Food Bill

Evilspartacus

thriftlady wrote: »

Do you like beans and lentils? You can really cut down your food bills if you replace some of your meat meals with pulses. They are a cheaper form of protein and combine well with small amounts of meat -sausages and lentils, pork and beans.

I like beans and Lentils but the GF does not. Perhaps i will look into some recipes and maybe i will be able to convince her as i have not cooked as she said that she didn't like them *crosses fingers*

Evilspartacus

Kadeeae wrote: »

I think you've done extremely well for a first try - cutting your bill over half!! :T

Can't think of anything to add atm, maybe make your own rolls if you have the time?

Again, WELL DONE!

thank you i will look in to making Rolls

We make our own bread in our breadmaker im sure there is a receipe for rolls in the breadmaker book.

Evilspartacus

sammy_kaye18 wrote: »

Hi
Your prices seem ok but I have a few suggestions for some of the items you could change - I mean I dont know if there is a tesco near you or anything or if your able to get to one or get a food delivery to you but maybe its something you could consider. Ive added a few items that could maybe help and some would save you pennies one week but might be a bit of an extra spend the next.

Hope its helped a bit

I agree with thrifty too - pulses can be good in meals - even if you have a basic meal also meals that use mince freeze very well and can be padded out easily with pulses, vegetables etc and can be very filling.

Also do you do your own lunches if you work?? Does either of you have time to stay at home and cook/bake etc? because ingredients are some times much cheaper than the actual product.

Also filling up with more vegetables will help you stay fuller for longer - not to mention its a healthier option so you wouldnt need so much meat on your plate (not that im saying its loads that you eat) but how about jacket potato with side salad as a nice filling evening meal.

Again the whoopsie sections in mos supermarkets you are bound to find some meat products - what about chicken do you and your gf eat that as this can be stretched for a few meals between two of you.

Thanks for the advice.

Not sure i could bring myself to go into a tescos though.

I do have time to bake i make bread using our breadmaker and
occasionally make scones. I will look in to baking other things as well.

And i will defintley make the jacket potatos as one of our meals a week as we grow our own salad on our balcony and in a couple of months our potatos that are on balcony should be ready also.

We do eat chicken i think will buy whole chickens and make sure we use the whole animal maybe learn how to make a stock.

Again thank you for your advice

Evilspartacus

JenniO wrote: »

I think you've done really well too and admire you for not going to one of the big grocery shops like tescos and instead helping your local shops out.

Only suggestions I had were:

Do you really need bin liners? I don't have any.

Do you really need kitchen roll? Again I don't have any and I have a 4 yr old. I have about 6 cheapish tea towels. Use them for wiping up any messes and throw them in the washing machine so that next time I wash a load, the tea towels get washed too. It took a little getting used to but now we don't even miss them.

good luck with your meal planning and make sure to save this week's plan so that you can use it again in a few weeks time! Then in a month or so you can re-use your meal plans and that will save you a load of time.

Thank You

Yes i prefer to go to local shops as much as i can unless the farmers market is on.

I probably dont need bin liners actually I could just take the bin down to the communal bin. Our amount of rubbish is going down as we have started composting and being less wasteful.

And i could stop getting kitchen roll too i'll get some tea towels from a charity shop.

Thank you very much for your advice.

Trow

Orkneystar - even when we get our respective Tesco's (I'm a bit further north than you!), they have said they will be looking to see if they are going to charge us a bit more than their standard due to freight costs - not sure if that also applies to Orkney, but we might end up paying more than the mainland (nothing new there though, huh!)

At least you have a Lidl.... although we have a big warehouse store closing soon, I am really hoping Lidl decides to take over... they were interested in coming here a while back.