote:

Have you tried growing your own veg?
Can you borrow a Cash 'n' Carry card to buy the tinned tomatos & cereal in bulk?

We have just this morning planted courgette seeds, compost and pots and seeds free from health food shop in town :T We don't have a garden so that's a pain but want to grow our own herbs, not sure what else we could do? We have a paved back garden rather than lawn/borders etc.

Boyfy's dad has cash n carry card, only prob is he keeps forgetting to tell us he's going! Was good for very cheap olive oil.

Jo_R_2

Heth wrote:

A few ideas:
- could you make your own naan bread?
- when you say hummous do you make your own? This is really easy to do with a blender and must be better for you than some of the shop stuff, and also cheaper
- you could freeze leftover chickpeas, or keep in the fridge for a few days instead of throwing them away.
- Where do you buy chickpeas? In sainsburies we have a choice of sainsburies own, or the natco (?) ones in the ethnic section, and the latter are alot cheaper.
- The cereal seems an easy target, maybe your daughter could only have the special ones as a treat, a a big box for everyday?
- I've never tried Ainsley cous cous (though I might if everyone thinks it is so good...) but you could also try making your own.

Apart from that it all sounds really good, and if you want to have things like fresh juice, then obviously you will spend more than someone who is happy with an economy brand. We spend around 200 pounds a month for 2 of us (though we eat meat and fish as well) and there are some things, like all the fruit/veg we have, that I don't want to compromise on to save money.

* Yep am sure I could make own naans - my vague recollections of Food Studies GCSE tells me it should be pretty easy...?

* We don't make our own hummus. I have tried to before when experimenting with sprouting things and it didn't turn out well. Though I should imagine if I did it using dried chickpeas and cooked them first it should be pretty easy. I love hummus! Can you freeze it do you know?

* The leftover chick peas usually get left, and left, and left... Then have to be chucked. I never thought of freezing them - I had it in my head I couldn't for some reason, not sure why now actually thinking about it!

* Have noticed the difference you mention about prices of different brands of chick peas and buy accordingly.

* Bix box of cereal sounds better doesn't it? Just need to find something she'll eat a whole box of that's not coated in sugar and/or chocolate :eek: She loves bran flakes and raisins (copies mummy) but she can't eat that everyday with her being only 2.

* I used to be a connoisseur of making our own cous cous but I find that it's something I only tend to make when it's just me (eg when boyfy is at work in the evenings) and I find it's not as much fun cooking just for yrself - or is that me? So I went onto the packet stuff. But I would imagine it's very easy thinking about it to make a tomatoey cous cous, sundried toms, herbs, olive oil.... Will deffo try that. And :rotfl: at Ainsley's cous cous - yes it is rather fab!

We spend quite a bit on fruits/veg as well, and much as I can see areas to cut down on, this is one I don't like to compromise too much on either.

lynzpower

Ok, heres the thing, I dont really get Jo_R.

We are eating pretty similar stuff to you, except we eat meat, and we only buy "finest" style meat, so that bumps our costs up.

We spend 100 a month, inc lunches etc.

I dont get why you guys are spending more than we are x 2 and a bit, and im sure your DD doesnt eat as muhc as me & OH put together lol.

Few things really.

Are you buying specific "jacket" type potatoes for your jackets? We buy a big value bag usually and there are some big ones in there that do the job.

Would it be cheaper for you to actually get a veg box delivered?

I dont know if you are doing this, but value range veg quite a lot of it is UK grown, and is cheaper.

If OH will eat what you are having how much meat are you buying on top?

I just dont get this

Jo_R_2

lynzpower wrote:

I dont get why you guys are spending more than we are x 2 and a bit, and im sure your DD doesnt eat as muhc as me & OH put together lol.

Few things really.

Are you buying specific "jacket" type potatoes for your jackets? We buy a big value bag usually and there are some big ones in there that do the job.

Would it be cheaper for you to actually get a veg box delivered?

I dont know if you are doing this, but value range veg quite a lot of it is UK grown, and is cheaper.

If OH will eat what you are having how much meat are you buying on top?

I just dont get this

LOL I think DD has been trying to eat more than me and boyfy combioned these last couple of days though!

Seriously, that's a great question! Re: the potaotes thing, we usually buy a 2.5kilo bag, no special jacket ones. Though I have been thinking about buying a huge bag and actually *gasp* washing them myself These things have to be done LOL!

Have been thinking about the veg box as an option, we actually worked out over a period of about six weeks what proportion of our weekly shop went on fruit and veg and it was a significant amount so that may be a more economical option.

