Help me MSE, one week, £10 budget...meal suggestions!

joeyboy

Right I'm cheating a bit as a few items are exempt as we already have them in the house and I only use a small amount....

Exempt items... Milk, teabags, butter, possibly condiments although I will try and estimate how much my portion costs and add it to the meal.

Apart from the above three(maybe four) I must live on £10 from Saturday 18th to Saturday 25th(excl that Saturday mind, so 7 days in total, sat,sun,mon,tues,wed,Thurs,fri, ends on Sat). That is for all meals, however I often have two larger meals, then having breakfast, lunch and dinner.

What I need is suggestions for very cheap meals. I will price up the cost of each meal individually as obviously I am only doing this for one week, it is a little unfair to include a 1kg bag of price in the weeks budget, as obviously that will last over a week, so I will simply calculate what the cost of the dry amount I use is.

I HAVE SAINSBURYS, LIDL and ICELAND near me, so consider them when making specific brand suggestions.

I have a few ideas myself.....

1) Spag bol, spaghetti would be 100g worth(dry), that would be 11p. Third of a jar of passata would be 30p(might be less value then tinned tomatoes per g but this is flavoured already, so saves on any spices and such). Third a pack of basics mince 32p, so 73p for a dinner there. Not sure if that could be bought down at all in price.

2) Sainsburys basics 800g loaf is 47p. So I could have a few slices of that with beans, basics beans are 29p, half a tin 15p(rounded up). Some melted cheese on top, and maybe some sliced ham, basics is £1.40 for 400g, so something like 100g would be 35p, 60p or so there...100g of ham..pretty filling lunch right there.

I have a few more ideas but obviously you get the point, as cheap as possible really.

My concerns are the best ways to get protein? Protein is more filling then carbs in the long run I believe? As in a high protein meal would sedate your hunger longer then a high carb low protein meal? Not sure if that's quite correct to be honest.

Another issue is fruit and veg, obviously it would be nice to make it as healthy as possible on such a small budget, but I think it might be a bit of struggle. I was thinking of getting a 1kg bag of frozen mixed veg and just having that along side some dinners, should last all week for a quid.

On average folks I need dinners to cost say 80p-£1 and lunches to be 40-60p, that's assuming two meals a day.

It might be a pretty tough but I think it should be doable. I'm sure some folks have had to live on a similar budget for much longer.

well MSE....get your brains in gear...lets do this....:cool::rotfl:

LaDiva_2

How about tinned tomato based soup?

You take a small onion, or half one, 3 cloves of garlic, some tried herbs (if you have the budget for them although you could buy some and use some in the spag bol) sautee until soft, add a tin of toms, and the same amount of liquid (a can full) and cook for around 15 minutes. Add a bit of sugar if you don't like the tartiness of the tomatoes, and of course season with salt and pepper to taste.

Another way of bulking out this soup is to add chopped veg (prehaps you could buy a bag of mixed frozen veg if they work out cheaper) to the soup or broken up spagetti/or other pasta shapes?

Protein wise-lentils are my favourite-and if you live near an Indian/Asian supermarket you can pick up bags at great prices. How about lentil soup? Or lentils as a replacement for meat in say a cottage pie?

How's about jacket spuds (4 for around 50 pence) with beans?

And then there's toasties...if you have a toastie maker/bags for your toaster?

Lastly, off the top of my head...omelettes. Protein rich, and can be bulked out by potato (frittata). Make for dinner, and have leftovers for lunch?


On your budget I would consider store own brands only, personally I don't shop at any of the stores mentioned OP,unless I run in to get a special offer. Make a shopping list, and check out prices before you go shopping and see if there is any further ways of making cuts in your bill.

Good Luck

HTH

joeyboy

oh of course eggs! I know Iceland has 15 large eggs for £1.50, scrambled egg/omelette, I'm not overly keen on any other form. But two eggs=20p, them on toast would be a good protein source as well.

