Sticking to a budget

As for batch cooking simples. In the morning, btween doing every thing else, put 2lbs of frozen diced meat in a casserole, in between add other tinned and frozen veg and herbs/spices, just before you leave for work, put in oven on delayed setting. 😃

I would love to hear my DDs response if I told her to do this. She already does as much as possible with a 6.30am start.

Also you assume young parents can buy 5lbs of mince and have a large freezer.
I don't think you have much idea of how many families live.

Norah

Whitewavemark2

Add to that taxi-ing children to evening scouts, guides etc, weekend sporting to football, archery, etc in fact I’m not sure how they do it tbh.

Is it anything we didn't do? I was on the road for hours daily (long trip to and from school) and did all the clubs, sports, etc.

I'm not so sure times are different.

I taxi my GC/GGC to their stuff - seems the same, distance hasn't changed since I went to school or our children either.

But you didn't have a 40 hour job to fit into all that. Many of us did.

I didn't do any activities after school, and my daughter just went to brownies once a week.

Whitewavemark2

Add to that taxi-ing children to evening scouts, guides etc, weekend sporting to football, archery, etc in fact I’m not sure how they do it tbh.

Is it anything we didn't do? I was on the road for hours daily (long trip to and from school) and did all the clubs, sports, etc.

I'm not so sure times are different.

I taxi my GC/GGC to their stuff - seems the same, distance hasn't changed since I went to school or our children either.

And a car, and a freezer, and all those ingredients that make that cooked from scratch meal tasty.

Old ground...

nadeturbe That was my life for 20 years. You are fortunate to have so many Supermarkets all within walking distance of your house.

As for batch cooking simples. In the morning, btween doing every thing else, put 2lbs of frozen diced meat in a casserole, in between add other tinned and frozen veg and herbs/spices, just before you leave for work, put in oven on delayed setting. You arrive home to a cooked supper plus an extra portion to freeze.
At a weekend, every so often, have a spaghetti Bolognaise but make with 5lbs of mince. I meal to eat immediately, 4 more in the freezer. Admittedly we all ate the same meals, so no seprate catering for one member of the family.

I did it for 20 years, DS and family do it there way, although since she was 12, DGD has done a lot of the cooking, by insistence. We are nothing remarkable so, most people could do it if they wanted to.

Children do grow and get older year by year, so the worst is over by the time they reach 11 or even a year ot two below that.

All it requires is organisation, and reorganisation on a daily basis.

I try to cook well on a budget but have never heard of making butter from double cream as a budgeting trick. I can't see how that would work? A block of butter is - what- £1.89 at Aldi.

Trottoir I don't think it's always cost effective - butter went very expensive for about six months and I could buy cream at cut down prices and use that to make butter. Doesn't matter if it's on it's end date, the butter won't go off like cream will. As the price of butter comes down you're not really saving much so unless you want to do it it's probably not worth it.

That's right, WWM2 forgot about karate, swim lessons , etc.

Add to that taxi-ing children to evening scouts, guides etc, weekend sporting to football, archery, etc in fact I’m not sure how they do it tbh.

Monica It might not work for your children but shopping around won't cost everyone a fortune. I do it, but working parents won't have the time. Older people do.
My child lives in the SE too, although I don't know how that is relevant.
Up at 6.30. Get children ready, deliver to school, go to work, finish work, collect children, make evening meal , one child vegetarian, do homework, put younger child to bed read to him. Load dishwasher, get clothes, etc ready for next morning, spend some time with older child, flop down for an hour hopefully.
Exhausting day. Many parents will opt for something quick and easy for evening meals. Weekend do housework, laundry, have some quality time with children.
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Batch cooking?? When? And 3-4 hours screen time daily?

My approach to cooking was learned by watching Ready Steady Cook. A mix of raw ingredients, store cupboard staples and tinned pulses, tomatoes, fruit. We’re vegetarian which I’m sure saves us money. We don’t buy takeaways but freeze the third helping when dishing out, which means that we can have ‘takeaway nights’.
I buy and freeze small loaves and crumpets. This saves stale waste.
But even so, our food bills have more than doubled over the past few years.

Apart from being one for 20 years, and having a son and diL who are working parents. All of us eat and ate mainly home cooked meals.

You become adept at collecting recipes that can be quickly prepared at short notice and you batch cook.

I agree online ordering does not allow you to shop around, but most people do not have enough big supermarkets close enough to them to do that either.

We live in the populous South East, DS and DiL live well into a big northern town. Shopping around would cost them a fortune in petrol and the same for us. Cheaper to choose one supermarket and stick to it.

Monica, plenty of families don't manage it. You haven't a clue about working parents!
Also one online supermarket order does not allow one to shop around various stores and get the best prices.

Plenty of families manage it.

