Weezl's phase 1- recipe testing and frugalisation- come one, come all!

weezl74

Good question Cani!

my Dad was very worried about not having enough money to retire on so I took a look at my parents food budget.

it used to be a £500 per month tesco spend for 2 of them. I tried to get them to do £100 (so double bob and shirley!)

They managed it for 2 months, but are at around 200-225 per month now.

I'm not too concerned because it's loads better than before

Mum makes bread now, and does a bit of batch cooking and uses the SC.

Their main objections are about freshness (gotta have salad with leetle lovely cherry toms)

Protein (don't believe it's in chick peas, rice, bread, nuts. It comes from eggs cheese and meat and preferably all 3 with a salad )

Don't like too much wheat in diet

A great deal of the budget (now reduced by me swapping him onto own brands) was my Dad's £80 a month on Redbull and activia yoghurt :D

poohbear59

canidothis I have been quite surprised by my own family. DH, DB and DSs 23, 21 and 19 who have happily accepted the plan and have already started eating some of the meals. They are not sure about sweetcorn fritters but other than them are quite happy to eat everything else on the plan. They may need more peanut butter and bread though as they all had a midnight snack in my absence last night.

And most surprisingly DH actually asked me today if I had plans to use the ham in the fridge!! Before he opened it!!

I am trying to manage on £240 a month for all groceries, includes all food and drink, loo rolls, shower gels, t paste washing powder etc, etc, for 5 adults here full time and one here every weekend. That is 5 hungry men and me. I went over quite a lot last month as had others here a lot too. Sometimes needs must!

ETA We are a real family, doing without as none of us are working at present and to save cash so that we can set up our own business.
Looking more carefully at weezl's plan for the month it is barely different from our usual plan except for the onion tart and fritters and we never have cake.

We do eat a lot more HM soups too from whatever we can get our hands on e.g neighbour is digging up carrots.

artybear

Hello Weezl and co,

Been at work again today-got a headache from too many screaming toddlers!!!! And I normally love children but today took the biscuit.

Anywhooooo my lovely OH has just purchased a brand spanking new iphone so I shall be able to spy on you all from anywhere now yay!!!! (Just so you know he is not in debt-please dont judge me/him for this as I know its not needed but sometimes treats are good...yes???)

I personally showed one of my friends the planner as he is trying to lose weight/eat more healthily and on a budget. He is a fast food addict and thought it was very do-able so that's one 'real' person on board yay!!!!!!!

Now I think I may have to drink a large glass of wine to get over the day lol

artybearxxxxx

canidothis

To be fair my own family are okish, but I feel the urge to have a wow factor moment when a friend can say their food bill has reduced because of this plan. One friend is concerned about how she is going to support her DD1 through uni so we've talked today about not only reducing her own food bill but how to teach DD1 to budget - to be quite honest I think I would have got more from a brick wall bless her ( I do love her really) DH complains at meatless dishes, she can cook but doesnt like it in her new kitchen, DD1 has got expensive taste that cant be curbed and she sees what i do as 'being organised' and I cant get her to understand that being organised is just a very small part of all of this.

weezl74

fergus and DH love frugal lasagne!

ceridwen

:DJust realised your blog is "up and running" again Weezl:D

must go have a catch-up....and see if that pigs head episode is still there:rotfl:

(...and before anyone asks "how do I find Weezls blog?" = click on her MSE homepage).

artybear

MMMMMMMMMMMMmmmm.........the lasagne looks yummy-the only issue I have is smartprice mince.

I have never bought this-am I being snobby?

Not necessarily on topic but I do try and be 'green' when it comes to meat-dont really know what I'm asking but any info would be useful if you have time Weezlie.

artybearXXXXXXX

domesticgoddess789

artybear wrote: »

MMMMMMMMMMMMmmmm.........the lasagne looks yummy-the only issue I have is smartprice mince.

I have never bought this-am I being snobby?

Not necessarily on topic but I do try and be 'green' when it comes to meat-dont really know what I'm asking but any info would be useful if you have time Weezlie.

artybearXXXXXXX

Hi I buy Tesco value mince/ Asda smart price mince and we have it in spaghetti bolognaise/ cottage pie/ lasagne. I would add though that we always drain the fat off after frying it because quite a bit does come out of it. Other than that its fine and we always bulk it out with oats, carrot and lentils and have complaints

Sian_the_Green

weezl74 wrote: »

dearest loveliest Sian the Green :A

You know your idea of drizzling the carrot cake with oil afterwards?

Would you be willing to try a half or quarter batch? (for minimal risk )

ooh, hello, just got on here after a busy day. I made a costume as a present for a friend, some of the cereal bars (very nice, thanks!), 2 choc cakes and some crazy whipped up icing that required a sugar thermometer.
I would love to have a go tomorrow. Do I need to go get that particular oil or can I try with veg oil for now? Had a lot of success with my choc cake today by subbing yogurt and oil in with a bit of marge so more than happy to experiment, my housemate got more oil and raisins for me on purpose as the cake was so popular

weezl74

artybear wrote: »

MMMMMMMMMMMMmmmm.........the lasagne looks yummy-the only issue I have is smartprice mince.

I have never bought this-am I being snobby?

Not necessarily on topic but I do try and be 'green' when it comes to meat-dont really know what I'm asking but any info would be useful if you have time Weezlie.

artybearXXXXXXX

snobby wise, I'm not sure;) but the mince measures up well compared to other shop bought minces, it's not high in fat, it has under 10% fat, compared to this for example which has 16.6% fat:



and it even has very slightly less fat than this:



so it's not all greasy when you eat it. I suspect it has a slightly less rich flavour as the low cost would mean there was less time to hang the meat to mature it.

greenness wise, that's a toughie, I guess lamb would be a good choice because lamb is always free-range...

just musing really, not sure I know enough to oblige

Arty sorry to hear you've had a bad day at work, please ignore my earlier request for research, it might make your headache worse!