How to fall in love with saving money

cathybird

Should add, my food budget is really my "food and everything else necessary for the household" budget, one of the reasons it may appear high.

It's a glorious day today. Hope you have a good run, Lomcevak. Sounds good re your work review, too.

WantToBeSE

Morning All A lovely sunny (albeit, frosty) day here in Cornwall I am feeling much better too.

Looking at these amounts for food, I seriously need to start knocking money off my grocery spends. Think I am going to start allowing £80 a week instead of £100. I know that I am able to spend less, but I like to spend that little bit more and get more F&V or meat. Time to do a freezer audit I think! I must have enough frozen veg and meat!

cathybird

WantToBeSE, an absolutely gorgeous day out my way too. Sunny, not a breath of wind that I can see ... total contrast to past two days.

I could spend less on food but I'm kind of unwilling to cut it down to the bare bones - I don't want to buy factory chicken, for instance, and have a bad conscience over farmed salmon too, though I did buy some yesterday (think it was farmed, anyway) because it was marked down. I might start working out what each of my meals costs and noting it down each day just as an interesting exercise though. I have been thinking for a while it might be good to do that.

atush

cathybird wrote: »

Should add, my food budget is really my "food and everything else necessary for the household" budget, one of the reasons it may appear high.

It's a glorious day today. Hope you have a good run, Lomcevak. Sounds good re your work review, too.

Like you, in my weekly shop there is all sorts for the house incl batteries, shampoo, over the counter meds, tampax, dog food etc.

Also like you we like to eat well. So are unwilling to live on mince, factory chicken ad the like.

We eat steak (not every week) and the odd guinea fowl, rose veal, but intersperse with cheapies like pork belly, shoulder chops etc. For every rack of lamb, we have a shoulder and some shanks to keep things relative. I have upgraded to free range eggs over factory now they are a more reasonable price (used to be 2 quid for 6 was the cheapest we could find). I mostly but reg veg over organic but do go organic some times.

Basicaly my cooking style is both good economical stuff and high end restaurant food, but at a fraction of restaurat prices. We had Lobster thermidor a few saturdays ago, but the lobster only cost me a tenner, the portions were small and it was sat night dinner for 2. Cheaper than a take out, even after the other ingredients and a bottle of wine.

You can live well, or you can just live.

Lomcevak

cathybird wrote: »

It's a glorious day today. Hope you have a good run, Lomcevak.

Perfect conditions bashed out 33km (or 20.5 miles, if you prefer) in a little under three hours at 5:15/km pace, felt terrific and could have carried on for the remaining 10k if i'd had a bit more food on me. If I can count right that's on for a 3h 40m marathon so just about where I want to be at this point.

how do you spend nothing? At the very least we need milk, eggs and sliced bread every week and every other night we need a fresh baguette.

Don't have milk in tea or coffee, and the freezer was full of bread at the start of the month, we just buy it when reduced and freeze it - we bake our own too. Freezer is running fairly low now so will have to go for a shop soon, but it's a fun challenge from time to time.

cathybird

atush wrote: »

Like you, in my weekly shop there is all sorts for the house incl batteries, shampoo, over the counter meds, tampax, dog food etc.

Also like you we like to eat well. So are unwilling to live on mince, factory chicken ad the like.

We eat steak (not every week) and the odd guinea fowl, rose veal, but intersperse with cheapies like pork belly, shoulder chops etc. For every rack of lamb, we have a shoulder and some shanks to keep things relative. I have upgraded to free range eggs over factory now they are a more reasonable price (used to be 2 quid for 6 was the cheapest we could find). I mostly but reg veg over organic but do go organic some times.

Basicaly my cooking style is both good economical stuff and high end restaurant food, but at a fraction of restaurat prices. We had Lobster thermidor a few saturdays ago, but the lobster only cost me a tenner, the portions were small and it was sat night dinner for 2. Cheaper than a take out, even after the other ingredients and a bottle of wine.

You can live well, or you can just live.

Yes, my thoughts exactly, in every way, atush I have steak occasionally too - it's not cheap but it's about a 10th of what it costs to buy it at a restaurant and tastes just as good. I quite like offal, as it happens, so am happy to eat devilled kidneys and the cheaper versions of liver - again, not every day - but when I buy meat it's quite often cheap anyway.

