Do I really spend to much on food?

jamespir

maybe the reason why it so expensive is your taste are expenxive ie


parma ham and crab and salmon arent that cheap especially if theres three of you

not that you shouldnt have it if you can afford it mind

downshifter

ooooooooooh, I knew I'd end up drooling over your menus! This for me is special occasion or restaurant type food. Do you actually need to cut down because if I could afford it I would certainly eat like this, wonderfully healthy, a great variety of classy foods. Some of us on here get by with making a tin of baked beans last several days because we have to! If you have no need to save money and don't have any other convictions about where food comes from, overconsumption of meat etc etc then stick with this menu.

One thing that occurs to me is do you all eat different things at a meal? Do you go out to work? If so, how do you find time/energy to prepare this lot when you get in?

Are you sure you're not winding us up and you're really Prince Charles - this doesn't feel like normal family food at all, not one bit? If you'renot, how much would you like to cut your budget by and we'll all have a go at it. You must have seen some of the other family menus on the other threads you say you've been reading, therefore it must be pretty obvious to you what the difference is between your menus and those.

crux

downshifter wrote: »

ooooooooooh, I knew I'd end up drooling over your menus! This for me is special occasion or restaurant type food. Do you actually need to cut down because if I could afford it I would certainly eat like this, wonderfully healthy, a great variety of classy foods. Some of us on here get by with making a tin of baked beans last several days because we have to! If you have no need to save money and don't have any other convictions about where food comes from, overconsumption of meat etc etc then stick with this menu.

One thing that occurs to me is do you all eat different things at a meal? Do you go out to work? If so, how do you find time/energy to prepare this lot when you get in?

Are you sure you're not winding us up and you're really Prince Charles - this doesn't feel like normal family food at all, not one bit? If you'renot, how much would you like to cut your budget by and we'll all have a go at it. You must have seen some of the other family menus on the other threads you say you've been reading, therefore it must be pretty obvious to you what the difference is between your menus and those.

Our circumstances have changed, but our lifestyle/spending is lagging behind. I already cut down from organic/free range but maybe I had best look elsewhere in the budget for further cuts.

It's just so tempting looking to cut your groceries budget to a few hundred a month.

I'm not any kind of Prince, but the menu is genuine. I love to cook and eat well, would rather cook than watch the TV that is on in our house of an evening. Besides my time management is very good, I have time to cook and still do lots of other stuff, helps that work is only 10 Min's away.

My wife and I eat the same for lunch, dinner, but our 12 yr old is picky and eats plainer more kid friendly foods.

Grrr... As I type this my wife has announced that she is stopping by Tescos after the gym... Bang goes another £50 for sure, I think she is having even more difficulty with reigning in the spending than I am. But at the moment talking to her about it is not productive

crux

jamespir wrote: »

maybe the reason why it so expensive is your taste are expenxive ie


parma ham and crab and salmon arent that cheap especially if theres three of you

not that you shouldnt have it if you can afford it mind

I can afford some of it, but not all of it these days

I guess I need to learn to get a bit more real while still getting the best I can afford.

ceridwen

The food you are eating sounds nice - and darn nearly 100% healthy:T. offhand - I think the only unhealthy thing I spotted was the Quavers:rotfl:.

If you dont have to cut down - then dont bother. If you DO have to - then you are eating expensive types of meat and fish from what I can see - so perhaps you could look at cheaper types - or, of course, turning vegetarian:D

So - you are eating very much more healthily than many people:T and you dont want to lose that element in the search for a cheaper bill if you can possibly help it. What you COULD do is use cheaper protein foods - pine nuts, salmon, parma ham and crab are the things that struck me that you could substitute - and, of course, those Quavers. Apart from that - I dont think you are eating excessively expensive food at all - so hopefully it wont be necessary to try and cut back any further than that.

vandanfc

Do you really NEED to eat meat every day ? I spend around the £300 mark for 3 of us, including some shopping at M & S. I only buy organic milk and lots of other stuff onganic too. I buy meat from my local farmer's market, usually once a month or so. I try to alternate meat based dish one night, something else the next. I think you may need to look at your veg. consumption with each meal, doesn't seem much to me.

se999

OK to keep your meat/fish levels up but cut the cost, I tend to buy things on special offer or when whoopsied and use the freezer.

Also look at cheaper options, like frozen bags of salmon filllets instead of the fresh, admittedly Tesco's quite often do the whole salmon at good prices, so I sometimes buy a whole one for the freezer for when we have visitors, especially impressive for buffet's and another filleted at the counter, which I cut into portions when I get home and freeze..

For fruit/veg, if near an Aldi/Lidl I buy whatever's the mega cheap special, and plan meals around it.

The only question I have for you is have you monitored how much food gets wasted. It might not be a problem you have. I revise my menu's around what needs using first, and go through the fridge regularly and have a space to put the things that need eating up first. For meals, using serving dishes, so that leftovers can be reused also reduces waste.

I think others have said about including vegetarian meals in the menu.

One thought on portion size is you say there's 3 people in the house, lots of things are sold in 2's or 4's not 3's, so it's very easy to split the extra portion and eat it so as not to waste it, rather than freeze it or use it for something else.

You mentioned your wife going Tesco's. Our routine is to first go to all the whoopsie's sections, then shop from the list, revising according to what's on special offer or whoopsie's already bought, then revisit the whoopsie's in case anything new is added, or things have been marked down further.

MrsBartolozzi

Sorry to be a bit dense:o but I'm a bit confused by the food list you provided. While I agree with the others it all sounds healthy and yummy, if a little expensive;) could you split it into breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks please? Some of the days are a little confusing - several different salads for instance, are they lunches for 3 different people?
I don't mean to be demending but thought it might make things a bit clearer.:)

alwaysonthego_2

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mooomin

ceridwen wrote: »

The food you are eating sounds nice - and darn nearly 100% healthy:T. offhand - I think the only unhealthy thing I spotted was the Quavers:rotfl:.

As someone who is currently in calorie-counting hell.....Quavers are as close as you get to healthy crisps without wandering into Snackajack territory. Although they have a reasonable amount of fat in them for the size of the bag they are only 87 calories per pack, and 2.5g less fat (from memory) than my personal crisp of choice, the mighty HulaHoop.

*relurks*