Single Money Saver living on my own

BitterAndTwisted

OP: please don't be afraid of freezing a chicken meal and reheating. The rule is that you only ever freeze it in the same state once. so, a frozen chicken cooked and made into a home-made ready-meal frozen and then reheated should be absolutely fine.

Give batch-cooking another go. Just set aside and hour or two over the weekend and make several portion of the same thing. Then eat one and freeze the others while combining your dinners with some bought some ready-meals. After abut a month or so you should be able to cut out the ready-meals completely if you want to.

For your first batch cooking session you could quite easily use minced beef and make some bolognese sauce for pasta or baked spuds, shepherds pies, throw in some macaroni and called it Pastitsio etcetera etcetera.

Roast a chicken, have a nice Sunday dinner then strip the carcass and then you can either use that in a pie with leeks, a casserole or even freeze in individual portions for a sandwich.

If you order your veggies with a definite recipe in mind to use in your batch-cooking you should find little of it goes to waste.

Cooking as a singleton is a bit harder but it can be done if you have the interest and the motivation. When I worked really long hours I seemed to live on omelets, toast, hummus and pitta or cheese and biscuits with a piece of fruit on work nights.

Oh, and if you're getting fed-up of carting heavy shopping-=bags home invest in a shopping-trolley. They've been quite trendy for a while now and come in all sorts of natty patterns. I have a fake leopard-skin patterned one and it was the best tenner I ever spent. I even schlep ten kilo sacks of cat-litter home in it.

CAT££

Hi

I lived on my own for years until I moved in with my boyfriend last year. And know how easy it was to have some toast or a bowl of cereal for tea instead of a home cooked dinner. When cooking, I used to make enough for 4 and freeze. I mainly made, Spaghetti Bolognaise, Cottage Pie, Chili Con Carne, Stew, Curries and Soup.

I buy my tinned tomatoes, puree, stock, herbs, pasta etc from Home Bargains or Aldi. However, supermarket value products are just as good. (If using value tinned tomatoes, a big squeeze of puree is needed).

Also, when on offer, I would buy frozen chips, cod portions, breaded chicken. And would have fish, chips and peas or chicken, chips and beans on days when I was tired or couldn't be bothered.

Quorn Chicken was great and often on offer in Lidl, Iceland & Farm Foods. I used to stir fry that with some mushrooms, green pepper & spring onions. Cook some noodles, add to the pan with some soy sauce or sweet chili sauce. This produced a healthy, quick and tasty mini chinese.

Also if I was having a jacket potato for tea, I would stick two in the oven and microwave the other the nexty day.

Tuna pasta salad is also a healthy and filling meal. Cook pasta, and make up tuna with salt, pepper a squeeze of vinegar/lemon juice and your choice of mayo or salad cream. Add cucumber, spring onions, cherry tomatoes, peppers, celery cut into little cubes and mix up. Left overs would be taken to work the next day for lunch.

Unfortunately to be OS and thirfty, you have to make the kind of meals that you'll get leftovers to freeze or take to work the next day. Hope this helps.....

emg

Someone mentioned ASDA lettuce with roots which definitely lasts longer than cut lettuce, but Waitrose and M&S both do lettuce in a pot in their salad section. I have an Waitrose one that is still going strong after nearly 3 weeks. Although they are a bit more expensive, they are worth it as you are not throwing away slimy leaves at the end of the week!

[Deleted User]

