Single Money Saver living on my own

Citygirl1

Thank you for your reply. I tend to stick to mince when batch cooking as, though I love chicken, I am wary of freezing and reheating it.

Also shopping for all this must weigh a ton if you do it all in one go?

rising_from_the_ashes

Citygirl1 wrote: »

Thank you for your reply. I tend to stick to mince when batch cooking as, though I love chicken, I am wary of freezing and reheating it.

Also shopping for all this must weigh a ton if you do it all in one go?

I tend to buy mince when it's on offer and can usually get packs of 1 kg (2 x 500g in the pack) when they're on 3 for £10.

I would get at 8 - 10 portions of Chilli / Spag bol sauce etc from each pack (depending on how much bulking out is done) so that's 3kg for the mince and whatever veg I may need (if I've nothing in the freezer to use up).

Tins of Tomatoes etc I've always got in stock (bulk buy when on say 4 for £1) but again, you'd only need a couple if you were buying on the day you were cooking.

If you were wanting to do a home delivery, you could buy the mince when you do your shop, freeze it and then it'd be there when you were ready to do the batch cook - same with the tins etc (and save you having to carry it). HTH

maman

Citygirl1 wrote: »

Thank you for your reply. I tend to stick to mince when batch cooking as, though I love chicken, I am wary of freezing and reheating it.

Also shopping for all this must weigh a ton if you do it all in one go?

Frozen veg is definitely the way to go for anyone cooking for one especially for things (like cauliflower) where you can't just buy what you need. If you do end up with fresh veg looking a bit sad (like carrots and onions) then make soup and freeze it. It'll take you ages to get through a kg bag of frozen veg so you don't need to carry them home reguarly. If you had one delivery to start (internet or Iceland) then bring home a bag at a time to replace then it wouldn't be heavy. In my freezer at the moment are peas, green beans, broad beans, leeks, peppers, chillis, stir fry veg, mini sweetcorn, asparagus and oven chips!! I also use tinned peas and carrots and mushy peas and other pulses.

If I were you I'd get a slow cooker so that you can do cheap (on electric and time spent watching) batch cooking. All the things mentioned are great from frozen plus curry is a favourite here. There's no problem with reheating chicken from frozen but I've done beef or lamb curries too. One tip is to use 'real' flour to thicken casseroles as I usually use cornflour which is fine when the meal is fresh but on reheating tends to go 'gloopy'. It can be rescued with water and stirring but best to avoid. Put potatoes into your casserole and you don't need to cook any sides either.

Fen1

Judicious fresh food shopping can also work. I shop once a week for food, so am careful about what fresh things last.

Lettuce: soft floppy lettuces go off very quickly, switch to hearts of romaine or cos. A packet easily lives for a week in the fridge.
Buy two boxes of baby tomatoes, peaches etc. One out on the counter to ripen and eat immediately, the other in the fridge for the second half of the week.
Grapes should be kept in the fridge all the time as they go off exceedingly quickly.
Milk freezes well. One bottle in the fridge to use immediately, the second in the freezer for later in the week.

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Storecupboard / fridge favourites are artichokes in oil, tomatoes in oil, capers, olives, different mustards. Anything that will jazz up salads, baked pots, omlettes. Ditto windowsill herbs such as basil, thyme, chives.

flutterbyuk25

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

I'm afraid batch cooking and freezing is def the way to go ..... give it another try.

I have to agree with this! I never really cook in the week, unless it's a simple meal of something on toast or stirfry. I spend an hour or two every other Sunday cooking up the following:

- veggie chilli - used for chilli, fajitas, shepherds pie, jacket spud topping
- veggie pasta sauce - used for pasta, tortellini, pizza, jacket spud
- veggie curry - used for curry or jacket spud
- soups with any leftover sad looking veg.

I also cook up something like banana bread for sweet stuff, and nut roast/lentil pie/veggie lasagne for sunday dinners. I do this once every 2months.

If I have any veg on the turn I either use it up then or freeze it. I freeze milk too.

When making pasta, I cook extra to use for another meal or for lunch. When cooking rice I cook as much as I can in a big pan, and freeze the leftovers for future as I hate cooking rice (I know people say freezing rice can be dodgy but I'm still alive!). The rice/pasta/potatoes/noodles can all be cooking whilst the sauce is defrosting.

I do a monthly shop around pay day to buy tins, toilettries, cleaning stuff, cheese, yogurts and some fresh stuff. Then top up maybe twice a month for veg/fruit/eggs.

