My partner and I are incredibly fortunate and I'm always aware of (and grateful for) this good fortune. Despite moving to Britain at the very tipping point of the economic crisis, we've not really been hit terribly hard by things. However, we've noticed lately that the household budget has begun to feel a bit strained. We took at look at it (and it's a terrifyingly well organised system of excel spreadsheets and different accounts - thank goodness one of us is good with money. It's not me, by the way) and realised that I had been wildly over-spending on food. Partly this is because food prices have gone up a large amount, but I think it was more that I had let the amount I was meant to spend gradually creep up. The budget might be £70 a week, but one week it ends up being £75, then £78 and then suddenly you've normalised the idea that what you actually spend is £80 and that's ok.
So I decided that I could do a lot better than this. £60 was what the actual budget was meant to be (so when I was spending upwards of £80 each week, that's a lot), and £60 a week is still miles above average in Britain. I figured that since I'm fairly competent in the ktichen, I should be able to feed us on a lot less. So I've set myself the target of spending less than £50 a week on groceries. Technically this is only £10 less than what the budget originally specified, but in reality, it's closer to £30-40 less than what I was actually spending.
It's not actually hard, but it does involve quite a bit more organisation on my part. My self-imposed rules are:
- groceries have to be ordered online once a week in time for when last week's run out (this is about things like milk and yoghurts which are eaten daily and need to be topped up)
- I should try to keep it as low as possible, without being unreasonable (because an extra trip to the shops to buy what I forgot/left out-and-actually-needed - is false economy)
- I need to use what is in the freezer/cupboards already
The last one is quite a bit point actually. I've been doing regular freezer inventories lately because I'm prone to buying things on special or going and buying extras for dinner one night instead of what was planned and buying pasta/rice etc every week whether I need it or not. I think it's some kind of armageddon mentality - come the apocalypse, I need to know that we could survive on tinned tomatoes, pasta and dried lentils for weeks. And we could. (I come by this very honestly...my grandma and mother are both total kitchen hoarders. Grandma's freezer could easily provide for a family of four for about 6 months I would think). So I'm trying to make sure that we really do use things I've frozen (having a list of what's actually in the freezer helps with this a lot), and am making sure that I only buy what we need (or if something is running low, topping up only one thing a week - flour this week, pasta next. Same with cleaning supplies).
I'm not sure whether it will last - but I'd like it to. I'm still cooking good food, no one is going hungry and it hopefully eases money for other things. It's not that we couldn't afford to spend £80 a week on groceries if we really wanted to, but I don't think we really need to. It's wasteful and I don't want to be a wasteful person. Plus it's forcing me to be a bit more creative about how I cook and shop, so that can only be a good thing! Budget recipes plus ideas for vege dishes even meat eaters will like, welcome!
So I decided that I could do a lot better than this. £60 was what the actual budget was meant to be (so when I was spending upwards of £80 each week, that's a lot), and £60 a week is still miles above average in Britain. I figured that since I'm fairly competent in the ktichen, I should be able to feed us on a lot less. So I've set myself the target of spending less than £50 a week on groceries. Technically this is only £10 less than what the budget originally specified, but in reality, it's closer to £30-40 less than what I was actually spending.
It's not actually hard, but it does involve quite a bit more organisation on my part. My self-imposed rules are:
- groceries have to be ordered online once a week in time for when last week's run out (this is about things like milk and yoghurts which are eaten daily and need to be topped up)
- I should try to keep it as low as possible, without being unreasonable (because an extra trip to the shops to buy what I forgot/left out-and-actually-needed - is false economy)
- I need to use what is in the freezer/cupboards already
The last one is quite a bit point actually. I've been doing regular freezer inventories lately because I'm prone to buying things on special or going and buying extras for dinner one night instead of what was planned and buying pasta/rice etc every week whether I need it or not. I think it's some kind of armageddon mentality - come the apocalypse, I need to know that we could survive on tinned tomatoes, pasta and dried lentils for weeks. And we could. (I come by this very honestly...my grandma and mother are both total kitchen hoarders. Grandma's freezer could easily provide for a family of four for about 6 months I would think). So I'm trying to make sure that we really do use things I've frozen (having a list of what's actually in the freezer helps with this a lot), and am making sure that I only buy what we need (or if something is running low, topping up only one thing a week - flour this week, pasta next. Same with cleaning supplies).
I'm not sure whether it will last - but I'd like it to. I'm still cooking good food, no one is going hungry and it hopefully eases money for other things. It's not that we couldn't afford to spend £80 a week on groceries if we really wanted to, but I don't think we really need to. It's wasteful and I don't want to be a wasteful person. Plus it's forcing me to be a bit more creative about how I cook and shop, so that can only be a good thing! Budget recipes plus ideas for vege dishes even meat eaters will like, welcome!
This week's "menu" (total grocery spend
£45)
| ||||
Dinner
|
From freezer
|
From Cupboard
|
To buy
| |
Sunday
|
Tomato
soup and cheesy herb bread
|
Cheese,
frozen herbs from summer
|
Tinned tomatoes,
flour
| |
Monday
|
Mystery
pie night (ie. Leftovers in pastry)
|
Half
portion of h/m pastry, small portion of cooked lamb mixed with leftover roast
vege from last week, small portion of cooked BBQ pork
| ||
Tuesday
(grocery day)
|
Szchehuan
pork mince with beans
|
chillis,
frozen beans
|
Jasmine rice,
szchehuan peppers
|
Pork mince
|
Wednesday
|
Fish
curry w h/m parathas
|
frozen
beans/corn/spinach
|
coconut milk, curry
paste
|
frozen fish
|
Thursday
|
Mac
and cheese night
|
frozen
cheddar
|
flour, milk etc
|
pasta shapes
|
Friday
|
H/M
burgers
|
flour for rolls
|
beef mince
| |
Saturday
|
OUT
| |||
Sunday
|
Potato
and rosemary soup with foccacia
|
chicken
carcass for stock
|
flour
for foccacia, rosemary from garden
| |
Leftovers/Carried over from
this week:
|
Ideas?
| |||
250g pork
mince
|
2x
meatballs - 1 swedish and 1 for pasta sauce
| |||
250g beef
mince
| ||||
3 pieces of
frozen white fish
|
Fish pie? Another
curry?
| |||
Lunches
| ||||
Soup and leftovers for J
| ||||
Sandwiches
from cooked/frozen chicken for A
| ||||
Yoghurts/fruit etc
| ||||
| H/m chocolate caramel cookies | ||||
| h/m banana muffins | ||||
