Confused about low weekly shop

lushkat

I have tried to buy fruit and veg from the local market but I find the quality a little iffy. I bought some apples the other week, and half of them were bruised. Fair enough I can cut them up and use them in cooking, but the point is I want to eat them as they are, not be forced to use them for something else.

Equally the thought of water injected battery chicken reduced to pennies in the supermarket makes me wince. I wonder how someone can live cheaply but well and eat good quality produce, I am not criticising anyone for what they do, but I just cant see how you do it?

Am I being taken in by all the hype - that an organic fresh chicken or low fat mince is better - or doesnt it matter? Isnt anyone else confused by it all?

mah_jong

Like some others I rarely get the BOGOFs (am single and wont waste food), nr or the bargains other list, also dont have Tesco anywhere near me (thankfully) that seem to take any coupon for anyshop/product!

However yes, my groceries budget is low. Its all used too !!

Just think of the waste, the thrown out stuff from the gently rotting stuff in the fridge that is a way of life for many, ...NOT ME!

Planning thats what its about, but be prepared to get the bargain should it appear! Last week I did get some green beans for 10p, used half that night and I blanched and froze the rest!

Susank, you are lucky to have a butcher close to you....keep using him!! Can you get to Lidl in Inverness to do a basic shop from time to time?? When there I top on flour, tins toms, kidney beans dishwasher stuff, washing powder etc etc. I buy trays of the stuff and keeps me going for ages~Well worth it!!!!

Caterina

I once read a question asked in a women's magazine: If you could only buy a single organic food in your shopping, what would it be the best?

The answer was something on these lines:

If meat: definitely chicken, as the battery version is tasteless and often full of diseases. It is also reared in such a cruel way that for that reason only it would be worth to encourage people to eat organic. It might mean needing to eat less chicken but when you do you know that you are buying animals that were reared healthily and killed humanely.

If vegetarian: lettuce, as the non-organic version contains more pesticides than one cares to know about.

With regard to hype - I understand what you are saying, it is very easy to get sucked in by the different food fads and hypes, but if you stick to a few basic principles you will find that over time your food bill will become more and more manageable and your diet will improve too. These are:

Cheaper is not always better (e.g water-logged bacon that disappears when you fry it vs. quality bacon that keeps its shape and has much better flavour), so reducing the amount of meat you eat but buying the best quality will be more expensive by weight but will give you more satisfaction and will be better for you and the environment.

Eat food as near to its natural state as possible: grains, pulses, seeds etc. are very reasonably priced (esp. if bought in bulk) and very nutritious too.

Try to grow your own even it if is only tomatoes in a pot on the windowsill in summer and sprouted alfalfa seeds in winter.

Keep a price diary to make sure you know where to get the cheapest groceries. Always make sure you do the calculation by comparing weight vs price - e.g if a 400g jar of peanut butter costs, say, £1 in a shop that means its real cost is £0.25 per 100g, so if you find another one in another shop and it costs £0.95, but it is a 300g you are losing out. Worth going out to do the shopping with a calculator in your handbag

These are only few ideas and I am sure more people can give you more ideas here!

Best of luck

Caterina

Smashing

I got 2 packets of bread wiltshire ham (normally £2.69ish :eek: ) for 49p each last Monday night in Sainsburys at around 7.30ish.

Also tend to get good reductions at the co-op around 8-9pm - they had large packs of BM wafer thin ham reduced to 20p last week. :T

Sarahsaver

The weekend before bank holiday mondays is usually a good time for reduced to clears.

susank

mah_jong We are getting a Lidl in Elgin - being built by the station and we now have an ALdi along with "MArks and Spencer Just food" (I love them) My butcher is 6 miles away but I stock up every now and again for the freezer and I like his meat so wont buy anywhere else.
As to the buy organic chicken - I watched the programme on the tv a while ago about the chickens having skin on legs burnt with ammonia and leaves a mark on them and I steer clear of them and also notice that the so called organic ones also have this mark on the legs - so how do we know they are organic - I would question that one. Organic food fed to the chickens probably qualifies them to be organic and no medications and what we really are or should be looking for is free range organic chickens like eggs!!.
I hate the thought of plastic water injected poor little burnt with ammonia off their faeces and urine chickens - sorry folks

Luna69

Not totally to do with the reducing of our weekly shop, although I have been trying to over the last few months, since our family grew from 4 to 5 and our income is not great being self employed with a lot of debt.. however we are managing. I shop at the moment online as I rarely get out at all, don't drive and am severely tired due to a baby that doesn't like to sleep more than 3 hours in one go, if I'm lucky.. but I have found that we spend less that way. Can't impulse buy and kids can't WANT anything, not that they get it anyway.

However I am also a little confused about organic etc, I'd love to eat a completely organic diet, but it is so much more expensive that it is not possible. i do buy organic milk, despite it being about 30p per 4 pints more expensive than normal milk. I also get a few veggies organic too.. garlic, sometimes carrots, but not always. I sometimes buy organic yogurts, cheese, etc, tend to go for the dairy products. Meat I buy normal, but probably should buy organic, but it would bump up our weekly shopping bill again.
I buy mostly shops own brand products with most things to cut down.

