Buy whole chicken - cook and have a meal with it whatever - with roast veggies and salad is our usual.
Use leftover meat in another dish, like mixed in with rice and veg or in a soup
Really take away every last shard and use teeny bits mixed into a salad with egg and veggies too (or I like warm salads - say bacon (or the chicken added at the end) and onion fried gently with lots of spinach or purple sprouting brocoli and some chicken stock (see below), garlic salt and pepper - so yummy)
Take all bones and add to stock pot with water and splash of vinegar (to draw minerals out of bones further into liquid). Sometimes I add leftover veg and garlic bulb etc too, sometimes not. Leave tio simmer all day on low heat or cooler side of Aga. Voila, lovely rich stock! Freeze half and use for bases of soups - or add to the warm salad above or make gravy/sauces etc.
There's also a lot to be said for 'phoning up your Nana, and asking what she would do with:
chicken bones
leftover mince
random cuts of meat
yesterdays soup
etc,etc
Did anyone see the programme last night about the diet in the second world war? I only caught the tale end of it, but basically the whole thing about making things last and eating seasonally etc actually meant that the couple who followed it for only a week were much healthier than they had been before they started the diet. Definitely food for thought (pardon the pun!)
We spend around 80-90 a week for 6 people, including 3 children that eat adult portions and 1 child that eats their own bodyweight in potatoes every day ;D
What has sliced my shopping bill down has been doing a meal plan ever week, making a list from it and only buying the ingredients I need. Has stopped loads of waste.
I tried veg box, but £7 or £10 only got me enough potatoes for one family meal and veg for 2 maybe so was not feasable at all.
I also know the price I pay for all main things we buy, and I buy the cheapest. I shop around and bulk buy loo rolls etc from Makro when there are offers on. I wait for BOGOFs to come around on things we buy and then buy en masse
I also cook everything from scratch, apart from about once a week when we have a frozen meal (pizza).
I have a 5 weekly menu (my hubby works 5 weekly continental shifts) and I do a monthly shopping order online. We also go to a monthly farmers market and have a weekly veg box delivered. I freeze the meat/fish/etc then take them out when I need them. Then I only have to buy milk, cheese, eggs (not for much longer though as we are getting chickens next month ;D) and fruit. We probably spend 400-500 per month.
I too fiind it very difficult battling with my conscience regarding organic/fairtrade foods. I'm finding it very difficult at the moment.
Can I just ask what percentage of everyone's weekly/monthly earnings are spent on food. Ours is about 20%, maybe a little more some months. Well below what people used to spend on food but higher than what average bob spends on theirs.
I suppose percentage wise, it would be about 20-25% but that includes all groceries not just food.
I'm not surprised people can't spend a third of their income on food anymore, housing costs are a far far far higher % than they used to be, as are utilities.
I've decided to set myself the challenge during June of writing down everything I spend - so I'll let you know in a month or so's time! I wouldn't even like to hazard a guess; but I expect it is a lot…......
You download your bank account and then tag everything at the end of the month it breaks everything down into categories and shows you how much you have spent in each category. I did it for a couple of months and it's quite scary!! But it's very good at giving you a wake-up call
This is a fascinating thread! WE have a fairly strict budget of £100 a month for all food, household, toiletries and pet food for 2 adults, 2 kids (5 yo, 3 yo) and a cat, and I must say I find it hard. I try and buy as much organic and ethical as a I can and our £100 includes local dairy milkman (about £10), weekly veg box (about £35) and the rest in health food shop/waitrose/market. As someone else said, it's fruit that gets us - the kids often eat an apple each a day plus raisins, a pear, grapes etc and trying to get it all fair trade and organic can be tough. me and DH try to eat seasonally but the kids are picky enough as it is so I do try and get them healthy things that I know they'll eat, and they are ALWAYS hungry - they eat more than I do each day - 3 course breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, tea. I try to plan my meals, I cook most things from scratch and do my own biscuits, bread and cakes too but it still creeps over that £100 mark if I'm not really vigilant. I do wonder if it makes a lot of difference where in the country you are? We're in the South east just outside LOndon. Those of you who spend less for more people, where are you?
Oh yes, we spend about 25% of our income a month on food/toiletires/household, and another 45-50% on mortgage. Not an awful lot left over once we've also paid for DH's commute and bills. Maybe £20-50 a month if we're lucky. :(
[quote author=Julysea link=topic=1543.msg16870#msg16870 date=1211826242]
I do wonder if it makes a lot of difference where in the country you are? We're in the South east just outside LOndon. Those of you who spend less for more people, where are you?
We live in the North East not to far from Newcastle, it's supposed to be one of the cheapest places to live in the UK. I no longer think it is. When I first moved here you could eat and live realy cheaply, I was always amazed at how little you needed to live on as the cost of living was so low but over the last 2 to 3 years everything food, morgages living have shot up.
Morgages and house prices are cheaper, than down south, but the wages are a lot lower so it gives a false inpression of being cheaper the option.
[quote author=Julysea link=topic=1543.msg16870#msg16870 date=1211826242]
This is a fascinating thread! WE have a fairly strict budget of £100 a month for all food, household, toiletries and pet food for 2 adults, 2 kids (5 yo, 3 yo) and a cat
Liz, please tell me how you feed a family of 4 for £100 per month I need much more detail ??? ??? or should it be £100 per week?
We use Microsoft money- which does a similar function. We can have 'reports made for us detailing our expenditure…...it is scary but you really cannot get past exactly where the money goes. It is also very interesting how much you can underestimate on things- such as food shopping- forgetting all the little top up shops etc. Always interesting to see how much food jumps up over Christmas- in relation to it only being two days!
