Help cutting the budget

Gemmzie

Littlemiss-lotsofdebt wrote:

This sounds pretty do-able, there are lots of good home cooked food that can be made in a low fat way and bulked out for those with big appetites:

Fish Pie
Baked Potatoes
Quorn Spag Bol/Chilli
Stirfries
Pasta with various toppings

Also, shop around at different places like Netto, Farmfoods and Lidl. I've heard Farm Foods are pretty reasonable for veggie products and ready meals.

Kerryc82 wrote:

I tend to buy toiletries from places like Bodycare and Quality Save, they are soooo much cheaper then food stores for things like toothpaste, shampoo etc.

No Netto, FarmFoods, Bodycare or Quality Save We have an Aldi fairly near that's about it

Gemmzie

rainbowrisin wrote:

What sort of meals do you normally have?

Breakfast - cereal for me and mum, usually try and be good and have Oatso Simple type stuff but sometimes give into Honey Loops (£1 in Iceland :money:)

Lunch - mum and I make sandwiches of tuna/prawns/cheese, she also has ham/chicken bits. Raisins, crisps and oat cakes. Brother and father's lunch doesn't come out of budget.

Tea - big fan of taking a tin of tomatoes or plain yougurt, throwing herbs etc in and adding quorn/tofu/fish with rice/pasta. Do that once a week at least. Always have a bleeding roast on a Sunday :rolleyes:
Cake for dessert usually, although I have a thing for apple strudel but only buy it when it's on offer (£1 in tesco today so we got two, for example).

Sarahsaver

Boots basic toiletries are fine - all about 29p, shampoo, bubble bath, toothpaste. They work - my kids are clean:)

rainbowrisin

Gemmzie wrote:

Breakfast - cereal for me and mum, usually try and be good and have Oatso Simple type stuff but sometimes give into Honey Loops (£1 in Iceland :money:)If you swop the cereal for porridge it will work out a lot cheaper, even if you use branded porridge oats.
Lunch - mum and I make sandwiches of tuna/prawns/cheese, she also has ham/chicken bits. Raisins, crisps and oat cakes. Brother and father's lunch doesn't come out of budget.
Sandwiches are good - HM bread tastes excellent and is cheaper than the shop bought decent stuff. I find cold meat bought as cold meat v.expensive - I use bits from the roast, or use cold bacon for BLTs. If you like liver, then cooking some, mincing it fine and blending with butter makes an excellent liver pate and is v. reasonable. We don't buy crisps. Oatcakes are delish but expensive. Suggest HM or substitute with cream crackers. You may wish to consider having a veg soup (bung all the veg you can find in a pan, saute with butter if you're not dieting or just boil with a stock cube if you are, include some spud or pearl barley to thicken, then liquidise) with dinner, as it's filling, v. cheap and has lots of veg in it. If you buy a big bag of raisins they will last much longer than the sunmaid boxes.
Tea - big fan of taking a tin of tomatoes or plain yougurt, throwing herbs etc in and adding quorn/tofu/fish with rice/pasta. Do that once a week at least. Always have a bleeding roast on a Sunday :rolleyes:
Cake for dessert usually, although I have a thing for apple strudel but only buy it when it's on offer (£1 in tesco today so we got two, for example).

Any of the normal "family" meals are usually quite economical - obviously you'd need to take into consideration your family's tastes, and it always helps to make double then freeze half for another day.
HM cake is usually a little cheaper to make, although sometimes not that much. Its big advantage is that it's very filling, as generally there's more flour and less sugar in HM than there is in bought. Things like dutch apple cake, carrot cake, banana loaf, fruit loaf can all make great desserts, or you can have them cold as snax.
Roast can be quite expensive, but I buy one organic chicken a week, we have roast one day, cold the next and pie or curry the next, so it does us for ages.
For toiletries and cleaners i find boots basics and savers the cheapest (as others have mentioned). I also don't buy that many toiletries - for example, i buy soap, and we use that instead of hand wash, bubble bath, shower gel etc. I buy basics shampoo which is fine for all of us, plus deoderant for me and toothpaste for the littlies (I use salt usually, or just clean my teeth with water) I use mainly stardrops for cleaning and washing up, plus bleach and washing powder (i can't get on with eco balls or OS gloop at all). My biggest expense is fabreeze and neutradol as we are in the final stages of potty training and sometimes it gets whiffy here at the rainbowrisin residence.
From what you've said i'm not really sure how you can manage to spend £100 pw. If you stick to three meals a day and have some HM cake, cream crackers and fruit incase you get a little peckish, then I would have thought your shopping would be about £60, even without cutting back much?
Hope some of that helps.
Sorry, i've put my suggestions for brekkie and lunch in with the "quote italicised" section- hope it still makes some sort of sense.