I have a car so no probs with heavy shopping. I also have Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Co-op, Home Bargains, Farm Foods, Aldi and Lidl all within a 5-10min drive. So I can keep an eye out for bargains and spread my shop around. I tend to do my monthly shop at Tesco, fresh stuff from Aldi, cleaning/toilettries/some food from Home Bargains.

Once you get in the habit of it, batch cooking is so easy. I love coming home and having a choice of healthy home cooked meals that will be ready within 5-10mins.

Hope this helps!

x

PasturesNew

You're right about it being a pain in the butt and there's no motivation. Most people don't live alone, completely alone, forever, so they tend to think it's easy.

If I were you I'd just identify 1-2 ready meals you currently buy from M&S and set out to just cook those and freeze them.... and don't do more batch cooking than one drawerful else you'll never fancy any of it. You can build up to using 2 drawers when you're more in sync with living like that.

Personally, I eat a lot of packs of instant noodles, with peas.... and scrambled eggs/beans on toast.... and, of course, a lot of ready meals, just not the expensive ones at M&S.

I never know what I'll fancy and it all seems so much effort just for me.

So - start small and just try to identify one small change per fortnight you can make. It can be soul destroying shopping, cooking, eating, clearing away .... for one.

Also - don't freeze stuff in finished meals, work out how you can do it in pieces, so you're freezing some mince/veg portions - and a mashed potato topping separate.... so you're freezing ingredients more than finished meals. Also, freeze in tiny portions. e.g. freeze chilli in "jacket potato topping" portions, then if you want to top a spud you take out one, but if you want chilli/rice then you can use 3-4 of those portions.

lizzyb1812

I batch cook when the mood takes me and freeze in portion sizes. But I also always have pasta, noodles, pesto, grated cheese, eggs, baked beans etc for quick easy meals when I can't be bothered to do a full meal. And plenty of frozen veg, sausages, bacon, fish and so on. I don't worry about the 5 a day thing and don't eat much fruit but when I do eat veg I eat loads so it balances out. One day this week was pasta, pesto and grated cheese in a great big bowl, tonight was venison casserole from the freezer, microwaved, and 3 big helpings of steamed veg - fresh carrots, frozen peas, frozen sweetcorn. - took 20 minutes to make and one pan and one plastic box to wash up.

Living alone you have the advantage of eating whatever you fancy without having to cater to someone else's tastes. Dinner doesn't have to be a stew, lasagne, chili etc - it can be a bowl of beans, baked or other type, with chopped up chunks of sausage, a plate of crackers, cheese, olives, quartered tomatoes and a chunk of bread, or even a ready meal.

I think the trick is to enjoy the choices being single gives you and exploit them to the full.

Penny-Pincher!!

Also, in pound land they sell green veggie bags and they keep salad and vegetables fresh for a week or longer. You usually get 3 different sizes and a few of each and they really work. They also sell soup bags which are sturdy enough for stews, curries, chilli etc and also foil containers with 3 portion sections, so 1 for meat, 1 for carbs and the other for veggies. Ideal to batch and freeze, then defrost and reheat.

My batch cooking would be meals like curries, stews and dumplings, chillies, chicken muck muck (leftover chicken in a cream base soup with rice like a supreme-yum) shepherds pie, cottage pie, sausage casserole, savoury spicy couscous, lasagne, spagbol, fish pie, chops in mushroom sauce etc.

We like frozen petit pops, corn on cob and frozen cabbage is fine also. Also use frozen papers and mushrooms. You can cook up loads of onions in a little butter and freeze them....for instance Lidl have 5kg for £1.10 at the moment, so this would do loads or could be used for a huge VAT of curry base sauce.

HTH

PP
xx

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

It's a completely new state of being for me, so I'll join this thread too - I haven't got a clue myself.

But I have noticed that it seems a whole lot easier to stick a bunch of salad seeds in a pot and pick them as and when, rather than wasting money on salad bags.

anguk

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

It's a completely new state of being for me, so I'll join this thread too - I haven't got a clue myself.

But I have noticed that it seems a whole lot easier to stick a bunch of salad seeds in a pot and pick them as and when, rather than wasting money on salad bags.

If you're not green fingered and can't grow things from seed no matter how many times you try (like me) Asda sell lettuce with roots (I think there's 3 varieties in one clump), you just keep the root ball moist and cut what you want when you want. I think they're about a pound and they last longer than cut lettuce or bags.