how to reduce my food bill [merged]

sb44

Go to the old style moneysaving forum, you will get ideas and help there, they won't bite, honestly.



http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=33

carriebradshaw

and try this site

http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/

Any

Hi,
£ I don't think £150 is extremely tight budget, but it would be tight-ish for me also. I spend about £200 a month on food for two if I try a little (otherwise it's more like £250).

Spaghetti bolognese are not expensive? I haven't seen them on your list. Also you can use the sauce for different things - just buy big box of minced meat which comes to even better value then small boxes and cook it in bulk. I also use the sauce for example for mini easy-peasy pizzas - it's not really a pizza, but toast with the sauce and cheese on top:-) if you add mushrooms while heating up the sauce it's a bit closer to pizza:-) You can also load it onto jacket potato.

I also agree with the stew ideas - I make several stews. Beef mushroom and czech goulash are my OH's favourites. Let me know if you want my recipe.

Chicken soup - if you get garlic bread with it it is easily main meal filling enough. I make clear consome chicken soup with noodles (and veg, by clear I mean not creamy). For soup value chicken legs will do, you are going to boil it for couple of hours anyway and the big marrow bone in legs is the most important thing for proper consome. From 1 box of legs you will easily make 4 portions. Just before you add the noodles, split the consome with meat and veg into 2 and freeze half of it for some other time.

noynoy

Baked beans count as one of your 5 a day use the low salt low sugar ones and you can add them as a base to a lot of meals. We make pizzas on a friday with any left over sandwich meats veg etc . Lots of slow cooker meals, we bulk ours out using rice straight in raw if i used a jarred sauce i put in the same amount with water then add tinned tomatoes, frozen peas and sweetcorn and any meat scraps

MirjamL

i just don't eat beans that's the thing and well planning for a child in the near future, so need to find healthy and nutritious foods/meals to eat.

Lo-Lo

Hiya!
My husband and I (and three kitties) spend between £30 and £45 a month on our groceries (including all cleaning products, shampoo etc. as well as food). Most expensive thing we buy is cat food (about £3.50 a week cos our cats love the cheapy tins and biscuits!)

We eat generally really healthily and although this is definitely because we both love to cook, but we get a very varied diet by getting the reduced stuff. May take a while to figure out when your local store does it though. We also use our local market which is great for 50p/£1 for a big bowl of veg. My main tip though is that we only buy meat if it's really really reduced. We cook lots of dishes with beans, mushrooms, lentils, sweet potatoes, pasta, rice etc so don't miss meat but it's nice to have sometimes. When some comes through in the reduced section (and I'm talking 40p/60p jobs - sometimes reduced is not reduced enough for me) then we take out what we need that night and freeze the rest immediately, or do a big batch cook.

I make sure I cook enough extra for leftovers for work lunch the next day, and if not I can usually round up a sandwich (or the very very occasional 17p pot noodle, we call such things 'emergency food' in our house!) and that gets us through.

I'm not very good at recipes as I cook by eye and tend to chuck stuff in and see what happens, but I find tinned beans (kidney are always cheap, not the ones in tomato sauce) are a great standby for loads of recipes. I really like making my own veggie burgers by food processing veg - carrots, courgettes, sweet potatoes, onion, garlic with spices, maybe a tin of ready cooked beans, a load of herbs or spices and maybe an egg or a bread crust to bind, then oven cook. They taste yum and are quick and go with loads of other foods. Of course, we're growing our own veg so this is even cheaper now.

Another great thing to do if you buy bulk veg or random reduced food like me is get inspiration by googling the ingredients!! I just stick in like 'courgette mushroom recipe' to get ideas. A key to making all of this work is having a well stocked store cupboard - buy spices in bulk, grow your own herbs, always have value flour, rice etc. in reserve then whatever happens you can make a meal!

I don't know if that's useful to anyone or not, it's just what we do.

PaulaP_3

Wow - £30-£45 a month for two and a cat - that's awesome. I find it hard to keep to £150 for my partner and I alone. Thanks for sharing the tips. I do find it really hard though when I have cravings - then I just think: oh but this or that would taste so good, so I just buy it. I'm burning holes in my pocket, I know.

kirstyjessen

MirjamL wrote: »

well i would love to know exactly how do you do your meals for a fiver. Like a list of grocery shoppings with prices and where did you buy them. And well cooking instructions would be nice too
PS! 60 for a month is a great accomplishment Wish i could do that. Then i could spend some money for entertainment or something good. Please teach me to save more.

Hey there been busy at work :cool: lol but will write up the receipes today for you some of my meals cost just £1 for 2 people so 50p per person will write down the details when i get home later for you xxxx

EstherH

Could someone please move this back to the OS board?

noynoy

wow this afternoon i went to my local co op and decided that im going to be a lot more eco and frugal about food ..so i vowed to buy only reduced food if i can help it..Today is the first day ive done this and i found 2 x half doz crumpets , 2 bags of mixed veg , 2 special angus beefburgers, a packet of kiplings lemon fancies, pack of 4 sweet chiilli chicken kebabs to cook, should have come to £9.80 but it was reduced to just £2.30 ..so ive decided every moring im going to get into the habit of popping in..very pleased! oh and ive just done my second appoved food order got £90 of food for £27