What's in your trolley?

GinaG3

I meal plan religiously on a 3 week cycle, this really helps me keep a reign on our budget. I've always watched our money, and our food bills but we eat really well. I cook everything for scratch, no processed meals touch our plate, apart from the occasional ready made pizza but I'm vowing to make them myself again now like I used to!

Next weeks meals are:
Chickpea & Potato Curry with Samosa
Potato Layer, Sausage, Roast Tomato & Cabbage
Tagliatelle Carbonara with Garlic Bread
Sweet & Sour Chinese Chicken with Rice
Homemade Pizzas and Wedges
Roast Red Pepper Pasta & Garlic Bread

My online shopping basket at Asda to cover these meals comes to £28.58 and consists of:
Potato
Bhaji
Bacon
Garlic bread
Cream
Chicken
Mozzarella
Leek
Cabbage
Tomato
Milk
Bread
Salad
Biscuits
Sausage
Pineapple Tin
Pasta Salad
Spreadable Butter

My stock cupboards are a major part of my everyday cooking though, I have everything I need to cook dishes from every corner of the globe. Every spice you can imagine, every herb including fresh versions that I freeze as they last ages but give a different flavour to dried ones. I have loads of chopped fresh veg from left over weeks in the freezer that I dont want wasted. Baking cupboard it stocked to bursting for a massive variety of sweet treats if needed. Cleaning products all accounted for whilst on ridiculous offers! Kitchen roll 6pk every fortnight, toilet roll 9pk every fortnight too. Daughter has packed lunch 3 times a week consisting of cheese sandwich, raisins, chopped fruits and yogurt. We're a family of 2 adults and a 4 year old.

Shopping would generally come in at around £30-40 a week to cover meals, with extra for snacks, fresh juice, fruit. I have a budget of £80 but I've not even been hitting that lately and have been using the extra to buy things we want/need like new frying pan, some decorative bits. I'm a bit of a sucker though, I have quibbles about food quality so buy what I like with certain things even though I know it costs me more, some things though its smart price all the way like biscuits some are even nicer!!

[Deleted User]

I too live alone and so my budget is quite small I am lucky that I have sunday dinner with my DD and family every week and my contribution towards the meal is usually the pudding/pie I can cost meals for the day for myself at around £1.50 for breakfast lunch and dinner.I budget for about £60.00 per month and spend about a quarter of that on fruit and veg.I'm not a great bread eater and have cereal or porridge for breakfast and maybe a sandwich for lunch then a cooked dinner in the evening tonight I have some YS angus steak from the freezer that I bought in January for 90p I will have some mashed potato and cabbage with it and some natural yoghurt mixed with some chopped pineapple that I bought last week for pud.Tomorrow will be chilli from the freezer with rice and probably some rice pud with a bit more of the fresh pineapple for pud Lunch will be sardines on toast and breakfast will be porridge.I do shop around to get the best deals if I can and try to stay out of the supermarkets unless I'm looking for reduced items.I like to buy fruit and veg loose as its cheaper and I have a farm shop not far from me where I can buy a few carrots which will streeetch to several meals with careful slicing :)Aldi's is excellent for bargains in the F&V dept so I always keep a look out to see what offers they have I think I eat fairly well and healthily and enjoy fish as often as I can (I do have a wet-fish shop nearby which helps) and I also enjoy HM soups and like to try veggie meals at least once a week if not more.I have never like prepacked food of any description and can see no reason whuy a cucumber need plastic wrap around it.Come the late summer and I'll be out with my DGS looking for blackberries and apples for the freezer foraging is great fun with three little boys :)
I now only buy stuff when and if its needed so rarely have use for a trolley I find the bigger the trolley the more you spend

P.S.would love the recipe for the chickpea and potato curry please also if anyone has a good recipe for lentil curry I'd like to try that as well please

Kirri

This was Feb's spending for 1 veggie person plus 3 veggie pets. It seems to always work out around 50% fruit/veg and 50% food.

I do grow own veg in summer and have some stored in freezer still but buying in more this winter due to bad season last year. Recently trying out veg boxes so spend is up on previous months when I trawled the supermarkets...

I try to buy things I want when on offer but rarely buy any YS stuff as it's rare/non existent in what I want.

Am only buying in 'extras' mainly as have large amount of grains/pulses/nuts/seeds stored plus large store of spices & baking ingredients too as make most of my sweet treats and bread (bar the odd treat/bit of crud that sneaks in!).

I have a large amount of hm meals in the freezer I am using up ie hm nut roast, bean burgers, veg bolognaise. Dinners mainly pasta, pulses based meals, stir fry etc and cook large proportion from scratch.

