Food Shopping

I do like to food shop and like you make a game ot stretch the food budget as far as I can...... I was just thinking out loud about what somone else would pick up and put in my trolley if they had my budget. Not sure what country you are in or what shop you shop in.. but you can play the game with my food budget money on mylot if you can or wish to.. would like to see what you would put in my trolley. I have £50 per week to spend in Tesco's for 5 of us. I only eat the fruit and veggies, everyone else eats meat and fish etc. I have four packed lunches to make each day, sandwiches/homemade cake and three fruits each. Children have crisps once a week in packed lunches. I also have to buy cleaning items/bathroom items etc with that money so buy everyday range where possible...... so lets say I have £40 just for the food items. Looking forward ot seeing what you come up with.... we work on eat it or go hungry in our house

I live in the US so that part may not be so much different. But... do you bake your own bread? Are you home to cook everything from scratch? Do you have a good storage pantry? Does your family like beans? Stew? Liver? Those things will save a lot of money. The way you cook and portion the food will make a difference, too. Seasonal vegetables: Cabbage - $2 @ 50 cents a pound for two to three meals. Cut it in half and boil it, shred it to make cole slaw or to add to a soup, stew or salad. Carrots - $1 @ 30 cents a pound is enough for a stew, roasted carrots, sliced into a salad and to make carrot sticks. Potatoes are about $4 for 10 pounds here. Bake them, boil them, fry them, scallop them or whatever. 10 pounds should last you a week for five people. Here, I would buy apples. The fresh crops are coming in and they're so good right now! They're about a dollar a pound, though, so one or two each will do it. If you can get a 3 pound bag, they're usually cheaper at around $5. Grapes are still good and are usually $3 a pound. Two pounds would make at least two deserts or breakfast fruit for the family. That's $15, but you'd need more variety of each, I would think. Onions, cucumbers, radishes are all around a dollar a pound so mix and match about three pounds of them. Add in some citrus fruit (just a little - a half orange per person maybe) and some bananas at around 50 cents a pound. Let's say $7 for all that. That makes $22 if my math is right. Fish is expensive here so I only buy it occasionally. It may be cheaper there. Beef and chicken are mainstays of meat here. Chicken is cheaper and can be very versatile, so a whole chicken at around $5 and a couple of pounds of ground beef at $3 each. Roast the chicken and portion it for the first night, then boil it and take the rest of the meat from the bones. Carefully take every bit of meat from it. Freeze it in two portions. One, make noodles or dumplings with it and the other, make a chicken pot pie with that and potatoes, carrots and onions. One pound of ground beef can be the basis of "hamburger stew" or a meatloaf loaded with vegetables and grains. The other one can be fried in small patties, then covered with gravy or tomato gravy (use tomato sauce in place of water or milk), or make any of a number of skillet or soup dishes with it. Macaroni and cheese with ground beef, stroganoff, ground beef with rice and vegetables, etc. So that should be around $33. That leaves you $7 for basics like rice, flour, salt, sugar, tea and so on. Can you do that? I don't know! Here are some tactics I use to help: I concentrate on seasonal vegetables and fruits. Sometimes canned fruit makes more sense in the off season, but it's usually better to buy fresh what is seasonally available. Vegetables should change with the season, as I said. Here, things like cabbage, carrots, potatoes and onions are in their late harvest so I can find good, fresh vegetables at a low price. Secondly, I go to the source when I can and buy locally. Forget the grocery stores until I've run out of other options. See if you can find farmers or gardeners who would sell their produce at a good rate. Set back a little money to buy in bulk when you can and freeze, can or dehydrate it for later. Thirdly, stock up on on sales. Even if it's just one or two extra of something, get it while it's on a good sale and you won't have to pay full price for it later. Keeping a good pantry can save a lot of food money. There are probably as many ways to save on food as there are people, but what works depends on individual circumstances.

