Stressed - Help needed :-(

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Time is the key here I would say but a bit if planning before you make your shopping trip will save you time and money. If you go into a store knowing what you are going to buy and stick to it then you will find yourself not buying swayed to buy products you don't need just because they are on offer. Offers are put in stores for one reason only to increase the customer spend.
So plan out your meals for the week and what household goods you need. Also consider alternative products. I used to buy Huggies nappies for my little one and changed to Asda Little angels to my surprise they are as good if not better than huggies.
I also find that it is hard to be disciplined when walking round a store to do this however I save money if I shop on line. I search my products from my list and select the option that suits my needs best based on quality and price.
But the best saving option I have found was when I switched from Tesco to Asda. My partner gets staff discount at Tesco but it is still cheaper for us to shop at Asda and the service seems alot better and hassle free too.

heidiarruda

Here's my latest shop. I make a list and note the prices at Tesco. I look for cheaper items at ASDA and split my shop between two nearby stores. Occasionally, like this week, I go to a cheap shopping complex nearby for the other stores. I calculate the saving as the Quantity I Bought*Original Cost per Unit at Tesco - Quantity I bought*Actual Cost per unit I bought. So I saved "£17" or, in petrol savings "34p off a litre of unleaded"

Quantity Cost Saving
Tesco

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Value Porridge Oats 2 x 1 kg 0.75 -1.73
Tesco Finest Museli 750 g 2.19
Chicken Breast 3 x 515 g 9.00?
Onions 3 0.62
Apples 8 2.59
Oranges, Jaffa 10 3.00
Bananas 6 0.73
Coke 9 4.68 -6.00
Chocolate Mousse 2 x 4 pots 0.62
Washing-up Liquid 2 x 740 mL 2.50
Bin Liners 50 x 22 L bags 1.52
Kit-Kats 4x 9 biscuits 3.78
Spaghetti 2 x 2 kg 4.00
HP Guinness Sauce 1 1.50
Sub-Total 37.48

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ASDA

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Flora Buttery 2 x 1 kg 4.00 -3.60
Milk, 1 % 4 x 4 pts 4.00 -0.49
Robinson’s Blackcurrant 2 x 1.75 L 4.00 -1.00/-3.00
L. Grossman B. Sauce 2 x 425 g 3.00
Sub-total 15

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Sainsbury’s

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Ariel w/ Febreze 2 x 667 mL 6.00 -2.74
Sub-total 6.00

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Wilkinson

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Cushelle 1 x 16 5.98 -0.24
Plenty 4 x 2 3.92 -2.51
Tresemme 1 x 900 mL 1.98 -2.32
Sub-total 11.88

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B&M

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Patak Sauce 500 g 0.69 -0.60
Princes Chopped Tom. 4 1.19 -0.97
OXO Veg. Cubes 2 x 12 0.98 -0.69
Sub-total 2.86

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Home Bargains

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Free Range Eggs, Large 6 0.89 -0.62
Sub-total 0.89

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Morrisons

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Tins of Mackerel 8 4.00 -1.44
Sub-total 4.00

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Total w/savings 78.11
Savings -17.22
Total - Savings 95.33

on-the-count-of-three

You've had lots of good advice, & my tip is not exactly frugal shopping, but I notice you're in Kent.

Rooks the butcher are throughout Kent but also offer an online service and their prices are reasonable. (They don't have a branch in my town, but do deliver.) They often have special offers and their meat is good. If you spend £30 it's free delivery too, so easy to do a monthly stock up. They had steak mince a few weeks ago for £2.49 so I stocked up, eggs, 99p for 10, potatoes, £2 for 5kg, bacon..which is much better quality than the supermarket for £9.99 for a 5lb pack & so on. (I split & freeze this by the way..it freezes well.)

http://www.rooksonline.co.uk/

I've not bought prepackaged meat for a long time, but if your supermarket has a butcher's counter, you'll find the mince there so much better. I always check for whoopsied joints, steak, mince etc from the counter & pick up half price joints etc when I can & freeze.

geordie_joe wrote: »

I was looking at value porridge oats this morning, to make hob nobs, flapjacks etc. I decided to wait and ask in here if it was any good before buying it.

