Bit of Grocery Advice please?

valk_scot

jackyann wrote: »

Yesterday I got 3 x 4pints milk @ £1 each and put them straight in the freezer.

I have to say I don't quite get this. Creamfields milk in Tesco is £1.10 for 4 pints, or 2L in my local corner shop is £1. Why waste freezer space unless you're miles from the nearest shop? £1 for 4 pts is hardly a bargain.

On the other habd the Reduced section is well worth a look at,must agree. I bought six pounds of cheddar last week, loose cut blocks from the deli counter, which had been reduced to less than a pound a pound. I grated it up and froze it in half pound bags, it should last me a good couple of months.

Indypop

Hi Lincs,
I am in the same boat as you - overspending majorly on groceries (and for my sins chucking a lot of things out!!!)
There are two of us, one teen and loads of cats! I am a min of £100 per week plus day to day run out shopping (which is never just for what we have run out of) and at least one takeaway a week (this is more to give me a night off from making 3 meals (I am a veggie, OH is a meat aholic and teen is a fussy b*gger who eats 3 or 4 mouth fulls and declares she is full).
I have been trying to get hold of the budget since she went back to school (the Scottish schools went back last week) and have so far managed:
To make myself a packed lunch to take to work (not a big thing but I was spending £3-5 per day on lunch) - OH and teen both wont touch a packed lunch - OH pays for his own works meals (at least it is a subsidised canteen) and teen gets dinner money. As far as teen is concerned I have to pick my battles carefully.
I have managed to make some store cupboard and freezer only meals - both are bursting with food but there is constantly cries of there is nothing to eat!!! I am running them down so that I can get onto my next step which is.....
batch cooking.
I dont think that this will drastically change the budget at the moment but I am hoping in time that a better stocked freezer and cupboard will help bring spending down.

I think the one problem I have had in the past when I have tried to tackle the food budget is that I have been too tired to properly meal plan. With the best of intentions I have filled the cupboard and freezer with things that are never eated or have to used as an ingredient in something that I neither have the time or the energy to make at the end of a busy stressful day at work.
Tonight is roast chicken - I will make extra new potatoes and extra chargrilled veg to go with it so tomorrow will be chicken salad. I will make some veggie sweetcorn patties to go with mine and tomorrow I will make myself a wrap for lunch tomorrow with them broken up in them with salad and cheese.
While the oven is on for the roast I will stick some potatoes in to bake and I will have a baked potato with salad tomorrow when they are having salad.
Just knowing what I am doing for the next couple of days makes me feel less panicky about avoiding the shops on the way home (I am terrible for that - cant think what to make so pop in and get a takeaway or 3 pizza's from the supermarket .
God I am babbling away here - sorry all. I have been so worried about the finances I am quite proud of where I am at the moment - not quite seeing the difference in the purse YET but by the next payday there should be more in the bank x

pigpen

I don't meal plan.. that is boring.. knowing what you are going to eat every day and when it comes round I wouldn't want it!

Write a list for the shopping and stick to it. I have a core of items I always buy and tot up as I go along.. I am allowedstuff from the reduced sections as extras and no more than 5 items off list.

For 10 of us inc 1 with diabetes and 2 in nappies and 1 in bedwetter pants, 6 cats and the rabbit I spend £700 a month.. this has increased by about £100 a month since my sons diagnosis.. but that is less than £70 a month per person.. so no three bad. About £500-600 is at Tesco though and the rest is the top up milk, bread and fruit locally (the end of the street)

We eat loads of cereals, go through gallons of bread and milk and Mr T Value range is my friend!

I do not buy crisps or sweets or biscuits if I do, I eat them.. so I buy food, fruit, veg and suchlike. I freeze any leftovers and every so often we have 'leftover night'

Anyway.. off to Tesco I discovered they reduce loads about 2pm on a Sunday so we are running today.. plus I ran out of dishwasher tablets.. having not bought any for a year at least

lincsyellowbelly

Thank you all for you comments so far. I feel better for having "confessed". I really think I have a problem when it comes to food spending, not anything else though. Kids thinks I'm a right meany!! I already buy own brands and quite a bit of value stuff, this has made me really think and I think the fussy eaters are the problem. Very rarely can I get away with just one meal and also my husband work shifts which are changed at very short notice, so mealplanning has been started and abandoned before.
Going to try and cut down on the junk food, crisps etc. I do cook from scratch mainly and how I spend this much really is a mystery. Been out this morning and bought some baking stuff for kids snacks, thing is their stomachs are bottomless pits at the moment.
I have good intentions but go astray mid month. Going to give it my best shot this month because this can't go on.

pigpen

Try drawing the cash out of the machine leave your cards at home and that is your spend limit!.. take a calculator I take OH he likes such challenges!

And get some money off vouchers/coupons you can use those for extras

Use a small trolley for the shopping.. if it doesn't fit in you can't buy it!

