My monthly grocery organisation...

r.mac_2

Hello :wave:

I have been inspired by sammy-kaye's grocery challenge thread and its spurred me on to get organised with the grocery shopping. I am hoping that once I've organised myself once, it will get easier as time goes on. I often meal plan on a weekly basis and find that i do quite well, until about 5 days in. So I am going to try and plan on a monthly basis.

First things first, I need to work out what we actually eat and make a list of all these. I generally cook from scratch most nights. In order to make sure I have a balance going on I have tried to list these meals under headings;

Chicken
Thai chicken curry
chicken with cous cous
chicken curry
chicken stirfry
fajitas

Beef
Lasagne
Chilli con carne
steak and veggies

Pasta
sausage and tomato pasta
spaghetti carbonara

Veggie
roasted veg, mozzarella and pesto pasta
pizza

Fish
salmon with pesto and parmesan
pan fried cod fillet
fish in batter/breadcrumbs
fish cakes

easy/cheats
beans on toast

There are six categories and the idea is to have one meal from each category each week (as you can see some overlap, i.e. lasagne can be under beef or pasta!) with a free day. This can be for eating up leftovers or a take-away treat, dinner at friends or hoovering up what's not been eaten for various reasons.

On top of this I need to have breakfasts and lunches. For breakfast we normally have a bowl of cereal/porridge or toast with a topping. We do like a bacon roll on a sunday! DH eats lunch at work, so its just me and I tend to eat toast and fruit and baked potatoes. I need to factor in the extra ingredients for these into my shopping list.

I also love to bake so I need to factor these ingredients in as well.

I include my toiletries and cleaning products in this budget.

obviously lots of fruit and veg (for recipes and as snacks won't last the whole month, so I am ordering the staple items and then leaving myself a small budget for fresh milk, fruit veg etc.

There are just two of us, although DH eats as if he is expecting triplets! I want to budget sensibly and want to save money where i can, but we don't need to squeeze things too much. I think I'll probably be able to jiggle things as I go along. I try to downshift product levels to give value ranges a fair shot and use lots of value items such as tinned tomatoes, kidney beans and so forth. So this month I would like to try an overall budget of £200. (TBH I currently spent anywhere from £35-85 per week, so this is how I came up with a figure!). I figure spending approix £130 on the monthly big shop and saving the rest for fresh items.

I would love your thoughts and ideas on the above - I am having a blank on what we eat normally and not sure how realistic my budget is. Am I going along the right lines????

r.mac_2

well, tesco man is expected in about an hour or so. I ended up spending £108.36, but this doesn't take account of my £5 money-off voucher and the discounts of multibuys, two for one promotions etc. I think the final bill will come to approx £90.

I seem to have bought loads, but have to remember that this will need topped up with fresh produce each week. My calculations mean that I have approx £25 per week for fresh items, milk and bread and any take-aways or wine we want.

So far I am very pleased. I will endeavour to get our menu plan posted.

angchris

well done on trying to reduce your food budget, it takes a while to get ito the swing of it, i find its easiest if i freeze enough milk/bread for the month saving me popping out and spending £20. have you planned all your meals for the month or just taken a guesstimate? either way £90 for the 2 of you plus fresh top ups sounds a good figure to start off with. im sure once you have done monthly shopping once or twice you could shave a little more off of your total spend each month once you have an idea about how it works for you. does dh get free meals at work? if not you could save a few quid by making him lunches. keep up the good work you are doing a fab job...angchris xxx

lemonade_money

Hi there, I am intending to do the very same with pretty much the same budget as you. I like your ideas so will be watching with interest! I've tried various methods over the past few months but I always seem to spend a fortune in sainsburys (no other supermarkets nearby) so would love to see your menu plan. I think what you already did with the sections is very logical, a great idea so well done so far!!:beer:

bellaquidsin

angchris. I love your signature. Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do or do without.

I intend to make this my mantra as I head towards retirement.

Bella.