Having lived alone since 2003 owing to being widowed it does take awhile to get used to single living (I had been part of a couple for almost 40 odd years) but I cook from scratch (probably easier for me as I am retired.Last night for example I had a jacket spud with a portion of chicken curry (from the freezer) with some naan bread (also from freezer followed by a pot of yoghurt.I buy a large pot of yoghurt and decant it a portion at a time during the week into a smaller 125gm pot which gets washed out and reused.I have a stash of small yoghurt pots that I use to make a jelly in, and top with maybe some custard (HM takes about 5 minutes to make a pint of custard, and top off half a dozen little pots which are then kept in the fridge) Any custard left over can be used maybe poured over some fresh fruit of a piece of cake.
I always cook more than I need and my freezer is my best friend as surplus goes in there for another day.Last week I bought a lb. of M&S sausages.These have been divided up into wrapped parcels of two at a time(They are the big ones and quite filling) On Friday I had sausage ,mash,carrots and onion gravy.The carrots also came from the freezer
I buy a kilo of carrots and sit and peel,slice,blanche and then open freeze.Once frozen they get put into a poly bag (usually a turned inside out empty breadbag) and returned to the freezer for use as and when.
Cheaper than buying ready frozen carrots, and a handful in a pan of boiling water only takes about ten minutes to cook.I do have a large stash of the plastic take-away boxes that you can buy in a pound shop ,or scrounge of your relative and friends which I use to box up food for the freezer.I can make a large lasagne, and divide it up when cold into 6 portions and freeze in a take away box.Simple to retrieve (for you maybe first thing in the morning and put in the fridge to defrost) then bung in the microwave to reheat for dinner.I never buy ready meals, as I like to know whats' in my food and looking on the back of the ready-meals cartons there seems to be far too many unknown chemicals and colours in them.
I can live very easily on £25.00 per week and have money left over at the end of it.I like fresh fruit and veg and try to buy what's in 'season'. I wrap a celery up in tinfoil and it will keep almost 3 weeks at the bottom of the fridge (even when it starts to go a bit bendy then I will turn it into soup(again to go into the freezer for later.)
Lettuce, I buy Iceberg and have it stored in a betterware container in the fridge ,but you can just wrap it in foil (another tip never cut lettuce with a metal knife it makes it go brown I have a plastic one that I use to slice bits off with, or better still just tear it off with your hands).Most of the veg I keep in the bottom drawer of the fridge apart from potatoes which I have a betterware potato bag.But I often peel several spuds for the week and keep in a lidded container hafl filled with water in the fridge If you change the water every two days, peeled spuds will happily keep for a week or more.If your spuds are starting to sprout a little peel them boil and mash them and use an ice cream scoop or similar to round the mash into balls and open freeze on a plate in the freezer Once frozen bag them up and you have instant mashed potato to get out one or two balls at a time to be reheated in the microwave I never bin any veggies at all If I have some that are getting past their best then its peeled, chopped and into a pot of stock to be made into HM soup.

My favourite is parsnip and apple soup which is delicious, and uses up any stray 'bendy 'parsnips from the bottom of the fridge.
HM soup once made and cooled down stores very well in the freezer.I have a collection of plastic screw topped jars that hold half a litre at a time.That is two days supply of soup as a starter for my evening meal, or lunch with a sandwich.S
ingle feeding it a case of working out what you like and with a little planning you can eat healthily and well and not be spending a fortune on ready made stuff.A chicken done in the slow cooker for me makes at least a dozen different meals as the meat just falls off the carcass and the residue left over stock is the basis for soup .I have a zip lock bag of chicken stock at the moment in my freezer from when i cooked a chicken a fortnight ago which I took away with me when I went to Dorset on holiday .The stock is there waiting for me to use when I make soup next, its frozen solid from fresh so I can use it when ever
PM me if you get stuck I have become quite an old hand at single living
Cheers JackieO xx

calicocat

I live alone now too and deffo batch cooking is the answer ,you can pretty much cook anything and freeze it.......my freezer is like a tardis now , I could probably eat for at least 6wks out of it other than fresh stuff.

If you don't really like cooking though start off small and see how you go , you might find you get to enjoy it more so batch cooking won't be a chore.

If you order online anyhow you should be able to also order most stuff you need for a month if not more and then shop once a week for any fresh or top-up stuff.

I would find it a chore to shop every day (and not cost effective as would always find something else to get) ! But I like cooking so I guess that's a head start.
I have quite a few friends single who don't like cooking but they still only shop once a week if not less and just freeze the ready meals.

Good luck with it.

VfM4meplse

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

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

Honestly, once you get into the habit it's OK - and I never cook during the week, it's a HM ready meal straight from the freezer to pan so it's not time consuming (esp when you've had a busy day at work).

I tend to have a "cooky" day

flutterbyuk25 wrote: »

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:

:T:T:TYay, OSer's with the right idea - we should form a club!

I do the same - very rarely cook, but when I do, it's a ginormous batch frozen into the 0.6L takeaway containers (enough for 2-3 servings) you find packed in 6s/8s in the pound shop. It's just a more efficient way of managing food shopping, ideal if like me you cannot be bothered to wait for food - ie you're hungry or you're not! - and a healthier way of eating too: my only snacks are in my fruit bowl or if I raid my baking supplies for dried fruit. It's also handy to remember that if yoy defrost a dish in the fridge, it can last there for several days if your dinner plans change for some reason. In any given week I may have 2 or 3 dishes defrosting in the fridge (usually soups and curry dishes) so I have a choice or can sample a bit from each. I am a strict vegetarian though (every dish I make from the freezer is in fact vegan) so I can't vouch for the same approach for meat-based dishes.

