How long can I make £187.15 last?

JIL

Regarding milk, I know it's more expensive but I buy the filtered milk, usually from Aldi, the simple reason being it has a very long use by date, so I buy in bulk and then theres no nipping out for milk and coming out of the shop with loads of unplanned things.
I also think it tastes better. Its £1.55 for 4 pints, as opposed to 4 pints for £1.39.

Another tip for stretching meat, is finely chopped mushrooms, mixed in with the mince. 

London_1

I'm not much of a user of milk probably at most two pints a week.I changed to UHT milk a couple of years ago, and now buy 6 cartons at a time £4.50 in Aldi's.that will more than last me for weeks. I find I waste less and its never gone off. I use evaporated milk for pudding or custards and as I rarely eat cereal and often drink my coffee black at times fresh milk was going off before I could use it up.

JackieO xx

YoungBlueEyes

Deleted_User said:

Just a thought, I haven’t peeled spuds for years. No need to, even for mash. It changes the texture ever so slightly but nothing really noticeable. Saves a job and a lot of nutrition is in the peelings x

The only time I peel tatties now is for roasties. For mash I cut the tatties up into small cubes (they boil far quicker and the wee bits of skin are so small you'd barely notice them). For chips I cut them thinner than I used to for the same reasons - fry quick and less skin per mouthful. Plus all the goodness is in the skin  

mumtoomany

Hello all,

@YORKSHIRELASS, I got some staying steak a couple of weeks ago. We called in at Sainsbury's on the way back from collecting the pig meat. I only ever go there when we go to the abattoir, so at most once a year. I spent mostly nectar points, collected from ebay. I made stew and a steak and kidney pie, with pigs kidneys. Very nice, but too expensive to pay real money for. I've worked out that our diesel drinker uses around a litre and a half to get to town and back. So almost £3, (local garage was £1.91 this week!) 

@asparklyblonde, would you like to swap children? These complain about the win on jackets, and wedges. They've even been known to pull the skin off new potatoes because they're, "too tough". DD1, OH and I eat anything. DS-i-L doesn't, and his likes change regularly! The DGC learn by example, unfortunately. Luckily potatoes are quite cheap. I'm paying £9 a sack at present. By Christmas they will probably be two sacks for £12.

@JIL, good idea about filtered. I'll check it out next time I'm in town, thank you. Mushrooms already go in lots of things, they have to be small or the little ones find them!

@London_1, we get through around ten pints a week, more if we have porridge, cheese sauce, custard. Plus some blue milk that DS-i-L his for his coffee. We had a goat when we first moved here, sadly she died of old age. I'd consider another if they didn't escape so much. We had for young ones, and spent a while summer finding them and bringing them home. Ever tried retrieving a goat kid, who has climbed ten feet up a neighbours tree, after it had gone over a seven foot fence? 

Hugs, mumtoomany.xx

joedenise

London_1 said:

I'm not much of a user of milk probably at most two pints a week.I changed to UHT milk a couple of years ago, and now buy 6 cartons at a time £4.50 in Aldi's.that will more than last me for weeks. I find I waste less and its never gone off. I use evaporated milk for pudding or custards and as I rarely eat cereal and often drink my coffee black at times fresh milk was going off before I could use it up.

JackieO xx

Another one here who has swapped to UHT.  We buy a dozen cartons at a time - must admit that it's gone up a lot over the last few months.  Last time it £8.28 so 69p a litre.  No doubt when we go to buy more it will probably be more like £9 for the dozen!

newlywed

Filtered milk here. I don’t drink it in tea or coffee but oh does and says the taste is still ok (doesn’t like uht).  2 litres last us about 5 days tho as it’s only really in his multiple cuppas each day.

it definitely reduces “urgent” supermarket visits.

mumtoomany

Two more pictures of cupboards. The first is my baking stuff, the blue tub is all, cutters, colourings and flavours, of which i appear to have the bottles of red! Top shelf is drinking chocolate, milkshake, cocoa, on the left. Sprinkles, icing cake papers, on the right. I also keep bread in here, and a half shelf of mustard, pickles and chutney. Bottom right is jellies, some jam, whip, yeast and assorted cup soups, mostly left by DD3. 

The other cupboard is cups, some jam, big box of packets of seasoning, all of which were bought YS, pasta, risotto rice, dried peas, cream crackers, and some pickled onions. I bought a 10kg bag of onions, can't resist a bargain! Behind the pickles on the top shelf are stacks of Aldi seasoning sachets, sweet and sir, chow mein, etc. These i got from ClearanceXL. They cost less than 2p each.

Need to sort the pantry next.

London_1

Joedenise  Aldi's UHT is 75 p a carton at the moment so I get half a dozen for £4.50 which last me a good 7-8 weeks.thats around 12 pints I think around 37.5p a pint. Evap milk is 55p a tin in Aldis and a nig tin diluted with water makes aroud 1,75 pints I add .25 of UHT to make it up to 2 pints which I use for puddings and custards so again quite reasonable .Birds custard powder was £1.55 a tub when I bought some last and I can get between 7-8 pints of custard from it. I'm old fashioned and like custard with a bit of sponge cake or apple pie, or even for topping a trifle. I saw in the supermarket the other day rowntrees jelly tablets were 80p !!! I think Aldi's were still under 50p. last time I got some and stocked up for the winter with half a dozen.

JackieO

YORKSHIRELASS

I really dont like UHT milk, but DH and I both have milk on our breakfasts and in tea and coffee, so we never waste it.  I was thinking about what Mumtoomany said about keeping everyone happy with meals, and its something that DH and I dont have to do now because there are only the two of us.  I dont mind having slightly strange combinations of food, or the same thing several times in a row which I suppose does save money.  You cant always do that if you have kids.

Grocery spend for us is £225.89 but we have just done a big shop which will last well into next month.  Pleased with that.

JGB1955

I don't know how anyone can tolerate UHT milk - I would rather drink black coffee.  Likewise with ANYTHING goat related - cheese, milk or anything else just smells of rank armpits.  Just as well we all like different things!