Sorting out my housekeeping.

ness_w

We are trying to work out if we can afford to cut corners enough to pay for a conversion of our sheds to extra living space so decided to take a look at the housekeeping spending. Last week it amounted to £207.40!!!! So that's where the money's going it would seem.

There are eight of us, we don't have takeaways, much alcohol, ready meals or anything. We do have nappies for 2, tonnes of washing powder, 48 pints of milk and about 60 bits of fruit a week.

Here's what we ate last week -

Breakfast - cereal and milk, sometimes toast or fruit smoothies.
Lunch - Sandwiches, fruit, salad, some other little bits - no crisps or chocolate bars.
Main meal -
Sunday - Quorn roast, assorted roast veggies
Monday - Brie, mush & potato bake, broccoli, pancakes, oranges and ice cream.
Tuesday,H/made mush soup and h/made goat's cheese and chive bread. Fruit.
Weds - Cashew and rice bake, tinned peaches and ice cream.
Thurs - Macaroni cheese, fruit.
Fri - Cheese and tomato jacket potatoes, chocolate bar, fruit.
Sat - Quorn nuggets, mashed potatao and peas, fruit.

I don't think that's all that outrageous, in fact it sounds quite good written down, but we have to cut back, so any ideas on cheap, simple recipes to help us cut down on our expenses?

I really want to start making my own quiches for this reason as well as the free range egg thing, but can't find a recipe for one big enough for all of us, anyone know any that feed 8?

I have signed up on the grocery challenge, but really had no idea we were spending this much. How much is a decent amount per head to spend given that six are growing children that need a wholesome diet with lots of energy?

Many thanks, Ness.

Pink.

Hi ness,

As everyones needs are different I think it would be hard for anyone to put an exact figure on what you should be spending, but if you have a look at Martin's Budget Planner, that should help you to find out if/where you are overspending and give you ideas on how you could cut back. There is also an article on Supermarket Shopping which has lots of hints and tips on saving money on groceries.

To get some ideas on meal planning, there are lots of threads that should help in The Complete Menu Plans Collection

Also there are lots of ideas for cheap meals on these threads:

Cheapest recipes???

Meal for two for 50p. Suggestions?

The Cheapest Healthy Meal Ever!

Feed 6 for £1.62

Cheapest meal

Your Cheapest Evening Meal.

cheap, easy family meals

Good luck with cutting back.

Pink

moanymoany

You mention a quiche for 8, it has to be cheaper to make than buy. if you use value flour, lard and butter or marge it is a fraction of the cost.

I got a nice fluted quiche dish from a charity shop. It give 4 big portions. To make 2 of these you make 12 oz pastry that is 12 oz value plain flour, 3oz value lard and 3oz margarine. I would put in it, a quarter of a pack of cooking bacon, 4 value onions chopped both fried together. The bacon will make enough fat. When cooked, put this in the bottom of the half cooked pastry cases. Add 3 oz grated value full flavoured cheddar in each quiche. Beat 6 eggs with a quarter of a pint of milk - I use value. Cook for 25 mins or until the egg mix is set. It shouldn't cost much more than £1.50 for 8 portions. I and having this tonight and I'm going to cook some value oven chips which are very cheap - 42p a kilo! And they are nice. I will have frozen mixed veg and a tin of tomatoes with it tonight.

oldMcDonald

Hi

From looking at the list, am I right in saying you are veggie? We have 7 in our family ( 5 kids) and I found I saved loads when I ditched the quorn stuff and started to use dried pulses instead. Even better, if you know anyone who would like to go in with you, get yourself a SUMA catalogue - we order 3x a year, spending around £10 a time on pulses, and this keeps us very well.

I also found the following books to be fantastic investments in getting the shopping bill down:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Use-Up-Cookbook-Guide-Minimizing/dp/0961455608/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200322374&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Extending-Table-World-Community-Cookbook/dp/0836192648/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200322624&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/More-Less-Cookbook-World-Community/dp/083619263X/ref=pd_sim_b?ie=UTF8&qid=1200322624&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Simply-Season-World-Community-Cookbook/dp/0836192966/ref=pd_sim_b?ie=UTF8&qid=1200322624&sr=8-1

*sorry about the long addiies - I couldn't get short one to work!

£207 seems a huge amount to me, but I no longer use nappies (we used washables - have you considered this? Saves a fortune!), neither do I buy washing powder...grated soap (ASDA 19p for 4 bars) lasts us well over a month, used with washing soda on really dirty kids clothes or borax if a white wash.

Hope this helps and good luck cutting back

belfastgirl23

tesco value washing powder is really cheap at £1.41 for 3kg. Porridge is a really good cheap filling breakfast (and good for you as well!). Oh and with 8 people in the house you might want to consider buying a breadmaker if you get through a lot of bread - 1.5kg of flour costs about 50p and probably makes about 2-3 big loaves. I'd also suggest basing a meal a week around spaghetti and tomato/veg sauce of some sort. Sorry can't answer on the meals for six though

Lots of luck

Penny-Pincher!!

