What am I doing wrong?

doelani

We are 2 adults +2 teenagers then 2 night/days a week we have between another 1 - 3 teenagers. (stepchildren)

It is so hard to plan meals etc due to stepkids decideing at last minute they are coming or not coming, older daughter works most weekends so gets someof her meals in work , It is absolute mighmare :wall:


I have stopped buying crisps/ biscuits/ fizzy drinks to cut down but can still spend over £120 a week on groceries. This only includes lunches for one person .

Can I ask teh following that may help

1. Do you shop monthly , fortnightly, weekly or a few times a week ? I have tried all.

2. Do you include in your grocery budget cleaning products and personal car products?

3. What do you do with a man who will only eat a certain kind of spread which is £1.75 when I can buy others on BOGOF for £1.50. but still have to buy him his own brand.

been reading through what other have as budgets and ours seems so big compared to others. I NEED HELP

piglet6

Hi doelani!

Not sure I am the best person to answer your questions, but wanted to just say that you are doing nothing wrong. It sounds like you have a few areas to "work on" but you have already identified them and are working on them, so it sounds like you are in control of the situation...

Re: the "extra" stepkids situation, can you plan for freezer meals several times a week (either cooking meals which freeze well so leftovers can be frozen, or using meals, cooked in advance, from the freezer)? I would suggest trying to freeze meals in 2-person portions, so that you can add in extra people with little effort via defrosting (or if you are cooking "fresh" food, you can freeze any extra portions which don't get used).

My shopping plan will probably not help you particularly, as there are only 2 of us, so I tend to try and stock up on things when they are reduced or BOGOF, and make use of the freezer/storecupboard, so I don't have a "set pattern" for buying things as such.

As far as the certain kind of spread is concerned, I would be tempted to wash out the old tub of "approved" spread and re-fill with the BOGOF type of spread, just to see if he notices...?! :rolleyes:

Piglet

mineallmine

Hi,

With the teenagers, I think it would be cheaper to have some planned meals. How about having standby meals for them:

- For instance, Pizzas. You can often get them on special offer at Iceland or if there's one near you a Farm Stores (I think it's called).

- Another good standby is to have chinese or indian type food. Asda do good ranges. Morrisons do good tinned curries. You could even have some naan bread frozen to bulk things up. Plus you could serve with boiled rice.

- How about frozen Southern Fried chicken pieces - both Farm stores and Iceland do things like this. Plus you could serve with frozen chips or maybe onion rings.

Of course, if you can make fresh and freeze extra then this is the cheapest way. The ideas above, ie buying some convenience food, are there to help.

Finally buy the smallest size of the said spread for that certain man. So it may make him use less or be forced to use one of the others available.

Good luck!

squeaky

doelani wrote: »

We are 2 adults +2 teenagers then 2 night/days a week we have between another 1 - 3 teenagers. (stepchildren)

It is so hard to plan meals etc due to stepkids decideing at last minute they are coming or not coming, older daughter works most weekends so gets someof her meals in work , It is absolute mighmare :wall:


I have stopped buying crisps/ biscuits/ fizzy drinks to cut down but can still spend over £120 a week on groceries. This only includes lunches for one person .

Can I ask teh following that may help

1. Do you shop monthly , fortnightly, weekly or a few times a week ? I have tried all.

2. Do you include in your grocery budget cleaning products and personal car products?

3. What do you do with a man who will only eat a certain kind of spread which is £1.75 when I can buy others on BOGOF for £1.50. but still have to buy him his own brand.

been reading through what other have as budgets and ours seems so big compared to others. I NEED HELP

Hmm.. where to start...?

OK... whenever you make any sort of soup, stew, casserole, chilli, curry etc. always make extra on purpose to freeze for ready meals should you need them.

You can make your own bread and your own pizzas for much less than they cost in the shops.

Quietly substituting a value product into a "branded" container is always a good one

The step kids: Set a ground rule:- If they give you at least a day's notice the "might" get fed something other than bread and butter or jam sandwiches, otherwise they'll almost certainly get just bread and butter.

Budgets: people generally decide what they want to put in their budget - it's up to you. Just be consistent about it. I.e. don't include car products one month and not include them the next. So you could have them all in one (and call it the housekeeping budget if you like) or split them into separate sections.

