Eat Well for Less...Live on MSE

ani*fan

mamam...losing the will to leave was NOT a deliberate pun but does describe my experience much more accurately. I can get in a daze with the ridiculous amount of stuff on sale and end up wandering around slowly, staring at things and thinking that I just don't know what to buy, even with my list in hand. Lucky for me OH notices and escorts me out at that point. This is why we do short shopping trips.

bossymoo

Maybe have one week a month where you eat from the cupboards / freezer? I'm sure I have enough to do several meals - it's always good to avoid the shops now and again.

angela110660

ani*fan wrote: »

Thank you so much everyone for all your good ideas. :A I think a review of the menu is called for. I'm a creature of habit and don't really need much variety in meals, I'm happy with the handful I can easily prepare, just mixing up the vegetables, but the quorn needs to be greatly reduced so I'll get onto it with our next meal plan.

frugal_gem...is your shopping really only £150 a month? I would love to be able to achieve that. That'd be an extra £100 a month, which is huge.

I love the idea of making yogurt and bread myself. I also want to get back to growing vegetables at some point in the future. Unfortunately at the moment I have practically no time due to a very long, difficult training course that takes up all of my time and more, but I only have a year to go and then I'll be getting back into all these things.

I eat jam sandwiches probably for the sugar. I don't really get a lunch break and have to eat in the work car or in 5 minutes at my desk. I think my nutrition's ok so I'm not too worried about that and it's cheap.

Ooh frittata...nom! I haven't made that in ages!

We don't really stock pile Doritos when they are on offer. They're one of those things that if you have them in, they just get munched by OH. We tend to buy them if we're having a move night or something. Maybe I'll get them when they're on offer and hide them from OH?

And yes, I usually hide the supermarket name so they can't google what I write about them. I'm sure they have better things to do than stalk me though. At least I'd hope.

The soy milk is a strange one. With cheaper brands, sometimes they curdle, sometimes they don't. I always thought it was the heat of the drink but then realised it is often the strength of the coffee. None of them curdle in tea. And the nut milks curdle too. Frustrating.

What's star drops?

We are all creatures of habit - not just you! So no worries. We all to some extent get stuck in food and shopping ruts dont we? I cant eat Quorn myself as I have allergic reaction to it- stomach bloats and then I am sick. Very wierd. However when MIL visits who is veggie, I buy Sains frozen mince for her instead of Quorn and she loves it and never complains. Use it for spag bol, mild chilli or shepherds pie.
I bought an electric yogurt maker on Ebay a few months ago which included 6 glass pots and lids all for £8. It is brilliant and I find shop bought yogurt so tart now as homemade has such a mild flavour. I eat with added fruit and add to cooking too. Great buy. Had a breadmaker but it stopped working and am yet to replace it but OH wants us to as he eats a lot of bread and misses it.
OH and I are trying to eat more varied weekly diet these days so aim for mix of red meat, chicken/turkey, fish and veggie meals. Have a number of cook books to help ring the changes including Hairy Dieters (some amazing recipes including veggie); Jamie O and my latest - Nat Trust recipes which has a lot of veggie recipes too. Last night we had a Potato, Courgette and Pepper curry and it was gorgeous. Def going to make again - the sauce was yum and will try various veg combos in it. Why not borrow a couple of cook books from your library to spur you into trying new recipes? And online there is always BBC Good Food and Delia of course! And many more.......

catkins

It is certainly worth going to the indian grocer. Me and OH go to East London just to visit the indian grocers!

Not only are they usually much cheaper for things like lentils, chickpeas, they also usually sell them in quite large packs. The little packs that supermarkets sell work out dearer and are no good to us when we use such a lot.

Lots of supermarkets don't even sell things like that only in tins. Aldi and Lidl don't which is one of the main reasons we don't use them for big shops.

Look for lentils (all colours), chickpeas, kidney beans, black eyed beans, mung beans. Big bags of rice are a bargain as are the big bags of onions they sell. Often too things like olive oil, sunflower oil and rapeseed oil are cheaper.

We often buy frozen indian breads which are quick and easy for times we can't be bothered to make our own - we eat a lot of curries!

Often spices are cheaper there too. Oh and look at their fresh veg. Sometimes they are ridiculously cheap.

Some of the Pound shops have 4 tins of tomatoes for £1 at present chopped and whole which is a bargain.

Tesco have a 500g bag of Quorn mince for £1.50 (says it should be £2.79). Aldi are charging £2.98!

C_J

https://www.aldi.co.uk/p/47839/0

flipper_72

My local Aldi seems to have stopped selling quorn and now sells it own brand version which is about £1.20 per 500g iirc so using this should help the budget too. My family like it, we are not veggie but do eat a lot of veggie meals for budget, health and taste reasons.

catkins

C_J wrote: »

https://www.aldi.co.uk/p/47839/0

It's not as big as the bag on offer in Tesco though.

I've got the prices on "mysupermarket.com".

My Aldi rarely has Quorn products or much veggie stuff at all. What it does have is often dearer than other shops. They sometimes have Linda McCartney sausages but never for £1 which is what I pay for them in Farm Foods or Iceland

Upsidedown_Bear

purpleybat wrote: »

sorry I don't know how to quote yet (must look it up)

There is a "quote" button on each post - click on that to quote

Feebie

I mostly use astonish cleaning products now - a really wide variety (I know not really necessary to have different products for different jobs but I like to!), cheap (I get from home bargains, the range or ocado) and totally cruelty free.

I've just started using dry tvp mince and chunks (from Holland and Barrett) to replace frozen veggie mince / chunks. I find the mince nice, although the texture is 'finer' than most frozen minces. The chunks I am less sure of although I'm persevering as they are so much cheaper! Also, use lentils a lot to make chilli and bolognese.

Good luck!

ani*fan

Feebie wrote: »

I mostly use astonish cleaning products now - a really wide variety (I know not really necessary to have different products for different jobs but I like to!), cheap (I get from home bargains, the range or ocado) and totally cruelty free.

I've just started using dry tvp mince and chunks (from Holland and Barrett) to replace frozen veggie mince / chunks. I find the mince nice, although the texture is 'finer' than most frozen minces. The chunks I am less sure of although I'm persevering as they are so much cheaper! Also, use lentils a lot to make chilli and bolognese.

Good luck!

OMG! TVP! That was the veggie staple back in the days before quorn was invented. I loved it then too, maybe I'll try some of this.

Thanks!