My other trusted ally is my 24" stockpot, a real investment as I can easily fill 8-10 of the 0.6L containers with the contents which is more than 16 meals covered. I noticed that Aldi was selling a tefal / aluminium one for just £19.99 when I popped in on Friday - an excellent buy, which I would recommend to anyone.

One of the great things about the summer is the abundance of fresh produce available - I never feel guilty about buying for more thaan one, as it it is never wasted as long as you have a good-sized freezer. In fact cooking in batches towards the end of the summer not only saves you time during the winter months, but money too. I spent comparatively little on food this winter, and recently went without a supermarket food shop for over 6 weeks (although I did visit the local fruit & veg stall in this time). What really helped was the encouragement I took from this thread - skip to the end to join.

HTH

maman

emg wrote: »

Someone mentioned ASDA lettuce with roots which definitely lasts longer than cut lettuce, but Waitrose and M&S both do lettuce in a pot in their salad section. I have an Waitrose one that is still going strong after nearly 3 weeks. Although they are a bit more expensive, they are worth it as you are not throwing away slimy leaves at the end of the week!

They sell 'living salad' in Lidl too. I don't know the price but I'm guessing it'll be cheaper than the other shops.

Another tip is to buy a bag of baby spinach. This works well in salads and sandwiches and when it gets a bit tired (definitely lasts longer than other leaves) I just stir what's left into a casserole or a curry.

flutterbyuk25

I also use baby spinach instead of lettuce. Lasts 7-10days in fridge no probs. I !!! it to my currys and lasagne's too.

x

Emmzi

I live alone and this is what I have cooked today - no more than 90 minutes

- ice cream - mix equal portions double cream, yogurt and jam (I did 2 kinds, lemon curd and ginger conserve) and freeze. No need to churn.
- baked potatoes - were 39p for 4 in aldi today, batch baking and freezing as that tastes better than microwaved
- scones, just a packet mix from tesco for about 60p, but I added fruit (if the oven is on I use it for more than one thing, even if it is making sponge cake for trifle and freezing it.)
- chilli, quorn mix, frozen mushrooms, jar of sauce - one for tonight and will freeze 2 portions
- fruit salad, big bowl of everything left in the fruit bowl, with a little lemon juice - that'll do me a few days
- still had apples over so quickly chopped them and threw them in a pan with a little water and sugar. Will either have with porridge if it gets cold, or yogurt of it stays warm.

During the week I'll probably do a chick pea curry. I use frozen onions, add garlic powder and random spices, chick peas, frozen spinach and a tin of toms.

Smaller tins of things, frozen veg and batch cooking are def. the way to go.

Citygirl1

Thanks all for your very helpful replies. I really need to get organised. I try and start out with good intentions but then my motivation goes and I end up random shopping for ready meals again. My cupboards are literally bare

I don't have a big freezer, my fridge is bigger with a small freezer on top but I guess it will suffice just for me.

Can I ask, may sound a silly question but I am so out of touch with batch cooking - can you put frozen or tinned veg with meat in the slow cooker? This would help me a lot as I really don't have the time or the inclination to peel and chop veg. Likewise, can packed mashed potato do for a cottage pie? I love cottage pie but can't be doing with mashing potatoes.

As for the shopping, the trolley is a good idea but I tend to shop after work and get buses so I don't really want to have to take a trolley to work or on the bus. I used to go to the supermarket from work every week and get a taxi home but I got fed up with that and then started the online shopping (the delivery fee is about the price of the taxi fare anyway), but I can never work out how much to get. Last week I did a weekly shop on line, got some mince which turned out to be a tiny portion and a few veg that just did me one meal! If I do a monthly shop then I find I am shopping weekly for milk and other fresh stuff.

Also, are the stews etc best done in the slow cooker to freeze or by other means?

I really really want to get organised and as I am off work for the week I have time to try and get into some kind of routine for when I am back at work and I don't want it to slide if I can help it. My diet and food spending habits are very poor - ie call in M&S after work for a ready meal and a dessert, no fruit or veg, hardly any standby tins in the cupboard or stuff in the freezer apart from a loaf of bread incase I want toast. My work lunches consist of one small bread cake every day with some cooked meat in it (again from M&S).