Reducing food costs

georgeholmer

To clarify, frozen fillets is just that, frozen fillet of cod, Sainsbury's own brand, cook them in the oven in a little milk and make parsley sauce from scratch with the liquid from the fish.

Mac'n'cheese I also make from scratch.

Fish fingers I suppose are kind of ready made.

Spag bol I make from scratch, buy three packs of meat for £10, 500g each and use one pack per meal. Add chopped tomatoes, celery, maybe mushrooms.

Ready meals I buy are things like pasties, quiche, ready made soup.

K9sandFelines

Try YS veg for your soup or aldi super 6 if you can get there; you could make a massive pan for all of you.

when you buy packs of ham/chicken/ cheese etc you can make the sandwiches for packed lunches and freeze individually, and take out and defrost when needed. This will save having to freeze on the day. That way you can make them in bulk when you have time.

katylou6180

George, we're a family of 3 more or less adults and we both work and it works out £3.33 per head here, sounds like you're very similar to us and a lot of the tips that have been given here are great sarnie make the night before and make your own soup being two! Definitely came to the right place, one thing that has helped me greatly reduce takeaway spends (and yes we still eat them, just not as much) is a book I found out about here called "The Takeaway Secret" and I've found a lot of recipes online for "fakeaways" that aren't too time consuming or faffing about- as with a family your weekends are precious. A few spuds and seasonings and you could use some of your "three for a tenner" to make southern fried chicken & chips, or homemade burgers and chips which cost a lot less than the chippy- and a lot can be prepped before time. Another winner with smaller people is rolling out a pizza base and getting them to top them- tastier and lots cheaper than a local pizza place. I'd definitely bin the buying lunch out for oh and the littlies, that mounts up massively plus you don't really know what they're getting fed- when my son was younger (now 15) I stopped him having school dinners when they let him have lettuce and tomato with sausage and gravy!!! Hth and good luck

maman

I work on £25 per person per week for everything except booze but we're two adults. We work from home so no packed lunches or school meals but if we needed pack ups I'd just have to buy slightly different foods. So for 8 adults that would be £800 a month and considering some of yours are tiny then I'd say definitely savings to be made.


I appreciate that it must be a great family treat to have fish & chips on a Friday but can you really afford it at the moment if you're in debt. Perhaps some cheap pizzas would be a fun night instead and cut the fish and chips to once a month?


Pauline is absolutely right about shopping in Aldi or Lidl. I prefer Aldi myself and then do a little bit of shopping in Sainsbury's for a few things we prefer. I try to NEVER shop mid-week. I think popping in for a few bits is disastrous on the budget.


I'd suggest you make an inventory of everything you've got in your freezer and storecupboards and then make a meal plan around that first just buying what's essential each week unless you see really good offers on things that will keep.


Lots of people do packed lunches the night before to save time in the morning.

[Deleted User]

My food budget for myself alone for a month is £60.00 per month and I cook everything from scratch as i don't like processed food at all and rarely if ever eat take-aways.My DD has four sons who could eat for England in an olympic scale and her food bill for 6 of them is around £120-30 per week.Both she and her OH work full time so its 6 packed lunches a day but evening meals are almost always meat/fish and several veg.The only time they ever have a take -away is when its one of the boys birthdays and they get to choose what they want for dinner.Otherwise they eat whats dished up. The boys one treat is a Pizza on a friday night now and again Usually a couple of Chicago Town ones with HM chips and beans.

boultdj

rockm87 wrote: »

make packed lunches the night before. means they are ready to go in the morning and you can do them once the kids are in bed so no hassle!

I fully endorse switching supermarkets, maybe have a look on mysupermarket to get a comparison. I switched to lidl (which isnt on the site) and I use a small trolly, if I fill it, its no more than £60 a week, which for 2 people is loads!!

georgeholmer wrote: »

I have never heard of approved foods, I'll have a look at that, thanks.

I'll have a look at packed lunches for the kids too. Trouble is, at the moment, I have to get three little girls dressed and have there hair brushed as well as the baby changed and two teenage boys out the door on time for the bus most mornings more or less by myself so the idea of also making lunches for them all seems a bit much but if it could save me that much, then I will look at that.

