Tips for reducing my weekly shopping costs?

We bought a €4 packet of mince in Dunnes this week. Had a burger one day, spaghetti bolognese another day and a nice mince stew another day. Very little go withs, other than some powder, a few carrots, an onion, burger buns and potato.

I cannot understand how people are saying that they cannot afford to eat.
 
We bought a €4 packet of mince in Dunnes this week. Had a burger one day, spaghetti bolognese another day and a nice mince stew another day. Very little go withs, other than some powder, a few carrots, an onion, burger buns and potato.

I cannot understand how people are saying that they cannot afford to eat.

You must be having rationed servings of mince. Fair play to you for making a pound of mince stretch to 3 meals for more than 1 person.
 
You must be having rationed servings of mince. Fair play to you for making a pound of mince stretch to 3 meals for more than 1 person.
It's easy to make a stew with a small amount of mince, ditto for Chilli. It's an ingredient, a flavour, not the main bulk of the meal.

Chilli is easy to bulk out with pulses and lentils. You get the same sort of umami flavour from the mince, plenty of protein but less fat.
The same goes for a bolognaise type sauce; plenty of veg, bake some aubergines and tomatoes first and add them to the sauce.

I batch cook tomato sauces and freeze them in zip-lock freezer bags so they defrost quickly. They can be used for a myriad of meals.

A curry made using a packet of chicken thighs (around €2.50-€3.00 per Kg) tastes better than one made using breast meat.
Make the base, when cooked remove the thighs, take off the skin and take the meat off the bones then add it back in. Use lots of onions, add cauliflower, potato, spinach etc. 10Kg bags of rice are cheap in Asian shops. It will feed 10 people at a portion cost of €0.50-€0.75.

I cannot understand how people are saying that they cannot afford to eat.
I agree. 4 years ago I was feeding a family of 4 on €50 a week. It was easy. The secret is not to buy processed food, cook from scratch and use fresh ingredients. That's much cheaper. If someone is buying lots of processed food and complaining that they can't afford to eat properly they're either lazy or inadequate.
 
You must be having rationed servings of mince. Fair play to you for making a pound of mince stretch to 3 meals for more than 1 person.
With Spag Bol you only need a flavouring of mince.....not the spaghetti swimming in it.
 
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