HELP - Shopping £335p/m 2 adults 1 5yr old

muddlemess

zippychick wrote: »

Healthy eating

Cheapest healthy meal ever

Feeding your whole family a healthy balanced diet - about a specific book which may interest you

Grocery shopping and extreme money saving and healthy eating

Cheap healthy snacks

Healthy snacks for kids (nothing to say you can't eat them too )

Cheap low fat recipes

Losing weight recipes collection

Weight loss the OS way - part 7 - a good thread to join for inspiration

I think that's enough links for now :rotfl:

Good luck!:j
Zip

Thank you so much, I can never seem to find the ones I want and these are perfect.
I really am overwhelmed by everyone's responses and all the leg work your doing, thank you it really is appreciated :A:A

muddlemess

kirsty822001 wrote: »

:joh fab links thanks Zip!!! I am starting a grocery spend challenge in june and will read these threads to help reduce our huge £470 spend at Mr Sains a month :-) Good luck Muddlemess

How do you sign up for the grocery challenge? I'm useless at finding things on this site! Hope June is going well?

rachbc

muddlemess wrote: »

Thanks, I have just cleaned out my food cupboard and made a list of all the food in there, made some lentil and bean chilli and flap jack, going to try and use up some of what I have, the things I never seem to use, don't know why...
Have also started to keep receipts for shopping! I must admit I'm really dubious about buying food that is too cheap, I want to give my dd the best start and although she has school meals I want to make sure she has a healthy balanced diet, all that said I do use own brands for most things (after carefully checking the labels) but don't think I could use basics. :A

why couldn't you use basics? basics oats, tinned toms, juice, fruit and veg all have the same nutritional value as the brands and no additives etc.

We aim for 300-350 for 2 adults, a pre teen and a 3 year old, that inc a roast a week, 5 a day, pack ups and occassional treats like steak and ice cream.

We stopped school dinners because I feel that my £1.55 could be better spent on packed lunches

maman

Just a small tip to add to those already given. For portion control/calorie cutting I cut sausages into bite-size pieces when making a casserole/pasta dish. 3/4 sausages done like this would probably be enough for your family when added to veg. One of my recent favourites is my version of Tana Ramsay's sausage casserole (sorry haven't learned links). I don't add chorizo and use ordinary bacon (instead of pancetta) and sometimes don't bother with leeks. It's delicious. I also do my own butter beans in SC (bought a big bag from Asian grocer) and freeze.

tyzer2001

It's worth remembering that for a lot of the 'basics' the only thing you lose is the pretty pictured packaging. the product is identical.
For other basics, it might be that if you buy the premium brand all of the product will be the same size and shape, whereas the basics may be a bit smaller or mis-shapen - but still the same stuff! It just gets sorted differently on the conveyor belt!

Allegra

muddlemess wrote: »

Thanks for your quick reply - Makes great reading and what a lot of good ideas, not sure I could be quite so diciplined! Has anyone stuck to it? :T

Yep, I've done it for a month (with a bit of wine thrown in to lubricate it all), and am still using a lot of the recipes on a day-to-day basis. Plus I'm boring everyone I know with the tales of how wonderful it is....

But there is no need to do the lot if it feels to scary - just using a handful of recipes regularly, plus applying the principles to the rest of what you do will still save you a packet.

muddlemess

rachbc wrote: »

why couldn't you use basics? basics oats, tinned toms, juice, fruit and veg all have the same nutritional value as the brands and no additives etc.

We aim for 300-350 for 2 adults, a pre teen and a 3 year old, that inc a roast a week, 5 a day, pack ups and occassional treats like steak and ice cream.

We stopped school dinners because I feel that my £1.55 could be better spent on packed lunches

Just re-read my post and didn't mean it to sound funny...:o

Things may have changed since I last looked at basics but I'm just a bit dubeous about using some of them, do they have details of country of origin on them as previously things such as oats could be sourced from any country where they use pesticides which have been banned here. - but will check if this is still the case, I've always avoided basic toms because of GM foods, but just been looking at this and it looks as though in 2004 all GM food has to be labelled! So I may be able to use more basics than I thought!

I always try and buy british, happy chickens and locally sourced fruit and veg... just hoping I can still do this and reduce my budget...

Thanks for your advice :T

alanbluecat

Another way to tackle this may be from the other side. How much are you throwing in the bin? Apparently 30% of food bought is thrown away unused.

I live on my own and have virtually zero food waste and feed myself very healthily and cheaply for around £7 per week.

My GF lives with her teenage daughter and they spend £80 per week on food shopping. In their house loads of food comes out the shopping bag, into the fridge, then into the bin a week later. Drinks get poured into large glasses and not finished, then poured down the sink. Bottles not tightened properly so the drink goes flat, then poured away. Bread left open so that it goes stale quickly. Crisps opened and half eaten then thrown away. Dinners picked at and half thrown away, then expensive snack foods munched later, etc, etc - I'm sure you get the idea.

I'm not suggesting you are as bad as this, but why don't you make a note of all the things that get thrown away for a week or two and buy less of it the following week as well as keeping on top of things being half-eaten and thrown. It might add up to a small fortune and give you another way to get the food bill down.