I agree with switching shop's and if it's any help a lot of sandwiches can be frozen,so do them at the week end and just take out the morning you want them.

sandwiches that freeze well:
ham beef chicken cheese cornbeef cheese spred pottedmeat turkey
hth

MidLifeCrisis_3

Hi George

I'd definitely recommend menu planning too. Aldi or Lidl would both bring down the cost of your shopping bill and I find Asda cheaper than Sainsburys for the things I can't get in there.

Try the down-branding others have mentioned too, that works really well. I gradually weaned OH off Heinz and Kelloggs onto own brand or budget brands mostly without him even noticing until I have pointed it out and the savings are incredible.

I used to have a really bad a habit of popping little bits or special offers that I didn't really need into the trolley while out shopping and found that having my shopping delivered curbed this - I used to aim for free delivery, but when the codes became harder to come by it was a case of what I paid in delivery I saved in fuel. We now have an Aldi and Lidl within driving distance so I mostly shop there, with the occasional top up shop at Asda. Since being used to having my shopping delivered I have far more self control and stick to my menu plan and shopping list and Aldi/Lidl are more limited in their stock which helps too.

Look out for special offers on things like loo rolls, crisps, etc when you can and when it's appropriate to fork out on these. Keep a good basic stock cupboard, but learn to not overstock on things that go off if you're not using them quickly enough. I tend to google recipes if I've got something that needs using up post haste, but we did get a bit sick of banana/apple cakes/flapjacks, etc so I learned to buy what we did use.

As a family, making sandwiches the night before works well for us too or try bulk making and freezing them as some have suggested.

If you don't want to give up the weekly fish and chip treat, then my takeaway tip would be to buy the chips and then buy things like the battered fish, pies, etc from the supermarket and pop them in the oven so they will be ready when you get back with the chips. If you don't like the supermarket frozen battered fish (we like Aldi's and Lidl's, but it's not the same I know!), then buy the fish along with the chips, but defo buy pies, stuff like chicken nuggets for child meals, etc from the supermarket as these are often the things that hike the price up. Maybe you could reduce the amount of chips or child meals you could try sharing an end off each of the adults fish to make a junior portion or stretching the chips out a bit further and having some bread and butter with it to make chip butties - yum!!

Good luck, it does become easier once you get in a routine.

MLC

[Deleted User]

I eat:

Breakfast

Raw carrot
Mixed nuts & raisins
Porridge (winter) or Weetabix (summer)

Lunch

Four brown bread sandwiches with fillings selected from:

Crab paste, pilchards, salmon paste, tuna salad, egg mayo, jam, peanut butter, sandwich spread, marmite.
Two or three pieces of fresh fruit.

Dinners

(with pots & veg, or rice/pasta/noodles etc.)

Chicken and veg curry
Roast vegetables
Spaghetti bolognese
Chilli con carne
Fish casserole
Quiche
Roast chicken portions
Beef stew
Braised/grilled/fried liver
Fish in butter sauce
Fish in crumbs with peas & cous cous
Pizza
Pasty
Sausages
Mexican bean burger
Vegetable burger
Cauli cheese grill

This costs £3.20 for about 2850kcal/day (plenty for most people). If you use skimmed milk, low salt bread, and low calorie marge, this diet meets all the FSA guidelines, with 7 portions of fruit and veg, high fibre, low fat, salt, processed meat, red meat and added sugar.

Berni888

Some useful websites for you to peruse


http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/stop-spending-budgeting-tool


http://www.supermarketownbrandguide.co.uk/search.php?SearchString=Weetabix&score=&price=0&pricevalue=0.00&aldi=1&asda=1&coop=1&lidl=1&marks=1&morrisons=1&sainsburys=1&tesco=1&waitrose=1&Search.x=0&Search.y=0


http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cheap-supermarket-shopping#best


http://supermarketspecialoffers.com/LatestOffers.aspx


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/405198


http://www.frugalqueen.co.uk/p/frugal-food.html


http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/recipes.html


http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/recipes.html

rockm87

raw carrot for breakfast...well i never! :-)