Help With Grocery Shopping On A Budget

cannyscot_2

-MRS_T- wrote: »

My son has also really enjoyed setting the table and he loves we all sit round together so that is something I am going to do as much as we can together as not always possible with me and hubby on shifts. -Its the nicest part of cooking yourself when they look at you n say thanks mum that was lovely! melts your heart and makes it all worth it!---It becomes addictive!


I dont have a local market here (well not that I know of) so not sure how I can get cheap veggies so I think I will have a small stock of frozen.--You get amazing value at Aldi or lidl but Morrisons seem to be running a cheap veg/fruit thing at the moment as well.

Will give a recipe from here a go at the weekend.

Thanks again :-)

Good luck once you get going you can't stop. Ive reduced our famly of 4 by about 60%.

meg72

cannyscot wrote: »

Good luck once you get going you can't stop. Ive reduced our famly of 4 by about 60%.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Well thats one way to reduce the groery spend I suppose.

Butterfly_Brain

cannyscot wrote: »

Good luck once you get going you can't stop. Ive reduced our famly of 4 by about 60%.

OH No's people burgers :eek:

-MRS_T-

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Frozen chicken usually has water, sugar and salt added.
I prefer fresh, but it depends on whether my budget will allow it, that is why I look for reduced joints of meat and fill up the freezer when I see any.

Seriously.

I know absolutley zero I just thought it was exact same apart from frozen.
I will defo buy fresh and freeze it where possible as sometimes the local scotmid has some good reductions on meat, I know they are more expensive to begin with but sometimes there reductions are really good if you are in the right place at the right time.

Thanks for the tip you can tell I am a complete novice.

Fire_Fox

-MRS_T- wrote: »

QtyProductSubstitutePrice 1Cheesey pasta£0.97 1Medium Wheatgerm Loaf£0.70 1Pasta in Sauce Cheese & Ham£0.70 1Chicken Tikka Filler£1.00 1Tortilla Wraps£1.00 1Salted Tortillas£0.46 1Original£1.00 1Oranges£1.50 1Juicy Burger Relish£1.00 2Batter Mix£0.14 1Vanilla Ice Cream£1.00 1Choc Ices£0.60 2Semolina£1.16 1Ham Wafer Thin£1.90 16 Black Pudding Slices£1.00 1Potato Scones£0.50 1Lean Beef Mince£3.33 2Chicken Breast Mini Fillets£6.67 1Vine Ripened Tomatoes£1.50 1Lettuce Iceberg£1.00 1Soft White Rolls£0.65 1Raspberry Swiss Roll£0.25 1Scottish Porridge Oats£0.65 1Strawberry Jam£0.29 1Baby Beetroot£0.98 1Salad Cream£1.00 1Apple & Blackcurrant Squash (No Added Sugar)£0.42 1Milk Cooking Chocolate£0.74 1Pineapple Chunks In Juice£0.43 1Chosen by You Simmer Sauce Mixes Creamy Peppercorn Sauce£0.32 1Beanz£0.50 1Carrots British£0.92 1Plain Naan Bread£0.59 1Blueberries£1.00 1Exhilarations Concentrate Strawberry & Lily Kiss 21 Washes£1.50 1Little Angels Toilet Training Wipes Fragrance Free£0.70 4Flumps£0.40 1Classic£1.00 1Garden Peas£0.26 1Tikka Masala Sauce£1.00 1Apple Pies£0.50 1Toastie White£1.00 1Yogurt Low Fat Pineapple Bio£0.30 2Yogurt Low Fat Raspberry Bio£0.60 1Yogurt Low Fat Peach Melba Bio£0.30 2Yogurt Low Fat Mandarin Bio£0.60 1Fromage Frais Fruit£0.45 1Fromage Frais Fruited£1.00 1Vitality Raspberry Yogurt Drink£1.00 2Fresh Milk Semi Skimmed£2.00 2Barn Eggs Mixed Weight£1.70 1River Cobbler£2.00 1Mashed Potato£0.85 2Cucumber Whole£1.00 1Apples Granny Smith£1.94 1Ready to Eat Bananas£1.00 1Sugar Snaps£1.00 1Babycorn£1.00 1Wheat Bisks£1.47 Subtotal£62.82Delivery£3.00eVouchers£0.00Savings£2.38 Total£63.44

You could make cheaper and healthier choices on quite a lot of items. You also have a lot of processed food there, try for most stuff having one to two ingredients
- dry spice blends or curry paste plus block creamed coconut instead of jar sauce which only does one meal, both are cheapest in the World Foods/ Asian section if your store has one
- regular wholemeal breads and brown chapatti instead of wraps and rolls and naan
- whole fresh pineapple instead of canned
- plain yoghurt in a large tub instead of flavoured and sweetened
- raw potatoes or better still sweet potatoes instead of mash and potato scones
- frozen mixed berries instead of blueberries
- frozen or canned baby corn instead of fresh
- frozen lean mince instead of fresh
- frozen chicken portions on the bone instead of mini fillets. Whole fresh chicken if you don't like all legs and wings
- cocoa powder which is packed with minerals instead of cooking chocolate which is packed with sugar
- flour, eggs and milk instead of batter mix, you can then use this for sauces and other baking
- with everything start checking and comparing the price per kilo, there is a massive difference in different vegetables, meats and breads.