Indypop

If going cold turkey for snacks and crisps - try farmfoods, iceland or poundland for stuff.
What I have learnt with mine is the more I put out the more quickly they go through it so if I get a 10 pack of space raiders for £1 in farmfoods then I only put 2 or 3 in the snack bag and replace as required. I was trying to cut them both down on snacks as they were eating £3/4 pounds worth of stuff a day between them.
The next job is fizzy juice - 4 litres a day isnt unusual and this cripples my budget!!!

krlyr

Do you buy the dog food at the supermarket? You may find it more economical to switch foods as supermarket brands (or those that they stock) are usually quite low quality foods that need to be fed in larger quantities to provide the daily requirements of a dog. A better brand can normally be bought in larger amounts, saving you money, and the increased quality means you feed less of it too. There was someone on here recently who posted about a relative feeding their dog Asda's own brand food - they recently switched to the Autarky brand dry food and it actually works out cheaper because the dog needs a fair bit less food a day. Cheaper brands of dog food like Autarky, CSJ, etc. are better than what supermarket sells and often have good deals online - like the Autarky food has multibuy offers and free delivery on a regular basis.

pigpen

Indypop wrote: »

The next job is fizzy juice - 4 litres a day isnt unusual and this cripples my budget!!!

Car boot.. buy a soda stream.. carbonate plain water and add cordial! Or buy the super chear fizzy water from supermarket and add cordial.

Fruball

Two ways to save money without really trying...

One night a week have a cheap beans or egg on toast meal, or egg and HM chips/wedges

My kids are permanently hungry and always asking for stuff - each week I buy a pack of cheap bread rolls (70p for 12) and a pack of ham (£3) and if they are hungry they are offered a ham roll instead of snacky things. This has saved me a small fortune!

Hope that helps

freyasmum

It's kinda difficult to sit and think, cos it's all second nature to me - it's how I was raised. But I'll try...

valk_scot wrote: »

And if you run out of something ask yourself...do you actually need to make an extra trip to the shops for it or can you manage without it? Bread or milk are worth going for, crisps and biscuits are not. Buy try not to run out, extra trips mean extra impulse buys.

And to cut down on those 'oh no, I need bread/milk/cheese - I'll just nip to the shop... and come out £20 lighter' situations in the first place - bread, milk, cheese, butter; they all freeze perfectly.

Pre-cooked beans (dried beans cooked and cooled), if you're a fan, make an incredibly easy addition to meals and can be frozen - and then added to meals straight from the freezer. They're ideal for bulking up a dinner if you find you have unexpected guests or your chicken doesn't go as far as you expected. Beans, chorizo (lidl - you don't need much, think of i more as a seasoning), peppers (frozen), tomatoes (tinned), garlic (paste), onion, perhaps a sprinkle of chilli (frozen - not cheaper, but cuts waste) will make a delicious supper when topped with an egg. (in fact, I now know what we'll be having tomorrow ).

Approved foods sometimes have 2-3k of beans/pulses for £1! Amazing value but beware of the trap of spending £100 on junky foods with nothing to make a real meal!

Also, buy full fat products - they actually have some flavour and are much more satisfying so you don't need to eat anywhere near as much. But then I do think sugar where it shouldn't be is a real PITA





Finally, keep a record of meals that you eat. This has two advantages:

1. When you sit down to write a meal plan, I can pretty much guarantee that your head will go blank. If it doesn't, you probably eat the same thing week in, week out :rotfl:
2. You will be better placed to see what 'type' of meals you're eating - for example, whole, grilled chicken breast with loads of veg which, while healthy and delicious, if you're eating it every night can become expensive. Perhaps try a mince based dish with added courgettes/peppers/onions/carrots/potatoes/tomatoes/sweetcorn

Plan your meals around the offers - lidl had 40 pork chops for a tenner. If you had had two each (which I couldn't, but at an outside average), that's £5 per meal which is still not cheap but probably cheaper than you've been spending. They also had stewing steak at £2.49 a tray; two would've been more than adequate in steak pie, or a goulash, or plain stew when served with mash/veg/rice.

Try downshifting a brand, only one or two things a week and, if you don't like them, buy your normal brand and you haven't wasted much. If you DO like them, then so much the better!

Start buying the products you use often when they're on offer - I love the mitchum deodorant. It's normally almost £3 a tin, but it's £1.48 in superdrug atm, so I got a few tins.

Coco pops are normally almost £3 a box, but are half price in tesco so, again, I got a few boxes. They're basically the same price as the ones in lidls and are nicer (and I'm not a brand snob!).

Similarly if you like branded cleaning products, buy them on offer. However, I bought a bottle of the value everyday cleaner the other day and it seems to have done a decent job - I will decant it into a spray bottle and use it in the same way at those which are 12 times (really) the price.

Waste nothing - process your stale bread into crumbs for homemade fish/chicken goujons, or into bread and butter puddings; whizz sad veg into soups; black bananas make the best bread.

And, if you're really into it, take the kids to forage berries/rhubarb - you can make puddings (with pre-made - by you - and frozen crumble topping/pastry) or even jam (which sounds a LOT more complicated than it is, and is actually very therapeutic). Pick and choose the bits of OS that interest/apply to you - if you are also a busy working mum, then this may seem like the last thing you want to do, and that's perfectly ok, it's not for everyone, but it can make a nice little day out with the kids - with a little reward for after too

Finally, because I've wittered on much longer than I intended (sorry ), if you have a coop near, you might find it useful to pop in later on a sunday to see if they have anything at a good price - mine is in the local housing estate and they don't appear to like eating vegetables there So I've been able to pick up 3packs of peppers, heads of broccoli (my daughter can't get enough!), packs of mushrooms, etc for 20p.

Good luck


I knew there'd be something else!! If you have a home bargains/farmfoods near, why not try the Nicki toilet rolls? They're probably half the price of branded rolls, even on offer, and are much nicer than the value ones which are similarly priced.

And check out mysupermarket to see which has your favourite products at the best price - it would definitely be worth driving the 30-odd mile trip if you could combine a shop. My drive to the nearest, big shop is similar