£45 per week housekeeping

I agree CeeGee, it can be soul destroying when you have to budget week in week out. It sometimes gets me down and now and then I splurge and spend a weeks grocery money on a take away, then I end up eating it for 4 days in my lunch box cos Ive over ordered, didn't really like it - whatever, but I won't waste food intentionally

I don't have to budget as tightly as you, I choose to as overall I do have a tight budget and the less I spend on food and cleaning, the more I have to allow me to run a car, buy shoes, have a hair cut etc

I have to cater for 3 adults and a cat. The chickens mostly pay for themselves

I average £35 a week. Now and then my bill will be £60 but most weeks its around the £20-£25 a week mark. I always say on average as it does over a year

Mum does buy her own things that only she eats like cereal and cakes

Otherwise I feed the three of us breakfast , lunch and dinner 6 days a week. The 7th day me and he spend treat money and go out for a drink and sometimes get a Chinese but mostly we will have something simple like a toastie or a pasta dish or cheese on toast

I only loosely meal plan. I head to lidl and see what they have on their offers. Last week for example it was meat balls for £1 so I got 3 packs, one for the week and two for the freezer. I think I also got pork belly (2 packs, one for the freezer) and a chicken. That small amount of meat will feed us for most of the week believe it or not. Because I always buy one for the week and two for the freezer, there is always something in the freezer to supplement the week,

Vegetables are my next buy, once again I head for whats on the 29/39p offers and start there. Even if I have no room in my menu plan for something and its so cheap, Ill buy it. Like butternut squash last week at 39p, its usually £1 so Ive a couple in a dark cool cupboard, they will be used during the coming weeks somewhere - butternut squash risotto , butternut squash soup, butternut and spinach curry are a few things I make

I never buy expensive veg for a specific recipe. I either do without or I have another dish to use it up in. When it comes to things like cabbages and cauliflowers, I buy the biggest and heaviest I can find. If Im paying 99p for a cauliflower might as well get one that will do a few meals

The only salad type veg I buy is lettuce and tomatoes because they last a good while and also get used up in sandwiches. When we are having salad, I make good use of pickled veg such as beetroot, peppers, gherkins, cabbage. Coleslaw is made with a bit of the York cabbage I always buy ( no point in buying white cabbage just for coleslaw) I don't buy scallions when finely diced ordinary onions work just as well

Cleaning products are not needed every week. I have to pay out for fairy and persil. I have never paid full price for either. Persil is on offer every 6 weeks or so at £5 for a 45 wash, fairy is the same. Bottle of bleach every few weeks and a bottle of flash every couple of months and thats about the height of my cleaning shopping

Savers/poundshops and B&M are my haunts for toiletries. Deoderent we use is £5 in Tesco, £3 in savers. Toilet roll is got where ever its cheapest, sometimes Lidl, other times savers. Once again its bought only on offer

I find lidl brands very good and very good value for money

Like Jackio I don't throw food away. Yesterday I made a cauliflower cheese with part of a large cauliflower and made too much cheese sauce. So I boiled a bit of macaroni, added a bit of chicken and it was my lunch box today in work. It was a small chicken so not much left, but enough for DH's sandwiches today and tomorrow and if I wasn't in a CBA mood, Id be making soup with the carcus but ill stick it in the freezer for another day

I don't buy ready meals, I make everything from scratch so I keep a good supply of things like flour, herbs and spices. Lidl again is my go to as we don't have the luxury of ethnic shops which are so much cheaper for herbs and spices. I make a lot of Indian spiced dishes and Chinese style meals so those are the spices I always have, chillies,garlic,ginger, cumin, coriander , turmeric.. Both styles of cooking make small amounts of meat stretch and even make vegetarian meals tasty and cheap

My store cupboard is tinned tomatoes, tinned beans of various varieties , tinned fish - tuna, sardines, anchovies, salmon, stock cubes , rice, pasta, noodles, ketchup, mayo etc. These aren't weekly buys, just things I put in the basket when I see them at the price Im happy to pay and I always have one not opened so I don't have to buy on a tight week

I also trawl the yellow sticker sections. Last week I got bags of gram flour for 50p instead of the usual £1.50. I usually pick up fish and offal and cheaper cuts of meat in the reduced aisles as the rich so and sos around here go for fillet rather then stewing and legs of lamb rather then lambs liver so theres always something to be found

Learning how to make the most of expensive cuts means we do have them, just not as much as maybe the average Joe does, our portions of meat are smaller then most. But meat isn't our only source of protein in a day, eggs, cheese, fish and beans are also high in protein. Lunch is often tinned sardines on toast or eggs or cheese

It is a hard slog at times. Im forever looking at new recipes for inspiration so we don't get stuck in a rut. Food is so very important to us and we all like to treat ourselves with nice food, Ive just had to learn to cook it as we aren't paying someone else to