Frugal Food - Feeding Your Family on a Budget

With money being tight in so many households at the moment, saving money on groceries is more important than ever. Prices are rising in the supermarkets, and everyday foodstuffs are becoming more expensive. Here are a few ideas to save money on your grocery shopping, whilst not compromising on the quality of the food your provide for your family.

If you worked out how much food you throw away each week, and how much it cost, you would probably be horrified. Things that have passed their use by dates, or things you have just bought too much of, often end up in the bin.

Here are a few suggestions for minimising the wastage.

1. Plan your meals in advance. Work out at the beginning of each week or fortnight what meals you plan to cook, and buy ingredients accordingly. Avoid going to the supermarket without a list and a plan, as you will almost certainly end up with mismatched ingredients, some of which will end up in a bin.

2. Use up leftovers. There are many ways to do this, but here are just a few suggestions:

• use chicken carcasses or the bones from your Sunday roast to make stock or soup
• make breadcrumbs out of stale bread. You can freeze these until you need them
• if you have leftover boiled or roast potatoes, they can be fried up on their own or with other leftover vegetables to make another meal (bubble & squeak is a perfect example)
• use overripe fruit up in smoothies or in a fruit pie

3. Buy your fruit and vegetables loose, rather than prepacked, so that you only buy what you actually need.

Your freezer is your best friend when it comes to planning meals more efficiently and reducing wastage. I use mine in two ways.

Firstly, if something I often use is on a special offer in the supermarket (e.g. three for the price of two) I will buy enough to use the offer, and put one or two in the freezer. This works especially well with meat, which is often on multibuy in my local supermarket.

Secondly, it can often work out cheaper to cook in bulk and freeze some meals for another day. This allows you to take advantage of bulk savings on ingredients, and has the added benefit of being an enormous timesaver.

All sorts of meals can be cooked in advance and frozen, but some of the ones that work best are casseroles and curries. Pies can also be frozen. If freezing your food, make sure you defrost it thoroughly before reheating, and make sure it is piping hot all the way through before serving.

One last freezer tip - keep a sliced loaf in the freezer, and use it to make toast. Most toasters will work on frozen bread, and this avoids you throwing away half a loaf after a few days, especially if you have a smaller family and don't use up bread very quickly.

If you shop around, there are some cheaper cuts of meat which can be very economical to cook with. Here are a few suggestions.

Stewing lamb - many supermarkets sell this, either with or without bones. It is much cheaper than lamb fillet or leg, and can be made into a tasty stew or curry.

Beef skirt - ideal for casseroles, pies or pasties.

Brisket - ideal for slow or pot roasting, making a cheaper alternative to the traditional Sunday joint

Chicken thighs - cheaper than chicken breast, and can be used in many of the same recipes.

Many of the cheaper cuts of meat benefit from long, slow cooking to make them tender. For this reason, a slow cooker or crockpot can make a good investment to bring out the best flavour as well as being a great time saver.