Single Money Saver living on my own

LolaLemon

best books ive ever bought is childrens cook books - they have a small amount of ingredients and are easy to follow... and 2 austrailian girls had a program on cable/sky called four ingredients... all thier meals only consist of 4 ingredients (excluding salt and paper) -- tesco had the 2nd book for £5 a few weeks ago, im now still looking for the 1st book, as that was the series i caught and the food was fantastic!

I also struggle with food, as both me and my son have cows dairy allergy, son also has beef intorolance..... I find fish good to have in as a meat replacement, started buying frozen veg, quicker to make and has normally got more nutrienst as frozen within a few hours, rather gtahn left 'fresh' for up to a few days before you get to buy it!

we do a night where my son (3) picks what he wants - his ideas are normally chicken or pasta or noodles (spaghetti noodles) or porridge.
im going to start doing a night of toast and xxx (beans, sweetcorn, mackeral - for the calcium- is nice with tomato sauce)
aiming to make mince into 3 or 4 meals,
mince and pasta/potatoes
spag bol
small lasagna or shepards/cottage pie (i have some ramekins to make them individual portions)

good luck... jsa is murder to live on - especially if u dont know how to play the system

Pitlanepiglet

My suggestions (in the absence of any more info re dietary issues):

Breakfast - porridge, with added jam/sultanas/fruit (as available and as cheap!) for interest. Cheaper than toast. You could also make your own muesli with porridge oats, bran flakes, value dried fruit etc.

Lunches - Soup, buy seasonal veg, bulk out with red lentils and beans (if potato isn't an option), make your own wholemeal bread. Also use leftovers from evening meal as lunches. Buy joints of meat, ham etc, slice and freeze for sandwiches - much cheaper than buying sandwich meat.

Evening meal - search out the best value wholewheat pasta/brown rice, if you can't have potatoes these really need to be the basis of your menus along with pulses. Rubber chicken, spag bol/chilli, pasta bakes etc...Can you eat cous cous? Cook in bulk to allow for those CBA moments and to save the cost of cooking every day.

It's difficult to adjust to a low income, try and attack the food side of it in a positive manner though - I work on the "how cheaply can I do this " and treat it as a challenge. I find it too easy to wallow in the "I can't do this because" so I try not to allow myself to go there.

kitschkitty

grumpyoldwoman41 wrote: »

I do not eat white bread or potatoes or white rice or pasta, get brown but it is always more expensive

I only eat wholewheat pasta from Asda here - it's no more expensive than many other pasta that they sell and is marketed as kids pasta and comes in 2 shapes - cheaper than the non kids wholewheat pasta!

Brown rice can be a little more expensive, but I do find you eat a smaller portion than with white rice, so I don't mind!

I don't only eat wholemeal bread, but try to get it where possible, I always fill my freezer when I get it on offer and try not to eat to much bread in general. Often wholemeal/brown rolls in Asda or Tesco are cheaper than a loaf. Many people also point out that it's more economical to only defrost a few slices at a time to avoid wasting bread if it goes stale.

I must agree that spuds are cheaper than the alternatives, but sweet potato, and other root veg can be found on offer quite often, depending on what recipes you are trying to replace spuds in, as mentioned earlier chickpeas and lentils are a great alternative too in many recipes.

[Deleted User]

[QUOTE=BitterAndTwisted;
BTW OP I have a mushroom soup recipe which doesn't call for cream or sour cream, just stock and milk and it's really delish. I never pay full price for those mushrooms either, I pick them up when on special offer.



Recipe please B&T I love mushroom soup and have just bought some reduced in Sainsbobs this morning great big punnet for 40p

sharronej

grumpyoldwoman41 wrote: »

Where I live I only have a petrol station within a walking distance and possibly some "corner shops" abit further - no good for shopping on a budget.

So will be shopping at Asda looking for their £3 delivery slots which are cheaper than the bus fare there and back.... sigh

I actually find this a productive way to shop, just remember to tick the no substitutions box - I have found in the past that they will substitute larger packs of budget product with a smaller pack of more expensive product :mad: The thing I like about it is that you can see your total before you commit to buying and can then make any readjustments needed.