So thanks, you answered my question before I even asked it. :T

I always use value butter (no so cheap now sadly ), value oats & value syrup. No complaints here..in fact if I'm not quick, I'm lucky to get a look in.

TryingHardToSave_2

I am a family of 5 which consists of 2 adults a 7, 5 and 18 month old little boy. We also have a alsation, rabbit and goldfish, i spend at the very most £70 a week on shopping and this includes, fresh meat, fruit, veggies, nappies, animals food/bedding, cleaning products and smellies.

Every sunday i sit down and right a meal plan for the following week, have a look in cupboards, fridge and freezer and see what i may already have in so dont buy things for the sake of it when i have say 10+ of them in the back of a cupboard. At first it used to drive my crazy but soon just becomes a way of life. I used to withdraw the cash and take a calculator with me, that way i had to watch the money as i didnt have anymore on me or a card to fall back on.

Dont be afraid to try some of the cheaper/basic products, its a hit and miss kinda thing but alot you cant really tell the difference. Bulk buy on things when they are on special offer if you can afford it and shop around. I look at all the supermarkets/leaflets every week and see what offers they may have.

Try and build up a staple cupboard, so if you do have to have a tighter week you still have things in that can make a cheap and cheerful meal. For me mine includes - pasta/rice/spag/herb and spice/tinned toms and beans/lentils and pulses, big bag of pots and eggs.

A slow cooker is great, im lost without mine. Allows you to buy cheaper cuts of meat and can do lots of meals without all the effort. Curries, casseroles, stews, spag bol. I even do my sunday roast in there and the meat falls away with a spoon.

I normally get my veggies/fruit from local weekly carboot, towards the end they are literally giving the stuff away. Aldi is good also especially when they have their super 6 offers. Check out local butchers as ours have so many packs for £10, or different packs they put together of joints, burgers etc and i find the meat to a better quality than supermarket but for same price.

Dont be afraid to raid the reduced sections in supermarkets, alot of the stuff can be frozen or day of purchase or you could make the meals up using reduced purchases and then freeze those.

Wilkos, bandm, poundlands, home bargins etc are also worth a look around. Have some really good offers on brand named stuff.

Good luck and take each step as it comes x

Linda32

Hi m0nkeymrs01,

Have to say, its deffinetly a time issue, it will get easier once you finish work.

I think you asked about meal planning, this is really the key here. Previously I've ended up with lots of food but nothing that goes together Purly down to rushing around Sainsburys on a Saturday morning without planning anything.

Two adults here btw, no children or pets.

I only plan the evening meal, I make a list from the cupboards of meals that we have in and on what night - obviously this can be moved if something else happens, but its best to try to stick to it if you can. Then a supermarket list of things I need to buy to make up other meals. This must not be instead off, if you see what I mean.

We tend to have salad things like cuc, toms, coleslaw and radish with our meals so that the main item dosn't have to be the most healthy, that way it happens without you having to consider it.

Just to give you an idea, we are having:-

Pork pie, new potatoes and salad things, so here you have to buy pork pie. I bought four so we can have this meal twice, maybe once on Saturday then on Thursday - check the dates though on the pie.

Another meal is Sausage cobs with mayo and mustard. Sausages already in freezer so you have to buy the cobs. Make sure you freeze the cobs as soon as you buy them, then just make a note to take 2 out the morning before you want them.

When you finish work you can batch cook a spag bol, portion it up and freeze, so then this is another meal, we have this on jacket spuds sometimes rather than with spagetti, so now you only have to buy to jacket spuds - I expect your getting the idea after all that waffle.

Oh just thought, did you say you buy portions of chicken :eek: Thats a no no from the old stylers :money: an whole chicken is much cheaper £ for Ib, I roast one and have that as a meal then tear off strips and portion up and freeze. Giving you a few more meals, you can then either have this cold as chicken salad or stir into a curry sauce for chicken curry.

The sauce that you have previously batch cooked, of course.

With regard to cleaning and toiletries, all depends on how much luxury you want in the toiletries range. You can always find offers on radox etc. Personally I don't buy shower gel and havn't done for a few years now. We just use good old fashioned soap and a sponge. The basic on at that, 35p for 3 bars and yes it does last a while. I think the tesco ones are cheaper but ours hardly ever has it in stock.