I also try most weeks to get together some recipes and buy what I need for those, I used to subscribe to an american menu mailer, which I received weekly by email which was really good, but after a few months I got bored with the similarity in recipes, so stopped it, but it did help me do this myself. I mostly cook food from scratch, haven't bought any micro meals for nearly a year now, other than the odd one after I had the baby as DF does'nt cook.
I've also started trying to cook desserts/cakes and biscuits to save on buying those, not sure it always works out cheaper but at least I know what is in them.
Plus my DD loves helping me make them.

My mum is terrible, she lives on her own, wastes a lot of food. I've tried to get her too cook a meal in her slow cooker, then freeze what she doesn't eat for future meals, she buys a lot of micro meals and other processed stuff. Plus she tends to buy in expensive shops ie: M&S Her fridge is chock full of food that she won't eat. Crazy.

Anyway, waffling now but it is sometimes difficult working out what to do for the best. To save money but not have to eat not so good food.

Yvonne

freda

However I am also a little confused about organic etc, I'd love to eat a completely organic diet, but it is so much more expensive that it is not possible. i do buy organic milk, despite it being about 30p per 4 pints more expensive than normal milk. I also get a few veggies organic too.. garlic, sometimes carrots, but not always.

If you have any space, ranging from windowsills to window boxes, to tubs on a paving slab outside to a full blown garden, you can start planning what to grow next year - dead cheap and certainly organic!

Windowsills - you can grow lots of herbs, sweet peppers*, chilli peppers*, salad leaves, sprouting beans etc

Hanging baskets - you can grow strawberries, cherry toms* (buy the sort that are meant to dangle, not the ones that grow straight up)

Tubs - you can grow potatoes, onions, garlic, runner beans*, all sorts of tomatoes, cucumber, salad leaves, herbs, leeks...the list is fairly endless

In the ground - depending on space, you can grow all sorts, from potatoes to loads of onion, garlic*, carrots, rhubarb, apple trees, pear trees, cherry trees, soft fruit like raspberries, strawberries etc, courgettes - the list is endless.

* items you can get the seeds from the actual item, i.e. dried tomato seeds, sweet pepper, chilli pepper etc.

I only have a tiny space, but the things I find most productive are:

Runner beans - I have just spent about an hour today, and will spend many more in the next couple of weeks, chopping and freezing loads of runner beans to see me through the winter.

Potatoes - so much nicer than shop ones, easy to grow

Rhubarb - again, the more you pick it, the more it grows. And you can just chop it, and freeze it for the winter.

Cooking apples (donated from family!) - chop and freeze

Tomatoes - grow more than you can eat and make your own passata for the winter months.

Leeks - can be hidden in amongst the borders, will live through most of winter ready to pick

doddsy

I agree with Lushkat. It can be confusing, cheap or quality?. The brown marks you mention are hock burns, and yes I have seen so called organic chickens in supermarkets with these burns. Iwould rather pay premium from a source that i KNOW to be organic, and I rubberise it for all its worth.

I am 12 miles away from the nearest supermarket, and my local shops charge grade I prices for grade II stuff.

doddsy

rainbowrisin

I completely agree about the chicken - we only eat free range organic here. It's the only food that I really won't compromise on. If we can't afford it then we don't eat chicken.
I think with the cutting back that it has to be a fairly individual thing based on what you are prepared to eat and what there is available.
We spend between £20-30pw on food, cleaning materials, petfood etc. (that's for me and the littlies, who only have smallish appetites being pre-schoolers) I find there are some good bargains to be had at lidl on a sunday morning (4pts milk 5p, loaf of hovis wholemeal, 5p, turkey kebabs, 19p for three (no good for us, but brill for the dog).
We have farm shops near us, and if you are prepared to buy in bulk then they're reasonable.
I find buying "single ingredient" things generally works out much cheaper and the stuff goes further.
For example, I was in lidl the other day and the couple infront of me bought a box of crisps, 4 packs of capri sun individual drinks, some sugar, some sweets and a couple of other bits - it came to £11 something. I paid £12 something for a loaf, a reduced pork joint, potatoes, carrots, onions, pouches for the cat, a jar of jam, 2 tins of tomatoes, a pat of butter, a tin of baked beans, a reduced tinned pie (complete junk but a useful standby), 8 pts of milk, some apples and (yes, i do buy processed occasionally), a packet of choccie biccies for 39p). It's as much about what you buy as getting bargains.
I could cut back more (no choccie biccies, make a pie and freeze it etc), but I like an occasional choccie biccie. I think it's as much about what you buy as it is about getting bargains.
There's always something to cut back on, but I honestly think that once you get much below £5 pw / person (adult or child) then IMHO it's very difficult to envisage how you can provide a balanced diet using reasonable quality ingredients for a long period of time - that's just what I think anyway.