In dire need of help... or a kick up the bum

Doc_N

The simplest solution of all would be to switch all of your shopping (or as much of it as you possibly can) to Aldi or Lidl if you can get to one.

That way you'll save around 30% on Tesco prices, and I can assure you that the quality is every bit as good - normally better, in fact.

sweetsl

An interesting discussion. Perhaps you need to look at what you are eating rather than just the cost of each item (and brand). Seems to me that you are eating two main meals each day (lunch and dinner). Why not just have a sandwich (homemade) and piece of fruit at lunch and leave your main meal until evening. Certainly this would be better for your dieting. Sandwiches don't need to be boring and would use up your bread/salad etc.

happyinflorida

Do you have a Lidl near to you?

They are really cheap and a lot of their items are very good quality and taste really nice.

I usually love the proper coca cola but since trying their 39p 2 litre bottle, which the whole family now prefers - we only buy that! Same with their diet fizzy orange which is 45p for 2 litres - really tasty.

We spend half the amount in Lidl that we spend in a normal HIGH PRICED supermarket!

I hope you've got one as you'll find it brilliant and save a small fortune.

I tried their own brand mayonnaise this week after only buying Hellmans for decades - I checked the ingredients first on both (they sell Hellmans too!) and found them to be virtually the same! Lidl's own mayonnaise was 75p, the Hellmans was £2 for the same size. Tasted it when I got home and it was 99% the same taste - I couldn't believe it! So there's another saving I'll be making from now on.

Only buy what you need - unless it is something that keeps, like store cupboard essentials like egg noodles for doing a stir fry - quick, cheap and easy.

Make your own stir fry sauce - look them up online and choose the cheapest. I use peanut butter and soya sauce and a few other store cupboard ingredients and it comes out really tasty - as good as a take away!

Good luck!

tgroom57

I am frugal, and my cupboard space has halved since my DD moved back home.

My shopping list is 2 lists:
1. What staple foods we have run out of and need imminently
2. What we have in the cupboard, and how many portions.

Then I look at what's on offer / cheap / reduced and try to match it up, so often I am planning meals - in the loosest sense- on the hoof in the aisles.

gj87

There are a couple of things that occur to me looking through your list:

1: there's a lot of meat on this menu, and generally meat is very expensive. There's two solutions to that - eat less of it (protein wise, a good portion at dinner and yoghurt for breakfast and you should be ok), or stretch it out more. To eat less, I would suggest eating your leftovers for dinner and having something cheaper and simpler for lunch. A veggie soup with frozen veg and tinned tomatoes as a base, or a sandwich and piece of fruit will almost always be cheaper than eating leftovers which you could have for dinner instead. To stretch it out, I would look at going back to traditional meals where meat can be bulked out with vegetables. For example, I will make a chilli with 500g mince make 8-10 portions by adding in lots and lots of veg and kidney beans. 4 chicken breasts will make 6-8 portions of curry with the addition of lots of veg and a tin of chickpeas. If you are really keen on reducing your food bill, I would suggest that you turn to vegetarian options.

2: as other people have said - batch cook. This goes hand in hand with the above, and generally food which can be batch cooked is cheaper as the meat is a composite ingredient rather than the main star (such as in sausage and mash). I would suggest casseroles, spag Bol, curry, shepherds pie, chilli, and lasagne are all good options.

3: change the way you shop and plan your menus. I think that getting out of the habit of buying things every time you are there is probably key to you cutting down incidental spending. Shop fortnightly and base your menu around 4 main meals with other things mixed in. For example

Monday Stirfry
Tuesday Curry
Wednesday Curry
Thursday salmon trimmings risotto
Fri Spag Bol
Sat Spag Bol
Sun Homemade scone base pizzas
Mon shepherds pie
Tue shepherds pie
Wed beans on toast with poached eggs
Thurs egg fried rice
Fri egg fried rice
Sat curry from freezer
Sun Spag Bol from freezer
Then you have a shepherds pie in the freezer to have as an inbetween meal in the next fortnight.

For more frugal meal ideas, check out cook books from the local library - the Jamie one isn't bad for ideas and Jack
Monroe's is also good. But, worth noting, both of these have a lot of veggie recipes.

