Weekly meal planner and cost

gayleygoo

bigmaz wrote: »

My wife is adamant we would spent even more money not buying jars, frozen food etc. Just trying to prove that's not the case. That's why I thought it would be handy if I could show her an example meal plan and shopping list for it so she can see it's not the case

Most of the time, from scratch is cheaper. There might not be a huge amount of savings in making your own pasta sauce if you buy supermarket value or own-brand pasta sauce, for example, but if you normally buy "Dolmio" or the likes, then you will! (and your own will be healthier too)

Many frozen veg are cheaper than buying fresh, like runner beans, petitis pois etc. I buy potato waffles and fish fingery things for the kids the odd time they eat them, and own-brand potato wedges for times when I just can't be bothered to peel spuds. We like having ice-cream in the freezer, but apart from that we don't buy much frozen convienence food.

I probably spend about £70-£80 a week on food for 2 adults, 3 children and a rabbit. I could go as low as £60 I think, if we had less meat and fewer treats, baking ingredients etc. Although toiletries and household stuff is something I'd count separately, so maybe £10-£15 a month on those.

I did have a recent meal-plan and budget somewhere, I'll post it later when I find it!

Reducing your food budget might mean giving up some treats or more time being spent on food preparation. Meal planning isn't very difficult but it can take a little time to get into the swing of doing it regularly and learning how to plan efficiently and to a budget. Don't leave it all up to your wife - she won't thank you for it!

NewShadow

Perhaps a more effective way of convincing your wife might be to try it for a couple of meals?

Perhaps tomorrow you could make a tomato sauce from 'scratch'?

All you need is a tin of tomatoes or 6 or so fresh tomatoes (which ever you can pick up easiest), an onion, and a couple of cloves of garlic.

Onions are 70p for a kilo bag in tesco, and that's normally about 6 or 7.
Garlic's 30p and you probably want a third of it (I like garlic)
And the east end tomatoes are 3 (tins) for a pound, or you can get a pack of 6 fresh for 70p

Fry the onion, add the garlic, stir in the tomatoes and simmer.

10p for an onion, 10p for the garlic, and 33p for the tomatoes - 53p by my reckoning.

Serendipitious

Have you tried making your own pizzas? Little ones love it as a fun activity for a weekend lunch.

You can buy ready-made pizza bases, get a tin of tomato paste for about 30p, then invent your own toppings.

BrassicWoman

bigmaz wrote: »

My wife is adamant we would spent even more money not buying jars, frozen food etc. Just trying to prove that's not the case. That's why I thought it would be handy if I could show her an example meal plan and shopping list for it so she can see it's not the case

Perhaps you could make the food for a month from scratch to prove your point instead?

YORKSHIRELASS

Well we are 2 adults, 2 teenagers (15 and 17 yo lads) and we spend £70 a week maximum for food, most toiletries and cleaning products (but I dont buy many anyway). DH does a manual job and likes his meat. The 15 yo has school dinners but the rest of us have a packed lunch or eat at home.

This week is typical:
Monday: Steak and ale pie and mash
Tuesday: Chicken curry, naan and rice
Wednesday: Turkey thigh casserole, jacket spuds and veg
Thursday: Meatballs, pasta and salad
Friday: HM Fishcakes, chips and beans
Saturday: Shepherds pie and veg
Sunday: Chicken jambalaya

A serving of meat is 400g to 500g, diced up small. We buy as cheap as possible, cant afford to have too many principles about our food! Very few things are branded and I stay away from offers, unless it is something that I was going to buy anyway. Most of our shopping is done at Li*l because it is local. With a bit of practice sticking to this budget is not difficult.

Good luck.

kathrynha

We are a family of 3, 2 adults and a 10 year old.
We spend £50ish a week on groceries, mainly at Aldi but a bit at Morrisons and Asda.


Typical meal plan:
Breakfasts: A choice of cereal, yogurt, toast, porridge, fruit


Weekday lunches: Daughter has school dinner, husband has homemade ready meal (leftovers), I have a salad. Also fruit and homemade popcorn for me, malt loaf for hubby
Saturday lunch: We go to my parents, so freebie
Sunday lunch: Beans or scrambled egg on toast, or soup.


Evening meals:
Monday: Casserole, either done in the slow cooker with a cheap cut of meat, or using leftovers from the day before's roast
Tuesday: Stir fry or thai curry with noodles.
Wednesday: Bacon butties, it's a quick meal, normally finished being eaten in the car
Thursday: Shepherds pie/lasagne/chilli/meatballs
Friday: Fish cakes/fish pie
Saturday: Fajitas/burgers/pizza
Sunday: roast dinner/chicken kievs/peri-peri chicken


For the stirfry I use sweet chilli normally for the sauce. This is one of the few processed foods we use.