As for tomato soup, I'm really not a fan unfortunately.

Don't think I've ever had lentils.....but I did forget about the Asian shops, we have a Chinese one, an Indian/Asian(not far east) one and one which sells Eastern European stuff.

When you say you don't shop at those bar special offers, where do you go? Stick to local markets/butchers or what?

eleanor73

Most of my dinners and lunches are cheaper than that but it's all about the bargain bins for me so it depends on how good you are at scouring them for goodies. I made sausage pasta the other day with bbin sausages and I made 8 dinners for 27p each and the portions were good sized. If you don't get to see decent reductions I'd do a massive veggie chilli and a massive veggie curry and portion up - that might get boring so may mean you have to do it over 2 weeks and batch cook and freeze.

Buy pizza base mix and put veggies on with a little bit of cheese, tuna pasta salad (for lunch and dinner) erm and soup! Soup can be cheap as chips (cheaper than chips!) to make.

HTH G'luck!

LaDiva_2

I shop at Asda, and as I follow a Halal meat only diet I go to a local butcher. 1kg of chicken mince is priced at £3.66 which works out nicely for meatballs for pasta sauces plus it cooks faster (in my humble opinion) which saves time and money. I pay £6.00 for three medium sized chickens whole. Not bad, but I only shop there because of my dietry restrictions.

How about other soups? How's about visiting your local butcher and seeing if he can give you some bones to make a stock (my butcher doesn't charge for them-I assume this is the custom across the board) as a base for a vegetable based soup rather than tomato? Again, it can be bulked out with pasta/or even rice? If your not into lentils, how about the variety that come in cans (red kidney beans)? I've been known for adding bones to lentil curries to add flavour-but that's just my way of cooking!

How about stirfries? I'm sure chicken thighs work out cheaper than breast, and brown meat tastes better. You could consider purchasing a full chicken, if there was a special offer on. You could consider the following out of it:

chicken kiev for dinner (you'd get two of course so could freeze the other kiev for later or just make one?)
leg meat could be used to make: stirfries, rice dishes, even a home made chicken burger or even a pie?
I'd boil he bones up with an onion etc, make a stock and turn it into a soup/base for another recipe.
But as I said, it would depend on how much you paid for the chicken to see if it's worth having during your budget week.

I am indeed a fan of shopping as local as possible as I often find bargains this way.

mcallister1

I was thinking I would help you by pointing back to a similar thread a couple of months ago when I realised that it was yours as well. How did that go? Did you try any of the suggestions?
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2630039

alwaysonthego_2

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joeyboy

mcallister1 wrote: »

I was thinking I would help you by pointing back to a similar thread a couple of months ago when I realised that it was yours as well. How did that go? Did you try any of the suggestions?
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2630039

Ah a few things came up and I didn't manage to sort out a clear week to do it in(relatives visiting, us on holiday etc). Also although I had been planning to try it first week of September, I was unable to book holiday until the coming week. I totally forgot about making that thread, thanks for that, my memory is terrible!:o

Well that has reminded me of a few obvious things I forgot, like those 8-9p basics noodles! 2 packs would do me well for dinner with something mixed in.

Does anyone know if 1kg of mixed veg frozen for £1 is my best option for the fruit and veg side of things? 140g a day is quite a reasonable amount as a side at 14p I think.

13p curry sauce, 13.5p portion of rice...I wonder if I can some sort of meat for around 50p..

Ah my thread has been moved to old fashioned money saving! Haha sorry moderators I just assumed putting it in food would be appropriate, I guess this sub-forum gets more traffic so it can only be a good thing.

I'm going to try and plan meals. I'll post up a rough list of meals and prices tomorrow I think, see how I go.

OH MY GOSH I should have read my old thread, it did go on didn't it!

http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/ Obviously this site is designed for families and longer term budgets, as many recipes make say 10 portions of the dish. However if some I should just be able to reduce all ingredients by three quarters and make 2 servings.

genius!