Organic Grocery Challenge

HappySad

I shop online with Sainsbury's each month (convience & time saving as mother of two under 5's) & regulary locally for fresh milk+veg. I mainly shop organic. How can save while keeping to being organic?

My spend is about £350-£400 a month

ceridwen

veggiebox schemes - you can have a box delivered each week of fruit and veg. Some of them do other foods as well.

try looking on

http//veggiebox.net

vanoonoo

what sort of things are you buying at the moment - much stuff pre prepared? cooking from scratch is a big money saver and not as time costly as many people think esp if you are in and out at home anyway rather than on the road four nights a week (for example)

spookycat_2

We eat organic food, cook from scratch and shop for main stuff at Sainsbury's. Our weekly food bill is between 70-100 pounds depending on deals etc, but we always have stuff in the freezer left over. This week we have spent £60 but that included £7 of craft stuff. We do have an allotment though we don't get much from it at this time of year. We are a family of 5.

rosh12

For those occasions where buying local etc is difficult / impossible for whatever reason, I find that our local Tesco ALWAYS has organic stuff reduced if you can bear rooting through the reduced to clear sections. Eg 4 organic croissants for about 40p (can be frozen!) and this week there were dozens of organic brandy butters. Ok so that's not ve useful, but there is almost always various organic veg, meat and all sorts reduced- most of which can be frozen...

HappySad

I do about 80% of our meals from scratch .. which includes...steamed frozen veg.. Is stream,ed frozen veg cooking from scratch?

Anyway most of our meals are from scratch SPOOKY CAT what sort of food do you buy???

spookycat_2

Things like wholemeal pasta & pesto with roasted veg (courgette/cherry tom's/sweet peppers) and olives. We eat this with HM garlic bread. Feeds 5 costs about 3pounds, all organic. We eat quite a bit of wholemeal rice & pasta, but always organic meat and veg, though we only eat meat maybe 3 times a week. I used to spend a lot, but being on OS for a while showed me how to be smarter, like a full punnet of O tomatoes, reduced, gets made into a sauce and frozen for a future meal. Once I was a bit more organised I found I could take advantage of reduced stuff a bit more. Every now and again the meat I might buy is not organic, but is so reduced I can't not buy it, like british steak mince for 10p for 450g! Oh and we don't drink milk which saves a bit too.

lilac_lady

If you spend so much you can be organic. The rest of us have a smaller budget.

boo81

If your family eat meat then try getting a meat box, ive worked out the cost and it does work out much cheaper than the supermarket and its much better quality and better cuts in my experience. Try riverford meat boxes, the ones I have had have been great and if you are organised enough you should be able to get a larger box than me. My small box lasted 3 months as I dont use very much meat.

If you want to buy in bulk then there are mail order companies offering things like rice, pulses and pasta in bulk, goodness direct do this but I think there are many more out there now too.

I find ordering a veg box is very economical, I refuse to let things go to waste and so often try new recipes just to use things up.

Good luck!

[Deleted User]

I don`t spend too much on food and we eat organic. I get a riverford box and most of my meals are veg based eg stir fry veg with a few walnuts tossed in

We don`t eat a lot of meat and an organic £7 chicken does at least 5 meals for two plus soup

I do lots of soups and throw in some home cooked beans, which I batch cooked and froze in packages. I serve that with hm bread and maybe a bit of cheese

I don`t know how much I spend on food but being organic and veering towards using vegetarian recipes is undoubtedly cheaper. I do know that our organic food is a great deal cheaper than the 100% non-organic meat meals that my neighbour cooks

odds-n-sods

I try to buy organic when I can. We get a veg box, eggs + yogurt every week form Rivernene, a sister co-op of Riverford.

Rivernene doesn't offer meat yet, but I will try it when it does; otherwise, I get meat from my butcher.