How to Eat Cheaply?

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Pooky

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How does a family eat cheaply? Should one make a food budget? What sorts of things should one buy?
 
shop around pick n pay isnt the cheapest ! but there chicken special is awesome ! fully grilled full chicken for R29 is unbeatable !

edit : also try buying in bulk it can save you a few bucks, for example we buy 5kg chicken fillets instead of buying the trays, it saves you quite alot. only problem is were to buy in bulk from...i see makro selling in bulk for meat as well now. most smaller butcheries have great specials so look around at butcheries instead of buying meat from woolies for example
 
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ryu said:
shop around pick n pay isnt the cheapest ! but there chicken special is awesome ! fully grilled full chicken for R29 is unbeatable !

edit : also try buying in bulk it can save you a few bucks, for example we buy 5kg chicken fillets instead of buying the trays, it saves you quite alot. only problem is were to buy in bulk from...i see makro selling in bulk for meat as well now. most smaller butcheries have great specials so look around at butcheries instead of buying meat from woolies for example
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I agree. However, my wife and I found out that we actually save from buying smaller packages at say Woolies - since there's only the two of us, we don't typically finish say 400g of salad leaves in the time before it goes bad.

Best idea she had was to draw up a budget on a weekly manner. So if we budget R2000 for food a month, she may spend R500 per week and organise meals for the week for us.
 
Try Checkers or Shoprite.

The identify what you like eating often enough without it boring you to death and buy a lot of that but buy different flavours and such for example..

For example soups are between R2.50 and R3.50 and a packet of Cream of Chicken soup takes 20 minutes to make and then it provides me and my gf two big cups each. Two minutes noodles are also in that price range.

Eggs you can get R26 for a box of 30, many things you can do with eggs, boil them, make french toast (with sauce of choice later put on top), scramble or fried with viennas.

A kg of viennas can be had for R30 to R40 and you can use then with the eggs, on their own or to make hotdogs (would cost around R3 per hotdog to make yourself)

Yogurts are around R12 for a sixpack of small ones (so R2 per small tub). You can eat them with other meals as a dessert and it helps fill you up if the mail meal is not enought on its own and it helps with the digestive track and also has other beneficial values.

Just some ideas for you.
 
We are spending currently about R4000.00 on food per month, and that is for two people and 3 people on weekends.
 
Go to an IEEE conference :) or, find out when a public lecture is being presented at your nearest university. They usually have free snacks and tea/coffee outside after the lecture :p
 
Pooky said:
We are spending currently about R4000.00 on food per month, and that is for two people and 3 people on weekends.
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How much food do you throw away?

Rather cook only how much is needed, or make sure you eat your leftovers.
 
Pooky said:
We are spending currently about R4000.00 on food per month, and that is for two people and 3 people on weekends.
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Living it up is expensive yoh! I don't even want to know what you are spending it on...

I'm sure you should be able to halve that to R2000 quite easily.
 
Pooky said:
We are spending currently about R4000.00 on food per month, and that is for two people and 3 people on weekends.
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Yes that is really a lot of money. We can get by on r1500 with 2 babies and my wife and I, if need be - just food costs mind you.

1: The first secret is you must learn how to cook properly. Peel your own potatoes, learn how to make pasta sauces from scratch, discover cheap dishes that can last for 2 meals; i.e. shepherd's pie. Learn to enjoy discovering new dishes and you'll find they taste better than prepackaged meals.

2: How much do you eat out? You'll spend a fortune on going to dinner vs home cooking.

3: Staple foods are cheap - buy the 10kg bags of potatoes. Sweet potatoes, butternut, squash, pasta - and always try to add them to your plate because they fill you up.

4: Vegetables are a LOT cheaper than meat. If you buy meat plan to buy enough to last you X amount of time - maybe once in 2 weeks you should buy more meat.

5: Some generic foods are practically identical to branded counterparts. Pastas, canned tomatoes, that sort of thing.

6: While we're on that, you should always have stock of certain key ingredients because they can be the base of a whole range of dishes. Canned tomatoes are a MUST, pasta shells, eggs, a full compliment of herbs and spices (which last a LONG time so don't be afraid to fill your cupboard with spice jars - and balsamic vinegar).

7: Get a slow cooker and learn to make stews. Stewing meat is very cheap and if you leave it on the whole day it is the nicest thing to come home to in cold weather.

8: There are cheap desserts and there are expensive desserts. Learn which are which. Canned fruit with custard, jell-o, packet blancmanges and that sort of thing, trifle - all of those won't cost you a fortune and you don't feel like you're skimping money if you can have dessert still.

9: Drink less alcohol.

10: Use the freezer. Don't buy food every day. Don't look into the fridge when you get home, realize there's nothing handily available and just 'pop out to woolies'. Learn to improvise with what you have on hand.
 
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Im not sure if its been mentioned already but I found buying meat from butchers to be cheaper and better quality than say buying it at a spar/pnp etc.
 
Pooky said:
How does a family eat cheaply? Should one make a food budget? What sorts of things should one buy?
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From bachelor life and international poverty (travel on a budget) I pass-on the following hints. Use them, don’t use them...

