Confused about low weekly shop

Luna69

freda wrote:

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

Thank you
It's one things I'd really LOVE to do. Our back garden is a junk yard at the moment and I keep saying when we have it sorted I want a corner for a veggie garden, so that is great. I think I'll get in some tubs to do some planting. I need to know where to start though, do you buy seeds or use veg you already have? We don't get a great deal of sun out the back, will that matter?
I tried growing a few herbs on my windowsill but most died, I did have success with a couple though. I'm not that green fingered or much into gardening so would need to be easy stuff.
Are there any sites or magazines that will help a beginner? I'd love fruit trees too.

Yvonne

freda

I need to know where to start though, do you buy seeds or use veg you already have? We don't get a great deal of sun out the back, will that matter?

I'm by no means an expert, but heres what I do:

Tomatoes - either buy little plants in spring from market stalls (c.20p per plant), or this year I just planted some seeds from a tomato into a pot with compost in it, with great success.

Chilli plants/sweet peppers - first experiement this year, planted from seed in small pots on the windowsill in the warmest room of the house, in small pots of compost.

POtatoes - buy seed potatoes from the garden centre in early spring. Leave in a tray in a dry room for a couple of weeks to let them sprout. Then put about 3 or 4 in a tub (mine are only about 2foot square) with a few inches of compost above and below them. As the green grows up, add more compost so it is encouraged to root more tubers as you pile up the compost.

Runner beans - easiest of the lot, just stick the beans in the ground at the foot of a bamboo wigwam.

Cucumber - buy a small plant from the market stall. This works best in a grow bag and needs something to climb up.

Courgette - buy small plant from market stall. Put in other half of the grow bag to the cucumber. Will gorw and grow and grow and grow.... (Doesn't need to climb but grows forwards)

Rhubarb - find a neighbour/friend with a plant and get a root from them. Don't pick it too much in the first year, the second year pick as much as you want!

Spring onions - chuck the seeds in the ground and thin out when they look like blades of grass.

Herbs that are indestructible: mint, thyme, parsley, rosemary, sage, chives.

Re the sun, I'm not sure - things like tomatoes need sun to ripen them, but my patch of garden isn't the sunniest in the world and they are fine.

I don't read any magazines, but get a gardening book out of the library in early spring, have a good read.

lynzpower

We cook and clean for 25 per week for 2, altohugh I have gone over budget this month, due to eye off the ball, but not by much.

We manage it by
a) only ever buyig what we need and wasting nothing
b) menu planning to death
c) being flexible with eating

Last night we were meant to be having a chorizo & chick pea casserole, i coulndt be bothered to cook, OH found a bit of frozen chili in the freezer and a jacket I had a bowl of soup.

Never be afraid of the cheapest meal. I do a homemade pizza ( rocket, cheese, red onion, mushroom) with jackets and thats got to come to less than a quid for 2.

We never have expensive meat like steaks, lamb or chicken breasts. I try to buy free range chicken, budget doesnt always allow, in saying that we might only have a chicken once every couple of weeks. Substitute turkey for chicken in strifrys etc. I have soya mince for bolognese, chilli etc, thats a quid a bag I must have had tht bag from holland & barrett for at least a month, well over half left.

I grown herbs & rocket in my garden, the rockets coming back to life now after our scorcing summer :T, the seeds cost 40p, and Ive had LOADS of meals out of it :j

Jolaaled

Lynz...
my carefully planted Rocket all went horrible in July and has died. Do you think it's worth planting another lot now..or is it too late in the year??

Also...
What's the best way to use it??....Pizza? in sandwiches?...

thanks

lynzpower

My pot got scorched Jolaaled, and I just chopped it back and watered it. Its sprung back . I doubt its worth planting at this time of year, but you never know.

Mine is very peppery, so it goes well on pizzas, but wherever youd use lettuce, on burgers, sandwiches,in salad.

Queenie

patchwork_cat wrote:

On this topic - which supermarkets do people find mark down the most and when?

Sainsburys has the best reductions in my experience. First thing in the morning and then again the last hour or so before closing. Some are available during the day on and off too, but not the *reduced* reduced goods, which is where the real bargains come into play! Can't say I've been lucky enough to get an organic beef joint reduced from £15 to £3 or seen that much of a grand offer at reduced time, but it's all a question of hit and miss really when it comes to reduced goods.

Co-op can sometimes be a good option if you buy the reduced items which are also part of a BOGOF or other offer.

Hadn't fully appreciated before reading this thread the abundance of supermarkets I have within my scope:-

Asda
Tesco
Co-op
Somerfields
Sainsburys
Lidl
Aldi
Netto
Iceland (freezer I know but unlike the Bejam days they sell other stuff too)
A very small Morrisons in the form of a garage shop.

I'm also extremely fortunate to have a number of farm shops and a working mill that is accessable. Ok, I have to use the car for those so I plan those trips to make the most it.

