So the key to eating cheaply is not to eat at all or be somewhere else.
You can make things yourself cheaply, but you need to be honest about the ingredients. There are a lot of hidden costs to making stuff yourself. Garlic bread for example needs a bread stick (presumably bought in), fresh garlic (granted it does last ages) and loads of butter (which is expensive now).
Fish pie is not a cheap meal to make yourself either. Fish is really expensive, plus milk, parsley, mash (milk/ butter) and cheese on top (again, not cheap these days). You could use ocean sticks, but I'm guessing you wouldn't want to. For a reasonable portion the fish alone must cost a fiver plus.
I'd say anything I make myself costs more! It will be bigger and use better ingredients.
I'd like to know what people have found to be a cheap but tasty alternative to premium priced products. ie a different type of fish, rather than the smoked haddock for a fish pie.
Sorry fella, I didn't mean it as an accusation towards yourself...I've seen a number of people in the thread saying similar. Hopefully the snapshot of our weekly menu has helped.
We have 2 freezers (a standard upright and a chest freezer). All meat get's bought in 1 go from the local butcher, and anything not being used gets frozen, same with bread, rolls, baps, stick's etc. We don't eat enough vegetables for my liking, so it's basically just carrots and broccoli, which are bought locally in the farm shop.
The ingredients for the Fish pie come from Tesco. I don't cook, so don't know what goes in it, but it's very tasty. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Staples?
Gives you extra iron in your diet! data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Freezers are a boon. Many times I end up throwing stuff away that gets put in the fridge and more often than not gets left. Guess you don't want exactly the same meal a day or two later.
Any fool can buy the best of ingredients and make something that tastes good, but it takes much more skill to work with lesser ingredients and still end up with a good result.
I never buy dried pasta, but we never seem to run out. My wife must buy it by the wheelbarrow full, but it is always magically there!
All in, ours is about £110 per week for 2 adults and one 20 month old. The 20 month old has what we have the next day so we're quite efficient in that regard (he doesn't have any jars and the like).
Butchers meat, fishmongers fish etc. Cook fresh every night and not a ready meal in sight (last one I had was when England beat Germay 5-1). Can count on one hand how many take-aways we have a year.
We don't 'overstock' either, even when there's BOGOF because we know we won't use it. Far too many people do this and end up throwing so much stuff away it's unreal. Put it this way, the single biggest thing we put out for refuse collection is the bloody packaging the food comes in, the unavoidable food waste (ends of asparagus, banana skins etc.).
So that equates to about £50 per person per week, counting the little'un as not a full person.
If the wife gets the shopping it's probably under £100 for the two of us for the week.
If I order it online it's two or three times that.Will be a lot more with all the take aways data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
We don't buy fish fingers etc for our son, we buy frozen white fish fillets from sainsburys at £2 per bag - proper fish and a hell of a lot cheaper and healthier. A bit of paprika sprinkled on it, then a little bit of plain flour, pan fried for 2 minutes each side and it develops a nice crunchy coating. He loves it.
Prawns are nearly always on offer as well, I'll pick some up when they are and use them in a fish pie or curry. There is always branded cheese on offer, 2 for £4 or whatever, we buy these and don't just stick to one specific brand.
I guess what I'm saying is we buy a lot of stuff that's on offer, but only things we can actually use and not just because its cheap!
We buy lots of fresh fruit and veg, some in this thread seem to be insinuating you can't do that and not spend hundreds per week - complete rubbish. The only thing that I accept some families need to spend a lot more than us on is meat, as there's only me and our 21 month old son who eat it.
I've just put an order in with the butchers for 4x8oz sirloin steaks, 5kg chicken breast fillets, 1lb back bacon and 2lb best steak mince - total cost £48 and that will last a month, the chicken 2 months.
We don't spend a penny on lunches, we both take our own and that's included in the shopping. We also have two freezers and both always have plenty of food in.
Just to make it clear, if we needed to spend a lot more on shopping it wouldn't be an issue. A significant amount of our income is disposable, our mortgage and all household bills are only 25% of our income so it's not as if we need to economise. We just couldn't spend any more without throwing loads away.
I don't think people that are spending a lot more are 'throwing loads away'. Apart from the odd banana if we don't make it through the bunch we have very little wastage.We normally choose our food based on what we like the look of, and if it's on offer then great.
A lot of the 'offers' are very dubious though - a lot of things are on permanant offer - e.g. at my local shop blueberries are always 2-for-1 - I don't think I've >ever< seen them full price.
I just checked our local butcher, and the steak, chicken and mince alone would be £59.They don't do bacon!
I wonder if we're seeing significant regional variations!