Help me reduce our food bill

415SanFran

I personally don't eat meat but my brother in law insists on meat everyday, so my sister cuts up two chicken breasts or one of those smoked sausages or even a slice of gammon and makes egg fried rice with it, she also adds a cheap bag of frozen peas as well, and loads of rice, he is a manual worker and has really big meals and never seems to nitice the lack of meat in that particular meal.

Frozen veg are cheap in iceland, and you could also get a pack of sausage rolls that you can cook at home and use them as a lunchbox filler instead of sanwiches, you could always cook them when you have the oven on anyway

415SanFran

With those extra sausages you could make a pasta meal, fry them off and then chop in slices, make a pasta and sauce and there is the meal perhaps a sprinckle of cheese and a little while under the grill and there is another cheap meal with meat but not as much as it appears,, nice french loaf to finish it off ..

sonastin

Aldi is great but we can't get everything we want from there. OH likes a couple of branded products, he prefers tesco soya milk, we don't like Aldi loo paper, etc. So I usually do my main shop at Aldi & get as much as I can from there and then pop to Sainsbugs, Tesco, Asda or Morri's for the rest - whichever I happen to be passing. The tesco on my way home from work tends to have loads of yellow sticker stuff in their reduced cabinet right at the time I'm passing so I pick up loads of great bargains from there. We never ate things like ready made pies & sausage rolls until I tried to cut our grocery bill but a few times now I've picked up a pack for pennies and its a guilty treat! You don't tend to get those bargains from Aldi so its worth still visiting the other SMs too.

firesidemaid

mince and cooking bacon/pieces are both cheap. as others have said, bulk mince out with grated carrots, lentils, oats etc:D.

use bacon pieces for quiches (i make mine from scratch - shortcrust pastry 100g plain flour, 50g fat plus a dash of water as per be-ro recipe for quiche lorraine http://www.be-ro.co.uk/f_insp.htm - or anything else you have left over. also check out the baking recipes on there.

also pan heggarty is yummy and cheap http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/panhaggerty_93163

others may have said this, but some things are cheaper in other shops, especially if you use a lot eg. eggs, toilet roll (swear by Nicky £2 for 9 from Home Bargains or Farmfoods do u have a farmfoods?) etc

good luck with what you are trying to do.:)

bluebag

Shoey1610 wrote: »

I haven't been keeping my reciepts, but will do from now on in.

I'm going to work on a meal plan to take shopping on Friday which I will post up - I need to go through my cupboards/freezer first, but I know there is some bread flour and yeast in there so I will make some bread rolls tomorrow.

Love the idea of freezing the ready made rolls - sandwich meat is one of the things we often fail to use up.

I agree that we have probably been eating too much meat - I have sausages for tomorrow and usually I would cook all of them, but I've separated them and put a couple in the freezer in a bag to be added to until we have enough for another meal.

I've never shopped in Iceland, but there is a new one right next to our Aldi here - whats good to stock up in there?

Thanks again for all the comments and suggestions, I've got a few jobs to do tomorrow

I have a meat and veg blokie too! It is awkward, I found it easy to still cook the same things but add in things to use less meat. My OH doesn't like many vegetables but will accept beans and pulses which is good as these bulk out meat well and are a good source of protein and fibre.

I make toad in the hole with sausages, but cut the sausage up so it looks more and so you use a lot less.
I add lentils to most meat dishes or mixed beans, kidney beans and baked beans go well in a chill. Barley is very good in stews.

Adding a pastry crust to casseroles and stews makes a hearty meal and a little meat go a long way. Dumplings work well too.

I crush half a tin of kidney beans into home made burgers, it keeps them really moist and adds a lovely texture.

He won't do green veg but will eat root veg roasted. It may be that you could add more veg in to the diet by trying a different way of cooking and seasoning. I cook squash for example in a little olive oil with garlic, thyme and smoked paprika, he loves that!

During the war years the population had a restricted diet and for the most part people were the healthiest they had ever been, healthy food is quite cheap, but, it is very time consuming and time is what a lot of people are very short of.

Funky_Bold_Ribena

Shoey1610 wrote: »

I haven't been keeping my reciepts, but will do from now on in.

I'm going to work on a meal plan to take shopping on Friday which I will post up - I need to go through my cupboards/freezer first, but I know there is some bread flour and yeast in there so I will make some bread rolls tomorrow.

Love the idea of freezing the ready made rolls - sandwich meat is one of the things we often fail to use up.

I agree that we have probably been eating too much meat - I have sausages for tomorrow and usually I would cook all of them, but I've separated them and put a couple in the freezer in a bag to be added to until we have enough for another meal.

I've never shopped in Iceland, but there is a new one right next to our Aldi here - whats good to stock up in there?

Thanks again for all the comments and suggestions, I've got a few jobs to do tomorrow

If you have a full freezer, you may not need to go shopping...do a full freezer fridge and cupboard stocktake before you buy anything other than milk this week.

-taff

Just out of interest, is he interested in saving the money too? Because if he is, you might be able to have a chat about the best way to save, and show him where, and tell him in a roundabout way he'll have ot be a bit more adventurous...and it will be better for his health too....?

mumofthetwins

Have you tried herons and farm foods ... They do some good meat. I tend to buy 3 packs of cooked chicken strips for £5 this is enough for chicken wraps for around 2.5 weeks for my 2 boys for packed lunch, it's also handy to throw in if you need to bulk out a pasta or curry.
I also buy the tesco value range alot, I've found this still tastes really nice and has cut my good bill to £20/week for me 2 boys and packed lunches
The tesco value pasta sauce is yum too and only 31p a jar !
I also bake a lemon curd cake on a sunday(recipie on here somewhere - thanks ) and this lasts the week for the boys packed lunches and it actually gets more moist the older it gets
Oh i also stopped buying fizzy pop and we all inky drink juice .... i have a sports bottle i use when In my way to work and i Keep a bottle of cordial in my drawer at work
Hope some if this helps ... Lisa

~Chameleon~

415SanFran wrote: »

I personally don't eat meat but my brother in law insists on meat everyday, so my sister cuts up two chicken breasts or one of those smoked sausages or even a slice of gammon and makes egg fried rice with it, she also adds a cheap bag of frozen peas as well, and loads of rice, he is a manual worker and has really big meals and never seems to nitice the lack of meat in that particular meal.

Are you serious? Is that just for one meal? I use just one chicken breast between two of us and we both eat a healthy highish protein diet.

~Chameleon~

firesidemaid wrote: »

swear by Nicky £2 for 9 from Home Bargains or Farmfoods do u have a farmfoods?) etc

good luck with what you are trying to do.:)

Now I find this to be a false economy because of the poor quality of the paper as you need to use quite a few squares to prevent it tearing. I buy Cushelle (24 rolls for £10) but it lasts forever (we use less than two rolls a week) as you only need to use 2-3 squares at a time as the paper is so thick