The average person spends 3-4 hours a day watching tv, 2 hours a day on Facebook, 1 1/2 hours a day on instagram and much the same on Instagram and TikTok. www.uswitch.com/mobiles/screentime-report/.

They can find time to make an online supermarket order and cook a proper meal.

It's very difficult for young families, when parents are working. There isn't much time for cooking and shopping around.

Joseann yes I lived in Brittany and the cauliflowers are lovely but never cheap ! they aren't too bad here in Fife we use them in curries really tasty.

I bought a £1.50 box of fruit & veg from Lidls I wanted to make leek & potato soup and the box had these, also came a bag of big onions, bananas and oranges which I didn't hold much hope for but all of it was good as if I bought it off the shelf ! Will certainly look out for them again, some have weird combinations so you have to use your imagination !

Me too, I always bring back a Brittany cauliflower or two. They have far more taste. Having said that I am preparing a beautiful one I bought on Thursday in Cornwall for lunch today. It's just as round and white, and tastes perfect, for half the price.

But French cauliflowers are a joy to behold, none of he miserable lttle ones you see in British supermarkets. In season, when we are in France we always return home with a magnificent cauliflower from our local supermarket. All the curds white, no slight mottling in colour and the knowledge that its food miles are almost in walking distance.

As MOnica pointed out taxes have to be paid at the start of the year, electricity is very expensive also you have to pay health insurance. We both had private pensions and MOH worked but from what our friends who still live there everything is going up. I think my OAP which I get later in the year wouldn't of been something that we could of used towards holidays etc but would of just gone into living. Its a big topic on ex pat forums the price of cauliflower 4 euro a piece and we were surrounded by them growing in the fields.

Candelle Good pensions require, even state pensions, require high contribution rates and generally social security charges in countries like Germany and France are higher in the UK

Also taxes have to be paid up front at the beginning of the tax year, which is why you so often have to waita long time for tradesmen to under take work. They like to know they have a full order book for the year before paying taxes.

I am surprised that the OP finds food expensive when returning to live in the UK. Various travels showed us that food here was relatively inexpensive and if one visits a supermarket in the States, well, you will be speechless. Only a few years ago I found food there to be exorbitant and can't imagine how a low-income family manages. We were told that it is in fact cheaper for a family to go out to a restaurant to eat than to cook fresh at home.

We have had the builders in last week and had to clear some rooms which was a great chance to weed through loads of paperwork. I came across some credit card bills: in 1992, the food bill for three of us came to £225 a month. I may have also paid cash for some things but this bill also included shopping for my mother.

Petrol was £15.00 to fill a large tank (now almost £80.00); a meal, I believe for two in a pizza restaurant was £12.63 (now c.£75.00). We ate in a top-notch restaurant (birthday meal) and the bill was £75 (I daren't look but probably in the region of at least £500 for three courses). Two theatre tickets only £26.00 (now £145.)

Obviously salaries have risen too as have pensions but we in the UK have extremely poor pensions compared to the continent. France: £1,567; Spain: £2,714; Switzerland: £2,194. The UK's £885 looks paltry, doesn't it?! There are countries whose pension do not even break even regarding the cost of living but the UK pension is still small compared to similar, long established countries.

I seem to have strayed from the OP but my point was that everything has increased and in 32 years, that was of course to be expected but pensions need to be increased further here as many have no option but to sail close to the wind. Sticking to a budget could be the only way to enable these people to survive each month.

In my case budgeting began with my family of origin. My parents had to budget carefully on a very restricted income. I was always aware how careful they were from necessity. When I began work, just on a Saturday, I was advised to divide my income into three. A third for my keep, a third to save and a third for ‘wants’. As you can imagine pay for a Saturday in Woolworths in 1965 was minimal, no matter, the habit was set. It carried on into full time work and as life changed with many adjustments along the way. Sometimes with one income and a young family we could save nothing, but we tried. Now? Still budget, sadly can save little but can manage on relatively low retirement pension income. We have a financial cushion from former budgeting for large expenditure, that’s good enough now.

Harris27

I’m retiring in eighteen months and now starting to realise I will have to cut back. Sad that we’ve worked all our lives and will have to be careful in retirement. Wish I’d done a private pension earlier. But I want time with my husband and if we have to tighten our belts we will.

I started to live on less with a view to retirement....and started to save the other money...then you have a bigger lump sum for retirement ....and its not such a transition, to live on less...I'm semi retired now but still do this ...obviously we still go on holidays and trips...but the day to day stuff we live very frugally now and just save the rest

I still do not see how these generic schemes can help the young man, in the papers recently whose basic costs accounted for 75% of his income.

When we got married and started budgetting we started by writing down all our fixed expenditure: mortgage, basic bills etc and worked from there. I have no idea proportionately how this divided up, but I can assure you that the amount available for our 'wants' was microscopically small.