Food budgets

shaneshaneshane

Hi Guys

I am often reading posts saying that they have weekly budgets of £30-40 feeding a family of 3/4... my question is how.

My weekly budget is circa double that, if not a little more. We buy everything on offer, take advantage of multi buys/price promos and have subbed from brands to supermarket brands and even value ranges on stuff like chopped toms etc. The only thing I don't do is buy reduced food, more because I never see any than any other reason due to not having the time (Or temper to endure the rat race as depicted in some other threads of people hoarding food, snatching etc, I would get thrown out of the supermarket for taking exception to someone doing this!)

I need to feed myself, partner and a 2 year old, no dietry requirements other than resonablly healthy & balanced eating but for £30 a week seems impossible. Any Tips I can use? Or even rough meal plans + expected prices if someones feeling particually helpful.

Thanks in advance.

Ilona

Hi. To get your shop down I suggest you cut out all biscuits, cake, fizzy drinks, ready meals, crisps and snacks. Cut down on your meat, twice a week only, better still give it up altogether. Cook everything from scratch. Make big pans of veggie stew, bulk out with pasta and rice, eat it over two or three days. Most people would say make a weekly meal plan, I don't do that. I base my meals on whatever I find in the yellow sticker cabinet. Yesterday I got £19.55 worth of food for £2.66 from Tesco. I got loads of broccoli so I will be eating that every day. I bought a big net of onions so I eat them every day.

It is worth making the effort to go yellow sticker shopping if you are near a supermarket. It isn't always push and shove, sometimes I drop lucky and there is hardly anyone there. I am single, spend £15 a week on food, sometimes less, I don't eat meat, and my diet is very nutritious.
Ilona

Zippy001

Hi
I am exactly the same as you , and have joined the Grocery Challenge march 2014 thread loads of people on there spend alot less than me , ive put down to spend 500.00 for march this includes all groceries , toiletries, cleaning stuff, In our house there is myself my husband children age 9 & 11years and two greyhounds.
There is loads of hints and tips on there. about list writing , menu planning, YS shopping etc.
and ive realised we dont have to give up things we enjoy , just eat healthier and use my slowcooker and breadmaker more.
Why not join everyone is really friendly, its my first month.

Hope this helps maybe see you on the thread . Good luck.

happy35

i think a lot depends on what you actually eat and portion size


I am feeding OH and DS who have massive appetites, both are slim so must need the food


If I buy a chicken for example I can only get a roast dinner and then enough for a pie or a curry etc whereas those with smaller appetite seem to get at least double that amount


I spend about £50 a week sometimes more sometimes less but we eat massive amounts of fruit and veg every week and also meat or fish for OH and DS for 6 out of 7 nights a week. I am 99% veggie occasionally will eat fish, so I try to do one veggie meal such as spinach and ricotta cannelloni etc per week


I make everything from scratch as if I didn't my food bills would be around £100 per week

pakokelso93

I'm about £25 a week student myself. Find it hard to skimp even more. I make big pans of bolognese etc. Tend to buy fresh chicken etc. My only luxury is usually 8 pack of irn bru and a tiger loaf/baguette!

shaneshaneshane

Thank you all for your replies

happy35 wrote: »

If I buy a chicken for example I can only get a roast dinner and then enough for a pie or a curry etc whereas those with smaller appetite seem to get at least double that amount

A chicken will last us two meals too, a roast (half) then the other half for either sandwiches/curry/salad the next day, without being super tight with the meat I could not dream of streching it any further?!?!

I suppose I better mention I do love my meat. I suppose if we were to study our shopping bill a heafty chunk of our bill would be meat.

For meals like spag bol, is there any way to "bulk" it out with cheaper products as we tend to use a whole pack of mince (400/500g, whatever size it is) .. I am sure that there must be ways to half this while retaining a nice, meaty, hearty spag bol with other added extras?

Not just spag bol of course, this goes for any meat meals that you lovely people have tips for

Linda32

I think the amount that is spent is personal to a particular family. You can't really say, for example 3 children under 5 or 3 teenage lads

In our house its myself and OH who both work at the same place and get a free hot meal at lunch time, so OH might have a bacon sandwich for his tea, where as if that was his dinner when he got home it wouldn't be enough. Mind you he would still sit down to a full roast anyway. :rotfl:

I would suggest adding up how much you spend per month or per week, then say if its £100 per week, try to get in at £97 the next week then £92 and so on.

K9sandFelines

shaneshaneshane wrote: »

Thank you all for your replies





A chicken will last us two meals too, a roast (half) then the other half for either sandwiches/curry/salad the next day, without being super tight with the meat I could not dream of streching it any further?!?!

I suppose I better mention I do love my meat. I suppose if we were to study our shopping bill a heafty chunk of our bill would be meat.

