Normal Food Shopping

Gillyx

If I don't meal plan I could easily spend £500 a month and still have nothing to make a meal with.

I do things like Bolognese, Cottage/Shepards Pie, Home made kebab, Chicken wrapped in bacon, Diet Coke Gammon/Chicken, Beef stew, stir fry (pork, chicken and beef, whatever I fancy at the time) Sometimes I may just do pasta with a nice tomato sauce, fry up, omelette etc. I make soup for lunches, and freeze it, tomato, carrot and coriander, chicken noodle etc.

VestanPance

This week:

Dinners:
Fri - Pepperoni pizza (home made)
Sat - Chicken & Chorizo Paella (home made)
Sun - Margerita Pizza (had left over dough, sauce and mozzarella from the other might)
Mon - Chicken Curry (home made - defrosted had made batch the previous week)
Tues - Chilli chicken with cashew nuts (home made)
Wed - Spag Bol - (home made - defrosted had made batch a few weeks ago)
Thur - Prawn stir fry (home made)

Lunches: Made batch of Potato & Leek soup to take in each day along with apples, oranges and bananas.

Breakfast: Either scrabbled eggs or cereal.

quintwins

If your trying to cut your shopping down the old sytle board is your best bet.

We usually have a variety of, sheperds pie, stew, beef casarole, chicken casarole, sausage casarole (with the packet mix one of the few packet mixes i buy), pork roats, gammon roast, homemade meat pie depending on what meat we have, homemade quiche, pulled pork, steak, pasta, chicken breast (i'm not keen on roasting whole chickens so i buy chicken breasts in bulk from the butcher, same price as supermarkets but so big and no water added i need less) served as a roast dinner, meat loaf, meatballs, then we have an unhealthy meal usually once a week so sausages chips beans and egg or pizza and garlic bread, fish and chips or ofcourse a takeaway


Breakfasts are usually cereal, porridge or toast, i try to do a cooked breakfast every weekend as my kids love it, i do a healthy version of a fry so nothings acually fried we have scambled egg, toast, bacon sausages and beans.

Lunchs range from sandwichs and pasta to the last nights leftovers, i also do lunch out once every 4-6 weeks as a treat, usually a cheap option like the carvery.

missprice

just totted up in my head and we spend around £80 a week for 4 adults including a takeaway most weeks and all loo roll, shampoo, toothpaste etc
some weeks it'll be £40 and some weeks nearer £100 but it works out at about £320 a 4 week month.
I buy a lot of ready meals and only cook from scratch 4 days a week
There is no room in my freezers to batch cook and I used to be (many years ago) in fuel poverty and it has stayed with me to use the least elec possible.
no idea why as I really don't need to worry about that now:)

the cat costs me £2 a month to feed as she only has dried food
I will for e.g. buy stuff on offer even when I may not need it for weeks yet so last week were tinned tomatoes at 30p each so I bought 4 tins
Douwe Egberts coffee on offer so bought 4 jars (which will last us 8 months)
Heinz beans (I don't eat but others do) 8 tins on offer so bought 8 tins.will probs last 6 months
loo roll on offer so bought 2 large packs
so last weeks shopping came to £80
but next weeks we will struggle to get to £40 as we have all the basics

we don't stint ourselves and can and will buy whatever we want, however saying that
steak is a rarity that we only buy once a year
but as we wont be getting a turkey (no one likes it)
thats ok with us.

moomoomama27

There are 5 of us, 2 adults, 1 teen and 2 under 10yrs. I spend £450 a month on food and household products like washing powder and cleaning essentials and about £ 20 a month on toiletries on average.

I don't cook everything from scratch,as I'm a terrible cook, but try my best! Our food shopping does include a mixture if branded and " value" range foods and I meal plan.

kettlefish

Tonight we are having pork and apple casserole, which is made with a couple of tins of tomatoes, 2 onions, some Tesco's frozen casserole veg and of course pork and a cooking apple. If I make a different casserole, I often bulk out with a tin of beans, more carrots or a cubed potato, but have added more of the frozen veg this time instead as only had a tiddly bit left in the bag and no point putting it back in the freezer. I will serve it with crusty rolls (4 for 10p on whoopsie last night, as they are crusty to start with an extra day hasn't done any harm) and frozen peas.

We usually have a lasagne or shepherds pie most weeks, which again I bulk out with tin of beans / red peppers and it makes 7 adult portions - freeze 2 portions and have it 2 nights on the trot. The remaining portion is divvied up for DD. I make everything with low salt so baby just has a small portion of ours.

If you look at most recipes from the 60s and 70s, a "portion" of meat is considered 75g to 100g. I think meals these days tend to include a lot more meat than this which of course pushes prices of cooking up.

We typically have homemade pizza one night, too (not totally from scratch - Tesco does a fab dough mix that you just add water to, which was on 3 for 2 last month so stocked up). Toppings are a little bit of tomato puree, grated cheese, whatever veg is on the Super 6 at Aldi and maybe a bit of ham if some left from DHs pack up supplies.

If I want a night off prep / cooking, I buy the trays of roasting veg from Asda and some quality sausages, instead of a ready meal. Works out about the same price per head but much nicer!

Jacq42

I average about £60 a week this entails 1 main shop and a couple of top up's by my OH while in town on his lunch break. At least 3 meals a week are quorn based - chilli, lasagne, cottage pie, spag bol, and the rest are either fish or a full roast, i buy multi packs of meet each month and re-bag them at home into smaller portions to freeze, 18 year old daughter has just started her first job so whatever i cook for tea i usually dish up an extra portion for her to take the next day and youngest daughter takes a sandwich, cereal bar and a bottle of tap water. It is very rare i go over this budget, but even if we had more money i don't think it would change our eating habits much.

sassyblue

quantic wrote: »

We currently spend about £380 a month in the Supermarket, this includes all food for the house, stuff like Toothpaste, Toilet Roll etc too also all food for Lunches at work, we don't buy anything outside of the weekly shop.

We're a family of three, 2 adults and a 6yo, plus 2 cats. We spend around £350 per month

That's all grocery shopping, l mainly shop in Aldis, Lidls and our local Co-op. We eat well and that's our lunches too.

I could cut more off that by batch cooking and freezing but l currently work 6 hours a day and there's just not enough time. We only have one ready meal a week, l cook from scratch.

TBH the price of food is shocking, l went to the local butchers the other day and it was no cheaper than the supermarket, at least l know the meat is (nearly!) locally produced and good though. :cool:

peachyprice

missprice wrote: »

Douwe Egberts coffee on offer so bought 4 jars (which will last us 8 months)

8 months! Well done you, we get through a jar a week, more during holidays.

But 80 teabags lasts about 6 months.

onlyroz

This week's menu:

Sat: Roast beef, yorkies, roasties, peas
Sun: Linguini arrabbiata with king prawns (home made)
Mon: Scampi, chips and beans (from a packet)
Tue: Lamb biryani (home made) with onion bhajis and bombay potato (ready meal)
Wed: Game pie, mini roasties and peas (home made)
Thur: Lasagne and greek salad (home made)
Fri: Quiche and salad (home made)

Monday and wednesday are my fasting days, so I have a piece of fruit for breakfast, skip lunch and have a child portion for dinner. I also swim on wednesday nights so I try to do something quick and easy from the freezer. Hubby cooks on thursdays and fridays, and he often likes to batch cook at the weekend and freeze a few meals' worth of stuff.