Redundancy - groceries reduction help needed!

newlywed

Hi all, I am facing redundancy and OH has lost his main source of work so I need to seriously reduce the budget. I can never seem to stick to the grocery challenge (guess I don`t try hard enough ).

So here are the things we often eat (2 boys to feed for half the week too).

Breakfasts - porridge and sliced banana for OH, cereal for me and one of the kids, cereal bar for the other. Might see if I can persuade them with toast (is that cheaper?) but then it would have to have choc spread on :rolleyes:
Weekend lunches for me and OH are bacon and egg on farls. The farls are certainly going so it will be toast or muffins. The eggs are sainsbug family value (will only buy free range).

Lunches - work lunches are tuna kidney bean and sweetcorn salad for OH, I have HM soup or jacket spud or sarnies. At weekends (with the kids) we have jackets, soup, toasted sarnies etc.

Dinners - these tend to be chicken casserole (in slow cooker), sausage casserole, roast chicken at weekends (and then chicken and leek cobbler, chicken soup using the carcass etc), chicken breasts wrapped in bacon, cottage pie, chilli, salmon or basa or fish etc all with lots of veg.

I don`t buy sauces (other than bisto white sauce and bisto gravy ) so everything is made from scratch.

The only other comment is OH likes lots of protein and no pasta, rice or bread in the evenings (can occasionally give him potatoes and mash but not too often).

So where does the money go (other than on biscuits)? I currently spend approx £400 a month

aliadds

Are you having snacks other than the biscuits ie cake, sweets, crisps etc
And you haven't mentioned drinks. Any alcohol included in the £400. These are things I don't buy because I look on all of them as luxury items!
Just a few ideas for you.

newlywed

aliadds wrote: »

Are you having snacks other than the biscuits ie cake, sweets, crisps etc
And you haven't mentioned drinks. Any alcohol included in the £400. These are things I don't buy because I look on all of them as luxury items!
Just a few ideas for you.

Thanks.

There's always biscuits (often value, aldi, lidl or else stuff on offer) occasionally cakes but I usually make those. Very rarely any crisps (maybe 3-4 times a year).

There are crumpets every weekend but that's less than £1 a week.

Drinks are pg pg pg and more pg!! Also squash - probably only one bottle of supermarket brand a month. Have been buying apple juice at £3 a week but that will be out the window now.

Alcohol - about one £5 bottle of wine a month (if that!).

No beer, no fizzy drinks, no takeaways, no meals out.

aliadds

Well Newlywed you're obviously very wise with your spending! I know we eat lots of fruit and that can work out expensive but I'm not prepared to use less!
Could you shift from branded to supermarket goods, or supermarket to value.
I am fussy about certain things...for you it's PG, for me it's Gold Blend, but I do buy value toilet cleaner, d/w tablets, dog food, biscuits, tinned tomatoes and peaches. I've also moved from branded to supermarket cereals, though I buy value porridge oats. Also value flour!
I shop at Asda and Lidls and they're the value products I find ok!

The_Wall

newlywed wrote: »

So where does the money go (other than on biscuits)? I currently spend approx £400 a month

Try keeping the receipts for a month, or so, and then checking to see where the money goes

sassyblue

newlywed, bless you l hope another job comes up soon for both of you x

You don't say where you do your main shop? Could you try one or two things in a lower range to try and see what you think about their quality?

Buy a sack of potatoes instead of buying them from supermarket weekly.

Buy meat on the 3 for £10 offers if hubby is eating lots of protein.

Buy the aldi/lidl/morrisons super6 or veg that is on good offer and plan meals around them.

Where do you live? I ask because there is a fish 'wholesale' shop near us,(we do live by the coast though) the public can go in and buy at much better prices than supermarkets and the quality is better - it means you can afford to buy more to freeze.

hth x

newlywed

aliadds wrote: »

Could you shift from branded to supermarket goods, or supermarket to value.
I am fussy about certain things...for you it's PG, for me it's Gold Blend, but I do buy value toilet cleaner, d/w tablets, dog food, biscuits, tinned tomatoes and peaches. I've also moved from branded to supermarket cereals, though I buy value porridge oats. Also value flour!
I shop at Asda and Lidls and they're the value products I find ok!

I buy lidl dishwasher tablets (must go back to cutting them in half), lidl bleach, value lidl or aldi biscuits, I did go off value tinned tomatoes but will go back there. Will also try supermarket brand cereal but the kids tend to be nestle addicts . I buy value flour, value kidney beans.

I refuse to buy value meat unless it's that or starve and I'd rather go veggie than eat value sausages!! :eek: But we don't buy the high range stuff, just the lean, or reduced fat stuff.


The things I know we sometimes bin are:
bread (when there's no freezer room)
veg (I meal plan but sometimes don't plan in the veg, just buy what we fancy).
apples and nanas - OH eats one of each, each day. Often use brown nanas for cakes though.

I think I will have to swap more chicken breasts for thighs, and go back to turkey thigh pieces for the slow cooker.

sassyblue

also, don't know if you use topcashback but the first asda online delivery gives you £5 back, although l don't shop at asda much l'm going to soon to get the moneyback, and use insurance sites for quotes through TCB as l got £1 and £1.50 a time recently (you can do max of 20 per year) x

newlywed

sassyblue wrote: »

newlywed, bless you l hope another job comes up soon for both of you x

You don't say where you do your main shop? Could you try one or two things in a lower range to try and see what you think about their quality?

Buy a sack of potatoes instead of buying them from supermarket weekly.

Buy meat on the 3 for £10 offers if hubby is eating lots of protein.

Buy the aldi/lidl/morrisons super6 or veg that is on good offer and plan meals around them.

Where do you live? I ask because there is a fish 'wholesale' shop near us,(we do live by the coast though) the public can go in and buy at much better prices than supermarkets and the quality is better - it means you can afford to buy more to freeze.

hth x

I hate our local asda so don't make me go there

I live very near lidl, work near an aldi and a small tesco. So I mix my shop dependent on moods. While I have my job, I will be thinking more of the super6!

We live in a city. There is a large fishmongers in a village outside the city but need a car to get there

aliadds

I've recently started buying a whole chicken and jointing it myself! Much better value than buying individual portions!
Here's how By Mr Ramsay...but you need a sharp knife;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmDkQaYKML0

misscousinitt

Hi Newlywed

As far as I can see most of the things you eat/make to eat can be done so with cheaper ingredients. Definately look at moving down a brand and look at stretching your meals so portions can be frozen for another night - lack of carbs in the eve could be a problem for OH, but could you bulk out yours and the kids portions with pasta, rice etc... (seems a bit unfair really for you to have a small portion of protein).

As has been said before, I would really keep your till receipts and see where its going, I'm sure that you should be able to get this budget down considerably - I'm no expert, but there are plenty on here who will be able to offer good advice and suggest other threads you can look at.

Good luck.

A

x