Shopping-Monthly vs Weekly or daily (merged)

Going4TheDream

We do a bulk shop once a month for dried and tinned stuff, loo rolls, that sort of stuff , meat from butchers or wholesalers once every 6 weeks or so and then top up weekly fresh with stuff. Works well with meal planning for us.

We spend less time shopping and have cut our grocery budget right down.

No more impulse buys, we tend to make a lot more stuff at home. like cakes, puddings etc and batch cook and freeze, so we often save time in the kitchen too.

TDMum

Last month was the first month we tried a monthly shop as my hubbles has just switched to monthly pay. I was scared of running out of money and food so thought I'd bulk buy I've saved about £70 off our monthly budget and could have saved more if I hadn't trusted said hubbles to go out for "a few bits and bobs" *cough*

I wrote out a monthly meal plan and stuck to it. I also used less meat. Instead of normally buying one pack of mince a week and using it all for one meal I bought 2 packs and split it into 4 portions of meat. No one noticed the difference in the "lack of meat". It also made me use leftovers up much more and we got 3 meals out of a chicken which we normally wouldn't do. We would have normally just bought chicken breasts.

We're lucky enough to have an extra fridge freezer in the garage so we can freeze a lot of stuff. We have soup at least once a week so it's handy to batch cook different flavours and just freeze the leftovers so there's always a quick meal to hand. We go through a lot of yoghurt as well but due to the extra fridge and the relatively long life of yoghurt we can buy it all in a oner and make the most of deals.

I only buy yellow sticker bread and usually stock up on it and bung it in the freezer. I'm a tightwad and will only spend 10-30p per item.

I also made myself a challenge of not buying any puddings or biscuits and made my own. I didn't realise how quick certain recipes were, or how many you could freeze. The kids and husband have loved having freshly baked things for pud. With it being the easter hols too the kids have helped me and it's kept boredom away for an hour or so :rotfl: Double the recipe and fling it in the freezer so there's always something on hand.

I am definitely a monthly shop convert!

I put aside £30 a week for fresh fruit, veg and milk and that's for 2 adults and 3 kiddos.

carlamarie_2

thanks for all your comments and tips!

TDmum, i also plan to put aside £30 a week for fresh fruit and veg, bread and milk and also for 2 adults and 3 kids. although i do hope to be able to bring this down to £20 once in settled into my new routine.