Feeding a family - without it taking over your life and your bank balance.
In this weeks Frugal Friday post I am looking at how I keep the food budget from running away with me when cooking main meals for my family of 5. Our groceries were costing us more than anything else each month and so a while ago I decided to rein this in and try and cut what we were spending. I have big eaters in my family. There is no way around that. They eat just about anything. I do get a little annoyed when people say to me that I am lucky that they do. I'm not lucky, I persevered when they were fussy and battled on. I am pretty strict when it comes to meal times and I wont treat the kitchen like a cafe where they can pick and choose what they want. I worked hard to get them not to be fussy. All us parents know what it is like when a child won't eat. It can be soul destroying when you have spent ages cooking something you think they will like only to have them turn their noses up. You just want to feed them and for them to thrive, but I persevered and they came through it. They do know that if they don't want to eat what is on the menu they can go without. They never do! I don't intend cooking 2 or 3 different meals every night for fussy children. I may sometimes do pasta as well as rice or offer custard as well as ice cream if we have a pudding, but that's as far as I go. Am I mean? I don't know, but it's what I can manage! I spend too long in the kitchen anyway! Now they tend to inhale their food they are so hungry, especially the boys.
I also resent spending hundreds of pounds at the supermarket every month on easy food when I know I can make a better version for less. I'd actually rather spend it on something else if truth be told. Food is not my passion! So, although it is more time consuming initially to cook everything from scratch, that's what I do. I feel happier that I know what is in everything and I can control what I am spending. I would say though, once you have a few meals in the freezer you can easily have one or two nights 'cooking free' a week so in the long run it actually releases time.
Although getting things at a good price is a big consideration for me, it is not the only consideration, I do also look at what is in my ingredients and try and keep an eye on those too. I won't buy something just because it is the cheapest if it is full of rubbish. However, sometimes it seems the difference between many products is just the packaging . The contents are usually pretty much the same . They charge more for a pretty box!
I do my main shop at Lidls now as I can keep it at around £50 to £60 per week. The quality is really good and their meat is all British. I tend not to buy my mince or stewing steak here as I can get it cheaper elsewhere, but for chicken and Pork it is ideal. Of course they don't always have what you want or need at Lidls so a degree of flexibility is needed here. Fresh fruit is always of a high standard and priced so you can compare between products easily. I always follow these rules:
- Have a menu plan for two weeks
- Write a list
- Don't deviate from the list unless something you would normally buy is on offer and you can stock up
- Buy enough for two weeks ( apart from fruit)I try and go as long as I can between shops.
- Don't shop when tired or hungry
- Check for codes,coupons and vouchers before you shop
There are always some items I need that I can't get from Lidls and I will , about once a month pop to Tescos to bulk buy these items.I try not to let myself run out of everything at the same time, but keep items topped up to prevent having to do huge panic shops. I again spend about £50 here. We also have our milk delivered to support our local service more than anything. This cost is additional to my Lidls and Tescos costs. I have a veg box delivered every other week now from our local farm shop. This costs £18 and I make it last two weeks, just topping up the potatoes. So, In total my monthly spend for a family of five for groceries ( including all cleaning products, soap and loo roll) is around £350 - £400. I could cut this a lot more if I went totally down the frugal route by dropping to basic brands on absolutely everything, but there is a quality controller in my house who calls himself The Husband. He isn't so keen on the value brands. Food is his thing ! So I take the middle ground. Can't have an unhappy and hungry man around the house now can I ?
Here is my last two week menu plan. Meals marked with an * mean I batch bake and freeze one or two extra meals. Sometimes I allocate a whole day to cook various meals to freeze. I change this each two week block as I get bored easily as do the children so although some meals feature often e.g spag bol, stew, faggots , I add different meals in to keep things interesting.
Day
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Week 1
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Week 2
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Sunday
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Lunch - soup
Dinner - Roast Chicken
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Lunch - Soup
Dinner - Roast Beef
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Monday
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Chicken Casoulet and Peas
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Coq au Vin and mash
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Tuesday
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Dinner - Faggots* and Rice
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Spaghetti Bolognaise *
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Wednesday
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Sausage Casserole and mash
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Stew and mash
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Thursday
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Lasagne * and salad/ homemade rolls *
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Lasagne and salad and homemade rolls
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Friday
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Pasta and bacon bits with cheese.