No I don't bake my own bread but I do have a quick recipe for white bread... but I do like ot give my family brown bread. I can buy a Tesco own brand brown bread for 47 pence. 12 own brand white bread rolls for 32 pence so I think it is cheaper to buy bread ready made. I;m very good at picking up reduced rolls/bread etc when I see them in the shop. I do try to cook everything from scratch as I normally cook enough for a freezer meal. I have quite a good store cupboard, and could cook up quite a few good meals from it without having ot og shopping. Ie in another discussion I asked if you could cook a meal from your store cupboard if visiters popped in etc. Well thats me. I cook casseroles which are the same as stews. My children love chicken liver and bacon casserole. A 50 pence pot of liver and a packet of 97 pence bacon will cook my hubby and three children who live at home two meals. (I only eat the fruit and veggies) Beans are sufferable to them, depends what I do with them. Three like baked beans from a tin, four will eat butter beans in a casserole, can sneak them into other things as well, but not really there thing on a day to day basic, but do use them. They do like cabbage which does surprise me. Carrots apart from eldest son will eat carrots on table. But son will eat carrot soup/carrot cakes/cupcakes and shreded carrot in coleslaw. Tend to buy coleslaw as its only 20 pence a pot and only hubby and him eat it. But I made my own potato salad as everyone likes that and they do like my home made one to the shop brought one. Love the spud ideas and apart from frying them do all those and bake them. Youngest son don't like the skin but eats all the middle and scraps right down to the skin so he don't waste anything. Eat quite a few apples so buy big bags from the farm shop, always buy a sack of spuds from there as well. If I know I'm going ot have time I buy a net of pony carrots and pick them over, odd shape, not so good ones I make into soups etc and use the others for veg and carrot sticks, apart from eldest son they all take carrot sticks in lunch boxes. Grapes only use in lunch boxes. A normal everyday range from Tesco's is 98 pence. They have about 6 grapes each. Hubby is very good about having the really ripe or squishy ones. Kwi 69 pence for a net of six. Hubby and eldest eat them. Onions £2 net from market does us ages. Buy two cues a week as they like slices in boxes, don't like it in sandwiches. They are 80 pence each, radishes just gone up in price but do buy as a treat if having a salad meal. Oranges no go but do buy satumas they are £1 for a net of about seven. Banannas I buy two bags a week at £1.25 ish. I eat bananas alot. I blend a few sown alongside a pineapple which costs £1 and freeze in pots and put on natural yourhurt every morning for part of the children's breakfast, they also have a mug of milk and a bowl of ceral. Toast if asked for.My shopping money buys 12 pints of milk and then we do have ot buy extra milk during the milk. Could do with a cow in the garden. Sometimes we also have ot buy a few more banans, but thats it, don't buy anything else inbetween weekly shops. I'm very good about that. Don't buy too much fish. £2 for a bag of frozen cheap fish. Ten fish fingers are 60 pence. Only hubby and eldest will eat fish fingers so to get other two to eat them I make FISH FINGER PIE, nice and cheap to make. Buy cheapest meat 20 sauasges for £1. Cheap chicken frozen and pork. They don't like lamb. They like gammom slices which are two for £1 Mince, a bag will go three or four meals as I bulk it out with vewggies and extra rice or pasta. Reading through what you have written and you reading through what I have written and reading inbetween each other lines we can both see that we are singing from the same hymn sheet as they say. Its good ot read your ideas even though you are not in England as its good to hear other peoples views etc and hopefully we have inspired a few fellow mylotters into ideas on how to save etc. Hope you didn't fall asleep while reading this, hope everyone else stayed awake as well as some very good information written here by you and if I dare say myself as well. Thank you os much for taking the time for such a long reply. Very good reading.

Can't afford to hire help, would be nice sometimes just ot see what different items they would bring me that fit into my budget. Don't like clothes shopping, never really liked it so if I had ot have a personal shopper it def would be for clothes for me and family

I do like to shop for food, sometimes if my list is in order I can get in and out in 39 mins. I do like also to look for bargins and more speical offers when I have time or I want ot do something different. Would you share your meal ideas with us

I love to cook as well and like ot spend as little in the food shop, I was just wondering what sort of foods the other person would bring me to cook with. I know what ever they brought I would be able ot make it last the week and create things with the food. Just thinking out loud what they would buy with my budget money and the brief that I would give them before they went. I wonder what different foods they would choose ot buy as I tend to og for the same sort of foods, but I know there are other foods out there that would fit into my budget

No you are right, I'm a Tesco girl, its the cheapest nearest one ot us. Well done my dear friend