For meals like spag bol, is there any way to "bulk" it out with cheaper products as we tend to use a whole pack of mince (400/500g, whatever size it is) .. I am sure that there must be ways to half this while retaining a nice, meaty, hearty spag bol with other added extras?

Not just spag bol of course, this goes for any meat meals that you lovely people have tips for

Use lentils or oats to bulk out the mince, aswell as any grated veg ( carrot and courgette work well). For a meaty flavour add a beef oxo or a dollop of marmite/yeast extract.

valk_scot

I have two sporty teenagers and an OH to feed as well as myself and spend about £80 a week on food. I shop around, I can cook pretty well, I use a lot of fresh ingredients, I do manage to get a few reduced items now and again but don't make a career out of it iyswim. I only buy coke, crisps, biscuits and such as the odd treat, not regularly. We eat a lot of fruit and veg.


Could I get it lower? Yes, I could probably trim another £10 easily without the meals looking much different, I'd have to put a bit more thought and work though. To get it down to £40? I think the portions would get smaller, the meals would get more boring and, most worryingly, the nutritional content might well start dipping into less than optimal levels. It's this last that worries me most when I see some folk's menus for a week, they may be cheap but they're not nutritionally sound over a long period of time. Some folk do this better than others though and it's true, committed clued up vegetarians do come out very well when it comes to good value nutritious meals. Making a chicken stretch to 15-20 adult "portions" though is worrying if that's the only source of protein in the diet. You have to start thinking of the chicken as a flavouring rather than the main ingredient in such cases.


Have to say though if you're splitting a 500g pack of mince between two adults and a toddler then your meat portions are too large, and in an unhealthy way at that when it comes to red meat. The portion size for an adult for red meat is 100-125g, so your pack of mince should make four reasonable adult portions plus a couple for the toddler. Two meals worth in other words. I dislike adding oats or lentils to bulk out meat, I'd rather just make a lentil curry another time! But for bolognaise sauce I'd use onions, garlic, tinned tomatoes, diced carrot and maybe sliced mushrooms and/or diced peppers if I had some to use up. 500g of mince + two tins of chopped tomatoes plus all the rest would easily feed us four for a meal, and my kids have hollow legs believe me.


I would suggest looking at your admittedly high meat bill first, to see how you can reduce it a little. Portion size is the obvious one, the adult portion size for red meat is 125g approx., for chicken it's 150g, for things like sausages it's two big sausages. You can Google for other meat items.
Secondly try Aldi or Lidl for meat, it's good quality and they have regular offers, last weekend Lidl were selling their packs of mince at 50% off, that's £1 for a 500g pack.
Thirdly, look at having one or two meatless meals per week, like a pasta meal or vegetarian curry. Eating meat every day is not ideal for health and this is even more so if you eat it at two meals a day. Egg, cheese or vegetable based recipes are cheaper in general. Also one or two fish meals per week though admittedly fish isn't any cheaper than meat most of the time! Fish portion size is 150g too btw.


The other thing to remember is if you can afford the higher bill then don't feel you HAVE to reduce it if it's going to make you miserable about eating things you don't want to, or if you'll get really stressed out about not having time to do any extra shopping or prep. Life is about balance and eating good healthy food that you enjoy is part of this, as is time to spend with your family. So don't feel too pressurised when you read of other families' £40 food bills, it may very well be they're on a really tight budget and having to economise and they'd love an extra £20 or even £40 a week to spend.

onewhoasks

Hi

Over the last year we have started buying some of our shop from Lidl which has helped cut the food bill a bit. We have also dabbled in the value ranges at other supermarkets with success (just compare the ingredients with the branded varieties - usually not much difference).

Meal planning for the week ahead helps focus the shopping on what's really needed. It's important to have a quick standby meal in the freezer or store cupboard for days where things don't go according to plan - midweek panic trips to the supermarket bump up the food bill.

I have a couple of really good cookery books with recipe ideas for the budget concious:

"Frugal Food" by Delia Smith. Lovely recipes, I turn to this frequently, even for entertaining.

"A Girl Called Jack" (check out the blog of same name) is a new book by Jack Monroe containing very low budget recipes. I have been very impressed with the recipe's I have tried so far which are cheap, easy to prepare, and healthy.

Hope this helps.

AnnieO1234

Just another thought on this, especially if you use meat to the max, try and do more hidden meat dishes, so pasta, casseroles, stews etc as opposed to piece of meat on plate. This way you should be able to cut back on say chicken breast, instead of one each start by taking one out to make a chicken casserole.

There are almost certainly some butchers near you who will do meat packs, they're usually cheaper and better sourced and better quality than most supermarkets.

If you have access to a Makro card, it may also be worth looking at their catering packs such as 5kg chicken breast for 19.99 zero vat. It does have some water in it though. Last time I had a five kilo pack from my butcher there were 27 full breasts in there where one would easily do me and DH.

Xx