Reducing weekly shopping costs?

CurlyTop

Lots of great ideas. Have you tried Home Bargains for your non food stuff - although having said that, they are pretty cheap on things like tinned tomatoes (28p per tin) and other stuff although some stuff comes and goes.

You'll find the key to keeping your food bill low is planning - I mealplan for a month. Have set myself up a little chart with 30 days and list all the teas there. Come pay day I then go and shop for everything I need (after having checked I haven't got the stuff in the cupboards first). Home Bargains for toiletries, snacks and tinned stuff. Aldi for milk, veg, cold meat, frozen battered fish, tinned fish, kitchen towel is good price here also. Shame you haven't got an Aldi, they are good for the snacky chocolate things, Titan bars like mars bar, Jive like Twix, Romeo like bounty and Dreemy like milky way - all reasonably priced. Check their website incase they've got one planned in your area. Iceland for my frozen veg and fish. We like butter her although I don't like Aldis make so I go online and see which supermarket is selling cheapest - Asda £2 for the 500g of Country Life at the mo. I get a couple of tubs and throw in the freezer.

I also have found that making meals from scratch helps your money go further.

Best of luck.

trifles

Homemade soup made using broth mixture or red lentils to thicken and pad out is a very cheap and nourishing dinner with a sandwich and piece of fruit.Lots of recipes in library books etc,but since you mention Iceland I find their prepped frozen veg a time saver and economical.:)
I often use 1 of the frozen mixed veg packs from Iceland, quarter a packet of broth mix(soaked overnight)add a chicken thigh or 2,some onion and a stock cube and cook until broth mix tender.I then remove the chicken,shred it finely from the bone and put it back into the soup minus any bones.You could freeze any leftover for future quick meals.

joedenise

HM soups are a good filler. Give everyone a bowl of soup with some bread and you won't need as much meat for the main course. Alternatively just do a huge soup with dumplings and that would be a main meal in itself. If anyone still hungry after they could have a piece of fruit.

Denise

mineallmine

OP- it may be a good idea to break down your shopping list for us? Maybe into categories like frozen veg, meat, snacks - that sort of thing? So we can see how we can help

Also what sorts of meals do you like to eat - so we can help with possibley some home made alternatives

sonastin

In my experience, Iceland is cheap for the pre-prepared stuff but not so much for ingredient-type products. And in general, cooking from scratch is generally cheaper than purchasing pre-prepared stuff.

It would be worth having a look at the other stores and seeing whether you really need to be wedded to shopping at Iceland - you should regularly check what others are charging so you don't get caught by the "10% off" allure of the staff discount if their prices are actually more than 10% higher. In doing so, take into account what the ingredients to make it yourself would cost, not just a straight comparison between the pre-prepared options.

If you're not used to cooking everything from scratch, start slowly. It can be expensive to suddenly try to build a stock cupboard of all the little extras (herbs, spices, etc) but in the long run it can cut your grocery bill considerably to DIY.

PipneyJane

falko89 wrote: »

No £85 all in for everything, We do have a lot of snacks in this house, chocolate bars, crisps, coke etc

Thats for the threads.

Well you've listed one big money drain - purchased snacks and fizzy drinks. Can you cook? Are you game to try? Swap your chocolate bars for homemade flapjack or Twinks Hobnobs. Swap your fizzy drinks for diluted squash and/or water.

Do you check out your cupboards before you shop? What about the fridge/freezer? Or do you constantly find yourselves bringing home items only to discover duplicates lurking? Do you write a shopping list? Others have mentioned meal planning - do you do it?

Probably the best thing you can do is learn to cook from scratch. You don't need masses of jars or pre-prepared sauces. An onion, a clove of garlic, 1 teaspoon of sugar, some basil and two tins of tomatoes wil give you a basic tomato sauce. Brown 1lb of minced beef before hand, stir it in when you add the tomatoes then add a beef stock-cube and you have bolognese sauce. Bury a couple of large grated carrots in there and you're children will be eating veggies before they know it. (Simmer all until thick.)

cutestkids

Hi OP,

I have to agree that the best way to save money is to cook from scratch and plan your menu.

The foods that you are using are probably more expensive than using fresh ingredients and cooking from scratch.

The fizzy juice, crisps and chocolate will all add a lot on to your shopping bill every week.

You can buy a large bag of porridge oats for under £1`in most supermarkets, make with half milk half water and you have breakfasts for the whole family for at least a week.

Lunches can be homemade soup with a sandwich, cheap and filling or left overs from the evening meal.

Dinners make from scratch things like shepherds pie, bolognese, chilli, stews with lots of veg hidden in the sauce.

One night a week we have soup and toastie night with a big pot of homemade soup and either toasties or a sandwich.

Make treats like flapjacks, biscuits, scones, cupcakes instead of buying them.

Start slowly and gradually build up a stock cupboard of everyday items that way you will never be stuck for something to make.

Also if you can make double and freeze half then you always have a supply of food ready just to be heated through.