Needing Help.

lovethymini

ETanny wrote: »

Thanks for the welcome!

Lovethymini - Luckily our 3 year old is pretty good when it comes to eating breakfast (We buy the tesco own brand choco snaps and malt wheats) - its just the other meals shes not very good with, especially her evening meal.
In regards to the 'gloop' what does the vinegar do?
How often do you make your own bread? Do you use your oven or do you have a bread maker?

As GT said online is unfortunately out of the question for us because if they cant get parked - they wont deliver! And believe me parking around our way is pretty much impossible - even during the day it can be hard to park.

gloop and the vinegar are two different things, sorry if i wrote it in a confusing way.
The vinegar goes in the conditioner drawer, I use it for towels as it helps soften the fibres without affecting the absorbancy.
I use a breadmaker - nothing fancy, just one I swapped three years ago for a white christmas tree with a friend!!! I guess I make a loaf every other day.

DS tells me he doesn't like healthy food then he reads off the side of the box of weetabix to me "Not Healthy, Mummy" :rotfl:
DS's current favourite dinner (which I dread as it's become a battle) is pasta "screwdrivers and pipes" (macaroni and fusili) with hm sauce stuffed with veggies. I made a big batch of sauce (based on an Annabel Karmel recipe) then freeze in little pots and ramekins.

If you cant get internet shopping delivered but like the idea of it, if you are near Sainsburies, think they do a click and collect service now - my local one at Milton Keynes does.

I take it you guys have done the budgetting spreadsheet?

phizzimum

bump!

Hi Tannys - just wondered how you were doing? give us an update!

mummyjane

A couple of things to consider which should help bring down the cost of washing your clothes might be trying soapnuts in place of laundry powder/liquid (they are extremely cheap and easy to use, if you search the forums on here you will get lots of info about them) and using a glug of white vinegar and a couple of drops of essential oil (lavender/chamomile are brilliant for delicate skins) in place of fabric conditioner. You will be amazed how much you save so might be worth giving them a try

Just realised someone has beaten me to it :rotfl:

I buy my oils from www.abbeyessentials.com , I try and buy in bulk by grouping orders with friends then you can order wholesale which is much cheaper. Only need to do it once a year or so but have used this company for many years now and their oils are really good quality.

hth

Jane x

sp1987

Cathedral city is £2 in ASDA at the moment.

Plus, even if you can't order online, you could use online shopping to write your list and tot up the price to get it cheaper at one supermarket than another.

I always check what is cheaper but I quite like going into the supermarket and physically buying the stuff. If I didn't I'd end up in a clothes shop or shoe shop buying things as I just like shopping (do not care what it is I'm buying!). I just make sure I buy things we will one day need rather than 'ohhhhh look, shoes!'. Luckily I'm changing size post baby still so I 'never know what size to buy' so am not too fussed on clothes currently.

Alwaysthebusybee

Hi,

I have been looking through the post and can offer a few suggestions. Saving money is always good when it comes to the grocery shopping and there are many ideas on here.

I tend to stick to a menu plan for the month and now have about 60 meals which I try to rotate. I try to do a weekly shop in different places so i pick up on the bargains from the different areas. It also helps when it comes to planning for using up full tins, If we have a cooked breakfast for tea then I have beans on toast for breakfast - A roast chicken usually turns into a chicken curry night after.

I am not sure where you live but you can buy a lot of cheaper products from Aldi / Netto / Lidl / Farmfoods and Iceland without changing the brands.

I also find bulk buying meat and freezing is cheaper than buying smaller fresh packs. I prefer to use frozen vegetables like peas and sweetcorn (and in my case cauliflower, brocolli and sprouts) because OH doesn't like most vegetables and buying fresh and tinned is too big of a portion for just me ... Sweetcorn and peas are around £1 a bag a last me the month.

We also have a couple of discounted food stores that sell close to sell buy date items cheaply - they also sell sacks of potatoes for around £5 for 25kg.

Some of the meals I enjoy are:
Toad in the hole (8p batter mix, 2 eggs and we use SP Sausages or Asdas Irish) No more than £1 plus potatoes and veg.
Corned Beef Hash with Dumplings (Obv not very ww)
Stewed Steak (Just the cheap frying steak cooked for longer is lovely)

You could always try adding more vegetables to shepherds pies and bolognese to bulk them out ...

I also freeze my cheese for cooking ... but I like the more expensive real tasting cheese rather than the plastic stuff - BOGOF offers are good for the things you use.

I also have a couple of links to cheap easy meals (budget style) but I can not do the links - if you would like to PM I can send you them.

One is a online book called how to feed your family a healthy balance diet with very little money etc etc ... and the other is a family of 3 who budgeted meals in 2009 on £30-£40 a week (3 meals a day) - his name was Mark Keogh.

HTH

Penelope_Penguin

weezl74 wrote: »

Our cheapest meal is a version of nigellas marmite spaghetti (for us it works out at 11p per person per meal)so that can keep costs very low with just one meal substitution per meal, IYSWIM?

DS watched that episode with me and now makes Marmie pasta for himself and nis sister when DH and I are unavailable

ETanny wrote: »

Hello everyone.
I am just looking for a bit of advice on how I could cut down my food shopping.
We have about a budget of 300 pounds a month. There is 2 adults and 1 child (3 years old) in our family.

Have you seen the Grocery Challenge thread? There are lots of recipes on there and plenty of support to het your budget to a level that you can manage :T

Good luck and I'll merge this later.

zarazara

weezls advice is good. i find cooking from scratch is good too. and make a list and stick to it. i've spent 30 years buying bogoffs reduced etc etc thinking i was doing well. but recently i have cut my food bill hugely by meal planning writing a list and sticking to it and not buying stuff just because its on offer.i also pack out meat with pearl barley and or lentils and make home made soup with chicken carcase and a few veg. i also make laundry gloop and clean with salt lemonjuice vinegar etc.

Jevvers

Agree with what everyone has said so far about meal planning. The other thing I find really works for us is "rubber chicken" in which we roast a chicken at the weekend and then eat it in one guise or another for the rest of the week - curry, soup, sandwiches, salad etc. It is much cheaper (and nicer IMO) than buying chicken pieces.

Also I challenge myself to use up leftovers so half a green pepper, 2 toms and some cheese that was going hard became cheesy oat burgers the other eve and fed two kids and two adults.

Finally, be very careful with those sneaky supermarkets. They sometimes charge more for bigger "value packs" than for two equivalent smaller ones and other offers aren't all they seem.

Also always check your receipt - often items are scanned twice by accident. Happened with us last week on a box of cereal which was £1.82.

Good luck