Help me reduce our food bill

Shoey1610

Hi, we are a family of 3, two adults and one seven year old. I currently spend £100 a week on food, which I think is too much. It would be of huge benefit to us if we could get it down to £350 a month.

This needs to cover all our evening meals, two packed lunches and one home lunch for me, breakfast cereal for them and an egg for me in the morning and a piece of fruit for school and afterschool snack each day. It sometimes includes alcohol, although usually if we want something it is to be bought from our own little disposable income pot we get each month. It includes toiletries as and when.

I do sort of meal plan, by writing down seven main meals for a week. I use my leftover roast meat for a meal on Monday. I think one of the problems is that my other half is a confirmed meat eater and quite fussy, he won't touch anything except carrots, potatoes, peas and lettuce whereas I would happily live on vegetables of all kinds and DD would eat what was around.

I have a little freezer, so I can't really batch cook, although I might freeze half of something if there is room.

I think the main money wasters are using jars for Korma and pasta sauces, snacky foods for packed lunches/daughter after school, meat for every day and that I always buy too much fruit.

I tried using the local greengrocers/market, but found it just as expensive and a lot more faff. I'm very open to using Aldi/Lidl as I usually go to Sainburys, but went to Aldi last week and found their fruit and veg to be much better quality for less price.

I'm at home full time at the moment (one of the reasons for wanting to save money) and so have time to spend on this.

All suggestions welcome, or is my hope to reduce the bill pie in the sky?

-taff

Not meal planning as such but if he likes curry or chilli, you can sneak in extra vegetables without him knowing by grating them and adding them to that. Grated courgette in muffins or cake [really, you can't taste them at all, and he would never know]

FairyPrincessk

A few ideas--

First, does your OH know what you spend on groceries, the cost of most foods and that you would like to reduce it? It might be time to bake a cake, make a cup of tea and sit down together for a close look at your finances and a chat. It might be useful it he realized just how much his fussiness costs.

Second, I would definitely suggest switching to Ald!. We save significant amounts of money by shopping there.

Third, you're probably right about where your extra costs are coming in. Could you make it a mission to tackle one thing each week? For example, one week you make it a goal to avoid buying snack foods and instead make snacks for your daughter--things like flapjacks, vegetable sticks, cubes of cheese etc. are all good options. The next week you could then try to make your own pasta sauce. As you have a small freezer, it might be worth it to batch cook a few ingredients, rather than whole meals--for example, instead of putting in a pre-made pasta bake, just freeze two or three portions of homemade pasta sauce.

Finally, you might want to check out the grocery challenge. Other people have had great success this way.

Good luck!

Funky_Bold_Ribena

Crikey - we are two adults and 1/3 of a teenager [she is at her mums some of the time] and we think it's a bad week when we spend £40.

The best thing to do is to post the last month's spends list.

[Deleted User]

I like to make main meals that overlap to the next day, say make a meatloaf with mince and sausage meat and eat it hot one day, cold with a salad the next day and any left after that can be the basis for a pasta sauce the day after that. With a joint have it hot one day, cold the next or reheated in gravy, then make a pie or a curry with some chunks of meat and anything left after that could be the bottom of a shepherds pie with some baked beans in or chopped in the food processor could make savoury meatballs or burgers or even old fashioned rissoles, it helps stretch the main high price ingredient and use every scrap with no waste, hope that helps Cheers Lyn x.

paulineb_2

Aldi is a good start. If you are buying too much fresh fruit try and find ways of using it up, jams, smoothies etc. I dont meal plan as such and I dont do lists either but its just me Im cooking for. Try and find recipes where you can cook without meat and add meat later. Such as things like pastas, curries, fajitas. Or have one or two days a week where you dont eat meat, no one ever died of not having meat everyday.

Staples are important, so stock up on lentils, rice, pasta. I make a lot of risottos from scratch, cheap and easy. I also make sure leftover veg goes in pots of soup. Id agree that you could easily get your shopping budget down to £50 a week or so with some planning.

Also its very easy to get into the habit of going to the supermarket daily or every other day when you dont actually need to go. I used to be very guilty of this.

Buy longlife milk and you can also bake your own bread. Also, how much food do you waste, try and make sure you use leftovers rather than throwing any food in the bin.

honeythewitch

Funky_Bold_Ribena wrote: »

Crikey - we are two adults and 1/3 of a teenager [she is at her mums some of the time] and we think it's a bad week when we spend £40.

The best thing to do is to post the last month's spends list.

If you have someone with allergies, special dietary needs or fussiness it can very easily triple the food bill.

good_advice

Hello Shoey
Oh and I had that very conversation this morning.
I spend about 3 x £60 and 1 x £100 each month and that is for mum,dad and 2 adult children. The extra on the 4th week is for things like toilet roll, coffee, washing gel, soap/hand wash, sugar, sauce jars and things that are not basic every week items.

I print off vouchers from the computer and use money off coupons that I get. Often get freebies from the boards.

I said I would not buy any more fast food like cheese, meat slices, sausage rolls and coke. That did not go down to well said you cannot have all those things and reduce the bill.

I batch cook to reduce the oven time and save on cooking each day. I also sometimes make cakes, flans.

No meals are brought out so breakfast, packed/home lunch, dinner and snacks come from the kitchen.

It is going to be a bumpy road when they notice I have bought less open the fridge and grab fast food. I have tried cooking and leaving things in the fridge but of course it is not the same as shop bought , processed stuff.

We can but keep trying to stretch those pennies a little more:)

Shoey1610

Thank you for all taking the time to reply, I feel like this could be do-able with a little work!

Taff- I'll try that sneaky vegetable thing, it might work...!?

FairyprincessK- We're all happy to swop to Aldi, haven't noticed any difference in quality but did only spend £78 there last week. DH is aware that I'm going to try and cut the bill, so hopefully he is going to work with me on this (or go hungry? ) I think I need to look up some freezable pasta sauce etc.

Funky Bold Ribena- I know...I know! I don't actually have a last month's spends list - but it would be bad....I do have a full freezer though.

MrsLurcherWalker - do you have a recipe for rissoles? He might eat those.

PaulineB- Indeed no one ever died of not having meat everyday - I like a nice ratatouille or vegetable stew myself. I think you're right about the habit of going to supermarket, I might try to stretch it out by a couple more days.

Honeythewitch- yes, if it were just me and DD it would be so much cheaper!

Goodadvice- Do you do a big shop once a month then, for toilet rolls etc? I wonder if this might work better for us - I have space to store non-perishables. I think this will be an initially bumpy road for us too, until the money starts adding up then it will be lovely!

Funky_Bold_Ribena

honeythewitch wrote: »

If you have someone with allergies, special dietary needs or fussiness it can very easily triple the food bill.

The OP didn't mention any of that...and it doesn't have to triple a bill. I didn't eat dairy for 10 years due to extreme allergy but it didn't treble my food bill.

Lindy_-_Loo

Have you thought about having a lighter meal one night and then a good pudding like cake and custard?

Pizza is a cheap meal with salad or veg sticks xx