Shopping and money management..

couponchaos

Iused to spend so much on groceries etc, but spending 3 years as a student nurse on a small bursary and OH losing his job made me look at ways to economise.I do one monthly online shop for pet food, toiletries cupboard staples etc buying only value or cheapest possible and using voucher codes where possible. I also usewebsites such as supersavvy me, hot uk deals and Facebook pages for coupons and price glitch hints and combine with offers in store. I use lidl half price weekend deals to stock up on chocolate (17p) crisps (1.04 for 24 packs) and anything else that is useful to us . also I go weekly to my local tesco at 7pm and always find plenty of reduced meat bread fruit and veg and chilled bits often with up to 90% off. I have 2 freezers so can really take advantage of bargains. This system really works for us and I now spend under £150 a month on all toiletries groceries and pet supplies for 2 adults 1 teen 4 cats and 1 dog.

krlyr

I think meal planning is half the work in regards to cutting costs. It's not just about what you spend, but what you use/waste too.

By meal planning, you can prevent wastage as you plan around the ingredients you'll have. So, for example, the two of us never use one tub of coleslaw in a meal but the bigger tubs are often cheaper..we plan to have various meals to use it up. We usually buy it because we fancy pulled pork, but the next day we'll have a chicken wrap with coleslaw instead of a salad, the day after we might have it with our lunch (and planning isn't just about what meals in the week but when in the week - so we'll get the coleslaw on the Thursday or Friday so we end up being home for lunch Saturday or Sunday to use up the last of it).

Fresh foods like salad is another one. If we fancy fajitas, we'll plan to have lasagne the next day with a side salad, maybe jacket potato and salad the day after. If we know we want quite a lot of salad e.g. in the summer when it's nice to have a lighter meal, I'll buy individual lettuces etc. to make salads - but if we only want it for a few meals I'll stick to bags. The bags can be more expensive, but there's no point buying the individual pieces if we'll end up binning half of it.

We also somewhat plan our meals around offers - so checking online for the current deals helps. So the salad, for example - we'll see if the bagged salads are on offer, as we know Tesco may do 2 for £2 on their own range salads on a semi-regular basis.

Also, turning your ingredients into meals - look at what you have, you may have 3/4 of a meal sitting in your cupboard or freezer without realising. Every so often, we pull it out to do an inventory (if we were more organised we'd just keep track of it..but we're not!) and then plan meals around what we have. So for example, we recently went through and saw that we have pork chops - so I'll cook these into pulled pork, and all I'll need to buy for the meal is some coleslaw at the time (we have a huge stash of soft buns in the freezer to serve it in). We have the chicken, peppers, wraps etc. in the freezer for fajitas, so just need to buy salad. I keep a good stash of tinned tomatoes, pasta, rice, etc. in the cupboards so lots of meals are already sitting around, it's mostly a case of grabbing the fresh ingredients as we decide to have those meals.

There's several meals we have that can be assembled entirely from the freezer/cupboard too..so frozen portions of mince and mash just need to be defrosted, topped with cheese, cooked and served with veg (from the freezer) or beans. Bolognese or chili just needs to be heated and the pasta or rice cooked fresh (I tend to cook more rice than needed and freeze some too - so sometimes the chili really just needs to be microwaved alongside the rice and dinner is done!). These are great for lazy days when you're really tempted to just buy a takeaway or a readymeal.

If you have the freezer room, there are lots of ingredients where the frozen version is cheaper than the fresh, and it saves having to use up a whole pack of the fresh version. E.g. we use frozen bell peppers for fajitas - they do lack that fresh crunch but they taste nice and we never got through a 3-pack by ourselves. Or buying fresh in bulk and freezing the excess - I discovered that you can dice onion by blitzing it in a food processor, so I buy a 1kg bag for example and prep it all and freeze. Cheaper than the supermarket ready-diced frozen onion, and no worries about how long it'll last (plus it saves time when cooking!)

Meal planning also helps with portion control, I find. I batchcook a lot, so I'll cook a pack of mince into chili or bolognese, we'll have it for dinner that night, and I'll freeze the remainder into portions. I work on the basis of roughly about 100g (raw weight) of meat per person, so I know a 750g pack of mince should make at minimum 8 portions - though I find by bulking out with tomatos, lentils and grated veg, I can sometimes stretch it to 10 or so. This way I really am getting the most out of my food shopping, so when we decide to have bolognese for dinner, it seems greedy and wasteful to take extra portions out of the freezer, whereas if you haven't portioned it up and already planned what meals the extra is for then it can be too easy to serve a bigger dinner or go back for seconds when you're not really in need of it.