FOOD 73.95
Alpro hazelnut milk 1.59
Bread - Flour Power city pain au levain 400g ® 2.45
CB Stilton OFFER 4.65 3.72
Choc dessert 1.00
Couscous & roasted veg OFFER 1.50
Dorset Cereals organic muesli 3.99
Eggs organic - Riverford 2.25
Eggs organic - Riverford 2.25
G&B organic white choc mini 0.85
Graze 5 3.89
Grove organic orange juice OFFER 2.83 2.50
Grove organic orange juice OFFER 2.83 2.50
Houmous Moroccan 1.49
Jaffa Cakes Mis shapes (M&M) 1.25
Juice - M&S organic 2.69
Kallo organic rice cakes 1.59
Lil Moos organic cheese sticks 2.09
Lye Cross organic cheese minis OFFER 1.85 1.38
Marriage's malted organic flour 2.29
Marriage's plain organic flour 1.99
Mornflake organic oats 1.79
Pitta wholemeal 0.70
Rachel's organic vanilla yoghurt x 2 1.75
SOC organic pasta penne OFFER 1.99 1.49
Taifun organic tofu basil 2.79
Taifun organic tofu smoked 2.79
Tideford organic tomato & basil sauce 2.29
Tideford organic tomato & basil sauce 2.29
Water - Evian 12 x 1.5 litres OFFER 7.60 6.00
Water - Highland Spring x 6 (Milk&More) OFFER 3.00
Water - Highland Spring x 6 (Milk&More) OFFER 3.00
YV organic butter OFFER 1.60 1.40
YV organic butter OFFER 1.60 1.40

FRUIT & VEG 67.65
Bananas x 2 (M) 0.79/kg 0.24
Bananas x 2 (M&S) 0.79/kg 0.19
Bananas x 2 (W) 0.79/kg 0.28
Cucumber organic - Riverford) 1.75
Cucumber (M&S) 0.90
Cucumber organic (M) 1.25
Cucumber organic ridge 1.38
Dill 0.99
Fennel organic - Riverford - 2 bulbs 1.65
Fruit Bag organic - Riverford small 3.75
Lettuce organic - Riverford 1.95
Pears organic 2.50
Rocket Ocado organic 0.88
Salad - Santini OFFER 1.50
Veg Box - Ocado organic OFFER 17.99 14.39
Veg Box - Riverford organic Favourites 15.35
Veg Box - Riverford organic Medium Veg 16.65
Watercress organic 100g - Riverford 2.05

I spend approx another £30 a month on household items ie kitchen towel, t/roll, tv guides, bulbs, eco cleaning stuff, org toiletries etc

sassyblue

Sweetie83 wrote: »

I won't let Tesco win!!

Get yourself into Aldis or Lidls!!!

Hope you come back and update us on how you're getting on OP. x

joedenise

JackieO wrote: »

P.S.would love the recipe for the chickpea and potato curry please also if anyone has a good recipe for lentil curry I'd like to try that as well please

Jackie - I've got a butternut squash and red lentil curry recipe if you'd like it.

Denise

[Deleted User]

joedenise wrote: »

Jackie - I've got a butternut squash and red lentil curry recipe if you'd like it.

Denise

yes please I have a huge bag of red lentils given to me (2kg)and if I only use them to pad out meals I will soon get fed up so I need some recipes to use them up

joedenise

Jackie - I've PM'd you the recipe - unfortunately it's too big to post on the forum.

Denise

Long_tall_sally

Denise - please, please, please share your recipe, it sounds lovely!

[Deleted User]

joedenise wrote: »

Jackie - I've PM'd you the recipe - unfortunately it's too big to post on the forum.

Denise

Looks good to me thank you so much for it.I just have to reorganise my freezer so I can make some
Cheers JackieO xx

ParmV

My typical weekly food shop is..

4 pints organic whole milk
Wholemeal bread
White bread
Asda brand nappies
Blueberries
Bananas
Lemons
Onions
Mushrooms
Biscuits
Smartprice tissues
Sweetcorn
Chicken breast
Minced beef
Minced turkey/chicken
Burger buns
Cucumber
Lettuce
Ham
Juice
Margarine
Grated cheese
Greek yoghurt

That usually costs me about £30 a week from Asda. Alot of it is store brand, apart from bread, sweetcorn and greek yoghurt (can't find asda brand full fat:()

Other things like pasta, spaghetti, lentils, tinned stuff and dried herbs I keep stock of.

Laundry stuff, I buy Asda brand and find MUCH better than Fairy and SO much cheaper! Cleaning stuff, I tend to use just a couple of products around the house and buy as and when needed.

I used to hate buying store brand, I was a "brand snob" but now I'm the complete opposite and resent buying something if I can't find store brand lol