£130 per week on food!!!

simm678

Thank you all!

Here is a list of what we had last week:
Sunday - roast dinner, beef, nutroast, all the works and waitrose lemon tart
(leftover joint, half nutroast, some stuffing, veg and roast potatoes & went in the bin)
Monday - 3 x ready made lasagnes, salad, garlic bread
Tuesday - Chicken curry (tesco finest sauce)/tofu & cashew nuts
with noodles, pak choi, broccoli and waitrose spring rolls (half pack tofu, half broccoli head ended up thrown)
Weds - Burgers/ vege burgers, oven chips and salad
Thurs - Finest chicken pies/Linda MacCartney pie, mash, peas
Fri - Lamb/halloumi kebabs, salad, garlic bread, pot olives & peppers
+ all the rest, cereals, yogurts, fruit, juices, crisps, chocs, packed lunches.

First things that are immediately obvious to me - too much waste, too many "extras" ie spring rolls £2, and not enough made from scratch (I'm no Delia but I'm not too bad).

All advice welcome, thank you!

Poppycat

Wow that's some serious spending on food.

We spend for a family of 4, 2 adults 2 kids, cat about £80. That includes £60 main shopping, and rest of week bread, milk, some vegetarian food I have to buy at Tesco's

We have for years made a habit of building lots of BOGOF products are storing them in large plastic containers (non perishable things) and putting then in a shed as we don't have a lot of space in kitchen.

We are moving soon so we plan of buying a large chest freezer again to stock up on BOGOF products (frozen) you can save a lot of money on special offers, but you do need to start off spending more to accrue the offers.

Addiscomber

My first thought is to ask whether you are simply serving too much to start with? May be you could buy and cook smaller quantities.

Could you not have made a cottage pie type dish with the left over Sunday joint? If you didn't want to use it within the next couple of days it could have been frozen for another week.

vivaladiva

Looks like your problem mighht lie in the ready made stuff. Make your own Chicken pies (see Mr Badexamples thread for Chicken and Leek pie - some one cleverer than me will probably do you a link soon!) I guarantee it will be nicer than Tesco's. Same goes for Lasagne and the Curry sauce.
I've cut down on snacks as well. We make our own cookies and cakes - much nicer and cheaper. I feed 2 adults and 4 kids for around £70 per week and I know I could do better. (BTW I once hit £600 in a month!_pale_ )
Menu plan like mad and try to shop once a week. Our extras made a massive contibution to the monthy bill.

gingin_2

Hi simm678,


Things that stand out to me are the Waitrose lemon tart which I guess would have cost £3.50 ish, you could have made a steamed lemon sponge in the microwave (v.simple) for under a £1.

The bought curry sauce I would guess cost £2 when you could use some onion, curry powder, ginger, garlic and possibly tomatoes and made a sauce for the 3 of you for 50p ish. I did this this week and roasted a whole chook for £3 used half for the curry (made 4 portions) and you could use the other half for the chicken pie with some puff pastry and also make a seperate veggie pie.

With the roast beef leftovers, as mentioned before, cottage pie is nice, or if there is only a small amount left you could make a chilli with some tomatoes and kidney beans and chilli powder (and do a veggie version too) and make some nacho's/taco's/fajita's as they tend to make a little go a long way.

I wouldn't rush immediately into cooking from scratch every night, you can do it gradually and gain more confidence.

How about posting your normal meal plan for next week, and we can help you either find some simple recipes to substitute the shop bought versions or find a cheaper version.

pickle

Try and buy own brand as much as possible. Tesco's own brand can be very inexpensive. Some things are cheaper than LIDL eg. shampoo and conditioner.

hex2

Start off in the mega index - a sticky at the top of old style page started by the lovely Squeaky. It has lots of links to recipes including vegetarian and starting out in OS.

I couldn't find Curry Queens sauce link but there is a similar one at http://www.madgeandgeoffrey.co.uk/plain_sauce.htm Basically you make a big batch of 12 or so portions and freeze it. You then use this base sauce to make a variety of different curries - see the website for nice options. Much cheaper, much nicer.

thriftlady_2

Hi
Your menu sounds delicious. you don't say exactly which things are bought ready-made and which are made from scratch. Everything on your menu can be made from scratch and it will taste even more delicious if it is. It will also be a LOT cheaper.

If you are buying ready-made garlic bread, salad and packed lunch items you really are throwing money away. I wouldn't serve garlic bread or indeed any bread with a pasta based meal like lasagne. Salad items are more expensive at this time of the year as they are imported - try making coleslaw type salads with hard cabbage and carrots which are cheap and homegrown at the moment. Other extras like crisps and chocolate will of course push your bill up. These are treat foods not everyday foods.

Try this variation on your menu:)

Sunday - roast dinner, beef, nutroast, all the works and waitrose lemon tart
(leftover joint, half nutroast, some stuffing, veg and roast potatoes & went in the bin)Potroast topside or silverside of beef (cheaper cut than sirloin or rib), lentil roast-make some of the mixture into burgers for Wed and freeze, veg and roast pots, a homemade pud like lemon sponge or choc fudge pud
Monday - 3 x ready made lasagnes, salad, garlic bread Homemade lasagne and broccoli
Tuesday - Chicken curry (tesco finest sauce)/tofu & cashew nuts
with noodles, pak choi, broccoli and waitrose spring rolls (half pack tofu, half broccoli head ended up thrown)Chick pea and vegetable curry (chickpeas, potato, peas, carrots, passata) with rice
Weds - Burgers/ vege burgers, oven chips and salad Homemade burgers/lentil burger, homemade oven chips/wedges, hm coleslaw(make enough for Fri)
Thurs - Finest chicken pies/Linda MacCartney pie, mash, peas Homemade meat and potato pies using leftovers from Sunday/cheese and veg pie, mash and peas
Fri - Lamb/halloumi kebabs, salad, garlic bread, pot olives & peppersLamb/halloumi kebabs (make the meat ones with some of the halloumi so that you don't need as much), hm coleslaw,roast pepper salad, hm garlic bread
+ all the rest, cereals porridge is really cheap, easy and super healthy, yogurts, fruit, juicesDon't buy individual juice cartons, try Value juice, buy popping corn as a cheaper, healthier alternative to crisps - the kids can take it to school in their packed lunches, try some simple hm biscuits and muffins for lunch boxex too - store exras in the freezer

Without too much drastic change you can serve up the same kind of meals for much less.HTH:)

simm678

Wow thanks everyone, there are really helpful ideas here!

I came up with a menu plan for this week (first time ever!), things I know I can cook without too much trouble, any ideas for improving it please let me know.

Sunday - roast chicken/quorn fillets (already have) & trimmings. A homemade desert (the microwave lemon sponge sounds lovely!)
Monday - chicken/chickpea curry & rice
Tues - Spaghetti bolognese
Weds - Split pea & ham soup and a desert
Thurs - Sausages mash & peas
Fri - Chicken/bean stew and dumplings

And I will buy all ingrediants from Tesco in the morning, rather than £20 here, £40 there....

Thanks to all

thriftlady_2

That sounds yummy Simm and cheap too;) Another thought- does your OH have to have a big chunk of meat at each meal, or will a sprinkling of bacon s do ? If he's happy with something like a pizza with a bit of ham on top,or bacon, onion and potato hotpot, or bacon and egg pie then you can stretch your meat costs more easily. Also a lot of this type of dish can start out veggie and be made meaty with just a bit of chopped ham or sausage.