My shopping bill keeps on going up and up!!!

Penny-Pincher!!

MP-I know what you mean. The way I budget our money and food is basically drawing £350 every 4 weeks which includes both our food and diesel. There are 3 of us. This usually leaves us with £250 for food but I try to aim for £200 max and save the remaining money for little trips away at friends etc.

I then meal plan using what we have already in the freezer and cupboards.

Have you tried batch cooking and freezing? Anything mince based wither lamb or beef freeze very well. I usually cook up a double amount of spagbol sauce, or chilli or shepherds pie and freeze the rest. Cassaroles stretch well with dumplings, spuds and bread/butter and they freeze well too.

Our mealplan is usually something like this:

Roast Dinner (Big Chicken)
Chicken Supreme (leftovers with campbells mushroom soup & rice-)
Sausage Meal (Toad In Hole, Plain or Cassarole)-double up on cassarole
Shepherds Pie (freeze one too)
Chops (Pork Chump chops are great quality and cheap)
Egg, Chips & Beans
Chilli/Spagbol/Curry/FishPie

We only buy fruit and veg in season and take advantage of Aldi or Morrison offers on these. I also use frozen Petit Pois and stock up when on offer. Frozen sweetcorn/cobs, peppers and mushrooms too are great to make couscous and they work out cheap and very convienant. I also use tinned spuds sometimes in stews or curries which are very cheap and easy.

We do only buy FR Eggs but stock up on special and you can usually get them for about 15p an egg.

OH goes late if we need bread and gets reduced to freeze and the same with milk. We can usually get 4 pints of organic milk for 25p or less. I only eat Warburton WM small loaf which is 63p, but that will last me about 4-5 days but will stock if reduced. We only eat butter and get whatever cheese and yogurts are on special. We are fussy with ham, but do try to get an offer, but we will have this as a main meal with egg and chips or something.

We dont drink fizzy drinks but do get squash and stock when on special. We do have a lot of OJ or Apple juice and stock up at 50p for a litre.

Baked beans from Aldi are lovely but sometimes its cheaper to get Heinz if you get a good offer.

Hope that all helps.

PP
xx

OrkneyStar

bluebag wrote: »

MoneypanickerI can sympathise, a little extra on here and there all adds up. It sounds like you are doing quite well. I wouldn't worry too much about the odd few jars of babyfood it's pretty small cheese for a working mum really.

I was the one who first mentioned the jars- can I just say it was NOT a dig, but the OP does want to save money.
I was just surprised a baby over 9-12 months would be on jars at all, but as I said, each to their own! As someone said if baby really is hungry before everyone else a yoghurt, or some cheese strips/cubes, some sliced ham etc would be ideal, and importantly for money savers- cheaper .
Anyway, as I said OP, not meaning to be critical and hope you did not think I meant to be!

Fi27

Hi MP

Just a thought but did you check your till reciept cos that does seem alot of money for what you bought. I dont know how many times my bill has been wrong and i've had to queue up at customer services for a refund, i shop at T's tho and they are pretty useless!

I take my hat off to you working full time with 3 young children and an OH to look after, it cant be easy. I struggle sometimes and i only work part time with just me and OH to see to, my teenage son has left home.

I try really hard to reduce our food bills, batch cook, source the best deals & offers etc. I like 'mysupermarket' as you can easily see all the big supermarkets best deals in one place. I think you should give online shopping a go. Start filling your 'trolly' a few days in advance and then adjust what you need as you go along. This way is less stressful than doing it all in one go. I keep a list by the PC and jot down any things i need then when i'm online i can add the items to my trolly. You can also go through your 'trolly' and take out things you dont REALLY need! Delivery is as little as £3.50 which isn't much to have someone else do your shopping for you espc when you are a fulltime working mum. The delivery charge can often out weigh going to the shop and flinging extras in the trolly that you dont really need.

Good luck with getting your grocery bills down and i'll be reading your thread with interest cos lots of us are struggling with the very same problem.

Take care

Fi
x

fedupfreda

moneypanicker wrote: »

I did used to have a fab store cupboard but its stocks have gradually been depleted especially as have being on mat leave. I did get a shock when it came to £75 especially as i thought it would be about £40.