Generally although you have a good start I don't think there is enough fruit and veg for three people, you should be having at least five 80g servings a day each which is at least 3kg of produce a week. Some of the cheapest are whole red cabbage, fresh onions, swede, parsnips, fresh carrots, dried mixed fruit, frozen sweetcorn, canned tomatoes, frozen green vegetables, fresh pineapple, frozen rhubarb (Farmfoods). Soup is a great way to eat more vegetables. Fresh soft fruit and salad vegetables tend to be more expensive because they are perishable.

Also not sure if you have enough dairy for three servings per person per day, or sixty three servings a week. One adult serving is 30g cheese, 150g yoghurt or 200ml milk. I don't see oily fish - canned mackerel or pilchards in tomato sauce in the 400g cans are the cheapest. You each should be having at least two servings of fish a week, at least one of which should be oily.

Much more sugary/ fatty/ processed stuff than you need - that should be maximum 10% of daily calories each according to the guidelines which is only one small snack a day each. Strictly speaking things like sugared yoghurts, sugary breakfast cereals and black pudding should count not just obvious cakes and snacks, and so do many jams and sauces since they can be high in sugar or oils.

Don't see enough mineral and fibre rich foods - wholegrains, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds. Your starches seem to focus more on potatoes without the skins and processed white wheat flour - I suspect even the wheatgerm bread contains refined flour - when a minumum of half should be whole. Oats and Weetabix are a great start tho. :T Maybe consider a bag of dried red lentils (soups and bulking out mince meat) and some peanut butter and switching your wheat products over to wholegrain versions?

Hope you don't mind me commenting, lifestyle healthcare is what I do for a living and you did say in the OP you wanted to be healthier.

Towser

It's great that you are shopping online. But I also make use of Aldi and Lidl. This is my take on it.

Shop online, that way you can swap your shopping about, until you are on budget (whatever level you choose for each product) then check out.

You will not be tempted then.

Save a little for bread and milk and then buy them when you are not hungry. But make sure you buy, when you can go and check out the YS whoopsies at the same time. Or when you buy your Aldi Super Six or when you buy the Lidl half price weekend offers.

My meals are: Shep pie, Spag bolognaise, casserole, curry, omelettes, eggs, chips and beans, Most of these you can pad out with vegetables. I do, much healthier and veggies readily disguised for the kids. Make use of all Aldi Super Six offers chop and freeze if need to and then just as and when stuff needs padding out.

Good luck with it. It is hard but once you have seen a few strategies work, you will be hooked and looking for more ways of saving money. Lol, and if you do I'm sure you will pass them on here.

mouseymousey99

Enjoyed reading that Firefox, a great breakdown. I do most of the things you suggested, but its always good to read it again. (I'm a veggie so mine is a little different). I'm very interested in nutrition.
I see you have porridge on the list Mrs T, its a fantastic start to the day (we have every day with fruit & a pinch of mixed spice). I'm trying to loose weight & it keeps me full till lunchtime. Bananas are amazingly cheap at the moment too, ours go on the porridge.
If you need a red cabbage recipe, I braise it with apple, it freezes so well too.

Pitlanepiglet

sonastin wrote: »

Easiest way to learn how to cook if you've never really mastered it is to go with pre-prepared ingredients and assemble them yourself, according to the instructions on the packet/jar/etc.

Once you've mastered that, save a bit of money by preparing the ingredients yourself - whole chicken breasts are cheaper than mini fillets but you have to slice them yourself.

When you're confident in preparing the ingredients yourself & using packets/jars for your sauces/flavourings, have a go at replicating the packet stuff yourself - use the ingredients on the old packet to give you an indication of the herbs/spices to buy and then have a bit of fun experimenting. You might have some disasters but you'll almost certainly not poison yourself! It's usually edible even if its not pleasurable but you'll learn a lot about how to cook & it will be cheaper and healthier to boot.

I'd agree this with and Ragz's points from over the page. I started out like this, I left home at 18 with virtually no cooking skills.

I started with things like spag bol but using jars, cottage pie with packets and then moved on to some basics like casseroles - again initially with packets.

Then when I was less scared of cooking, I moved on to just chucking things together without the packets and jars.

I thought that there was a lot of science involved in cooking and it took me a long time to realise that actually there isn't - there are some basics to learn but it's really not as scary as I'd thought. You don't have to follow great long recipes as most of us don't notice the added ingredients anyway.

We also have quite a lot of meat and two veg which requires little skills and other than that it's spag bol, chilli, pasta bake, potatoe bake and the like.

Go for it, and make sure when you're a bit more confident that you're teaching your little one to have some kitchen confidence as well.

Edited to add - the dietary stuff above is probably going to scare you witless at the moment (it did me!) the reality for you right now is that anything is better than the processed meals that you have been eating and feeding your family to date. You don't have to get from where you are now to the perfect diet in one go, little baby steps if you scare yourself you'll just give up xxx

stoplurking

Hi Mrs T. As well as all the brilliant recipes and MSE tips here, there is a website called resourceful cook -sorry, can't do links- where you can get plans for main meals for 3-7 days. They are worked out so that all of the ingredients are used up over the days. Also tailored to the type of store cupboard you have eg basic, and they even list what should be in the basic etc store cupboard. The plans are for 1 ,2 or 4 but you could increase the 2 person plan a bit to feed your little one as well, then add his/ her extras eg milk, fruit etc. Basic plans cheapest, not often updated but a good start.