Farm Foods pit fall v Home cooked budget

cml

Hi all, please advise...I am a single working parent (18 hours) and therefore worse off than I would be on benefits what with having to pay full rent, council tax and even school dinners but hey...and my I am struggling with my food shopping which is way over budget.

I have resorted to shopping at Farm Foods as there £1 for this frozen lasagne and £1 for those pies is very hard to resist when I am trying to keep costs down (and still failing I might add).

I have faleen into the trap of feeding my children frozen food every night bar sundays when i push the boat out for a roast but I know there must be a better and healthier way to feed my children on a budget. I suppose my only saving grace is I always have fruit and yogurts in but I am not impressed with myself at all.

I would like to cook low fat healthy meals on a very tight budget with at least a modacome of variety to stop the children sneaking out for chips. There are just the 3 of us living at home along with the pooch and the cockatiel, both of whom turn there nose up at farm foods

So I am looking to go back to basic with home cooked scrumptuous cooking, cheap and as attractive as chips, how low do u all go with your food shopping spend?

Thanks cx

Turkishdreamer

Since joining the Old Style threads and joining in with the forum, I have found myself shopping in Farmfoods & Lidl's far more frequently. I cook more things from scratch, but buy them when they are on offer.

Now there are only the 2 of us at home, most of the time, I find it easier.

Being veggie probably helps, although my OH isn't (wasn't) but I am trying to convert him.

Farmfoods have quorn mince on offer quite frequently, this makes healthy tasty lasagne, spaghetti bolognese and numerous other dishes. Much better and not much different in price to the cheap mince.

Bread (I now make my own), but is cheap in Farmfoods, as is milk, cheese, eggs and very often fresh veg.

It just means more preparation, cooking from scratch. Maybe batch cooking if time is of the essence.

I have managed to cut my food shopping bills in half, but it wasn't easy, needed a complete rethink. There are lots of useful threads on the OS forum, well worth taking the time to read.

Good luck.

tessie_bear

i dont think all farm foods is bad...some special offers...bargain yogurts if short dates....cheap milk and bread

have u a slow cooker ? u could put a chilli/spag bol/chilli in the morning and its ready for tea

could u batch cook and freeze some stuff when u have a bit of time ?

ask other family members what they want to eat and make a meal plan...involve them in the cooking

there are some great recipes at the start of the grocery challenge thread that might help u

hth good luck

M0neysav3r

Well done you for working :T

My family consists of 2 adults, 1 child and 3 pets and you can see from my signature what my grocery budget is. I cook from scratch for 98% of our meals, make my own bread, biscuits, cakes etc.
Make sure you meal plan and stick to it to stay on budget.

If I was you I would write a list of the sort of things you would like to be eating, spag bol, roast chicken etc and then work out what ingredients you'll need. From there you can work out where's cheapest for you to shop, ie 10 eggs at Lidl at 85p but Aldi is 6 for 85p (or there abouts). I generally buy the same things every week like ham, cheese, marg, milk and for me those are cheaper at Asda & Lidl.
It will be a bit of a change to cook from scratch for meals instead of just putting in the oven but I think after a week you'll wonder why you haven't cooked like that before (I used to live on frozen kievs, lasagnes, breaded rubbish).

Best of luck

squeaky

Hi,

There are all sorts of healthy eating recipes (including low fat) and a good selection of cheap meals too held in our collection:-

Complete cooking collection

And a number of single threads...

Low fat threads on Old Style

HariboJunkie

It's definitely possible to shop at FF and eat healthily and OS as long as you avoid the convenience foods.

I do a small shop in FF every week to top up my shopping from Tesco, Lidl, Aldi and the butcher. Do you get the money off coupons for FF through the mail?

As well as their toilet rolls I buy the wholemeal bread for sandwiches), milk, cheese (currently £2 for 400g of cheddar), apples, spuds, yoghurts, corned beef, tinned tomatoes, baked beans, pasta, frozen veg and frozen fish and shellfish.

The do a great frozen bag of casserole veg for £1 (all chopped and prepped) which I bung in the slow cooker with stewing steak and some stock for a cheap meal which is stretchable with mashed potato.

Fry up their £1 bag of frozen peppers in a little olive oil with some garlic. Add 2 tins of the chopped tomatoes, simmer and blend and you have a cheap and tasty pasta sauce to serve with spaghetti and garlic bread which should fill the children up.

Hope that helps and don't be too hard on yourself. You sound like a great mum.

Rebob

Dont beat yourself up. Its hard on a low income, I know! I think the easy way to start is to batch cook something (did this myself this weekend). Fry off loads of mince, diced carrots and onions and then split into different pans. Add tomatoes, mushrooms and herbs to make into bolognese. Add peas, sweetcorn and gravy, top with mashed potatoes to make a cottage pie. Add red kidney beans, tomatoes and chillis to make into a chilli. All these taste better when reheated and freeze well.

ClaireLR

I've started to try and cut back on what we spend (again! it keeps creeping up!) and this is some of the things I have done
Mince - I buy this in bulk from a local farm, much nicer and cheaper than the supermarkets. I use this to make stews, chilli, lasagne, cottage pie etc but always bulk it out with grated carrot (making it healthier to). I usually use tinned toms (smartprice etc) to bulk out for chillis and even add then to cottage pie
Pork shoulder is extremely cheap, the other week I cooked a half shoulder and made (for 2 people) a roast dinner, sweet and sour pork and risotto with it.
We have a couple of meals with no meat - egg and beans on wholemeal toast is cheap and quick, or jacket potato with beans/tinned tuna
I've also gone back to doing an online shop, less temptation to put extras in the trolley that way and you can keep tabs on what you spend.
Whoopsies are good if you can get down to the supermarket around 6-7pm and also local shops, I went to our local town this weekend and the butcher sold me 8lbs of chicken breast pieces for 9 quid, they're all bagged up in the freezer now

HTH and well done for continuing to work even though you'd be better off on benefits, shame there aren't a few more like you

ClaireLR

Oh forgot to say as well that smartprice pasta is good for a cheap meal also, around 40p a bag and I make tomato sauce using tinned toms, onion, garlic and mushrooms if I have them with a few herbs.

AlwaysAllie

Whatever you try and do, don't do it all at once. Try for one meal a week from scratch/slow cooker/batch cooked and work up with what's manageable for you and your family.

Good luck

AA

foxgloves

Bulk out the more expensive ingredients with cheaper healthy ones. i.e I used to use a whole pack of lamb mince to make 1 Shepherd's pie for 4 people. Now, I add 2 of the Lidl cans of mixed beans to the meat mixture & suddenly that recipe does 2 whole shepherd's pies or 8 good portions, so I get one for the freezer for just pence more. Look for recipes which use the split red lentils. They don't need soaking, cook quickly & can be used in lots of tasty meals. I use them instead of mince to make lasagne. They are also good in lentil dhal (freezes well too) and last time I bought a load in Lidl they were 88p for a 500g bag. Ham hock is cheap....I've never paid more than £2.60 for one...and having cooked it in the slow cooker, have gone on to use the ham in 3 day's worth of dinners plus a packed lunch. If you get pasta from cheap shops & basics cheddar, you only need a very small amount of ham or tuna, plus a tomato, bit of onion, pepper, dried herbs, etc, to make a big enough pasta bake to serve a family. Only a few thoughts as I don't want to make this post too long. We also look for bigger joints of meat than we need (when they've been reduced) so we get sufficient meat to make lots of different dishes to eat later in the month, but if you batch-cook already, you'll know all the tricks x