Grocery Shopping budget thread

catkins · 24 February 2014 at 5:40PM

Do you like chickpeas? Me and OH are vegetarian and eat a lot of lentils, chickpeas etc.

I make different curries with chickpeas -chickpea and spinach, chickpea and potato, chickpea and cauliflower. I also make spicy chickpea pasties which are just diced onion, cubed potato and chickpeas fried with some cumin, coriander and turmeric and made into a pasty. Felafal are easy to make and cheap and you can have them with salad or in pita bread. Hoummous makes a good lunch with some toast or pita bread.

Stews are cheap and filling. I just use loads of veg, pearl barley, beans etc (sometimes I put in cut up veggie sausages).

Are you big meat eaters? A lot of veggie meals are cheap - veg lasagne, veg curry, stir fry, shepherds pie with lots of veg and lentils.
What about veggie sausages? You could make toad in the hole, sausage and mash, sausage and mushroom pasta, sausage and bean bake (sausages, baked beans, fried onion mixed together with mashed potato on top)

peachyprice · 24 February 2014 at 5:55PM

You don't say how many you are feeding, but I feed 4 adults, 5 cats and a dog for between £100-£120 a week shopping at Sainsburys and Lidl.

Meals we have are:

Sunday roast every week, chicken on £100 weeks, lamb beef or pork on £120 weeks (I use the whole chicken too, no rubber chicken in this house) + pots & 3-4 veg

Homemade pork burgers (500g monce)

Spag bol (250g mince) - makes enough for 2 days

Chicken breast, jacket pots & beans

Pasta bake (fresh pasta & sauce, chicken, mush, leek)

Sausages & mash or sausages, egg & chips

Indian ready meal on a saturday night

Pizza from the fresh pizza counter at Sainsbury's with coleslaw

Beef stew (1kg shin)

Homemade breaded chicken with dauphinoise pots

Salmon fillet with mini roast pots

The key to success is definitley meal planning, write a shopping list for the meals you want to make and stick to it. And don't go to the supermarket again until you need more meals!

I wonder if weekly shopping would help rather than 2 weekly so you always have enough food in the fridge for the meals for that week, rather than in the freezer not ready to cook, where you end up going shopping for something more convenient?

newthrift · 24 February 2014 at 5:58PM

Sausage & mash or you can do lasagne cheap by using tinned tomatoes (blend them to make smooth) and popping a clove of garlic and some diced onion in and then make the white sauce - milk/flour/butter and I add a small garlic clove just to add a little flavour.
If you have the ingredients homemade pizza, or if you do an Aldi shop £1 pizza and you can just add to it.
Chicken wraps are nice and you can do cheaply and if you have fish you could make your own fishcakes and put with peas and homemade chips.

storytime · 24 February 2014 at 8:28PM

Two child friendly recipes my 3 loved were: Fish fingers, mash and peas smothered in cheese sauce and
Cheese and potato pie, 2 would eat this with sliced tomatoes on top and my DH and I liked chopped onion on top.

pinkparrott · 25 February 2014 at 11:10PM

skintmum2012 wrote: »

Mmmm
They sound really nice anyway I could get the recipe for lentil bake and the dahl please.

Delia does a nice lentil loaf recepie in her frugal food book (original 70s version)

My budgets different but a cheap meal that goes down well with my small kids is " spaghetti dish" basically cooked spaghetti then chopped garlic clove and a bit of streak or any bacon fried, mushroom - optional if you have one then put spaghetti in frying pan - crack an egg or two on it , mix well and grate a bit of cheese over and mix again. Fry till you get some crispy bits - which we all fight over! Result a bit like a poor man's spaghetti carbonara,can always add some frozen peas ?

I make 400g of lamb mice which costs £3,50 make two large family size Sheppard's pies ,once ibulk out with lentils, mushroom ,grated carrots ,chopped toms etc .

Gold_Dust_2 · 1 March 2014 at 10:53PM

For a family of 7 carnivores per month? (I say carnivores because meat features heavily on the menu). We've never budgeted before, and now that I'm trying to see how much we spend per month on average, I'm wondering if we're being a bit frivolous.

Busymumofthreeplusdog · 2 March 2014 at 12:09AM

I would start by looking at what you spent on average over the past few months. That will give you a baseline, then try to cut it down from there.

I got a shock:eek: when I looked at my average spends aug-dec last year for food & fuel. Since then I've kept all receipts and have a much more accurate figure. Now I'm working on reducing those numbers;)

Good luck!

EmmaHerts · 2 March 2014 at 12:27PM

May I encourage you to have a few days meat-free? It will save you some money.

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