Silent Bob
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
- Dec 6, 2004
- 22,172
I recommend stealing.
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Economising with your shopping
- Thread starter franks brother
- Start date
Dare I ask what either my arse or Alexandre Frutos' arse has to do with the price of fish?
I agree entirely. Buying ready-made sauces/meals/dips should be the first thing to go if you're looking to economise.
We've been on economy binge for a couple of months now and have managed to save a bit off the household bill by shopping around and buying own brand.
Don't forget to buy fruit and veggies off market stalls - it's much, much cheaper than buying from supermarkets (and usually fresher too).
Trufflehound
Re-enfranchised
Glass of tap water: 0.0001p-ish
A potato: 5p (or something)
Both taste better too.
The Grub
Active member
Buy your food at Lidl. The quality is great, the food is great and the cost is low. I never usually buy own label apart from Tesco Finest and I would never buy value brand at Tesco but I love Lidl. You have to try it.
Djmiles
Barndoor Holroyd
Djmiles
Barndoor Holroyd
Agreed, some of the stuff in there is top notch. Yes most of it is in German, but who cares?
Box of Frogs
Zamoras Left Boot
Trufflehound
Re-enfranchised
A potato for 5p? This is 2008, not 1908!
My local supermarket is doing a 10kg bag of decent-looking spuds for €2.99 (about £2.40) this week.
If you assume an average potato weighs 200g, then you'll get 50 in a 10kg bag.
2.40/50 = 4.8p each.
And that's from a "real" supermarket - you could probably find cheaper in Lidl or on the markets.
NMH
Banned
Shop a market often, and stock up a freezer.
They put out deals on stuff all the time, so eventually you buy your chicken, fish, lamb, garden greens etc at knock-down prices.
Also, the occasional top cuts get put out at much-lowered prices as they approach their sell-by date. If I want to consume it that evening or next day, it's a much better deal than paying full and letting it sit in MY fridge until it's nearer the sell-by date!
Look for two-for-one or multiple-purchase deals.
You can freeze one and eat the other imminently.
Economy can be done in cooking as well as in shopping. For example; I bought two packs of chicken breasts, froze one. I sliced the three from the fresh packet and boiled them - mixing them together with variety of fresh vegetables that I also diced or cubed. This made a large bowl of ready-to-cook food, that made me a stir-fry, a curry, a spaghetti, and a soup. It kept for about a week, and all I had to do was apportion each amount as I used them, and mix in the other ingredients required for each dish - along with boiling rice or pasta.
So, per meal I'd estimate a total cost average of about £1.50 or less - and for healthy home-cooked food.
When I buy and cook a roast duck, I buy it at half-price in the 'deals', I take the fat (always loads) and put it in a jar or container to use as frying fat (it's tastier too). The fatty skin parts and some giblets go to the dog, mixed in with her food (so I'm saving on dogfood too). The crispy skin I'll eat as a snack.
I can get two roasted duck meals from it, a Thai curry or Pad Thai from the loose remains, and a soup from the skeletal carcass, the liver, and neck bones. 4 meals total.
Fish I can get a deal on - a helf-priced whole salmon is occasionally a promotion. The butcher department will fillet it as you want, and give you the bones in a separate bag. Boiling the bones gets a reasonable amount of meat from them, so that's a seafood bisque/chowder, with some crayfish and clams thrown in, adding some peas and mushrooms.
The rest of the fish I divide into separate bags and deep-freeze them, bar a couple of fillets which will get consumed within days.
What does it matter if the tuna is in a steak or cubes? Apart from aesthetics, the diced tuna is cheaper.
Trout is great pan-fried, one fish is a meal, along with a few slices of red pepper and/or some asparagus. The fish deli often has a deal on trout and herring, among other fish.
Squid is inexpensive - great with brie and capers, or in a seafood spaghetti or chowder.
I rarely bother with the ready-meals, as they are mostly overpriced and over-salted or sugared.
They put out deals on stuff all the time, so eventually you buy your chicken, fish, lamb, garden greens etc at knock-down prices.
Also, the occasional top cuts get put out at much-lowered prices as they approach their sell-by date. If I want to consume it that evening or next day, it's a much better deal than paying full and letting it sit in MY fridge until it's nearer the sell-by date!
Look for two-for-one or multiple-purchase deals.
You can freeze one and eat the other imminently.
Economy can be done in cooking as well as in shopping. For example; I bought two packs of chicken breasts, froze one. I sliced the three from the fresh packet and boiled them - mixing them together with variety of fresh vegetables that I also diced or cubed. This made a large bowl of ready-to-cook food, that made me a stir-fry, a curry, a spaghetti, and a soup. It kept for about a week, and all I had to do was apportion each amount as I used them, and mix in the other ingredients required for each dish - along with boiling rice or pasta.
So, per meal I'd estimate a total cost average of about £1.50 or less - and for healthy home-cooked food.
When I buy and cook a roast duck, I buy it at half-price in the 'deals', I take the fat (always loads) and put it in a jar or container to use as frying fat (it's tastier too). The fatty skin parts and some giblets go to the dog, mixed in with her food (so I'm saving on dogfood too). The crispy skin I'll eat as a snack.
I can get two roasted duck meals from it, a Thai curry or Pad Thai from the loose remains, and a soup from the skeletal carcass, the liver, and neck bones. 4 meals total.
Fish I can get a deal on - a helf-priced whole salmon is occasionally a promotion. The butcher department will fillet it as you want, and give you the bones in a separate bag. Boiling the bones gets a reasonable amount of meat from them, so that's a seafood bisque/chowder, with some crayfish and clams thrown in, adding some peas and mushrooms.
The rest of the fish I divide into separate bags and deep-freeze them, bar a couple of fillets which will get consumed within days.
What does it matter if the tuna is in a steak or cubes? Apart from aesthetics, the diced tuna is cheaper.
Trout is great pan-fried, one fish is a meal, along with a few slices of red pepper and/or some asparagus. The fish deli often has a deal on trout and herring, among other fish.
Squid is inexpensive - great with brie and capers, or in a seafood spaghetti or chowder.
I rarely bother with the ready-meals, as they are mostly overpriced and over-salted or sugared.
NMH
Banned
If you make sandwiches, the big supermarkets have crab or fish-paste enough for 2 large sandwiches. It comes in a jar and costs between 25p and 40p a jar.
Therefore with the bread, and making one sandwich of jam, you fed a person a packed lunch for about 50p to 75p.
Therefore with the bread, and making one sandwich of jam, you fed a person a packed lunch for about 50p to 75p.
Nottseagull
Well-known member
If you've tried cheapest muesli from Tesco or Sainsburys and didn't like it, then nor did I (nor Asda puffed rice). But now I buy Asda Smart Price swiss-style muesli at a bargain 51p for a Kg and it's much nicer. The packaging is flimsy and it's not mixed well, but both problems can be solved by decanting into a plastic box with airtight lid.