Food bargains

purplemonkey_2

Hi

I'm a newbie please be kind :wave:

I'm looking to save some money on our weekly food shopping, but without comprimising the quality of meals we eat.

I live in West Yorkshire, and currently use sainsburys online to do the grocery shopping. They send me a £5 off voucher every fortnight and I have delivery on a Tues or Weds so don't pay for delivery. We still manage to spend £100 per week, and there are only two of us!

Does anyone know of any good and cheap organic veg box schemes? Will this save me money? I am also wondering about ordering meat the same way, again does anyone have any ideas of any suppliers?

All help gratefully received

purplemonkey

sportbeth

If you can find one, seek out a farmers market near you. We've found a great farm shop recently and we come out with carrier bags full of organic vegetables for about a fiver.

Also butchers are great for good deals on meat. We got a load of bits a couple of weeks ago that we froze and we're still munching our way through it.

And..... if you buy a load of veg and then forget to eat it and have a load left, roast the veg and then freeze it. It still tastes great after freezing.

We're very smug with it all. Organic fruit and veg from a farm shop saving us money, doing the power of good for our health and helping local industry. it's win win!

Depending on where you are you can google farmers markets or farm shops and you might have to go a bit out of your way to find one, but it helps you plan meals and stops you going into the supermarket (where we can go in for 3 things and come out with £30 worth of shopping!)

Downsizing__for_sanity

You might be better posting this one on the "Old Style" Board - we're not THAT old! And the ethos of us oldstylers is to live well for less, so this should fit in nicely with your plans. Try reading through the "Grocery CHallenge" thread and the Stickies to start with.

DFS

BungleGirl

This is a link to a list of food projects throughout the country. it is not that up to date as I beleive the group that maintain the list lost their funding.

There may be food coops in your area that are not listed so it is worth asking around.

There are fantastic not-for-profit food coops around the country in particular in cumbria and wales. They offer a bag of veg or fruit or salad from local suppliers for just £2.50ish. The bag should include enough to last an average family a week.

Basically you order a bag (or however many you want) and pay for it in advance, then volunteers/members of the group place a bulk order with the local supplier. The supplier delivers the order to a 'collection point' school, community centre, workplace etc and the volunteers/members split the bulk order intoindividual bags. You then pick it up at a certain time and order and pay for next weeks bag.

Ask around, it is a great way of saving money, supporting local farmers and building community spirit.

If anyone is interested in setting up something like this PM me and I can give you lots of links and contacts. I'm a project officer for a similar scheme that is being set up in Suffolk by the way. You will often find that there is funding available to set this type of thing up in many areas.

Although such schemes are not often organic I thought this may help someone.

Aries

Hi Purplemonkey Leeds City open air market used to have a farmers market.I believe it used to be the first Sunday morning each month.
It wasnt well advertised,but it may be worth a phone call to the market office.
Kath. :T :T

steve7755

go to a diff supermarket chain each week and buy their offers if there good i.e. buy-one-get-one-free's etc.
sign up to fixtureferrets.co.uk and they will send you an email listing items on special offer in supermarkets featuring the key words you enter.

ben500

You could do a lot worse than check out a few of these

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=84865

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=81441

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=758547

http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Referrers;action=display;num=1081145150

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=77204&highlight=newspaper+coupons

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=80603

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=77071

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=79134

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=11502

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=691793#post691793

howalsh

£100 per week for two people?!!! I would die if we were spending that on the 4 of us! Do you ever buy supermarket own brands? Even so, £100 per week for 2 people!!! Farmers markets are great, I love 'em, but in my experience, we are not talking cheaper, so if its savings you are after, then not a good idea. £100 per week for 2 people!!! Dump Sainsburys & get to Asda or Tesco. £100 per week for 2 people!!!