You could save a fourtune!

Towser

Thank-you Edwardia.

It must be the branded toiletries and cleaning products people go for?
I am not brand loyal so I don't think I could make a saving. I am sticking to good old Aldi and Lidl with an eye on mysupermarket.com for offers.

As always cutting back not cutting out.

MavisTheMaven

Towser wrote: »

What healthy stuff do you regularly buy from these places that save you a fortune. This is how I can reduce my budget further.
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It's about creative cooking, for me. I buy whatever the veg is that's on offer and create meals around that.

I bulk buy pasta, rice, herbs n spices, oils, storecupboard stuff, especially when it's on offer (I'll buy a sack of rice at Costco but only when it's, say £3 off), I always make sure I've got onions, garlic and ginger and then everything else is bought on discount.

I'm not veggie, but I just barely ever cook meat, its too expensive now for the good quality stuff. I had beef today, but we were in a posh gastropub and someone else was paying! I'm not joking the cows they use - the herd grazes opposite the window, we know the farmer! Funnily enough, the less I eat of it the less I like it, especially the processed stuff seems too strong tasting and greasy to me.

I used to work in China, so I'm well used to tofu and how to prepare it. The work canteen where I used to eat barely ever served meat, it's a condiment in China if you are working class, people eat more tofu than anything else. I find it quite funny that it's a health food for freaks over here, in China it's just normal everyday fodder, people do not eat great big lumps of meat, just a tiny amount.

Anyway, say for instance brocolli is on offer at Aldi - just google 'brocolli rice recipe' or 'broccoli pasta recipe' and see what comes up. I made brocolli pesto pasta one day from a recipe I found on Google, that was nice but not as nice as another day when I broke a head into florets, stir fried it with garlic and onion and served it with black olives, lemon juice and some feta cubed up that I'd got cheap in the supermarket.

Because Aldi is doing leeks cheap, soon, then I'll make a leek risotto.

Learn to cook Indian, Thai and Chinese, it's a lot easier than English cooking if you know how and much easier to make cheaper tasty meals, especially if you want to cut down on meat. English cuisine can feel like something is missing if you leave the meat out, but some other cuisines do not. Get on youtube if you find something tricky, it took me a few goes to do perfect steamed rice, I can now do egg fried rice as good as a takeaways after watching tutorials online.

My only extravagance is pine nuts,
I'm careful to balance meat free meals - it's really hard to get cheap ones, I just check mysupermarket because you can still pay 50p less a bag if you shop around.

I guess I am lucky, though as all the major supermarkets, and the discounters, three oriental food wholesalers and plenty of Turkish owned greengrocers are within 10-20 mins cycling from home.

Edwardia

Useful post but you will find very little of that in stores like Poundland !

MavisTheMaven

LOL did not read question. :facepalm:

Anyway - those bargain shops, I don't often buy food in them, perhaps sometimes, when they sell those fresh Amoy noodles, then they're worth getting, but I use them mostly for kitchen roll, tissues and cleaning products. Not food, because we just don't eat that kind of food.

Edwardia

If you ever want to put OH/kids off junk food just start reading the ingredients, by the time you've gotten through esters of this, polydisaccharides of that etc they won't look nearly so keen on buying it

Murphybear

I agree with Edwardia, you need a chemistry degree to understand what's in some low cost food - I found ice cream and very cheap squash the worst offender

I live in a market town in a rural county, we have Mr T and Mr M on the outskirts and a small Coop in the centre. For special occasions there is an M & S food only store. We don't have Aldi, Lidl, Asda or Pound shops within easy shopping distance.

What we do have is a brilliant Pannier market where you can buy high quality local meat, bread, cheese, fruit and veg and a little health food shop that sells every imaginable dried herb or spice in 10g amounts - fraction of supermarket costs. There are dozens of local farms you can buy large eggs for £1 and my OH's favourite the fish man twice a week with fresh fish straight from Brixham Harbour. We have a large freezer that gets filled with bargains and cook everything from scratch. As we are now retired we have plenty of time for shopping and cooking.
We cut out all processed foods, ready meals, fizzy drinks, squashes, fruit juice, ready made cakes, biscuits and non complex carbs for health reasons. It is easy to eat well without breaking the bank but it make take a little effort!

Ilona

I pop in Home Bargains for the odd food items, but they do sell a lot of crap. All them fizzy drinks and crisps, no thanks. I buy tins Chick peas 29p, tins tomatoes 4 for £1.
Ilona