Sorting out my housekeeping.

ness_w

Thanks again for all the replies, one of my many problems in cutting back is that I live in a small rural market town, so no Asian grocers, wholesalers of any description or even value supermarkets. I wouldn't swap it though, so am not complaining! Will certainly be trying out all the ideas I can a bit at a time. I was hoping this week would be cheaper, but OH was passing an Asda today and came home with a load of shopping (said it cost '50 quid' - no receipt) that is cheaper than we can get here, but that we don't actually need at the moment. Never mind, next week will be REALLY cheap!!

Ness.

Merlot

Ness W, Can you shop online from Asda, get a free delivery code and then you or your OH will not be tempted to shove stuff in the trolley cause its a bargain.

Heres a link to the asda free delivery board on MSE.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=553261&highlight=asda

Can I suggest you take a look at this website, it gives you the best value supermarket and gives you cheaper alternatives to the stuff you put into your trolley.http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/FirstTimeHome.aspx

I only discovered the website last night and I have managed to shave £10 off my £60 weekly shopping bill, but that does include a few bottles of wine.

monkey22_2

Two things that help us:

We get nappies, washing powder, toilet rolls etc in bulk from Makro, it works out much cheaper than buying them every week.

I try:rolleyes: to grow a few fruit and veggies to supplement the weekly shop. This only works in the summer for me but if you're organised it's possible to have fresh veg all year round. I'd recommend salad leaves/lettuce and strawberries and raspberries (if you've got space) because they're really expensive buy but really easy to grow.

belfastgirl23

Second the online shopping suggestion. It gives you a really good chance to look properly at prices per 100g/100ml or whatever and shave off a few £ here and there. If you use mysupermarket.com to start with then it will show you the difference between different stores for your shopping basket. And once you've done an online shop, all of your favourites are saved so next time you go in all the basics are already up there. In my case too anything that keeps DH out of supermarkets is worth the delivery charge although I use a lot of codes etc too to keep this down.

ness_w

Thanks for all the ideas, by paying attention to what I'm spending I have managed to get the last week down to £108.99, that's £13.50 per head (not counting the dog, so a bit less) and includes nappies so I'm pretty happy. If I could keep it as an average I think that would be pretty good going as everyone is still getting just as much milk and fruit and veg as before.

Ness.

oldMcDonald

Wow, thats a drop of almost £100 on the week.

Well done!

affordmylife

thats much better ness. no one could sustain that level of expense for very long!! well not unless they were very wealthy anyway.

good luck with it all.

joannasmum

Sorry Ness
I didn't see this thread first time round. First can I say that some of your meals sound yummy. I've just had a couple of thoughts from your first post.

1. Have you ever tried pocket reuseable nappies. Fuzz Bunz or Minkis are favourites in this house stuffed with hemp at night or microfibre cloths in the day. DH couldnt moan about them as they were just as easy as a diposable to use if I stuffed them first. They are expensive but if your going to use them for a while there worth it. I also only had about 1.5 days worth as I use to do a wash when dd was in bed and hang them up over night and they were dry the next morning.

2. Could you replace your quorn nuggerts meal with HM bean bugers ie make a batch up and freeze

HTH