Help me reduce our food bill

PasturesNew

Outline advice from me is:
1] Price up everything you eat. Know how much it costs. Look at individual ingredients to see if they can be omitted or swapped for something cheaper. e.g. your sauces
2] Look at everything yu buy, know and compare the £1/100g price and see if there's a cheaper alternative on the next shelf. A lot of cheap things can be better than the brands. Try new bits and bobs over time.
3] Always look to shave a bit off here and there, even if you have a takeaway. e.g. I'd never buy chips and mushy peas as the peas are 75p a pot and a good tin of fab mushy peas is 35-50p/tin and can be nuked on demand. For indians I don't have their naan bread, at about £1.50, I have vacuum packed ones heated up in a toaster at about 60p for two (Lidl).

Just be aware, add things up, compare and swap and drop.

silverwhistle

Some good ideas here. If you look at some cultures that are pretty interested in their food you'll find they have lots of ways to make the meat (the expensive part) go further. Chinese stir fries with thin strips of those 1/2/3? chicken breasts, for example. Here in Italy you'll find that it's the quality of the pasta that's important (dried is fine, but best made with bronze dies as it holds the sauce better), and if you have ragu' (meat sauce) there's not actually a lot used. Great for the freezer as it can be stored in freezer bags and hardly takes any room. But do splash out on a little fresh parmesan (Aldi/Lidl are good value I've noticed)..

As challenges go it's quite a fun one really. Chicken liver is also cheap and goes well in pasta sauces or pates or padding other dishes.

Don't forget that pizzas are popular with most people: leave the dough in the fridge overnight and roll out very thin and make sure you know the preferred toppings and have the oven on absolute maximum..(As it happens I was looking at dedicated pizza makers today which go up to 420c!). A reasonable bottle of cheap red and the missing or minimal meat won't be noticed by OH for sure!

Funky_Bold_Ribena

I always eat out and about - usually in my car or on potting benches/sat on steps in gardens as I teach gardening all over and I have this funky little gadget for eating soup out and about - it's called a flask!

~Chameleon~

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'd never buy chips and mushy peas as the peas are 75p a pot and a good tin of fab mushy peas is 35-50p/tin and can be nuked on demand.

Tesco value mushy peas are really quite yummy and I'm fussy about my peas. They used to be just 4p a can but have shot up 400% to 16p now! Scandalous! :eek:

Shoey1610

A flask, you say? What level of witchcraft is this Well if I save enough on this month's food bill, it can be brand new flasks all round :j

Pizza is a good one, I can make that from scratch with DD. I don't know if I've ever tried chicken liver, but I'll give anything a go.

Will keep an eye out for Aldi vouchers, I didn't know about those.

I'm going to try a few new cheaper things this month and see how it compares, I like the takeaway additions idea.

Funky_Bold_Ribena

Shoey - I make pizza dough once a week.

500g of flour. 300g water. 7g yeast. 7g salt.

It makes about 8 side-plate sized pizzas - so enough for a decent pizza on a friday, plus flatbreads on a Sat, on a Mon, on a Tues and then on a Weds... so 1.5kg flour at £2 [organic] makes about 24 pizzas overall. A jar or two of pesto for a smidgen of powerful tomato flavour, plus a grating of cheese and you have there very cheap food; supplement with some home made potato salad or some home made chips or wedges and you only have to make the dough once a week and keep in the fridge under oiled cling film in a bowl all week.

~Chameleon~

Ohhh just remembered a great tip.... try shopping online, not only is it more controlled and you can plan exactly what you want to spend (no impulse buys going in the trolley) but if you select Tesco value products and they've sold out (which frequently happens) they substitute for a higher brand level at no extra cost

One of my favourites is Tesco brand cream crackers which are about 29p but whenever I go in store they never have any. If I order online I get substituted with Jacobs for 29p instead of almost £1 :T

~Chameleon~

Shoey1610 wrote: »

I don't know if I've ever tried chicken liver, but I'll give anything a go.

I make a 'paupers' risotto using chicken livers, pork mince and pearl barley which is not only much cheaper than arborio rice but is also healthier. I add cajun spices and fresh spinach too so an all round cheap and healthy meal. Google orzotto for recipes

Also dirty cajun rice is similar but using rice instead of pearl barley.

firesidemaid

Just a few more thoughts to help a fellow MSER-er:)

I second the stew & dumplings idea - cheap stewing/casserole beef, carrots, celery, potatoes (or have separate) with lentils and pearl barley. serve with dumplings - you have suet - and add mixed herbs or bacon bits, yummy.

look out for handwash (plus any other) deals - do you use www.hotukdeals.co.uk ?

recently i got LOADS of handwash from Mr T's @ 18p and 22p each, and i have still got the remainder of my Palmolive deal from Mr A's @ 40p each.

take small steps and try and use up those 'odd' storecupboard bits at the rate of 1 or 2 per week.

Also, almost anything freezes, so don't waste anything - including cooked sliced meats, milk, cheese, butter etc etc

kboss2010

I agree, my OH insists on having meat with every meal and it's trebled my food bill from what it was when I was single (although I should point out he pays his share!) - he won't eat veg stir fry, hates noodles/brown rice/brown pasta or any yellow-stickered meat (unless I cook and he doesn't know about it hehe).

He likes curries so I've finally got him to cook and eat a butternut squash, tinned tomato and chickpea curry (it's an Anjum Anand recipe called Kashmiri chicken) without a fuss.

He also likes my Hairy Dieters bacon and pea quiche (google the recipe it's on the channel 4 website) and you can buy frozen bacon for £1 from Farmfoods.

Another good recipe is chicken pie. I've got the prep down to 10 minutes:

1 large chicken breast
2 diced carrots
1 1/2 cups of frozen peas
salt & pepper
2 chicken stock cubes (10p for 10 at S'burys)
2 tbsp mixed herbs (any basic cheap ones will do!)

Pastry: (for putting on the top only, saves time blind-baking the base!)
170g flour
110g margerine (any cheap one will do)
sprinkle of salt
a little cold water

- rub together the flour and butter until you get a breadcrumb consistency
- add cold water a little at a time until you can just bind it all together
- sprinkle your worktop with flour and roll out
- voila! cheap, quick shortcrust pastry

Chop up and fry the chicken in a little water (don't need oil, just fill about 1 1/2 cm of a shallow frying pan, and it's healthier too) with the herbs and stock cubes. Add salt and pepper.

When the chicken is cooked, add peas and carrots and cook until soft (you want the "sauce" to be thick like custard so add a sprinkle of flour if neceesary to thicken otherwise it'll just taste like chicken in stock!)

Add the whole lot to a pyrex/ceramic dish, cover with the pastry and bake in the oven at 200oC for 1/2 an hour or until the pastry is cooked.