£75 doesn't seem to go very far:(

Having read all the posts I think this may be a factor, building up a store cupboard again can be extremely expensive, particularly when you have been used to spending about £40 on just 'topping up'. I had a beautiful cupboard full in the run up to Xmas. Sadly most of this was used in Nov-Dec as I was concentrating on presents etc for DS1's birthday (3rd December - bit of bad planning there! ) and then various December birthdays (I know too many sagittarians!) and of course, Christmas. (BTW I did have an Xmas fund but this had to be used when we needed a bit of urgent electrical work done in the house )

Consequently my January shops were averaging out at around £70-80 a week when they had been £50-60 for 2 adults and 2 children. However I have now built my stores up again and things are getting back to normal. IMO you are doing very well, considering that its very difficult to search out the bargains if you are working full time days, the only reason I manage it is 'cos I work part time in the evening so have the time during the day to hunt the bargains out. But as other posters have said, Internet shopping is a great help, even the delivery charge isn't that bad - depending on the time you choose it can be as low as £3.50. Better than paying through the nose for petrol and suffering the 'hassle factor' any day! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

moneypanicker

Just to clarify - I don't work full time (24 hours)but I do work 12 hours shifts and at weekends. So the weekends I do have off I don't want to spend it cooking and spend it with the family instead

I know baby food is a bit of a hit or miss issue. I can assure you that with my first child i wouldn't have dreamed of using them - I followed Annabelle Karmel to a t. Bought a second freezer and had it full of baby food and breastmilk :j However with every child time becomes more and more precious and my standards have lapsed. My child does eat our food however occasionally he will have not a jar but of the children meals. I don't think it does him any harm and certainly saves my sanity. I prob spend about £10 a month on baby food which certainly isn't the £160 with which my spending has increased by.

Thank you to everyone who has suggested things. I very very rarely buy anything that is full price and i bulk buy most things such as loo roll, washing powder etc. I've never paid full price for nappies - ever!

However with four school runs a day (one at sch, one at pre-sch) I don't have loads of time. I was thinking of getting a slow cooker but worry that i wouldn't use it. I got rid of bread maker as didn't really like the bread and was taking up precious space in kitchen. Are there any nice vegetarian meals you can cook in slow cooker? One of children doesn't like meat.

Thanks to everyone for input.

aliadds

Don't feel bad about the baby food...it's a small percentage of your budget and worth your sanity! We all take short cuts at some times especially when looking after a young family!
My best advice to you would be to try online shopping, see if you could drop a brand on some things....you may be surprised how little difference in taste for less money, and maybe try more veg based meals eg soup,curry, pasta sauce, pizza!
HTH:)

fedupfreda

moneypanicker wrote: »

Just to clarify - I don't work full time (24 hours)but I do work 12 hours shifts and at weekends. So the weekends I do have off I don't want to spend it cooking and spend it with the family instead

But with a husband and 3 kids, one pre-school age, you are effectively working full time, even if you aren't paid for the majority of the work you do, IYKWIM!;) I look back to the time before my youngest started full time school and even working 3x4 hour evening shifts and a 6 hour shift on Saturday (changed jobs since then), I was a complete frazzled wreck. I only recovered my sanity when both boys were at school full time. Sometimes we are so busy struggling through we don't realise how much we have actually achieved until it is all over. I take my hat off to you and can completely understand why precious time off is family time. But every parent needs some 'me' time as well, for sanity. Sometimes buying the odd bit of convenience food is worth it, if it means you won't end up worn out. So no one should feel obliged to make everything from scratch. Its just one option in an arsenal of many in the 'battle of the food bill'!

Reverbe

aliadds wrote: »

I agree that prices are constantly rising. The only way I can economise any further is by using more and more value products! I have to confess that I even buy value eggs because they work out at 10p an egg!

Unfortunately it's more important for me to be able to keep the roof over my head than buy ethically! And that makes me feel very sad!

Same here. I always bought free range eggs now I have to sneak in value ones and hide the box. My veggy flatmate would go bonkers if he knew - he still buys really expensive ones tho he is in debt and can afford them less than me.It makes me very sad and as a result I hardly ever have eggs now. Mind you even value ones went up 20p yesterday when I got them.

KatieKins

Totally agree about the eggs. I bought some last night and I was actually embarrassed reaching in for the value ones when other people were nearby. I always feel so bad but I used to buy them and I just can't afford to keep buying free range now. Got 6 value eggs for 91p

BitterAndTwisted

Last week Lidl were selling half a dozen free-range eggs for 99 pence and the organic ones were more but I can't afford those so haven't retained the price. For the amount of protein in them I think just over 16 pence an egg is a bargain, Lord knows they're so blooming versatile.

I noticed when I was in the Co-op yesterday that they've got a special offer on half-price Cathedral cheddar at £2 for 400 grammes. Now that's even cheaper than Lidl at the moment. I'm going to stock up later today if they have any left