need help with weekly shopping bugdet

[petra_william]

well, ive asked this question on another forum and didnt really get the answers i wanted so i thought id try here...

we are a family of 2 1/2 - mummy and daddy with big appetites (daddy works hard and mummy works hard at nursing ds lol) ds wont eat a lot but he loves his fruit! (he is 19 mths)

ds is cowsmilk intolerant
we eat meat but want to cut down to go vegetarian eventually

so my problem is we just spend far too much (and money is getting waaay to tight!)

how much do you spend on your weekly shop and WHAT do you buy? i CAN cook and like experimenting - i guess im sometimes too lazy and could do with some inspiration.

how can i make food last longer? how do you store left overs? (our freezer isnt very big)
how do you shop to save money without losing quality?
we kind of started growing our own veg but only tomatos grew so thats the one thing we have for "free" although i hope next summer we'll do better.

any help /advice appreciated, but would love to see examples of shopping lists / food plans for the week!

TIA Petra

[fek&fuzz]

what do you tend to buy and eat now?

[petra_william]

its different evvery week.

a few examples...

ill buy a whole chicken (HAS to be free range at least, organic better) will do either a curry or stir fry or similar with half of it and then use the rest to go in a chicken and veg soup the next day

wednesdays it has to be something we can eat on the go as we go to our weekly reenactment meetings so its either baguette or pizza or double cheese toast (use peppers, tomato puree, cheese, maybe salami, olives, sweetcorn, onions, that kind of stuff)

mashed potato (either as a pie with mince meat or quorn or with veg and meat or spinach for ds and me)

spaghetti bolognaise or lasagne

i try to make my own bread (a breadmaker is on my christmas wish list)

we have houmus - (not tried making this myself. i should probably) or other vegan spreads - so these are expensive

try not to buy processed food although we do have a take out maybe once a week which we want to stop doing - ideally i would want to have something in the freezer but need ideas ....

i have sat down and thought about what to buy etc and think ive got it sorted and then i get to the end of the week and realize i STILL need to buy for teh weekend so end up spending more again..