desperate need of help :(

jasperconran

Apologies if this is posted in the wrong place.

I am getting much better at meal planning now but my problem is this.......I shop monthly, but i still feel like I am going to the shops like every other day:eek: and I know it will soon mount up.

The things I tend to buy most often are:-

bread, butter, milk, potatoes, crisps, choc bars and biscuits. Now I know the bread and biscuits can be sorted out as I could make my own. Trouble is everytime I get motivated and think right im gonna bake this weekend, something happens or im too busy and before I know, 2 months has past:eek:

How can I get round buying so much milk, butter, crisps and chocolate bars? the choc bars are mostly for DD packed lunch and so are the crisps. I have thought of buying a big sack of potatoes, but there is only 3 of us, and wont the spuds starting growing!? lol

hope someone can give me some help and advice.

thanks

quintwins

you could split yoru bag of spuds with a neighbour or family friend, we get a 20kg bag and it lasts us 2 weeks, but you can get a 10kg one aswell, if you ahve space is your freezer you can freeze milk so it will save trips, if not maybe a milkman? it might be abit dearer day to day but it's very hard to go into a shop and just buy milk and all those wee extras soon add up, also i'd stop buying choclate bars and start baking things for in her lunch box but that depends on how much time you have or even buy packets of biscuits and rasins and pop those in instead

JulieGeorgiana

Hello!

I am a 3 person household, and I shop monthly too!

What I do is a meal plan, then write down everything I need for each week (including breakfast and lunch boxes). I then buy everything at the start of the month (apart from milk, fruit and veg) and store it away!

Then on a Thursday only I buy the 'perishable items'

I buy the milk every 2 weeks and freeze, but only because I have the space!

Now if I run out of something I 'make do' and I never go shopping outside this time.

I have a set budget, so I have exact lists of the perishable items I need to buy and cannot deviate because I don;t have the money to do so!

Now last week we ran out of milk... and the boys had toast instead of cereal and we got through!

Ref. Lunchboxes, I would seriously consider getting rid of crisps and biscuits... my DS8 has a yogurt, sandwiches (on HM Bread, I have a no Knead recipe which works for me), fruit, HM Scone and Fresh Juice. crisps and chocolate are pure carbs/sugar and will cause health issues later in life... plus they are so expensive!!

Sometimes I add some cheese or I make something else nice. I choose the scone because it's sugar free (apart fromt he jam).

Ref. Potatoes, they last up to 2 weeks, so I meal plan so I can buy a bag on specific weeks and use the whole lot without waste, but have weeks without any potatoes.

With bread we don;t ever fall back on shop bought, BUT I do make 4 loaves at a time, slice and freeze and I try and make it on the weekend... the no knead recipe takes 2 hours start to finish, and only 10 minutes are you prepping... so I have been known to do it in the evening after dinner.

BitterAndTwisted

Why aren't you buying the choc bars and crisps in your monthly shop? Mind you, I'd question why they would be in a child's packed lunch in the first place as there are many other much healthier options.

One solution to the popping out to the shop for milk and bread every other day and coming back with other stuff you don't really need is to only take enough cash with you to cover what you're going out for in the first place. If you have no self-control you have to find other, crafty ways of imposing it on yourself.

If you have a 15 minute window in your busy schedule, like on the weekends for example, you could make up a batch of Twinks HobNobs or a variation on that theme well within that time. Try substituting all or some of the oats for muesli or coconut, for example.

jasperconran

thanks guys for your replies.

juliegeorgiana, thanks for the advice, where can I find a no knead bread recipe???


thanks

squeaky

Discipline, that's what you need.

Joking aside, the tips above will help. I too find it difficult to only buy milk on that "quick" trip to the shop. Most of the time it's because I'm on the look out for yellow stickied stuff, which is me being a good boy - but sometimes it's "Ooh! Yummy! Gimme!". And that's just down to self discipline, really.

Why is it that bad habits are so much easier to learn than good ones?

Oh, a tip that's even older than I am... "Never go shopping when you are hungry".

JulieGeorgiana

jasperconran wrote: »

thanks guys for your replies.

juliegeorgiana, thanks for the advice, where can I find a no knead bread recipe???


thanks

It's very different from what you are used to... but my family love it!

http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/recipe-breadofheaven.html?opt=a1

JulieGeorgiana

squeaky wrote: »

Oh, a tip that's even older than I am... "Never go shopping when you are hungry".

YES! I learned this the hard way!

We now always go while DS is at Cubs (After Dinner on a Thursday) Shops are emptier on Thursdays too!

Pitlanepiglet

There are three of us and I shop on a 6 weekly basis. I do buy crisps and biscuits but I buy a set amount and I work on a "when it's gone it's gone" basis - so if we run out of something then we just don't have it until I shop again.

I very occasionally pop into Lidl if I'm in town and then I'll buy odd bits of fruit and veg (and their nice biscuits) and other stuff if it's on special.

We do keep "emergency bread" in the freezer for the times we haven't got around to making any.

OH and I have soya milk and we make our own so we have a stock of soya beans, elderly Dad does have normal milk which we get from the milkman as it's easier and cheaper than driving to a shop to get it.

I find batch baking works for me so I'll make a couple of batches of tray bake cakes, chop them up and freeze them, then I can take them out individually for lunches etc. We're still eating our way through cakes I made around Christmas when we were snowed in as well as last years glut of apple cake....

moogiegirl

We buy a big sack of potatoes and then I spend the afternoon roasting batches of potatoes and then freezing them, I also do the same for jacket spuds. I would also agree with the other posters and recommend stopping the choc bars + crisps, maybe replace with hm bran muffins or sugar free jelly made in small tubs.

sandraroffey

i buy a 56lb sack of maris pipers for £6. it gets split between myself, my daughter (family of four) and my son (family of 3). a really cheap way to buy spuds.