Tend to go for the loose fruit/veg and just buy what we need specifically for the week. Sometimes we top-up midweek with more fresh if I know that buying something fresh during our main shop won't last.

We don't buy much meat on top at all. Usually a packet of ham/haslet/etc for sandwiches (boyfy snacks a lot - on top of eating :rolleyes: ), occasionally some tinned tuna, and usually a pepperoni pizza if that counts as meat? :rotfl:

£100 a month is fab lynzpower - can you share maybe a typical weekly shop or a week's worth of meal planning so I can get some ideas?

I don't know if you noticed earlier on in the thread I mentioned there are a few things I am particular about, that I knew if I wasn't so fussy we could definitely cut our costs on - eg we use olive oil, prefer to buy wholmeal/granary where poss, no artificial sweeteners/gelatine/etc etc, that sort of thing which does tend to mean we buy the next level up as the cheaper options often are not "acceptable" for want of a better word. It may well be that but still, £100 is great!

ScoobieGirl

Jo_R wrote:

We have just this morning planted courgette seeds, compost and pots and seeds free from health food shop in town :T We don't have a garden so that's a pain but want to grow our own herbs, not sure what else we could do? We have a paved back garden rather than lawn/borders etc.

You could put cherry tomatoes in hanging baskets. The price they charge for these in the shops you could get your money back pretty quickly.

Not sure where in the country you are, but here in the South West you can grow regular tomatoes outside as well in a grow bag against a sunny wall.

You could also grow potatoes in a potato barrel. Here is a link in case you are not familar with them

http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1227

(I've no idea what the company is like - just using the link for demo purposes)

As you can see they are not very cheap so you probably wont get your money back on that this year.

Green beans should be easy to easy to grow in a pot and don't look too unsightly.

It's probably too late to plant certain things now, so I think it is about this time of year that the garden centres start selling off seeds half price, so you could stock up for next year.

That's all I can think of for now.

sophistica

Have you thought of the following
- shopping in markets/ethnic areas for your fruits and veg.
I live near a big Inidan community and the cost of 1 and 2 kilo bags of beans, rice and cous cous just beggars belief. So cheap - huge bags for a couple of quid. The tomatoes I saw on a stall for 9p a pound and 4 cucumbers for £1. Another thing is to do with meal planning and cooking...have you tried to branch out with your recipes. You could try the library for cook books and then you can cost different recipes.

Chell

I am in a similar situation to you Jo. I budget for £50per week for food, nappies and toiletries for two adults, 16mth old and almost 3yr old. We are all veggie, I avoid gelatin etc too and will also only buy 100% fresh juice as its for the kids. I've only been budgeting for two months but I don't feel I could get the budget down any more. The only way I think I could save is buy buying dried pulses rather than tinned but they are so convieniant.

Re: Cous cous, tesco do a tub of med flavour seasoning for cous cous. Its lovely and may work out cheaper than the AH brand.

Since budgeting I waste nothing. If you have half a tin of chickpeas left then make sure one of your meals the next day uses those up. I add chickpeas to curries which I freeze. If I have veg going off then I make something to use them all up.

Re cereal: Asda do a large box of fake Cheerios which my DS enjoys aswell as Choc hoops. My two haven't tasted any other sweet cereals yet as I'm a mean Mummy. Tesco do a childrens cereal which is star and moon shaped, again its cheap. You say that your DD couldn't eat bran flakes and raisins everyday, why not? My DS would be fine with that.

When do you shop? I now shop once per week at Asda for groceries and once at Boots if I need nappies/toileteries. At one time I would pop into a shop and buy what was on offer or a cake etc would take my fancy. I am now very strict with myself and write a list of what I need and don't buy food on other days.

Jo_R_2

chelltune wrote:

Re cereal: Asda do a large box of fake Cheerios which my DS enjoys aswell as Choc hoops. My two haven't tasted any other sweet cereals yet as I'm a mean Mummy. Tesco do a childrens cereal which is star and moon shaped, again its cheap. You say that your DD couldn't eat bran flakes and raisins everyday, why not? My DS would be fine with that.

LOL DD would eat bran flakes and raisins every day if I let her too! The reasons I don't are because it visibly (ahem) affects her tummy, and because she eats a fairly fibrous diet anyway, I don't want to go overboard as fibre can be counterproductive when it comes to the body absorbing iron and I don't want her to be losing any.

However, I have found a halfway alternative which I quite like which are similar to bran flakes but made of puffed rice which she seems to like so I might try them, and am hoping to get her onto porridge as I love it anyway and it would save an awful lot on boxes of cereal!