new to os money- spending too much on shopping

rjh090384

sorry i also forgot to ask, is a butcher or a supermarket better priced for meat. tbh i dont really care about the quality as i do most things with sauces jsut the price

Sarahsaver

Depends what you want.
OH once bought a huge piece of beef once for £16 but it was enough to cut into 4 joints = 4x sunday dinners
Local halal butcher sells bags of chicken wings for £1, usually enought for 2 family meals.
Better quality sausages are more satisfying and tastier so you will need less.
Often the economy pork chops are thicker and meatier than the standard priced ones.

Could you use a slow cooker or make a few meals in advance on one of your days off?

Good luck;)

Lucie_2

Ah yes, that "pop to the supermarket for a pint of milk/spend £20" trick. I know it well! Have you tried using your local shop? It might be a few pence more for a pint of milk, but it will stop you spending un-necessarily. Send the b/f to the garage with a quid, and only a quid, then he can only get the milk.

The lettuce problem - I find it goes brown when I cut it with a knife. So now I tear off a leaf or two as I need it, rather than chop through the whole thing. Lasts much longer. Little gems are good too, cos they are small enough to use up in 2 days. Again they might cost a few pence more than bog standard iceberg, but it's got to be better value than chucking most of it away.

OJ - buy long life cartons & store in the shed, under the spare bed or where ever you have space. It only needs to be refrigerated once you have opened it.

Get used to a) meal planning & b) cooking in bulk & freezing portions. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang of it then it's easy. You can also bulk cook at the weekend & freeze for during the week.

rjh090384

the mother in law bought me a slow cooker for christmas but to be honest i dont have a clue how to use it and havent even had it out of its box. off tomorrow and monday so think i will do some bulk cooking then trying to clean out cupboards etc.

it is the local shop we go to to get milk cause 2 litres is only 69p but then the other things catch our/my eye!!!

meal planning is definatley on the agenda!!

thansk everyone!

ps whats a halal butcher?

Topher

I'd strongly recommend you turn to a book on the subject, plenty have been written, and a lot of people on here seem to have either started that way, or found them helpful.
My start was a Shirley Goode article in Family Circle about 20 odd years ago, which I still have, and have scanned into my puter. Unfortuately I don't know how to pass it on, nor am I sure about copyright. This article was a closely planned "How to feed a family of four on £21 per week", which started with a full Sunday dinner (Much easier than you think) and went on to give hints & tips, and use up all leftovers. It was an excellent start for me, and I went on to buy two of her books, the Goode Kitchen & Have A Goode Year.

For me, they've saved a fortune over the years, we've always eaten well, and I don't spend forever in the kitchen.

T.

Pink.

Hi rjh090384,

It sounds like the slow cooker would be perfect for your busy lifestyle. If you look in the The Complete Slow Cooker Collection you'll get lots of hints and tips on how to use it.

Pink

Penny-Pincher!!

I can only echo what others have suggested. My initial and biggest change was the meal planning and has cut my food costs from £100+ pw too about £30 pw.

Can I suggest making a list of food you already have and use that first. It can be quite a laugh seeing what concoctions you can come up with, but Im sure you will find enough food-either frozen, tinned, fridge etc that will fund many meals.

We have alot of hearty easy meals as Im disabled and OH does most of the cooking. Our menus consist of Roasts (leftovers made into pies or curries), curries, chilli, toad in hole, shepards pie, stews, spagbol, chops, lasagna, HM Quiches (using leftovers in fridge), HM Pizzas, etc etc. Try to have a "free" meal each week, which is stuff we already have in...like Egg and Chips or the Quiche or a Pizza...luverly;)

There are certain things I wont scrimp on but other things I would cut back on. We only have Nescafe or fresh coffee, Tetley tea and butter though. This board has helped me so much to cut back, and hopefully it will help you too:D

HTH

PP
xx

Sarahsaver

rjh090384 wrote:

ps whats a halal butcher?

We have lots of halal butchers here as there are a lot of muslims. Halal meat is slaughtered according to Islamic law. Nothing to do with it being halal is the fact that they are so cheap! Like 3 chickens for £5, and they will sell you just one chicken brest (HUGE) if that's all you want
ALso something like a liver (from a sheep or cow ) cost about £1 and was bigger than a dinner plate. Liver and onions is very quick to cook.

Sons had home made french bread pizza for tea - also v quick. Halve a french stick lengthways, top with tomato puree, toppings of your choice such as onion, olives, herbs and cheese, then grill til the cheese is well melted.

Blairweech

Sarahsaver wrote:

Halal meat is slaughtered according to Islamic law.

The animals are killed by slitting their throats, instead of being stunned with a bolt to the head before slaughter. There is much debate on the ethical vaues of it.

One of the hardest things when you go shopping is to just say no. "Ooh, that looks nice...but I'd rather pay off the mortgage soon/go on holiday/get a facelift/etc". I'm absolutely terrible at doing this, but it definantly helps when I only have the right amount of change.

Sarahsaver

But I have no probs with the ethical values, she just wanted to know what it meant;)
Its how all meat was slaughtered years ago.
I want to shoot pigeons but i dont have an air rifle!