Grocery Bills

vl2588

There are *tons* of meals that can be made for £1 or less per person. Search on here or google (that's what I did and picked the stuff that appealed to me). Cooking in bulk really helps. Also having the odd veggie meal will help as meat is generally a lot more expensive than veggie alternatives (e.g. veggie mince or quorn pieces which can be made to taste similar-ish to meat).

ecoelle

Hi! I'm a bit of a barmy cook, so forgive my excitedness about meal planning and frugal food.....here goes!

Firstly, try meal planning, you can do this weekly or monthly whichever you find easier. I do mine weekly, purely because i tend to buy my food from the place i work and i tend to get reductions, so if i know what i'm planning to cook on Thursday and i see the bits i need reduced on Tuesday i can switch the meals round. A meal plan is not there to be boring and restrictive but to save you money and time and also if you gat into it it becomes easy.

I used to live alone like yourself and it is more expensive cooking for one than for a family, so you have to be savvy, try cooking things at the start of the week that you can then use up any leftovers later int he week. For example, cook a cottage pie on your day off, then freeze the remainder of it into portions, you can then use one portion later the same week after a long day at work all you need to do is pop it into the microwave/oven and then cook some veggies!

I think a good place to start is the local library, or on the internet, loads of recipes for free that way, start with student cookbooks/websites, they tend to be simpler recipes, designed for new cooks, with little fancy equipment, and they tend to be designed for one person, or, suitable for freezing.

I love buying food, i work in a supermarket and spend my time off cooking and baking and preserving and growing veg and...well you get the picture.

If you need any ideas for cheap recipes then check out the old style board, they have fab ideas of using up leftovers, and also check out the meal planning thread as you can sometimes get good ideas for new meals.

Oh and start with a list of all the food you have in the house. Pop it on here and then we can all come up with ideas of things you could cook with what you have!

See told you i loved food!!!

Just found this http://www.beyondbakedbeans.com/

rak2

I've recently started saving money and I used to spend this amount as well. Looking back I think I bought a lot on impulse and threw a lot away.
Now I plan my meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I eat well, too well and am able to spend around £110 a month which was the budget I set. I know I can reduce this further though.

I've started shopping in Aldi and Lidl for some things and cooking a lot of things from scratch. I'm making a lot of soups too.
I got some good recipes from the Old Style board. If you go to the second post on this thread there are links to recipes and so on. https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2892418

I do tend to eat the same thing two or three days running though. :rotfl:

becky4131

Yes i have some plastic pots ready for freezing meals, was just unsure how long meals can be frozen for.

I live in a small town so limited to shops, we have morrisons, aldi, farmfoods and netto but i mainly shop at morrisons.

Im not sure how i manage to spend that much on food, it does include cat food (about a fiver a week) but i am eager to get my costs down.

Do you tend to spend one day a week/month batch cooking?

dyldwarf

when i freeze meals they tend to last in my freezer for about 2-3 months in total i dont know if they will keep longer as they dont get chance to in my house.i tend to make big sausepans of stews ect at once have some to eat that day and rest goes in freezer.i also make cornbeef pies in batches and freeze them.i make stew with the packs you can get in the market or some superstores and add a tin of cornbeef or beef pieces works out about £2 for the cornbeef one and makes about 12 portions

itsallinthemind

When living alone pre children I used to spend about £9pw, with inflation call it £12. No actually £15, the prices are silly the the last 12 months!

I did batch cook, but it was more about turning ingredients into many meals, not just freezing. I also ate a few veggie meals and also I adore porrige which helps!

I used to start with roast chicken, make chicken soup, chicken curry(plus a veggie as was making the base anyway), pop them in fridge, then portion up chicken into freezer. This was pulled out the night before to make cheapy but nice meals. Things like pasta, stir in half tin condensed mushroom soup with half milk, bit of chickern and handful of peas or corn etc. Then things like chicken risotto as you need a miniscule amount. A chicken could do me 20-25 meals of meat.

Same with a 500g of mince, spag bol, lasagne, shepherds pie, chilli con carne, filled wraps with cheese etc, all bulked out with whoopsied or frozen veg. Upto 12 meals generally.

Take a good look through the recipie threads on old style or join the grocery challenge. Mince can be bulked with oats, lentils etc etc. There is so much info on there!

Maybe aim to cut it to £30 at first, so you can get a stock of herbs, spices etc as these make a bland meal an amazing meal

Blobby8_2

becky4131 wrote: »

Im not sure how i manage to spend that much on food, it does include cat food (about a fiver a week) but i am eager to get my costs down.

Eat the cat, saves you a fiver a week and at least four good meals











Its a joke

WhiteHorse

A £4 fresh chicken will do 4 main meals quite easily if padded out with rice and veg.

john_howard_fisher

Blobby8 wrote: »

What sort of shops are in range, Indian ? Chinese? Pakistani? Or just Tesco?

If you are in a medium sized town or larger and can find an ethnic shop you should be able to source your food cheaply.
You will be able to knock up a stir fry in 20 minutes for less than a quid

I second this. the indian / pakistani shop are so much cheaper than tesco etc. i use three techniques to keep the cost down and taste up:

1. cook my own currys: the best tip is to learn to make chapatis. simple example: 25kg bag of flour (atta) for £10. that will last months and months, there is no way to put into words the taste difference between homemade fresh chapatis and tesco chapatis. plus the ones we make are 100% pure wheat. not the tesco bit of this and bit of that just to beef it up and keep the cost down. my favourite for recipes is TandooriCookingExpert. the reason is that the lady is old-school. she makes everything the traditional way. her english is ok-ish but so long as she is happy to teach i dont mind.

2. use ingredients from local indian / pakistani shops: so much cheaper than tesco. simple example where we live lots of small shops competing so two blue-top 2litre bottles of milk for £1- thats 50p each! try that in tesco etc

3. check prices before: if i have to go to tesco etc then i first check at TandooriCookingExpert to see good food deals posted by community. the only problem with this site is there needs to be more people posting. at the moment i can only count half a dozen people. i use mysupermarket but it is too commercialised not community base like mse. the power of mse is in the people + its impartial.

when you look you'll see that TandooriCookingExpert is aimed at indian / pakistani shops. the strange thing is that no indian / pakistani shops have signed up. i dont know why. the business directory is empty.

http://www.tandooricookingexpert.com/

flutterbyuk25

Pop over to the Old Style board and you'll find lots of cheap recipes, hints and tips to get your grocery spend down.

I live alone and spend £60-£80 a month on food/cleaning products etc.

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