I've just worked out my budget. Turns out I'm currently skint I've decided I need to slash my shopping budget in half. So I want to feed me, wife, and two kids for £200 per month. Without going hungry or eating rubbish. Is this feasible do we reckon?
Of course it is, you just need to buy fresh real food and prepare/cook it yourself (I know you already do this or indicate you do) supplemented by your garden produce Fresh home made chips from your home grown potatoes are about £3 cheaper than McCains frozen chips :-) Letting your butcher down may be a help, Morrisons Supermarket were doing 8oz best Scottish Sirloins at £2 last week, perfect marbled meat, and two weeks ago were doing a sell by Fillet Steak at £3 a pound (the sell by was two days ahead so you could freeze it) Pasta is cheap, as are good cheeses Cereals are a good buy if you buy large as in 48's (I can not understand why people buy Weetabix 24's @ £2.00 when alongside is 48's at £2.40 ?? ) I use what Tatties I have managed to save, or stop at the roadside and buy 56lb of Maris Piper at £5 a bag fresh from the farmer Jack McH
The meat may be a lot dearer where you are, as you have lots of people wanting to buy Up here they put Fillet Steak out but no one can afford it so it has to be sold before it is ditched Mind sometimes we get fabulous MINCE Jack McH
I must confess I haven't been to the local butcher's for a good while, but not because of his prices, just because since I've been sorting my diet, we've not been eating very much meat in our house. We usually buy spuds direct from the farms in 56lb sacks, but half of them go bad before we use them. I'm thinking up ways to save them. One idea I had, which I haven't tried yet, is to make tatie wedges in bulk and freeze them, so they'll only need a few minutes in the oven or microwave to get them ready.
If I make jacket potatoes, I always put in far more than we are having for the meal (why waste oven space/fuel?). Then, I cut the excess ones in half, mash them, put them back in the jackets and open freeze them until firm. Then bag and tag. Only need reheating and I do find jacket spuds a good filler upper. Mash freezes well too. One of my childhood favourites was cheese, onion and potato pie. Basically mash with cheese and onion in it My mother would make the most fantastic soup out of bits and bobs; she would buy a marrow bone from the butcher and use that to make the stock and anything needing using up would be thrown in - mainly veg as I recall (meat was a luxury). Remember too, that "toad in the hole" doesn't *have* to be made with sausages. I've made it with tomatoes and cheese and it was very tasty. I've also used leftover roast meat, cut into chunks as a substitute for sausages to make it with and with the leftover gravy from the roast, it does make for a filling meal. Eggs are a cheaper source of protein, so do consider using them that way (love an egg curry! Just add boiled eggs to curry sauce until the boiled eggs are heated through).
Done it for years...You will need a pressure cooker that is essential, pack of chicken wings £2 that starts you off with a couple of pints of stock then just take it from there, bag of bones £1. butcher ,or pack of bacon pieces supermarket £2, bag of lentils/ more stock, leek /tatie/veg soup, chicken picked off makes a filling rissoto (dog has the bones) chopped up all sorts of veg + plus dumplings very filling, Shin beef from the butcher I buy a big lump get him to mince it no rubbish in that, then devide it and freeze I always buy a sack of taters/and onions, mash about 10 lbs at a time cooked in the pressure cooker 10 mins, then freeze in portions, instant cottage pie, this is all time consuming you need to set aside a morning and plan what you are going to do but you really do need a pressure cooker. Any meat cooked in that will be beautilful tender the list is endless and very cheap, Skim the fat of when cold and use it to fry the onions in before adding to the soup that way you get the full flavour of the meat.I could go on for hours I love cooking don't forget a good hand ful of herbs outa the garden thrown in at the last min. Enjoy....
I know how u feel and half Term doesn't help. I think if I remember right you have a child similar age to my daughter and a baby ? Batch cook everything when u can. If u cook from scratch you will be sip prised how far a packet of mince or chicken will go. You can easily purée down meals for babies. I get mince chicken breast ant stewing beef tomato purée herbs onions and veg to bulk up meals and oil / fry light and some cheap zip seal bags. You can actually cook 4 meals at once on a hob as long as you've got two frying pans with a slow cooker for beef stew making it quicker too. Just split the chicken into two when cooked. Do half Spanish chicken and half curry In the other frying pan do bologna use mince
Slimming world got a good recipie for chips too with not too much fat. My four year old and me (pregnant) has a banana for morning snack an apple for afternoon. Ceral for breakfast and either cheese or chicken sandwich for tea with a value yog. If your kids got sensitive skin buy Johnson's body wash and fairy laundry products for them and switch to value brands for yourself. It means you've got to split the laundry but it only takes a minute. Re usable nappies are also a money saver. Trick seems to be use disposable for poo then after stick a reusable one on.
Another vote for soups etc - A roast chicken or a wee gammon joint (about £3 in the supermarket) on a Sunday can go on to make a pot of soup that will see us with filling dinners for the next two days at least. Bear in mind that most fruit can be frozen, and used to make smoothies straight from frozen, so anything that is getting toward the point where you might want to bin it, simply peel it, bag it and freeze it. Don't forget that over-ripe bananas are ideal for making a banana loaf, and home made flapjacks are cheap and easy (cook them for a bit less time and you end up with granola ); In addition to the pressure cooker, I would also recommend a slow cooker - they are not expensive things (less than £20), and they are fantastic for taking the cheapest of cheap meat cuts and producing soups, stews and curries with each pot giving you two or three days worth of grub.
How long does it take you to use them, they should last a long time unless they have bin badly handled before they were baged, store in dry,cool, dark place frost free
I buy a 56lb sack for £7, then bag up 14 1lb bags and sell them on the doorstep for 50p a lb. Leaving 42lb of spuds for free. Well in theory, had one bag nicked last time.
£1 per person per day (£28/week for 4) is easy. Here's an MSE thread on how to feed a family of 4 for £20 a week http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4148389 All washed down with homemade wine @ 33p/bottle. 28lbs of unwashed spuds are currently £2 for 28lbs/12.5 Kg at Morrisons. P.S. My breakfast this morning cost 5p.
Slow cooker, great invention, inexpensive cuts of meat cooked slowly taste delicious, you could prep it the night before and pop into cooker in the morning, curries, soups, stews, lasagne the list is endless. With Mrs C caring for the baby and toddler she won`t have to worry, you can even set it on a timer if need be, and when you get home dinners ready.