If you're starting out, I would start by writing down everything you have. Look at it and decide what meals to use it for, see what extra ingredients you need to buy, and then arrange these meals into a plan that makes the most of everything (but without being too boring or repetitive - yes, it may save money but you will get fed up and the temptation to spend more on alternative dinners will be greater). Start small - so plan 1 or 2 weeks rather than a whole month for now. Once you gete into the swing of it, you'll be able to plan for longer if you want, and you'll start to notice 'seasonal trends' (e.g. we're happy to eat stodgy winter meals like cottage pies and lasagnes more when it's come, but come the warmer weather we favour salads, stir fries and other lighter meals)

Our food budget is about £80 a month for the two of us - we used to manage £60 but prices have crept up so we do seem to be spending a bit more. I'm sure we could reduce it and be more frugal if we wanted, but we both love our food so will treat ourselves to some unnecessary spends like sweets and crisps, the odd ready-meal (though I've just bought the bits to start making my own curries to try to cut down on that expense), a pack of nicer steak or bacon as a treat, and so on. So we certainly don't go without, but I do try to keep the food budget on target as it is an area you're able to save a fair bit on I think. It's much more flexible than trying to save on utility bills etc. I think.

good_advice

So many good replies. what can I add?
I think I have tried many of the diffrent ways. coupon shopping, yellow sticker shopping, menu planning....

My latest! i shop on line @Tesco.I did the home shopping deal.
It now costs me 93p a week for 6 months, home delivery.

First I look at the savvy buys in "my supermarket" web site. Then put on the items from my list. Any money left, I then look at the value range. Just lately adding something to put away for Christmas.
I spend about £80 for 4 people per week.
Shopping list comlete, I then press the send your shopping to the Tesco web page and pay.Some times I have evouchers I can use.

charlies-aunt

I have a weekly amount -£80 for three adults, two dogs and two cats. I only use cash so when its gone its gone - keeps me focused on buying only what we need Any money left is squirrelled away for another week to buy stuff for the stock cupboard.

A weekly shopping list is a must. I don't have a strict meal plan - tend to buy what's in season and on offer. I cook and bake everything from scratch

TBH, I don't seem to be able to find the mega bargains in the pound shops - I find better deals with Sainsbury's Basic range, Aldi and the market. Doing a weekly shop helps you catch the special offers too.

I struggle with doing a big monthly shop - mainly we consume more because there is plenty in the cupboard. I not organised enough to be able to predict how much we will use

tiddly_widdly

My budget is £400 a month for 5 adults. I only cook from scratch. I plan a menu for a fortnight at a time, I do an online shop fir the things only for those meals then I'm not tempted by any extras or offers I don't need. We do top up with milk nd bread but overall stock to this budget. I am currently trying to save a little more so I'm trying also. But I don't find the choices that amazing as we don't do processed foods. So I start off in also and top up in asda online. But you can save a lot if you eat tinned/frozen foods etc

2childmum

Hi - have you tried the budget planner on this website - it's herehttp://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning. It may help you budget your money for all the things you need to buy, not just food.

bluebag

I empty the freezer of doom on the floor and check what is in that I can make a meal of.

I chuck out anything out of date in the fridge and see what I need, eggs,milk cheese yoghurt and stuff.

After those two, I cross off what I don't need for my meal plan and then order online. Saves me picking up stuff I don't need or want really.

I keep a good store of tins and packets and put them on a shopping list as I use them.

Toiletries I throw the empties in a seperate bin and then I know what to re-order.

I pick up fresh milk once a week when I buy bread and sandwich stuff for the week, plus anything that wasn't available on my online order.

I make all the sandwiches for packed lunches that day and freeze them all.

I have tried shopping here and there, but found although I bought things cheaper I spent too much impulse shopping. I save more than the delivery costs in bus fares too.

loveka

I have to say that online shopping at Waitrose has really helped me save money! Delivery is free, and I only buy stuff on offer apart from their excellent and fabulous quality waitrose essentials range. I have a £70 limit. Sometimes I go over if they have a fab offer on something I use a lot. It also saves a lot of time. Not going to shops just stops the temptation- as proved by the fact that I went in to Waitrose yesterday for an orange I needed for a recipe and spent £23!

I sometimes go to Lidl or the local butcher but I find it ironic that I have less money than ever but now shop at Waitrose.

Cooking a couple of vegetarian meals a week and batch cooking also make a huge difference. I bake my own bread cakes etc and also grow all my own vegetables and make wine from a kit that works out at £1.10 a bottle.

Annie_99

You are all amazing and i THANKYOU all for the kind advice. ive just been to a wedding and so will pop on here tomorrow and read and learn from all your ideas xxx

-taff

One important thing if you do go physically shopping, is make sure you've eaten before you go.

It really does make you buy more if you're hungry.