Hope that helps!

Aunty_Les

Have you tried changing your shop from Tesco to one of the value supermarkets such as Lidl or Aldi? I find that if I shop at Tesco the weekly bill is much higher than at the discounters, and their quality is good, if not better than Tesco. Most of the branded goods such as Heinz ketchup, Pepsi etc are available at Lidl so you shouldn't need to visit Tesco at all. I normally spend 20+% less at Lidl than an equivalent shop at Tesco. Good luck!

saraih

I'm in exactly the same position OP, £70 in Asda for three people and not getting an exciting amount with it! Determined to end this as soon as possible. I find the basics are dragging me down as the others in the house don't like cheap brands for a few things.

Gonna see if I can get any bargains at Tesco on sunday, they usually reduce the stuff around 1pm I think

If your Tesco is near town can you check the local market? we have bargain food stalls and a freezer shop that sell brands ridiculously cheap (muller 12/£1.50, WW meals £1 each). Otherwise try pound shops for branded tins.

With two little ones it might not be worth it to troll round more than one shop for you. It'd be lovely to go round Home Bargains and pound shops and Asda to price check everything but it isn't quick.

I cook from scratch much more often now to trick the situation so I don't need the brands to begin with. The market is way cheaper for fruit & veg for me.

Good luck getting that bill down, it's frustrating!

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

It's odd, our Tesco is at the back of a housing estate which is a short drove (less than 4 miles I'd say) but not near the town. We have a home bargains in town butthat's it - its quite shocking what's there.

Lidl is a few towns over - the nearest one is 15 miles away (just checked their web)

The nearest aldi is 10miles

I'm gonna reply to this later - just saw the time and better go get ready for work.

Thank you everyone

Doc_N

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel wrote: »

It's odd, our Tesco is at the back of a housing estate which is a short drove (less than 4 miles I'd say) but not near the town. We have a home bargains in town butthat's it - its quite shocking what's there.

Lidl is a few towns over - the nearest one is 15 miles away (just checked their web)

The nearest aldi is 10miles

I'm gonna reply to this later - just saw the time and better go get ready for work.

Thank you everyone

Drive to Aldi, and ditch Tesco altogether. The small additional petrol cost will be repaid many, many times over by saving about 30% on your groceries.

Aldi these days is able to provide most (if not all) of the things you'll want, and I doubt you'll need to visit Tesco for much. 95% of our food etc now comes from Aldi, with just an occasional (once a month or so) visit to Waitrose for the odd thing that they don't sell.

There really is very little that Aldi don't now sell, and the quality will certainly match Tesco. In many cases in fact they use the same suppliers as M&S. Most food in the UK comes from the same suppliers, and Aldi use the same suppliers as all the other supermarkets.

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

Oh its not that I don't mind shopping at Aldi's / Lidls - I just try and weigh up the cost of petrol etc.


Yes - I have two cooked meals a day - I really should have sandwiches but they just don't fill me and I end up scoffing anything at hand. Will try and replace the meals at lunch gradually and freeze the left overs


When using mysupermarket, Tesco is always cheaper which I can never understand because everyon raves about aldi's


Anyway, I did a quick stock take this morning, this is what I have already:


Cupboard:


Rice
Pasta (But no spaghetti)
Borlotti beans (no idea why I have these...)
Water chestnuts
Bamboo shoots x2
Baked beans x2
Black eyed beans
Coconut milk
Meatballs
Cashew nuts
Roasted peanuts
Chicken soup x2
Eggs


Fridge:
Spring onions
Cabbage
Carrots (10p bargain!)
Strawberries (10p bargain!)
Raspberries (10p bargain!)
Grapes (10p bargain!)
Cheese
Tomato puree
some thai green curry sauce - im not sure if this has gone off, opened a few months ago!


Then in the freezer:
Sausage roll "pies" x2 (home made from when I made the sausage rolls last week)
Sausages
Fish fingers
pizza
chicken pieces (thighs, breast)
Duck (legs)
Pork steaks (Piri piri ones)
Lamb rack
Frozen mixed veg
peppers
Mushrooms
Cauliflower / broccoli