Dobie

Me & DH usually eat different meals because I'm vegan & he likes his meat. I think the answer to doing this economically is to always cook in bulk & freeze the remainder. You can then have one homemade meal out of the freezer & one cooked fresh each night. This is cheaper & less time consuming. If there's always something you've made in the freezer you'll be much less likely to have ready meals.
I also often make the same sauce & serve his with meat or fish & mine with veggies.
I also only buy meat & fish when it's been reduced & then stock up the freezer. I budget no more than £1.00 per meal for meat & fish.
I think your best source of information is the recipie index on this board. There are some really interesting ideas for low cost meals on there.

jazzyjustlaw

Sarahsaver wrote:

£100 per week is loads, could you maybe post a shopping list? £100 would last me a month! :rolleyes:
Dont buy ANY readymade meals, not even a pizza, thats my no.1 tip, and second no biscuits/crisps/pop as they are empty calories and therefore a waste of money!

You will make huge savings, just stick around here;)

No pizza - please tell me what you snack on. If i cook from scratch I am more full but I am always hungry - what can I do to stop it?

I do try hard our montly food bill is about £140.00 for two of us but I love chocolate, crisps and nuts.

bud-miser

Er... isn't 'Quorn' a branded product? Could there not possibly be a lower cost, unbranded alternative available somewhere?

One of the very first things on your ideas list would surely be to get shot of as many of the branded goods as possible and replace these by own-label or 'value'-type products.

Buying fresh things, not in ANY kind of packaging, can be surprisingly cost-effective - and healthier...

rainbowrisin

bud-miser wrote:

Er... isn't 'Quorn' a branded product? Could there not possibly be a lower cost, unbranded alternative available somewhere?

One of the very first things on your ideas list would surely be to get shot of as many of the branded goods as possible and replace these by own-label or 'value'-type products.

Buying fresh things, not in ANY kind of packaging, can be surprisingly cost-effective - and healthier...

Quorn is branded - if you want to use a vegan substitute then tofu (Bean curd) or TVP (textured vegetable protein) will work - however, they are both absolutely flavourless on their own IMHO, but brilliant to add to any dish involving meat to bulk it out. Tofu is particularly excellent in stir fries, curries, or anything where you need chunks - just marinade it or use it with something which has a strong flavour - I like tofu "meat balls" (soak bread in milk, squeeze bread, add tofu, garlic, chopped black olives and squidge together in balls, then shallow fry. Add the remainder of the milk to a pasta sauce and serve with pasta - you can use soya or oat milk if you don't use dairy). You can also make really yummy vegetable spreads with tofu. I recommend any of the Rose Elliot cookery books for good tofu / tvp recipes.
My understanding is that quorn is some kind of culture (grown on a petri dish!!) so probably not very appetising in its natural state:eek:

rainbowrisin

jazzyjustlaw wrote:

No pizza - please tell me what you snack on. If i cook from scratch I am more full but I am always hungry - what can I do to stop it?

I do try hard our montly food bill is about £140.00 for two of us but I love chocolate, crisps and nuts.

If it's any help, we tend to snack on fruit and carrots, plus cream crackers and dried fruit (particularly dried apricots as they are v.yummy). I make cheese scones and fruit scones, as they are v.quick to make and simple (I'm not a good cook), so we pig on them if we are peckish.
The littlies and i also make biscuits together, for fun and becoz they are yummy.
TBH if there aren't any snax in the house then we eat whatever there is or do without - I know that sounds harsh if you're a munchy type of person, but it's surprising how fast you get used to it.
I also read the label on some of the processed snax and am so appalled by what's in them that it really puts me off. Potato starch in desserts and whey (that's the nasty liquid you get off cheese that they used to feed pigs with in the good ole days) in virtually everything. Most desperately nasty when you think about it.

sammy_kaye18

Agree with rainbowrisin

I was so totally surprised how much 'gunk' there was in foods that i properly started to learn how to cook when i was pregnant with my little boy.
Everything is HM now near enough. In fact im pretty sure if i had enough room for a cow and chicken id have them too!
All LO baby food was homemade and i tend to bake alot so we have snack things around the house. Althgouh every attempt ive had at scones fails miserably so any help there appreciated.
We tend to have fresh fruit and a fair bit of dried fruit in the house - mainly for little one but it tastes nice.

Also we have sandwiches, i dont buy crisps or nuts - im allergic to nuts. but i will buy the baked mini cheddars in poundland occassionally.
We never buy sweets in our big shop except possibly as a treat for little one adn all our mels are homemade no matter how big or small. Breakfasts is normally toast with a little butter, or store brand (cheapest) cereal - but i dare say this will turn to porridge more nwo its getting cold.