Hello. New to board & a budgeting question?

freda

We eat a lot of pasta

Bulk buying pasta is *usually* cheaper, although do check the price per kg, as sometimes the bigger bags work out more expensive!

I cook chicken and joints of beef in the slow cooker.

Make sure you are cooking whole chickens (way cheaper than breasts or other portions) and cheap cuts of beef, i.e. brisket, stewing steak etc.

I also buy a lot of salad stuff and can't eat it without coleslaw and potato salad (the Lidl one is lovely!).

Next year, grow some of your own salad in pots. Salad leaves are dead easy, as are tomatoes, cucumbers, spring onions etc - all possible to grow in pots.

Coleslaw and potato salad - v. easy to make your own, and much cheaper.

I've watched my bill creeping up slowly as dd loves Mini Babybel cheese and those Dairylea Triangles and dunker things

Buy the large Edams and give her slices of that instead - mini babybels are an expensive habit! You can buy supermarket own brand dairylea in tubs, which is cheaper than the triangles, and make your own dunker things with litle tupperware pots and sticks of carrot, cucumber, pepper etc.

Dd loves yoghurt so I do buy some and make some sometimes but haven't recently.

Buy large pots and decant into smaller tupperware pots. Also, with cooking apples, blackberries, rhubarb etc in season at the moment you can make some gorgeous yoghurts with plain yog and stewed fruit.

We eat a bit of bread, not huge amounts but probably at least 1 loaf a week. I can't stand value bread so I buy the nicer bread from the in store bakery. I did consider making my own but not sure if the cost of a breadmaker would be justified when we don't eat that much bread.

A breadmaker will also make really good pizza dough, you like pizzas. It makes dough for rolls, ciabatta, french bread etc as well. Great machine.

Dd loves fruit so I buy a bit of fruit too. I'm trying to maintain my (and lose a bit more) weight so I need to think calorie conscious too.

Go to the market/greengrocer last thing on a Saturday, as they are closing up. You'll get some amazing fruit and veg bargains!

I need to budget packed lunches for myself 5 days a week (3 in uni, 2 in work), lunches for dd 2 days a week, breakfasts for us both 7 days a week, dinner for
myself 7 days and dd 4 days a week.

Go to the supermarket in the evening, when they mark down the bread, and buy lots all at once. Buy fillings, i.e. cheese, ham, peanut butter etc. Go home and make up lots of rounds of sandwiches, put in freezer bags and freeze. Hey presto, insta-lunches. Take them out in the mornign they are defrosted by lunch. The only things thatdon't work so well are salad, which doesn't freeze well. You can also make a large batch of cakes and freeze them up as well to take with your lunch - this will stop you eating the lot as it will be frozen!

Make up a big bowl of salad at the start of the week, and put some in a tub each day for your lunch. Add different things each day, i.e. some chopped cheese, leftover chicken from a meal, ham and so on. Don't add the dressing till lunctime though, or it will go soggy.

Use up leftovers for lunch, especially if you have a microwave at work.