salome

doelani..... I know how frustrated you are feeling. I have 6 children still at home, aged from 20-10, and with in the last year, our meal times have become very erratic. I try to remember to ask who's home for dinner and who isn't, but often forget, as the older one's are out the door before I can grab them lol. I have got into the habit of texting them to check on what their evening consist of, before I get the meal on the go. Often though, they will come home from college, raid the fridge, even though I say dinner won't be long they still say they want dinner, take one look at it when I've plated it up, and say, not hungry now, I ate too much earlier !!!!!!!!! The worse day was Sundays, as we go to a lively, active church, the youngsters are often asked back to others houses for dinner (I would love to repay the compliment, but our Rottie puts people off lol He's a big softie, but doesn't look it ???!!!) Anyway, Sundays were getting me down, because I'd get something on in the slow cooker, or stick some jackets on to cook slowly while at church so that they were ready for when we got home, only to have two or three of us eating instead of 8. Now, on Sundays, I do bacon and eggs, as that can be cooked on demand for whoever is around. In the week, if I've plated a meal, and one of them doesn't eat, I'll cover it, put it in the fridge, and most probably have it for lunch the next day. I could of course freeze down an uneaten meal, ready for an "instant" meal at another time. It is a headache at times, feeding these folk???????

frosty

Hi,the things I do are......
1)I have a set of smallish containers in the fridge and I make up things to use in sandwiches.In our fridge you will always find a tub of grated cheese,a tub of tuna and salad cream,egg and salad cream or mayo,sliced chicken.We buy as much reduced bread as we can fit in the freezer(10p/20p each).

2)crumpets are good to have in,you can turn them into mini pizza's.
3)spag bog,cook and divide into portions so you can just cook the pasta when you know who is coming to eat.
4)I always have some of those part baked rolls in,I buy them when they are on offer,they make great french bread pizza,serve with baked potato and salad.
5)Have you time to do home baking?I have found lots of great recipes on here.
Good Luck.

miserly_mum

frosty wrote: »

Hi,the things I do are......
1)I have a set of smallish containers in the fridge and I make up things to use in sandwiches.In our fridge you will always find a tub of grated cheese,a tub of tuna and salad cream,egg and salad cream or mayo,sliced chicken.We buy as much reduced bread as we can fit in the freezer(10p/20p each).

2)crumpets are good to have in,you can turn them into mini pizza's.
3)spag bog,cook and divide into portions so you can just cook the pasta when you know who is coming to eat.
4)I always have some of those part baked rolls in,I buy them when they are on offer,they make great french bread pizza,serve with baked potato and salad.
5)Have you time to do home baking?I have found lots of great recipes on here.
Good Luck.

Thats what I do aswell.

Loads of stuff prepared for sandwiches and plenty of bread/rolls etc. My boys( 8 and 10) can't waste precious playing time sitting down to eat a proper meal. So i've given up, especially when its good weather.

All they want is something nice in a Sarnie, bit of fruit and choc bar to stuff in their pockets and run straight out again. Its easy, no waste and relatively cheap if you shop around for reduced stuff

Ok its not ideal from a nutritional point of view but its better than picked over dinners scraped into the bin.

doelani

thanks everyone for your tips, going to do a check of whats in freezer tomorrow and see what meals I can make with them for next week as I am sure I can probally feed us for a week with whats lurking lol

Hubby says I should just maked stepkids something frozen if they turn up at last minute , which I may just do , I think our dog enjoys the day they do not turn up lol

I am reading back on the forum to see what tips I can pick up.

claireabelle_2

miserly_mum wrote: »

All they want is something nice in a Sarnie, bit of fruit and choc bar to stuff in their pockets and run straight out again. Its easy, no waste and relatively cheap if you shop around for reduced stuff

Ok its not ideal from a nutritional point of view but its better than picked over dinners scraped into the bin.

I was the same when I was a nipper and had a pony, so don't ever worry... would eat marmite sarnies and an apple every night as soon as I got in from school so I could rush back out and see him... and I'm fine

cat4772

Doelani

My parents would cook for us and the got fed up of throwing food away (or running out of plates when they'd 'plated' up the the food, we decided we weren't hungry, so they'd freeze the meal on the plate - was nice to shove the frozen plate in the microwave, defrost and cook and voila a meal on a plate 5-10 minutes later).. anyhow eventually the parents came up with a rule: they produce a menu for the week and we let them know what our plans are the night before (eat the food they prepare or fend for ourselves). If we ate the prepared food - no problem. If we changed our mind on the night, we were penalised by £5 (at the time I paid £60 a month board, to suddenly be penalised up to £35 in a week for not having the meals helped us learn lessons). By the flip, if we'd said not to cater for us and then turned up, we had cheese on toast or something.

of course, parents soon realised that there were foods that we'd eat until the cows came home and foods we'd sooner starve than consider eating but they didn't waste money buying and cooking food for it to be thrown out later on.

Cat.x

Bismarck

piglet6 wrote: »

As far as the certain kind of spread is concerned, I would be tempted to wash out the old tub of "approved" spread and re-fill with the BOGOF type of spread, just to see if he notices...?! :rolleyes:

Piglet

love it!!

we've changed labels in so many areas but this was one we've not really done..

had the amusing episode of the Tesco Value REAL butter in its paper type wrapper that went unused and Flora was chosen as preference - not sure whether it was because it was not a "quickspread" type or because it was blue-stripe....anyway...more for us....;)