I'm glad to see that you are getting more helpful and polite responses on this post :j

Good luck
x

BitterAndTwisted

JackieO wrote: »

[QUOTE=BitterAndTwisted;
BTW OP I have a mushroom soup recipe which doesn't call for cream or sour cream, just stock and milk and it's really delish. I never pay full price for those mushrooms either, I pick them up when on special offer.



Recipe please B&T I love mushroom soup and have just bought some reduced in Sainsbobs this morning great big punnet for 40p

2 ounces of butter/marge
2 spring onions finely chopped (I substitute for regular ones if I have none to hand)
8 ounces of mushrooms, sliced or diced
300 ml stock
300 ml milk
1 tablespoon of flour

Melt 3/4 of the butter/marge in a pan, add the onion and sweat. Add mushrooms and fry off for five mins. Pour in stock and milk, bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 20 mins. Rub through a strainer or puree with hand-blender. Melt 1/2 ounce of butter/marge, add flour and make a roux. Gradually add pureed mushroom mixture to thin, then bring to boil. Cook for five mins on low heat. Add seasoning to taste

That's it. I often add some re-constituted porcini mushrooms if I have any. The original recipe called for 150ml/5 fl oz of single cream but I'm on strict a budget and consider that gilding the lily as it doesn't really need it for flavour. Or calories.

Gingerbiscuit_2

The trick is to be really organised and really strict with yourself as its hard to buy and cook for one. Salad for example say, lettuce, cucumber, tomato you have to be prepared to eat 3 huge salads in 3 days or it will go to waste. You could try splitting this with your daughter as its nice to have buy by day 3 you can be pretty sick of it!

Same goes if you fancy some cauilflower be prepared to eat a meal and then cook or freeze the other 3 portions.

When you are looking at food budget its better to spend for the month than the week ie £40 not £10 you can buy bag of potatos for £2, frozen mince £2 etc and can make enough for one or two meals each week of the month. I find frozen mince great as its much cheaper, you can only use a tiny amount and unlike fresh that you put in freezer you dont have to try hacking bits of it!

I mostly use frozen or tinned fruit and veg as the main problem is having to use it all up almost straight away, I give up on fresh fruit as nearly always was thrown away before I could eat it. Now I can make tinned apple or rumbarb crumble, use rasions or frozen peas and sweetcorn. I know local stalls often sell cheap fruit and veg, but these are often by the bowl so still end up wasting as cant really eat 10pears in a week!

Its nearly always cheaper to buy milk in 4pints some shops do £2 for 8pints, if you buy one or two pints its so much more expensive. Just by having spare jugs and freezing will safe yourself alot.

Look out for value items, some are great and dont feel like your being hard on your self, be realistic on items you really like no point buying cheap versions that you will end up wasting.

Lastly check sell by dates often big bargin items need to be used quicker but if your single end up being wasted. Hope that helps just some things I've found for myself.

valk_scot

Farway wrote: »

I used the pavement most of the time

On a bike? How old are you? You're not supposed to cycle on the pavement (unless it's designated as a cycle path) if you're over 11 years old. A bike is a road vehicle.

babyshoes

Before we got a car, we did a lot of shopping with one of those 'granny trollies' - basket thing on wheels. Got some odd looks, as we were both in our early 20's at the time. We didn't care, it worked! Combined with a rucksack, we could get a couple of week's worth of groceries home fairly easily - as that was for 2 of us, you could probably get enough groceries for the better part of a month. We walked the mile or so to the supermarket, but they are also useful on buses, as long as you are strong enough to lug it up the step if the driver won't/can't lower the floor of the bus for you to get on.

I am sure you could find one on freecycle if you asked nicely. If you have a choice, go for larger wheels to deal with lumps and dips on the pavement.

BitterAndTwisted

Actually I'm on the hunt for a shopping trolley. I've obviously got to the age when I just don't care what other people think any more. In any case I'm reliably informed that they've become rather trendy and I'm fed up to the back-teeth of lugging 12 kilo sacks of cat-litter home and then having to drag them up three flights of stairs. I've spotted one on the Argos site that I'm going to buy tomorrow if they have it in stock. Then I won't have to juggle what other heavy shopping I can heft home at the same time. Luxury!