Food bills set to rise.

I love the reduced section in Tesco, it all goes in the freezer or is eaten that night or the next day, and it doesn't hurt to have a meat supply in the freezer!

When using quidco, also check out top cash back - they have no annual fee, and no minimum payment threshold, and the two companies often have slightly difference percentages / pound amounts for each company so it's worth checking both to get the best on offer.

When shopping, always check the price per kg or price per mL rather than the cost for the item.... sometimes what looks like cheaper isn't cheaper over the long run.

Check the prices properly on fruit & veg - i noticed the other day that sainsbury's basics carrots were more expensive per kg than their organic ones. so all those people trying to save money and just grabbing the bag of 'budget' ones were being ripped off.

I think my main thing will be trying to make more myself. Eg used to make all my own curries but haven't done that much since the kids were born, need to do that. And my own pasta sauce for that matter too. I've become very rubbish with it all and it obviously saves lots of money as we eat both of those things often.

I don't know if it's still the case, but when I used to have tesco shopping delivered I used to always get discount codes online to get £10 off. Same with boots, there was always a code available. Haven't done either of those in the last year though so not sure if it's still the same.

Have been contemplating buying a breadmaker, £1.40 for an awful tasting loaf of bread isn't great. But I'm wondering how many loaves I would need to make before I break even Haven't convinced hubby on that one yet.

My parents in law always go shopping at the time when things are being reduced. WE will buy reduced stuff as well and pop it in the freezer.
DH and I will eat pretty much anything, it is insparation I lack, DH is good though and will come up with some really delicious meals for us.
Stuff that gets thrown out in this house is lunch stuff like cold meat and coleslaw as it is just me home to eat it, coffee I don't mind own brand, cheese I will buy value if it is just for a cheese sauce. Meat I try not to buy value, Tesco value chicken breasts are tasteless and full of water , things like steak we don't have very often so when we do it is fillet but that is maybe once a month when we really fancy one.
It is scary when you pop in for a few things and come out £150 lighter and that is without washing powder etc, I have been trying own prand washing powder but am finding it isn't rinsing too well x

Sy pretty much lives on schweppes lemonade, galaxy chocolate, Birdseye chicken nuggets / burgers and chips and very little else he will eat fresh chicken but only the breast so that costs a fortune. He probably gets through near a fivers worth of chocolate and biscuits a day!

Formula bumps ours up, it went up from £7.50ish to £8.99 last week!!!

I should add that I don't eat like my husband, and neither does Sandy

Scott eats a whole packet of choc chip cookies for breakfast at work everyday, sandwiches with 3 packs of crisps and 3 chocolate bars for lunch, dinner (sometimes what I am cooking, sometimes rubbish that he makes himself) followed by best part of a box of cereal and 1-2 sharesize bags of chocolates such as minstels etc per day! He is 6'6'' tall and only weighs about 13 stone!

Tyler and I don't eat like him either although Tyler eats a huge amount of fruit and veg which is equally expensive

Scott eats a whole packet of choc chip cookies for breakfast at work everyday, sandwiches with 3 packs of crisps and 3 chocolate bars for lunch, dinner (sometimes what I am cooking, sometimes rubbish that he makes himself) followed by best part of a box of cereal and 1-2 sharesize bags of chocolates such as minstels etc per day! He is 6'6'' tall and only weighs about 13 stone!

Tyler and I don't eat like him either although Tyler eats a huge amount of fruit and veg which is equally expensive

Good grief!! I can see why that would cost you a fortune!!!

I deffinatly need to start checking out the reduced section for meat...becuase i buy online i dont get to see the reduced section but we have a co-op in town and im in town 3 times a week at least so i need to remember to check it out...that would save us alot of cash if i could cut it down a bit...we only eat beef, sometimes lamb... hubby wont eat chicken/pork etc... i love our butchers but it IS expensive and deffinatly more expensive than the supermarket...although maybe its better quality and then im back to the price/quality balancing act again

I think i need to start checking out ice-land too for some of their frozen veg/fruit... the kids also eat fishfingers every now and then but i only like them to have the 'decent' ones (100% cod ones etc)... but ice-land prices seem to be quite cheap compared to the same brands in sainsburys...

