Dinner this evening - ideas please?

Yum

Hi - I have a one year old and I know what you mean about them eating at a different time its really easy just to give them a little organic meal but its really expensive. My little one absolutely loves baby pasta which is really cheap - i fry a fresh tomato in a little water with some herbs and a slice of ham and if I have any peppers or onions ill put a tiny bit in too. Mix together and grate cheese on top. Its his fav meal ever and it takes about 5 minutes to cook. We also have a roast dinner together every Sunday which he loves usually chicken as its easy for him to eat. I also made a shepherds pie last week and made 3 portions of leftovers for the baby which I put in the freezer and I just heat right up then allow to cool. He loves that too as it was full of veggies. We get nappies and wipes from costco totals about £25 per month and all the johnsons baby bath staff from £land. Is your little one still having formula?

JEEC

The organic meals are expensive, but one of the problems we have is that as we both work full time (and OH does shifts) me and our son leave the house each day at 7am and don't get back home until almost 7.30pm Monday to Friday so it's not me cooking his food except at weekends, so by giving him an organic meal I at least know that he's eating healthily.

He does still have formula - the follow on milk, he has one when he wakes up, one before his afternoon nap and one when we get in at night before bed (if he hasn't already fallen asleep in the car). Until he starts eating the family meals I'm going to continue with this. We had problems with his weight as a baby. He gets very upset if he doesn't get his milk, so he's not ready to give it up yet. We tried giving him water but he just spits it out and laughs. He will drink weak no added sugar juice but still wants his milk.

Also, by the time he gets to where he's being looked after in the day he's been in the car for 1-1.5 hours so if I give him fresh food or milk I'm concerned about the length of time it's been out of the fridge. The organic meals don't have to be refrigerated.

I'm not too concerned about the amount we spend on our son. I appreciate it's more than most people spend but it suits our circumstances. It's me and my OH that could do with cutting back, because I know that (excluding what we spend on DS) £80 a week, plus anywhere between £20 and £60 a week eating out / on takeaways, is more that some families of 4 spend in a week on the weekly shop.

Luckily, as we're both working we can afford the amount we are spending, however, I would still like to cut back a bit and use the money saved for something else, like more holidays - my other passion beside food. Plus, if other families/couples are eating well for a fraction of the amount we are spending, it can obviously can be done.

The stupid thing is, if I'm booking a holiday/break away I always shop round for the best price, and get some very good deals. Yet, when it comes to the weekly shop, we just pile the trolley up without thinking, and shamefully there is often a lot of wastage.

Thinking (very far) ahead, if we ever do have another child, we will have no choice but to cut back as I'm the higher wage earner, so when I'm on maternity leave our income drops right down. So, if we get in good habits now it will help in the future.

Yum

I totally relate to you. I work almost full time and my partner works full time plus 10 hours overtime per week. When my little one is in childcare he has the jars of food as its not practical for me to cook something. I honestly dont think babies cost a lot of money but the loss of earning whilst being on maternity leave crippled us. I am also the higher earner but the company I work for only pay the basic SMP so I went back to work when he was 6 months. I agree, it sounds like you and your OH could cut back a lot and still have a good lifestyle so dont cut back on the baby stuff. I spend about £200 per month but my lil one has full fat milk - about 6oz morning and night (which he still loves) so we are spending less as we dont buy formula. That said, we dont always eat a proper meal together as a few days a week he works different shifts so I just eat something cheap on those nights like soup & fresh bread.

Yum

I wish we could afford another baby - but we dont have the space as we are saving for a deposit we are trying to keep rent to a minimum

Yum

And my lil one will not drink water either - he looks at me like what the hell is this mum?

JEEC

I did a mealplan for the next week which includes a "special" meal for Saturday night and a Roast dinner for tonight:

Sun - Roast Beef (from farmer's market), roast potatoes, new potatoes (out of our greenhouse) and veg.
Mon - Corned Beef Hash
Tue - Chicken Chasseur (already have chicken in)
Wed - Beef Casserole (with steak from farmer's market)
Thu - Lemon and herb chicken, mash and veg (already have chicken in)
Fri - Sausage Casserole with mash (already have the sausages in)
Sat - Steak with onions and pepper sauce, chips (from farmer's market)

Then, I headed off shopping thinking we were going to spend much less than the standard £120 - however despite the mealplan this has not happened and we've managed to spend £132.

It's not quite as bad as it sounds though because we spent £45 of this at the farmer's market, and this included 3 joints of beef and 3 joints of pork and they are quite large and we got some steak and some pork steak too, so that's Sunday dinner for the next 6 weeks sorted! If I value the joints at £6.50 each and deduct 5 of them of this weeks total spend (to be added on to the weekly spend in the week they are used) then that works out to a £99.50 spend for this week. Also, the pork steaks don't feature on this weeks meal plan (but came as an offer with the joints) so hopefully next week's shopping bill will be even less.

I'm still a bit dissapointed spending £99.50 bearing in mind we already had some of the meat for this week's meals in, but I've also found a leg of lamb joint from Farmfoods in the freezer that I didn't realise we had so that's also going to reduce next week's shop further and will be used for a "special" meal.
We've also had to buy washing powder this week, but didn't need nappies so the 2 cancel each other out.

The money saved has already been spent on something else this week - rose bushes for the garden! So at least we will see the benefit of not spending as much on food.

sonastin

One thing I've found helping with the takeaway temptation is to buy the Takeaway Secret recipe book (there's a thread dedicated to it on this forum). Some of the Indian and Chinese recipes in there are gorgeous. Like the takeaway only better. Since I've started making my own, when we resort to takeaway because time is short or the ingredients are in or whatever, it is largely disappointing. The book is designed around preparing the building blocks of a meal to have in stock so that it only takes a few minutes to put stuff together so it doesn't take too long to make most of it. I haven't tried any of the deep fried stuff yet because our current hob isn't controllable enough to have hot oil on the go but when the new hob is fitted, I'll be having a got at the rest of the recipes.