Hi

Was the £207.40 just on food shopping, or did it include other expenses? It does seem quite alot but feeding that many people is probably quite expensive, especially with 2 in nappies and that much fresh fruit and vegetables.

I would make a list of all food you have in, then try and make meals with that and just buy what you need to make them up to proper meals IYSWIM.

I try and do a "FREE" meal once a week using up what we have in. This is normally on a Friday evening and is probably something like egg, chips & beans, or cheese & spud pie etc etc. Sometimes we just have a toasted sarnie and a bowl of soup This week, I am using up a bag of Scampi we have in the freezer and just serving with chips & leftover salad.

Do you have a slowcooker? These can be amazing when using up left over veg or even frozen veg and other bits. If you are a veggie, the veggie sausages work well in the SC with added veg, tin of baked beans or kindey beans, tin of toms and served with a baked spud or rice....nice and cheap but filling and leftovers for the next day if not all has gone. You can bulk out many meals with different things.

The quiche is a very good idea and this freezes well too.

If you can, go to the supermarket around 8-9pm. You can then buy many items reduced to literally pennies and freeze as much as you can. We often buy our FR poultry and meat this way and freeze-sorry if you are a veggie:o I also am able to buy reduced (decent) bread, milk and butter which keeps costs low for baking and everyday requirements.

I am fussy with coffee, loo rolls, washing powder, kitchen roll, flash cleaning stuff, tea bags etc etc-so buy this on offer when I see it at Makros normally, but often you can get deals at Wilkinsons or the supermarkets.

HTH

PP
xx

lil_me

Firstly I would seperate the 'baby budget' including nappies etc from the grocery one! I also do think you are doing very well, I spend more than that on 4 (I do have 2 in PJ pants on a night, wish I could get decent reusables) ah sorry I read that as monthly, maybe not then :rotfl:

I still use washing powder but I use a spoon of washing powder and the same of soda crystals, this even gets my mucky tikes (and partners) clothes clean.

Farm foods someone said is cheap for Quorn, I know that stuff can be expensive. Iceland I've seen it on offer in a few times aswell. That's if of course you can't give up the Quorn and use oldMcDoland's idea.

oldMcDonald

Is the £207 per month or per week? I read it as per week but as no one else is surprised by the amount then maybe I am wrong!!!

Merlot

I also read it as 207.00 per week:eek:

ness_w

The £207 was for a week! In mitigation, it included three packs of nappies, one pack of night time nappies, big dishwasher powder and salt, huge pack of washing powder, all except the nappies will last more than a week. We didn't eat every single thing we bought, so this week should be cheaper, but we still must be averaging highly. I know it seems alot, but I have six children to keep in fruit, veg, cereal and milk, so there is a certain volume there. It doesn't seem possible to save very much by buying in bulk. If we take out the nappies etc I reckon we are spending around £20+ a head on food. I will look into separating it this week to see.
I have thought about shopping in lidl/aldi once a month - it's a long journey, would people recommend this or not?
I take the point about reuseable nappies but had them before and OH hated them so much it wasn't worth the stress, so I gave them away!
Re the washing powder - we live in an extremely hard water area, and I wonder if people who use the alternatives mentioned do too? It's a big problem as more of all cleaning products (especially descaler) is needed).

Thanks for all the great advice, please keep it coming!

Ness.

oldMcDonald

ness_w wrote: »

The £207 was for a week!

My goodness that is a huge amount per month! We have 7 in our family and I also include all the dog food and cleaning stuff in our shopping budget - at the moment we are on £35 a week as I am being really careful (we are hoping to save a huge deposit in order to buy a house), but if I am shopping carefully (as opposed to REALLY carefully) then i spend around £65 per week.

ness_w wrote: »

I take the point about reuseable nappies but had them before and OH hated them so much it wasn't worth the stress, so I gave them away!

It really is worth giving them another try, for the environment and for you purse. if your DH was that against them in the past then maybe he would change his mind if you were using them in order to save money for something specific that he also wants?

ness_w wrote: »

Re the washing powder - we live in an extremely hard water area, and I wonder if people who use the alternatives mentioned do too? It's a big problem as more of all cleaning products (especially descaler) is needed).

We also live in a very hard water area (the kettle furs up as soon as you turn your back!), and I find the grated soap is fine. I always add a little vinager to the wash as a fabric conditioner and this will also help to keep the scale down. Once a month or so I do the hottest cycle on the dishwasher and washing machine and add vinegar to it (empty load) to descale - also using vinegar on the shower head, kettle and anything else that even looks at the hard water!!



I really think you can save a lot on your shopping with a little work