Thai curry the sauce is garlic, chilli, lemon grass and shallots all blitzed up with a tin of coconut milk. Lazy garlic, chilli and dried lemon grass is cheaper than fresh and quicker.


Shepherds pie, lasagne and chilli all have beans in them to make the meat go further, and the meatballs are filled out with lentils. The sauces are all cooked from scratch.
I have a base sauce of tomatoes, carrots, onion, mushrooms, peppers and courgette that I cook in the slow cooker, blitz, and freeze in jar size portions, that is ready to just add the herbs and spices to. Often manage to get some of the veg on yellow stickers.


Fish cakes are mashed potato, tin of salmon and chopped chives, moulded in a burger press and baked in the over.
Fish pie, can often be done cheaper with yellow sticker fish, and coley is a lot cheaper and just as nice as cod in it.


Fajitas, once again have beans added to the meat to make it go further, and Aldi wraps are the nicest we have found. Seasoning is also on Aldi specials quite often.
Burgers are home made, and not the cheapest meal, but so much healthier than bought burgers, normally done with wedges
Pizza, I do a bread base in my bread maker, and let everyone add their own toppings. Not cheap, but cheaper than good quality bought ones or a takeaway


Joint, I either get on yellow stickers and freeze, or go for a whole chicken, and buy a bit bigger than we need so there are leftovers for Monday
Kiev, chicken breast with garlic and butter in the middle and wrapped in bacon. Can also be done with turkey steak.
Peri-peri chicken. My daughter loves Nandos and I buy the marinade only when it's on a decent offer. Wings and drumsticks are cheap to buy too. I do it with wedges and home made coleslaw.

Our Sunday meals tend to be the most expensive, but I like to keep Sundays special.


For working out the shopping list, I start off writing the days of the week in the top right corner of my list, and what the main meal is that day, then I write my list based on those meals. Often also put the date next to the days, so that it's easy to see what best before days you need for each meal.

pickledonionspaceraider

bigmaz wrote: »

My wife is adamant we would spent even more money not buying jars, frozen food etc. Just trying to prove that's not the case. That's why I thought it would be handy if I could show her an example meal plan and shopping list for it so she can see it's not the case

Big maz, I am not meaning to sound argumentative, but other than proving your point what actual role do you play in food shopping and cooking - do you actually shop and cook?

The reason I ask is that some fellas, they will leave the shopping and cooking to the women. The woman who may already have a full time job and kids on her hands, so needs the odd short-cut in order to stay sane and not put too much pressure on herself. Think about what role you play and the lifestyle you both have, in particular the one of you who bears the brunt of shopping and cooking

I am all for saving a few quid - and do my best efforts to batch cook when I can get myself in gear

However I do not always batch cook, and when I come home after a 12 hour shift I will not beat myself up if I use a jar of dolmio sauce rather than make my own pasta sauce. Saving 50p is not my priority at that point in time - getting the family fed is

I hope you see my point here, and do not think im trying to pick fault

bigmaz

No probs, I didn't take any of that at you picking fault. But your assumption about our situation is way off I work full time, and my wife doesn't work at all. So has all the time to do it.

Pollycat

bigmaz wrote: »

Spending well over £100 per week

I think £433 per month for 2 adults and 2 children is quite high.

Do you have a decent sized freezer?
If your wife doesn't work, she could batch cook all sorts of things like:
bolognaise
chilli
shepherd's pies (use different mince and different toppings to ring the changes e.g. potato, swede, carrot mash or cooked mashed caulifower or add cabbage to mash - a good way to get your veg count up too).
sausage & bean casserole
corned beef hash
soup
home made burgers (again use different mince and different flavourings e.g. mint for lamb)

AnnieO1234

Just because she has the time to do it, can she actually cook from scratch? If she isn't confident in her abilities then that may be one reason she doesn't want to do it, nor should she feel the need to make something like a bolognese from scratch if she doesn't enjoy cooking especially when it doesn't sound as though you would need to be cooking from scratch out of necessity.

To be fair to you, I cook almost everything from scratch these days and am in the same position as you in respect of 2 adults and 2 children; we spend on average £250 per week including toiletries albeit that includes nappies too.

There are some things I make from scratch that are infinitely cheaper than buying them prepped in any way, but equally there are some things I make from scratch that are infinitely more expensive than what I could buy them for.

If this is about saving money, perhaps you could take the lead in cooking one night a week or encouraging her to make double portions to freeze. This allows for the ease of prepped ingredients and dishes but all controlled by you.