UK poverty survival hint (can be applied generally).
To maintain a ‘balanced’ nutritional intake over a period of time, I found colour-coding the food a good idea. The traditional ‘meat & 3 veg’ was transposed to (the 3 veg) something white (potatoes, rice, etc.), something green (beans, peas, etc.) and something red (carrots, pumpkin, etc.). I always had trouble with the ‘something red’ as I detest all red vegetables (except tomatoes) and so ended-up eating a great many tomatoes. I cheated a bit and designated all squashes as ‘red’.

Bread can last a long time (as long as it doesn’t smell sour). A sprinkle of water on a stale, hard-as-nails loaf, pop it in the oven and you get a steaming loaf indistinguishable from fresh bread.

A cheap, fairly healthy method of living for extended periods was a daily (vegetable) bunny chow and a pint of milk (in SA). A vegetable bunny was preferred because the meat in bunnies I always regarded as inferior (besides, a meat bunny was more expensive).

A secret pap recipe for poverty-stricken SA’ns.

#1 Make a pot of ‘krummel pap’ (SA version of the Moroccan coes-coes).

#2 Buy a packet of powdered soup (Royco or similar) in your preferred flavour. Mix it as a gravy (a **lot** less water).

#3 Make a ‘volcano shape’ of your pap on a plate. Pour your soup/gravy into the volcano cone. Delicious and nourishing. If you can find a bit of wors to add, that’s a bonus, but it’s not necessary.

Cordon Bleu budget eating

Soya Mince. Look out for this in your supermarket. The soya mince substitutes come in little boxes of various flavours, savoury mince, chakalaka and so on. The one is Imana, in 200g boxes (6 servings) for R8.49 a box. The other one is Knorrox in a bigger box (400g boxes) at R12.49 – this is the one where you add 2 spoonfuls of the stuff to ordinary mince which makes more of it. For absolute budget eating, rather buy the Imana as a meal for 4 or 6 people is cheap at R8.49. Pick ‘n Pay has it.

FAUX IRISH STEW

Ingredients

Soya
Potatoes
Onions
Mixed veg. (frozen – in a packet)
Bisto
Thickening

Method

Cook the soya in a pot (final stew pot). Follow the instructions on the packet. Peel, cut into quarters and boil the potatoes separately. Boil the mixed vegetables separately (diced carrots & peas). Add the onion to the soya pot. Use the ‘prick’ test to determine that the potatoes are cooked. Drain and add to the pot. Sieve the mixed vegetables and add to the pot. Paw through the crisper drawer to see what other vegetables there are. Add tomato (watery vegetables last – peppers?) Salt to taste. Any herbs or spices found in the cupboard to taste (stuff like curry might affect others). Mix some Bisto gravy powder in a cup (follow packet instructions) and add. Stir. Mix some cornflower or gravy thickening in a cup. Stir. Simmer. Viola!

Serve on a bed of rice or on slices of bread. The packet for 6 would serve 4 big people. Approximate cost per person (all-in, conservative estimate) = about R4 or R5.

BUNNY CHOW

Ingredients

Curried soya stew
2 X small loaves of bread

Method

Cut the two small loaves of bread in half (this is so everyone has a crust). Cut out the centre of each half (leave about a centimeter ‘wall’ around the inside of the loaf). Remove the bread ‘plug’ (keep it, you will be using it). Fill-up the hole in the half loaf with curried stew (see above). Put the bread ‘plug’ on top. Serve.

Note : Potjie Kos Lore. Cooking is done in layers. The stuff that takes the longest (meat) goes in first, at the bottom of the pot. And so on. Watery vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.) are added last, about 10 minutes before the potjie is ready (so they don’t disappear in the cooking). The same logic would apply to conventional cooking.
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Another frugality tip.
I heard a canny housewives tip from no less an authority than Dame Edna Everhard – Australia’s equivalent to Pieter Dirk-Uys’s Evita Bizuidenhout. S/he had a TV program where s/he would call-on Australian housewives and snoop about their houses. It became quite a status symbol among Australian housewives – to have your home insulted on national TV.

In this tip, Dame Edna and the housewife victim were having a scatological gossip outside her dunny (Australian for toilet).

Insert your loo roll so that the paper rolls off the back. Saves paper. When you pull the end the paper, it doesn’t roll-off excessively. You don’t polish your bum to a high gloss.
 
Pooky said:
We are spending currently about R4000.00 on food per month, and that is for two people and 3 people on weekends.
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That's a lot of money. I live on my own and have my daughter every second weekend. I generally buy as I need and try to avoid keeping lots of perishable food as some of it inevitably gets thrown away. When my ex and daughter used to live with me our grocery bill was around R1500 per month. Now these days dog food for my two dogs costs me more than my own groceries each month :wtf:
 
cerebus said:
Yes that is really a lot of money. We can get by on r1500 with 2 babies and my wife and I, if need be - just food costs mind you.
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Thanks, we are guilty of some of those points. Hardly drink alcohol, my mom just buys cheap box wine which lasts a long time, I don't drink too much either. I think what you said about buying in large quantities of potatoes etc. is a good point and adding them to every meal. I also think we should make more stews, soups and pasta, as we can make those for relatively inexpensive...

Rocket-Boy said:
Im not sure if its been mentioned already but I found buying meat from butchers to be cheaper and better quality than say buying it at a spar/pnp etc.
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We normally buy just what we need from Spar/PnP for a meal, you are definitely right about the butcher, and then freezing... We don't eat a lot of meat though...
 
Oh cool.. Perhaps it would help to budget where all that money goes? Then you can see where it's being wasted unnecessarily.
 
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