Thats fabulous, I don't know how you do it, please tell, do you have meal plans etc? I would love to get my shopping bill down, I used to do pretty good spending about £300 per month, 2 adults and two kids, but since SW and OH's low fat special diet I just seem to be forever in the supermarket, buying fruit, vege, yoghurts tbh its really getting on my nerves.
Well to start with I only do green days i.e. no meat. Which help tremendously on the shopping bill. We have fish once a week. At the moment Tesco's have Salmon 2 packs for £5, so that's two weeks worth. We plan our meals, but unless we buy some reduced veg and fruit those can change at the last moment. These are are basic meals for example
Monday 5 bean chillie served with rice
Tuesday Garlic Mushroom Pasta
Wednesday 5 bean chilli served with rice (second portion of a large batch)
Thursday Mushroom Strognaff (with left over mushrooms from garlic mushroom pasta)
Friday Stuffed Peppers with couscous and salad
Saturday Tesco's meatfree burgers served with SW Chips and Coleslaw
Sunday Mixed vegetable roast (i.e peppers, potatoes, squash, tomatoes and onions)
The children have nuggets and fish fingers etc served with pasta ,rice or chips and the same vegetables as us. Sometimes they will try the veggie option as well, but I do have to bribe them.
Lunches 1 pack wholemeal rolls (husbands) 1 pack multigrain ryvita
1 small block reduced fat cheese
2 x packs of Aplen Lights
6 Mullerlights
12 eggs (£1 Iceland)
1 x wholemeal loaf (children's)
1 pack ham (childrens)
1 pack Laughing Cow
1 pack laughing cow lights
1 large bottle diet coke
Milk (which at the moment is 4 litres for £1.50 at FarmFoods)
And fruit and veg of course (this is probably the most expensive bit, but I buy these from a local veg stall and aldi's and lidl's).
2 x packs of Tescos meatfree burgers (£3 for 2 packs at the mo)
1 x Linda McCartney Sausages (£1 Iceland)
I can be easily done, plus on top of this I have £11 dog food per month and about the same for the cats and £4 fish food.
It does help that we eat similar foods. I shop mainly at Tesco's, Aldi's, Lidls and sometime Morrisons and Iceland. I don't ever do a bulk shop, it's a waste of money and you always end up buying stuff that you don't really need. Apart from Yoghurt's and cereal bars and the meatfree burgers or Linda McCartney Sausages we don't eat any process food, make all our sauces from scratch.
But the most important thing is sometimes I plan meals but most of the time I can get good veg and fruit reduced and plan my meals around those. I have alot of spices and herbs in my cupboards which I have collected that can make a plane simple veg meal quite interesting and satisfying.
I have to budget, I lost my job at Christmas and my hubbies money is very limited. But it can be done. Sometimes we go without stuff, but at the day the stuff we go without is only luxuries and not necessities.
Edited to say that my children eat once a week at my mums and once a week at in-laws, so this saves 2 children's meals a week, but they hardly eat anything so it doesn't really effect the budget.
