Sat/Sun 14th/15th Aug - What small DFW things will you do today?

chrisvaldez

Used £5 Lidl voucher as it expired today
Picked potatoes, basil, rosemary and lettuce from the garden
Used up sour cream and salsa in the fridge and other veg to make Fajitas
Called a bunch of friends in the USA while the Sunday means calls are still free
Scoured my usual sources for any part time/evening work needed anywhere this week

Beencounting

Beencounting wrote: »

Morning all



Need to focus today to catch up, so:

• Quick shower (when I eventually decide to get out of bed ) - done
• Check bank & update spreadsheet
• Surveys - none
• All meals from stores - oops, went out for chips this evening
• HC and line dry (lovely and sunny here at the moment) - done
• Ironing for the week - done
• Pick up a few essentials – bread, milk, sandwich fillings etc- OH kind of done
• Sort out my ebay turbolister as it won’t upload :mad: - done
• Possibly watch a LF film later so I can return it tomorrow

Can't think of anything else at the mo...

Back later to update, have a lovely day everyone .

Been

Still some things to catch up on, but it's been a nice day and quite relaxing .

See y'all tomorrow.

Been

SJ1

OK. I am dying to know how you are feeding a family of four on £60 a week! Tell me all. I really struggle with less than £100. Where am I going wrong! Just bought Economy Gastronomy in an attempt to help!!

Please help and do tell what those weetabix brownies were like!

SJ

determined_new_ms

SJ1 wrote: »

OK. I am dying to know how you are feeding a family of four on £60 a week! Tell me all. I really struggle with less than £100. Where am I going wrong! Just bought Economy Gastronomy in an attempt to help!!

Please help and do tell what those weetabix brownies were like!

SJ

Hi SJ1 ok how I feeding a family of 4 on £60pw is as follows:

I do an inventory of what I have in the fridge/freezer/cupboards this is the start to my meal planning. Then I shopped at Lidl as my main shop and got what was on offer there and planned my meals around that so for example aubergines were 50p each so we are having moussaka one day. Once I brought this home I worked out what I needed to get from Asda. Meal plan is as follows:

S: Roast chicken, roast pots, yorkshire puds, frozen brocolli, tinned sweatcorn & steam courgettes. Desert hm brownies
M: Eating at in laws/student/son leftover signapore noodles from Saturday
T: Moussaka - aubegines, mince (SP from asda) & cheese & veg from storecupboards
W: Toad in the hole (half a bag of suasages in the freezer from last week)
T: hm pizza & salad (when I made this the week before last I 3x the tom base & frooze it)
F: Steak (whopsied at lidl for £1.69), hm chips & salad
S: Garlic fried potatos, lamb steak burgers & salad (I will have a jacket pot & coleslaw & salad)
S: Chilli con carne

Lunches: leftovers/cheese/chicken roll/egg mayo/tuna sandwiches (all storecupboard other than the chicken roll)/lidl noodles for oh & ds, crisps/banana, oat & cinnimon muffins(always have brown bananas to use up at the end of the week!)/ a piece of fruit

1 bottle of wine/cider, I pack of fresh coffee, I jar of hot choc (I've decided to give up alcohol for a month :eek: so am drinking tea & hot choc like its going out of fashion!), natural greek yogurt for me, muller corners for ds & student (bogof in lidl), lidl had an offer on cheese 600grms for £3

usually I make my own bread but with the student here atm we're getting through bread ridulously so I'm buying sp bread atm, which was reduced to 30p a loaf yesterday so I got 2 & froze one

a lot of things I grab while they're on offer or buy bigger amounts for example we always get generic frostys but its cheaper to get a massive box of cornflakes & add ur own sugar, buy a kilo butter when its on offer - there's usually one at one of the supermarkets (same goes with cheese - use mysupermarket.co.uk to find out what deals are on), I bulk out meals like chilli/spag/curry/shepperds pie with somke red lentils. I always boil up the carcass to make a soup stock & freeze if I'm not going to make that day - soups a great/cheap lunch for me or oh. Always have porridge oats for filling breakfast/make quick desert. I also buy longlife milk for when the fresh has run out...

for cleaning products I buy nettos washing powder (£1.99 for a box that last 3/4 weeks - it doesn't smell as lovely as the named brands but it cleans just as well) and about 2/3 weeks ago there was an offer 2x 2ltr fab con for £1.50 at nettos. I use star drops for cleaning & grab bleach when there's an offer on.

It took a long time to get here and there are weeks when its more expensive as I need to get storecupboard essentials but if I'm aware of what they are I can get them when they're on offer (for example boots has 6x johnsons babywipes at the moment for what works out at 62p, that's much cheaper than I can get the generic anywhere so that's what I'll be grabbing later, I get generic usually for 85p in lidl) I use the OS board for inspiration & have had the cheapest most delish meals off of there - for example the sausage casserole has got to be one of the cheapest & best meals I've ever eaten!

phew the mundane workings of my shopping excursions!

SJ1

Hi

Thanks for the post, really interesting. I always make a list but I seem to resort to more expensive things that I know will get eaten - chops are so expensive nowadays.

I am going to have a look at the forum you suggest - can you tell me where that is exactly? Joined MSE Forms ages ago but then sort of lost touch with it as we were doing work to the house and that took over so still unsure as to where everything is.

I tend to do a roast on Sun like you and if I can I make another meal or soup with that then I do so - love a chicken noodle soup! I then do a meal like spag bol or shepherds pie on Mon and that feeds the kids on Wed after school as my sister in law looks after them and brings my son back with her girls and feeds them all here. Tuesday we eat all together - we love Jamie Oliver's spinach marscapone. Wed we try to eat leftovers but they don't always stretch far enough - perhaps a bigger joint at the weekend would make for a cheaper alternative. Thursday is baked potato night and Friday is usually carbonara. It seems to be the weekends where I lose the plot so need to concentrate there. We don't have a Lidl near us - it's Tesco or Sains. Tesco is further so I do a delivery from there for my monthly cereals, tins, drinks etc and then Sains for everything else but you have given me some great ideas so going to have a go next week and see if I can save any dosh!

Thanks again

SJ:j

SJ1

Apologies for overloading you with questions but my other question is do you have a slow cooker or a bread machine and do you find these useful?

Friend at work swears by hers but worried it wouldn't end up saving me anything.

Any info gratefully received!

SJ