I'm not going to get into the organic debate :laugh:

lushkat - there are some threads where claims are made to be able to feed their families at (to me!) ridiculously unachieveable low amounts, but when I looked deeper into the whole picture, it became apparent that, while they may well spend that amount, it's not for 3 meals per day, 7 days per week, 52 weeks per year and when really thought about, it wasn't nutrionally rounded either.
There are many factors to take into consideration when you compare your own set of circumstances, location etc. to the posters of threads on here which may or may not mean it's practicable. If you take away the actual figures posted and focus on the nub of it, which is to reduce your grocery spending from any unnecessary overspending, then it becomes achievable to everyone. It will only differ by degrees

hula-hoops

The trick is to get the balance between cost and nutrition exactly right.

Well, almost right.

And it can take some practice. Some things are obvious, others less so. At the supermarket checkout the other day I compared baskets with the man in front of me (discreetly, of course). He had several items in his basket and it came to less than £3.00. But what did he have? Basics white bread, basics slab of chocolate, pack of basics sausage rolls... you get the picture.

My basket came closer to £6.00 but I had an organic loaf, lots of reduced fruit and veg with plenty of days use left in them and a few basics such as rice and pasta.

The nutritional and taste value of my basket was way ahead of his. People who buy really cheap food like that often get bored and still feel hungry afterwards to eat even more of it or go and get a takeaway because their diet is so bland. So although you may read of claims along the lines of 'I can feed a family of 6 on £20.00 a week' the chances are they are not properly fed (in terms of providing adequate nutrition) - more a case of putting something in their stomachs or they are topping this up with trips to cafes, vending machines, sweet shops, etc to add the variety and taste they are craving.

I never feel that need because what we eat at mealtimes is nutritious and varied enough to satisfy us for the whole day. If I do snack throughout the day it's on apples or pears from home that I carry around in my shoulder bag.

Kazonline

Although I may not have cut our actual grocery spend by much, I have however managed to convert our eating habits to be much healthier and enjoyable thanks to OS.
In our Supermarkets we're lucky if they reduce anything by 75p, let alone to 75p. I've even tried shopping late evening - and only once have I been lucky. As it's a fairish distance to that particular supermarket and it's a bit hit and miss as to whether there'll be anything reduced it realy isn't moneysaving for me - I'm sure I'd spend more on the petrol.
We don't have any local greengrocers/markets - except the tiny farmers market that I tried once, but was three times the price of the supermarket (need I say I didn't buy!). There is a greengrocers in the nearest town - but again, by the time you add in petrol and parking I'm not sure I'd save much.... but I think I might give it a go this week out of curiosity (won't cost extra this time as I need to get my boots re-heeled)
When I worked in the city I did find that the fruit stalls offered excellent value for money and often opted for a fruit lunch and bought plenty to take home for the boys.
This year I've enjoyed some lovely tomatoes that I've grown thanks to encouragement from OS (and they're lush), and enjoyed lots of blackberry picking. I also now make my own bread - I don't think it's saving me money, but my stomach certainly doesn't hurt like it used to!
So, overall I too can't get my shopping down to the amazing amounts that some do - but what I do spend is spent much more wisely.
Kaz x

anguk

We normally spend about £40 a week on our main shopping including pet food, toiletries etc, then spend about another £10 on milk, bread etc that's needed throughout the week. That's for 2 adults, 1 child, 1 cat & 1 dog. I really don't think I could cut it down any further, I only get a basic shop buying own label stuff, luxury for me is 2 packs of smart price bourbons (30p) and a bar of Asda dark chocolate (50p)!

The first place I look in the supermarket is the reduced shelves but my Asda doesn't seem to reduce things by very much, good bread is normally about 40-50p, a joint of meat will have £1-£1.50 knocked off so I rarely get any really good bargains.

LearningToSave.

my grocery budget is averaged over the month.
we make very,very good use of reductions on meat in makro - for example we went two days ago and got a piece/joint of roasted pork meat for £2.87 instead of £17.87....my husband had some for tea that night and the rest was carved and saved for 6 family roasts!!! the same day we bought a huge joint of ham for £3.60 instead of £22....i had it for tea that night and there is enough for another 8 meals carved and frozen.....a few weeks ago we got a huge pack of 36 chicken breasts-huge great quality ones for £11.
our makro is only 5 mins drive away and does its reductions at 10am...so its easy to go a few times and get stocked up on meat....they reduce with 2 days left on date and if it isnt sold that day the next day it is marked down to stupid prices as above,which is when we get it.

i spend £160 a month for our grocerys inc cleaning stuff,nappies.....so on average £40 a week....for that we have 3 meals a day and healthy snacks....we eat an obscene amount of fruit and veg but again a lot of this is either home grown or reduced to stupid prices.....quite often i spend a lot less than that too.

but......i wouldnt ever start a thread on my menu plan/cheap plan etc though as its due to the reduced things....if makro stopped reducing like that then my bill would shoot significantly up.