Sy pretty much lives on schweppes lemonade, galaxy chocolate, Birdseye chicken nuggets / burgers and chips and very little else he will eat fresh chicken but only the breast so that costs a fortune. He probably gets through near a fivers worth of chocolate and biscuits a day!

Formula bumps ours up, it went up from £7.50ish to £8.99 last week!!!

I should add that I don't eat like my husband, and neither does Sandy

Scott eats a whole packet of choc chip cookies for breakfast at work everyday, sandwiches with 3 packs of crisps and 3 chocolate bars for lunch, dinner (sometimes what I am cooking, sometimes rubbish that he makes himself) followed by best part of a box of cereal and 1-2 sharesize bags of chocolates such as minstels etc per day! He is 6'6'' tall and only weighs about 13 stone!

Tyler and I don't eat like him either although Tyler eats a huge amount of fruit and veg which is equally expensive

they sound very similar, Sy has dry cheese and crisp sandwiches every day in his lunchbox. He's working two jobs so ha a lunchbox for supper swell as lunch some days, so its cheese sandwich Central. He also thinks a packet of biscuits or a family sized bar of galaxy is an appropriate breakfast. He is 6 foot 1 and is very skinny. It worries m sick as his dad is huge and fat and diabetes runs in their family I had thought he was th only one, I feel slightly better I am not alone!

I
Have been contemplating buying a breadmaker, £1.40 for an awful tasting loaf of bread isn't great. But I'm wondering how many loaves I would need to make before I break even Haven't convinced hubby on that one yet.

When I was on mat leave, I used to make a loaf of bread by hand every day - think it worked out at about 50p and it really wasn't that hard to do - in fact the kneading was quite a good stress-reliever. It would probably be a really good thing to make with the kids actually - they'd enjoy pummelling at it!

Recently I've been bulk-buying all the expensive essentials in advance when there's an offer on - it's meant we've built up a bit of a stock pile, but I know we'll always get around to using them. Eg ocado sent us an offer for 25% online orders, and they had offers on loo roll, washing powder and dishawasher powder that week (half price, BOGOF etc) so I just did a shop entirely on those things - saved nearly £30.

We've donwshifted on everything, apart from meet and eggs. My hubby and I have a little competition with the weekly shop - we've started doing it online, and we try and make sure that we stick to just those products that are reduced or on offer - we usually manage to get 90% of the shopping on offer and recently have been saving £10-£20 a week. The only thing I haven't managed to get him to cut down on are the 'treats' - crisps, pop etc - he still seems to think these are essentials!

We have a cashback credit card - we put everything on it, but make sure that we pay it back every month, and then they pay us cash for using it.

I love co-ops reduced shelf. Our co-op is literally just across the road so I usually check it out everyday. They had strawberries for 50p a punnet the other day so we got a load and all pigged out on strawberries and had some left over for baking too

I really need to work out a better shopping system and stick to it though.... food shopping can be awful stressful these days

DP makes me about it though as he is always telling me that we spend too much on food (there are 5 of us one being a bottom less pit stomached teenager ) yet he waltzed in the other week with an £80 cat tree! That's nearly a weekly shop!

I tend to buy everything direct. I buy my milk, butter & cheese from one farmer. All my meat & eggs from another. Veggies from a third. All much cheaper than supermarket & better quality too.

For pasta, rice, sugar, cereal, flour, oils etc, I buy in bulk from http://www.naturallygoodfood.co.uk/

Can't think of anything I might be leaving out. The benefit of buying meat from a farmer/butcher is that you can get the much cheaper cuts. Pork belly, beef heart, chump chops are all very tasty at a fraction of the price.