So I have done a bit of adding up on my food costs:

Dinner last night £1.38 (free-range roast chicken thigh, braised cabbage, roast potato, plus a shot or two of Tesco essential brand vodka with ice, yes classy I know but comparatively slimming - the shots probably cost about £1? Normally I'd have a glass of wine but am off it for this week)
Breakfast this morning £1.80 (two salmon and cream cheese bagels - brought them to work with me)
Lunch today £0.48 (two cheddar cheese and home-made chutney sandwiches, bread was marked down)
Snack (cheese oatcakes with cheese) £0.66

Total for meals over last 24 hours inc. alcohol - £5.32

That's not too bad. I might see if I can track down some fruit at lunchtime, too, since I'm not sure I've quite reached my five-a-day.

Lomcevak

Also like you we like to eat well. So are unwilling to live on mince, factory chicken ad the like.

Same here, we just tend to eat vegetarian a lot (although we're not veggie) and don't eat much meat, but I couldn't live without a decent Sunday roast. Won't buy factory or processed meat.

cathybird

Lomcevak wrote: »

Perfect conditions bashed out 33km (or 20.5 miles, if you prefer) in a little under three hours at 5:15/km pace, felt terrific and could have carried on for the remaining 10k if i'd had a bit more food on me. If I can count right that's on for a 3h 40m marathon so just about where I want to be at this point.

Don't have milk in tea or coffee, and the freezer was full of bread at the start of the month, we just buy it when reduced and freeze it - we bake our own too. Freezer is running fairly low now so will have to go for a shop soon, but it's a fun challenge from time to time.

I have a small freezer, the advantage of which that it is easy to keep track of but the disadvantage of which is that I can't fit much in it. I have a big freezer in the shed, but it's not plugged in at the mo since the shed has no electricity. I have to resolve what I'm going to do with it actually as it would be useful for allotment produce. I either run electricity to the shed (cost about £350) or bring it indoors (nowhere for it to go - spare room perhaps? but the spare room is full already).

I don't have milk or sugar in coffee either - makes life a lot simpler.

Well done on the run - you sound very strong and fit

JoJoC

A freezer audit is the main reason that I've got the bulk of our meals for next week! All I'm buying this week is fruit, veg and bits that we need like toiletries, softner, coffee and a couple of condiments! I've got fish cakes in the freezer, pork for stir fry, chicken breast, lardons etc so that's making up most of our meals. We're lucky that we go to my mums on a Wednesday and husbands mums on a Monday so that's two meals we don't need to plan for.

Even if we could eat just from the freezer, we'd still need fresh fruit and veg every week as well as bread and milk.

Lomcevak, well done on getting a good review and pay rise! Sometimes all the hard work pays off!

It's beautiful here in Central Scotland- cold but sunny!

We are similar to you Atush- we like to have good quality meats that might cost a bit more, but then some weeks, we'll have pasta, veg and lemon juice so it's not about the cost, but the quality of what we're eating. I think some things you can easily scrimp on but others it's worth spending a bit more.

atush

Lomcevak wrote: »

Same here, we just tend to eat vegetarian a lot (although we're not veggie) and don't eat much meat, but I couldn't live without a decent Sunday roast. Won't buy factory or processed meat.

I adore spanish omlets, mac and cheese etc, but my OH is English and loves his meat. I serve seafood at least once per week sometimes 2 (last night was scallops) and I can get away with a vegetarian dish one per fortnight lol.

On my own, I eat vegetarian much more often, I make a mean Thai butternut squash soup lol. And I make a great thai crab soup (which means I can make one crab do two meals) but my OH is not such a fan. Am thinking of slipping in the butternut one this week, I have actually bought the squash lol. I'll let you know if he throws a hissy fitas there is no meat in sight

As for the frozen bread thing, we used to spend a load of time in france, and apart from me, the rest of the family are not keen on frozen bread reheated ie the baguettes. But if I make more room in he freezer I might try it anyway.

as a side note, I only use skim milk myself(everyone else is 2%) but I have to have it. Plus we have porridge and cereal eaters here too, so gotta have milk. So for at least milk and eggs we couldn't go over 2 weeks without spending for sure.