February grocery challenge

tiff

Thats brilliant Crana! I have to say I admire your moneysaving ways as a student

crana999

don't have that much choice!

(ok, I admit it helped mum & dad took me to the supermarket when they dropped me off. although they did drive home with half my groeciers by accident :rolleyes:)

jazzyjustlaw

Hi all

I havent joined the challenge but have been cutting down on "junk" food. Budget has been reduced considerably.

Can anyone give any further tips on saving money on groceries?

crana999

Sylvey,
why don't you try posting a typical/your last/whatever shopping list / meal plan? and we can give you some tips from that.

jazzyjustlaw

crana999 wrote:

Sylvey,
why don't you try posting a typical/your last/whatever shopping list / meal plan? and we can give you some tips from that.

Hi actually my names Jazzy but this forum puts sylvey at the bottom.

Well here goes

Asda shopping

3 cheese and tomato pizza'a £3.00 for all three
Asda curly fries - 92p
cauliflower/brocoli/carrot frozen mix - 97p
meat free mince 1.78
Quorn Roast £2.98
Frozen Chicken pieces for husband - £1.98
Asda burgers - bean - £1.38
Special K -x 2 = £3.50
Twinings Tea - 80p
veg pack incorporating swede, parsnips and carrots 58p
soup 23p
instant noodles 21p
mushrooms 60p
milk 1.51
5 soups for £2.00 for H's lunch
Dolmio sauce for £1.50
philadelphia x2 £1.50
Free Range Eggs - 84p
Fromage Frais 57p
Chedddar £1.20
Grapes £1.07
Greek Yogurt 44p
veg stri fri £1.58
pate tub 58p
kiwi fruit 18p
past bake £1.35
Galia melon £1.28

The above equates to I think £36.31

To get it into perspective I had biscuits and things still from Christmas and I had 3kg pasta for less than £2.00 and some store cupboard stuff to enable me to stretch the above to per a week. Mid week we often pop to sainsburys to get some salad. I wish to stretch my money as far as possible so any help would be welcome.

Thanks

Jazzy

redsheep

count me in too. Holiday in seven weeks need to save money! Husband with a large appetite, a nine month baby and a three year old. Need tips. Good on a food shop but spend loads in corner shops on impulse!!

stellagypsy

Come in to this very late, desperately need to cut my shopping budget - committed to 2 holidays and also son has just discovered he has got a place at Uni for September (thrilled for him as he is dyslexic and has worked so hard for this, but need to get saving up for fees, etc, and I want to be able to help him all I can).

I really don't have a food budget at the moment - I know, I know, this is BAD but is the result of about 6 years of scrimping and scraping when we were in low paid jobs and in debt - not so any more, but this has meant we have totally lost the plot food-budget-wise!!!! It is like it is a reaction to the situation we were in and now I can't stop OH from spending. We go to the shops on a weekend and buy an obscene amount of food for 3 adults (including me on a permanent diet, so not much is mine!) but he STILL pops in to Tesco on the way home from work (note - he is ALONE) and brings bags of goodies home, even though I have a fridge and 2 freezers bulging with food and more tins than Asda!! I feel like I am stocked up for a seige, at one point I had so many tins I had to put some in the garage, where they still are.

This week we turned back the clock and went to the local market for meat - got 2lbs of chicken mini fillets for £3.06 and 2lb steak mince for £3.03 which I think is pretty good - I have split this down to freeze (butcher said it was OK to freeze) but OH was very shirty about buying from there, said it is better at Tesco's - yeah maybe so, but we went there afterwards and as I thought, it was a lot more expensive - even then he was not convinced.

Son doesn't care what I buy so long as he can have his favourites. Likes just a couple of branded items, that isn't going to break the bank, I can live with that.

I don't know how to deal with this. I don't want to go back to how we were a few years ago, but I desperately need to trim a food budget of over £100 per week (yep, sad but true!). It is even sadder if I tell you that I shop first at Aldi for basics (there is one near my office - OH won't park his car outside Aldi's so I have to go in my lunch hour or on way home) then Farm Foods for branded stuff for son, then usually Morrisons for their BOGOF's but if OH is with me it has to be Tescos, which is a relatively BOGOF-free zone. As I say, I even managed to drag him to the market this week but he just lurked about looking uncomfortable, wouldn't come to the stall with me or join in the purchasing process. So far the spend is at about £75.00 but it is day 3 of 7 and I KNOW it will rise. Oddly enough OH has a twin sister and she is just the same but prefers Sansbury's, wouldn't be seen dead in Aldi's.

Does anyone have any ideas? I can afford the £100 per week but I don't want to and to me it is the obvious place to cut costs to save up for things he has commited us to and son's Uni fees / a nest egg to help him.

TIA, a desperate
Stella

VickyA_2

Oh gosh Stella et al, you've definitely come to the right place. I don't have long, but here it goes:

Make your own pizzas - dead simple and plenty of recipes on the internet (I got a WI box set of recipes from the BookPeople, think it's still on there - The Book People Website. It's a really excellent book.

Generally mince from your local butchers IS better quality than Tesco. We've just discovered our local butcher too, and the quality is just amazing. I dread to think where the meat from Tesco comes from.

Pad out meals with veg and lentils. eg last night my boyfriend made a chilli which cost about £2 (including meat from the local butcher), in it were: baked beans, celery, mushrooms, kidney beans, peppers. Not only did it give us large portions last night, but it will also do for TWO more meals! (now languishing in the freezer)

Aldi is a good shop. Okay, so you haven't heard of most of the brands, but if it's so awful why does most of Germany shop there? Their goods are as cheap as the Tesco "value" range, but better quality. Though you know that, it's a case of getting your husband to agree.

Sorry, got to go for the time being as I'm going out. Will try to think of some other money saving bits and pieces for you.

By the way, have you tried the Store Cupboard Challenge? It's a great way of clearing your cupboards that are full of "deals" and offers that you took up but haven't used yet................ There are some great threads here, here and here.

raeble

Is there anyway you can stop the OH from buying food? What about trying to use up what you've got? You only buy something that you haven't already got. There's the store cupboard challenge thread that should have some good ideas on recipes. Then once you've cleared out start buying only economy ranges and BOGOF's as treats. Shopping in the market is very good but watch the prices because sometimes things can be more expensive when the supermarket has offers on meats and such like. Good Luck.

pavlovs_dog

stellagypsy wrote:

Come in to this very late, desperately need to cut my shopping budget - committed to 2 holidays and also son has just discovered he has got a place at Uni for September (thrilled for him as he is dyslexic and has worked so hard for this, but need to get saving up for fees, etc, and I want to be able to help him all I can).

if you want to help your son, get him to start sitting done with you, drawing up meal plans...then drag him to the supermarket...then drag him home and into the kitchen where he can help you cook

in fact, before you go, why not give him a list of everyday items - pint of milk, loaf of bread, bottle of tommy sauce, 2ltr bottle of coke (include all his favourites) and ask him to tell you how much he thinks they cost. then watch his face fall as you drag him round the shops and he starts to get an appreciation for how much you are really spending on feeding our family wach week!


its easy for you grown-up peeps to forget, cos you're all used to it now....but food is HORRIBLY expensive. as a kid, it just appears in the cupboard/on the table, and you eat it - no thought for how much it costs.

one of the biggest shocks i had when i started having to fend for myself was how expensive food was.

by teaching your son now, before he has to go it alone, the value of food, how to plan meals, cook meals from scratch etc, you'll not only save him a fortune of his student loan, but you'll be setting him up for life.