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Steak and Kidney pie *
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Saturday
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Lunch - soup * and rolls
Dinner - Chilli *
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Lunch - Soup * and rolls
Dinner - Chilli
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There are three things I could not do without in my weekly drive to provide good quality meals for less:
1. Freezer Meals/Batch baking.
2. Slow Cooker.
3. Breadmaker
1.By freezer meals I mean meals I have cooked myself and frozen. I do this by batch baking on certain days and freezing a few meals for the weeks ahead. This means I always have a selection of meals in the freezer ready to use. It means when I cook a meal I will either freeze any leftovers or I spend a day batch baking meals. My best freezer meals are Lasagne, Chilli, Steak pie, Faggots, Spag Bol, Veg burgers - I could go on. Recipes to follow in future posts. This is invaluable on busy days with the kids and also if I need a night off cooking. This minimises waste in that you have planned your meals, purchased exactly what you need and used it.
I buy my meat in larger quantities from a farm shop - the quality is better and it works out cheaper. I buy 10llb of mince as I get that for £16 . For mince it is £1.60 a Lb. Tescos is £2.84 for 500g at the moment ( just over 1lb) . I can make 5 family meals out of this and sometimes squeeze an extra individual meal to freeze out of it! That works out at £3.20 a family meal of 5 or 64p per person, for the mince per meal!! The faggots are made with pork mince and lambs liver and work out even cheaper. I spend about £35 in total. The veg burgers cheaper again. Why would I buy processed ready meals, full of sugar and preservatives that cost far more? My other ingredients are not expensive. For example my tomato passata is 29p a box, my puree 30p a tube etc.
2.The slow cooker is a must for anyone with children and a busy life. You can cook just about anything in one of these. They are not expensive to buy. Check them out here on Price Runner from £15. I got mine at half price for £30 in Tesco's double up deals. I can pop a stew or a risotto in the slow cooker in the morning or at lunchtime and it is ready when we get home. Make sure your slow cooker has a stay warm function on it. I will be posting some of my favourite recipes in the weeks to come.
3.My breadmaker is a Panasonic and it has more than earned it's keep! We have used it for white bread, wholemeal bread, spelt bread, bread rolls, speciality breads, pizza dough. I know it is not the same as a homemade loaf, kneaded and proved and loved, but I don't have the time for this everyday! You can make a loaf of bread very cheaply indeed if you are happy to go down the value route ( as little as 27 - 30p a loaf) , but I tend to get better quality flour as it improves the taste. Our bread averages out at about 60p a loaf, more if we are using organic spelt flour as a treat! ( This is really lovely bread, but it doesn't last long in our house) .We make a large loaf each time. A large fresh loaf at Tescos would be £1.20 so it is about half I am saving. However if I were to be picky we don't get as many slices as we cut it thicker! So I think I probably save around 40p a loaf. It still adds up over the year with the amount of bread that gets consumed in our house! I also like that I know what I am choosing to put in the bread my children eat. We go through a loaf or two a day . The bread maker goes on at night and then again in the morning. Nothing beats that smell waking up in the morning. Ok maybe fresh coffee does.
1. Freezer Meals I have done this week. ( Didn't catch them all on camera before they got snaffled up!)
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| One hot meal, one freezer meal. |
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| One hot meal, one freezer meal, one individual freezer meal |
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| One hot meal , 2 meals for the freezer ( not shown) |
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| One freezer meal, cooked at the same time as the chilli |
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| One hot meal, one freezer meal. Rough and ready looking, but taste great! |
2. Slow Cooker Meals This Week
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| 24 sausages in this baby pre cooking! |
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| Picture before going in the slow Cooker |
3. Breadmaker Examples
Random tips:
1. Be on the constant look out for vouchers and coupons you could use. Online, newspapers and magazines.
2. Beware of offers or coupons that give you extra points to purchase something you wouldn't usually buy. This is generally not a good use of money.
3. Check "Buy one get one free" and "3 for the price of 2" offers thoroughly. Often they are not quite as good as they seem. Check the aisles for other prices and deals.
4.If you have vouchers to spend stock up on items you would usually buy in bulk.
5. Don't feel you have to buy the knives or luggage your supermarket has given you vouchers for and told you that you can have for half the price....unless you really need them and you have researched the price!
If this is all too much in one go, try one thing. Drop a brand at your supermarket next time you shop. If you don't notice the difference in the product, then keep buying it, if you do, return to your usual brand! It's a start!
What tips do you have for keeping your grocery budget down?
Where do you shop?