If you buy liquid soap then just about ever old styler uses cream bath or basic baby bath lotion, and dispenses it into a ceramic holder with the pump down tops, we've got a lovely orange one at the moment, you can't knock it at 35p or there abouts for a litre.

Cleaning things, I buy sainsburys basic powder, lavender furniture polish - a complete waste of money of coures, I only buy it because it smells nice and the smells lasts all day Bleech for the loo and a bath cleaners of sort, whatever is decent and on offer, the cheap ones don't really work very well.
Fairy liquid is a brand worth buying, it does last well, Oh and deodrant with minerals in seems to last longer, sniff wise and spraying wise:D

We spend between £50 and £70.00 per week including wine and beer. Hope that helps.

This week it was about £38.00, we will be buying further wine but I can't see the need for more food really. I expect that last week it was more but I'm sure you get the idea.

Home baking is another way to save money as well.

roses

Before you go shopping, use http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/ and make a shopping list and stick to it. This is an easy website to see exactly what's on offer each week in the supermarket you go to which will help you save by sticking to purchases of products on offer.

maman

Linda32 wrote: »

This week it was about £38.00, we will be buying further wine but I can't see the need for more food really.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

A woman after my own heart!:T

I just loved that Linda. I do much the same as you with meal planning/shopping from stores/shopping list. If the stores are built up by shopping sensibly for offers/whoopsies/splitting big packs etc then most weeks I'm just buying fresh stuff.

Although, we're not vegetarian I do find that only small portions of meat are necessary if you've got plenty of veg. For instance, I make a chicken casserole with just 2 chicken thighs but loads of veg including butter beans for more protein. Sausage casserole I just use 3 sausages but cut them into 'meatball' size pieces. With lots of veg and pulses then it doesn't seem like a mean amount of meat. Stir-fry is another thing that uses very little meat. I often use some LO from a roast for that.

Just lately I've taken to putting my wine through the checkout separately as it helps me focus on exactly what I'm spending on food. I consider our wine to be more social/entertainment spending. We're not great pub people so what we spend in a week is probably less than many would spend on a few rounds at the pub. Fortunately, we can afford this so apologies to anyone who thinks I'm being extravagant.

DCFC79

Have you used lidl/aldi before, for things like fruit,veg, cleaning products and maybe meat it could be cheaper. Theres tips like dont pack your shopping until you have paid but theres more on here. I see you bought lloyd grossman sauce in asda, might be cheaper to make your own or maybe use a carton of creamed tomatoes with an onion and maybe a pepper, just a thought. maybe look out for any whoopsies too that you could freeze.

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

sorry to hear about your redundancy OP but it might be a good opportunity in the long run.

How about compiling a price book? make a book with the price of everything you buy (£ per kilo/unit) and use it to compare prices when you come up against a 'bargain' in a shop. If it is cheaper than your lowest price...fill yer boots! I often bulk buy things when they are cheap eg this week vintage mature cheese was £1.44 in Lidl for 400g so i got 10 packs, the date was ok. Same with beans, I got gazillions of branston beans when on offer in Lidl for £1 for 4 and they are £2 now...I would never get that return in the bank!

-dont waste any food, think up recipes to use stuff up
- 'educate' the family (your little one is an ideal age) to eat whatever is put in front of them...old fashioned I know and controversial but adopt a strategy that you are happy with
-bake your own bread...saves a fortune!
-could you grow your own? even salads help in a tub, flat dwellers can sprout seeds and beans on the windowsill!

A good book is 'The Tightwad gazette' by Amy Daczyn was the best read ever for me and well worth checking out, I recouped the cost of the book by adopting her methods almost straight away

Good luck and let us know how you get on

mcallister1

On the bulk buying front, approved food and the other similar sites are worth checking regularly. They have some quality brands really reduced sometimes, eh pata ks basmati for £1. 99 a kilo or big catering packs of bread mix or sauces that can be frozen. They are also great for juices, and drinks in cans but the stock varies such a lot, don't be put off if there is nothing you like the first time you check it. Also if your oh needs lunch, how about a food flask to fill with last night's dinner. If there is a co op near you, they do great meat reductions as the offers still every 2for £4 will still take £1 off meat reduced down. Just work out the best time to go.