Reverse Meal Planning

joedenise

We don't have takeaways very often - I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times!  However we do eat out sometimes but usually cheap places like SM cafe or Spoons but these don't come out of Grocery budget as I have separate Eating Out category.

I use YNAB to keep track of where every penny belongs!

EssexHebridean

Really interesting seeing other people's thinking on this stuff - and the average spends too. 

The remaining soup last night was gorgeous - and allowing that I still have the other half of the butternut squash and plenty of parsnips I think there is a great chance that I'll be making some more of it at the weekend. Last night's also me think that it would be a cracking base for a curry sauce too - it actually had quite the taste of a korma/butter chicken type sauce about it, so that's worth thinking about for the future. 

Tonight will be chicken sausages, jacket tatties and veg of some sort. I remembered to get the sausages out last night to defrost, and there is still one pack of those in the freezer too. Probably not something we'd buy again unless we got the sort of decent deal we did on them at the food show, but they've been pretty tasty. 

ruby_eskimo

I also find the chat about grocery spends interesting, especially as it appears we're under the UK average.  I budget £50 a week for the two of us which includes household products and most of DH's toiletries (he isn't fussed about what he uses unlike my sensitive skin 😉).  Most weeks we average about £40 - £45 with any extra kept aside for additional food at Christmas or when we have people over.  I want to bulk buy more but don't have the space for it currently, and we're doing ok, although I managed to run out of chopped tomatoes this week so need to stock up at the weekend!

Having the last of my salad bowls for lunch today so that will be all of the book club leftovers gone from the weekend.  Dinner tonight is sausage, gnocchi and kale in a one pot thing.  Only using half the pack of sausages so the rest will go in the freezer for another meal, and I'll need to think of something to do with the extra kale as not sure if DH actually likes it or not 🤣

rtandon27

@ ruby_eskimo - we often make colcannon with our excess kale - a nice way to spruce up plain mash

Suffolk_lass

We probably spend too much (I add to our Son's salary-controlled diet regularly by donating stores, meals I have cooked or things I know he likes).

I've been shopping this morning and hope it will do most of the month, but I expect we will do one Friday morning market (lovely baker, fish and veg) and will top up deli, meat, eggs and french style bread and pastries from the butcher, if we need to.

At the moment my spend breaks down as £1.55 pets (got most but needed cat litter), £18.88 for stores (anything going in the larder plus bulk buy brands) zero so far on direct debit (milk) and subscriptions (coffee, maybe this month) and £81.89 on all the fresh stuff. I did buy some YS meat including 3 joints, 6 humungous chicken breasts (so big they will do 1 between 2), sausages (I already have sausagemeat in the freezer) and 2 packs of mince. It is all portioned up and in the freezer now. The rest was dairy (Yogurt, butter, cheese, cream and 2 extra pints of organic milk) and veg - loads of it.

I exclude treats and entertainment from grocery spending but it includes,  going out, take-aways, any alcohol, or non alcoholic fancy drinks, and any ice-cream or chocolate. Today there was reduced chocolate, and crisps, as well as a few drinks. 

We budget £3000 per year and manage within that so far (last 3 years).

I have kept some mince back from the freezer and will make a bolognese type of sauce for supper, and I might chop the lambs kidney (that is lurking) into the mix to use it up. We have stewed rhubarb in the fridge and a jar of bottled plum and apple (all home grown). I might treat us to a crumble too, as the mix is in a large ziplock bag ready crumbed for quick deployment

joedenise

More stuff from the freezer today:  carrot and lentil soup for lunch and bag of mixed beans (previously cooked from dried) for dinner which I'll be using one of Jack Monroe's old recipes for goulash which we'll have with some rice.

I've got a bag of spiced mix veg out for dinner tomorrow which will be going into a biryani.  Not good having 2 rice meals but never mind it's happened without me really thinking about it!

EssexHebridean

Morning all! we're probably going for rice tonight too as I've extracted one of the tubs of roast pork from the freezer in order to use up some of the veg box veg in a stir fry. That'll see off the oldest of the sprouts and probably some of the newer ones. Half the pointy cabbage probably, the last of the mushrooms, a green pepper and some spring onions I reckon. I might throw the remaining cabbage into some coleslaw allowing I have beetroot that can go in, and the remaining spring onions could go that way too. If so I'll probably make my Saturday lunch (MrEH will be out) a jacket tattie with either cheese or tuna and coleslaw. 

CCW007

Breakfast was overnight oats using the last of some black cherries from the freezer - I seem to have rather a lot of frozen fruit!  Lunch will be homemade lentil soup with side salad and chickpeas.  Dinner will be salmon and veggies. 

As I'm exercising a lot at the moment, I'm trying to up my protein which isn't easy when eating plant based hence why I still eat fish.  Need to work on increasing my protein from other sources so I can cut fish out in time and go totally veggie.  

ruby_eskimo

Thanks @rtandon27, it went down ok-ish with DH - I made sure he had less kale than me and he said it was doable for him.  Going to have a roast at the weekend so will chuck some on there as well and may just whizz the rest of it up to make some pesto type thing for next week.  

Still have some of my HM red pepper hummus to use up and nothing to dip into it, so going to cook some pasta and frozen peppers for lunch and stir the hummus through.  Dinner tonight is going to be a freezer dive of fish and veggies for something quick and easy.

QueenJess

No veg box this week as they generally last us 2 weeks (although I did have to buy carrots and potatoes).  So these all need to be used up in the next week.  Also got an absolutely rammed freezer which I need to sort out!

Yesterday I had a black banana that was past even being eaten in porridge.  I added some bananas I cut up in the freezer (and had some freezer burn) to make 24 banana and chocolate chip muffins which are happily sat in my freezer.  Taken out meatballs in pasta sauce for tonight's dinner and used up a portion of frozen leek and potato soup for lunch.

Just taken out half a box of citrus peel to make candied peel dipped in dark chocolate as a birthday treat to myself!  Tomorrow will be pesto pasta with curly kale and peas for lunch.  Pudding will be frozen fruit and yogurt.  Dinner will be pizza with mozzarella, mushrooms and sweetcorn, with a carrot and curly kale salad.  Pudding is DS's birthday cake which is going down incredibly slowly as it's so filling!