Benthosboy

r.mac wrote: »

Hello :wave:

I have been inspired by sammy-kaye's grocery challenge thread and its spurred me on to get organised with the grocery shopping. I am hoping that once I've organised myself once, it will get easier as time goes on. I often meal plan on a weekly basis and find that i do quite well, until about 5 days in. So I am going to try and plan on a monthly basis.

First things first, I need to work out what we actually eat and make a list of all these. I generally cook from scratch most nights. In order to make sure I have a balance going on I have tried to list these meals under headings;

Chicken
Thai chicken curry
chicken with cous cous
chicken curry
chicken stirfry
fajitas

Beef
Lasagne
Chilli con carne
steak and veggies

Pasta
sausage and tomato pasta
spaghetti carbonara

Veggie
roasted veg, mozzarella and pesto pasta
pizza

Fish
salmon with pesto and parmesan
pan fried cod fillet
fish in batter/breadcrumbs
fish cakes

easy/cheats
beans on toast

Need a lodger??

Martyn.

mrsclecoco_2

Hi I meal plan everything. I feed a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 children ages 3 and 2) on £200 a month. e use to spend in excess of £350 on what I have no idea!!!
I write a menu for the month and pay day go shopping for the main things and then it's feash stuff only. We have a green house and a veggie patch so that saves us loads. I work nights at tescos so i go in around 9.45 to get the really cheap reduced section things plus my 10% discount.This is the best time for meat and fruit, and my kids love fruit so I but it and freeze what I can.

I also do things like for example Alidi had 3 peppers for 59p (one pepper alone is 68p in tesco) I bought 5 packs 15 peppers and froze them. I freeze everything i can. I batch cook evrything i can.
I'm a bit tight when it comes to food shopping, i've got far better things to spend my money on!!!

pavlovs_dog

just thought i'd bump this. think the idea of having food themed nights could be just the thing to get me over my meal plan stumbling block!

piratess

Ive thought about doing the monthly shopping but i have enough trouble planning a weeks menus! .. and worry ill get stumped when thinking up a months worth! I also working weekday evenings so makes time short our freezer isnt huge so not sure if i could cook in bulk and freeze Im currently spending around £70 a week on shopping then £20 on extras during the week! .. thats for 2 adults and 3 children,

any help or input ideas would be great x

pavlovs_dog

piratess, i know some people here have three or four weekly menus which they rotate. so using the themed night method, choose your themes, write a list of meals that fit that theme, and then choose one as your main meal for each night of the week. im sure you could find 7 dishes to fit each theme, which would give you 49 dishes to choose from, so you'd be sorted. obviously the more dishes under each theme, the less repetative your menu would become. as an example....

mon: veggie - veggie curry, veggie burgers, ratatouille, stir fry

tues: chicken - chicken curry, chicken fajitas, chicken kiev, marinaded chicken, chicken chasseur

weds: pasta - lasagne, carbonara, pasta bake, bolognaise

thurs: fish - breaded/battered fish, smoked haddock, fish cakes, steamed fish

fri: rice - risotto, curry & rice, chicken supreme& rice, rice salad

sat: pot luck - take away, jacket potato, carpet picnic, leftovers, stew (ie anything goes!)

sun: roast - chicken/lamb/beef/pork/duck/sausages/pie n mash/shepherds pie

once you've chosen your main meal, all you need is the side dishes, which are always much easier to choose then the main dish

newlywed

I did a list similar to op and found planning a month's menus much easier with that as a base.

I print out a blank month - add in the weekend meals (where I have more time and we have the kids so have to be kid friendly), new meals from mags, books, roast dinner etc. Then I pick the quickest meals and put them down for busy days (eg pork chops and frozen veg).

Scatter a few slow cooker meals (eg huge batch of chilli) fill in the days we'll eat the frozen leftovers (so the same meals are scattered through the month).

Then pick what I fancy for the other days

The only thing I am trying to do is to have at least one fish day every week as we love fish but I don't seem to plan it in regularly enough.

If you look at the weekly meal planning threads, you can get ideas of things you used to cook and forgot about Or I can put my meals list up if you would like?