6000 meals under 50p in 2010; feeding your family on a low budget

mark55man

Reporting back for Thursday 14th January

School back on, work back on, OH finally got a day to herself to get better

Today's Summary - 18/18 meals 50p or under
Summary Total - 230/252 = 91%

Breakfast: 50p or under (6/6)
OP - Crunchy Oats Lidl
OH - Poorly - lie-in
DD1, DD2, DS1, DS2 - Cereal or toast + OJ or AJ - or nothing !!

Lunch: 50p or under (6/6)
OP : Woopsied Chicken Salad sandwich 40p + Apple 10p = 50p
OH - Egg Mayonnaise (as above)
DD1 : Cheese salad & Apple (as above)
DD2 - Fruit 2 Apples 20p & Clementine (10p) & HM Bread (as above)
DS1 DS2 - Tuna and sweetcorn Sandwich, Apple (As above)
Supper: 50p or under (6/6)
Carbonara = 4 Eggs:40p Quarter block of cheese (Tesco Extra Mature 2 for £3): 37p, 500g Tesco Value Spaghetti 40p = £1.37 for 6 = 23p

OH, OP, DS2 - Bacon & Onion bits = 49p + 5p = 18p each = 41p in all
DD1, DD2, DS1 - Just Carbonara = 23p

Elliesmum

Hi Mark and everyone else -

I've been reading this thread with interest. For various reasons, we too have to pull our belts in and look at where the money is going. I agree with a post (somewhere!) about portion control. I used to make far too much food and we would just end up eating it or if I was lucky one portion would make it into the freezer.

I have an added problem that my OH will not eat food that has been frozen, apart from fresh meat, which has been defrosted and then cooked or icecream. That's it - so I can't make double portions of food and then freeze for a later date :rolleyes:. However, I have a spag bol recipe that can then be made into cottage pie 1 or 2 days later and he's ok with that and I've just costed it up (mainly 'cos that's what we had for tea and it's shep pie on Sat) and it comes (just) within your budget Mark of less that 50p a head. I've costed it using Quorn mince (so all your family can eat this) and I have used Smart/Value price products for everything else, like I do and I can say this is a very tasty recipe.

For the basic sauce...

Quorn mince £ 2.00 2 x onion £ 0.20 4 carrots £ 0.20 250g mushrooms £ 0.50 2 x 400g toms £ 0.75 stock £ 0.10 garlic and herbs £ 0.10
Then add...spaghetti £ 0.39
For the Spag Bol

For the Cottage Pie...

900g potatoes £ 0.33 25g spread £ 0.07 milk £ 0.10 stock £ 0.10 brocolli head £ 0.57 tin sweecorn £ 0.39


So I think that comes to £5.80 which is for 12 meals making it 48p per meal. It helps in the veg bit, all the family can eat it, which makes it easier on you and when the oven is on for the Cottage pie, I make a batch of Twinks Hobnobs or flapjack.

Hope this helps - I will keep reading this thread with interest and see if anymore of my offerings can come under the magical 50p.

Keep going every one...

EM xx

phizzimum

elliesmum - why wont OH eat things that have been frozen? would you consider being sneaky and just not telling him? after all, some dishes improve in flavour after they've been frozen and it's no different from a meal sitting in the fridge for a couple of days - in fact it would be fresher.

shaz_mum_of__2

Elliesmum

I know what you mean about cooking double and it never materialising my lot think double equals second and thirdsa!! key is to hide it before seving


never thought of using bolognese for cottage pie might try that especially as some one posted quorn mince is on offer somewhere would make it even cheaper. I normally make my shepherdless pie with the green brown lentils instead of mince as they are "meatier" in texture than some lentils

Mark have you had red lentil bolognese? lovely and you can all eat it, and the dough balls recipe on the grocery thread are perfect accompaniement


You say you want to cut out snacks later in the challenge what sort of things are you looking to replace?
Got 2 weetabix cakes in the oven better check on them!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=27483503&postcount=52

Queen-Bee_2

mark88man wrote: »

its oinly OH and I who like curry so have to make enough for a few meals to reduce the cost of the paste proportionately
will do my budgets later, just on quickly for now

Hi Mark - if you like curry, I've just had a great experience with a jar of Sainsbury's curry sauce which cost just 9p. Looking at the ingredients on the back, it seemed to be remarkably free from additives, but I chose to beef it up with more veg (and a bit of fruit) as follows:

Fry 3x diced boneless chicken thighs (much cheaper than breasts and lots of flavour) then add 1x finely chopped onion. Added a couple of cloves of garlic and fried some more. When soften up a bit, I added leftover broccoli, chopped red pepper and a handful of dried fruit.

Then I added the curry sauce and after another ten minutes, some chopped up apple - Bramleys are probably best, but I only had a couple of ancient eaters that needed to be used up, so in they went, along with the juice of half a lemon at the back of the fridge to give a bit of extra succulence.

Served with brown rice - made three big portions and I still had another three thighs in the pack to play with!
QB

Queen-Bee_2

Hello again...

I have just read some of the previous posts on this thread and am surprised at the unnecessarily antagonistic approach adopted by some of the posters. Without wishing to fan the flames, I am more interested in focusing on foods which offer the potential to form inexpensive and healthy meals in the UK, than Poland.

Interesting comments on the subject of portion control though... Perhaps I need to divide my meals into the appropriate number of portions at the outset and freeze the surplus ones straight away! I have recently joined Weightwatchers and saw a really interesting page which showed you what average portion sizes of different foods should look like. A portion of cheese for example is something the size of a matchbox, whilst a portion of protein is something that would fit in the palm of your hand, a bit like the size of a cigarette packet. I don't think the portion sizes were designed just for people wanting to loose weight either, as the objective of WW is to get people to reeducate their eating habits in the longer term.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that Mark, I think you're doing a great job, have subscribed to this thread and will be popping back regularly. Can't be easy looking after your OH and feeding your brood and working hard!! Good luck.
QB

phizzimum

that's right Queenbee - I think we all overestimate the amount we should eat - especially of protein. It's better to have a small amount of good quality protein than a lot of umm...less good quality.

like you said, I find the key to stre-e-e-tching our meals is to hide the "leftovers" - cos they're not leftovers, they're tomorrow's dinner! They need to be hidden in old margarine tubs before DH finds them certainly.

~daisy~_2

hi sorry if ive missed this but where do you get apples for 10p each ? my family love apples but cheapest i ever find is value ones at around 80/90p for 6

many thanks

vandanfc

Keep your eye on Morrisons, they have recently been doing 4 in a pack for 30p. But may also be Aldi or Lidl whose fruit and veg are cheaper more often than not.

weezl74

~daisy~ wrote: »

hi sorry if ive missed this but where do you get apples for 10p each ? my family love apples but cheapest i ever find is value ones at around 80/90p for 6

many thanks

daisy, these at asda are 6.8p per apple:



hth

Love Weezl