Eating Healthy on a Budget

Daydreamer2011

Hi all, wonder if I could please get some advise to eating healthy on a budget.

Me and OH are really trying our best to get ourselves debt free so are trying to keep our food shopping to a minimum.

We face 1 (or possibly 2) problems which are as follows:

- OH is a coeliac and finds it hard to find cheap frozen food he can eat and the wheat free options are quite pricey

- I really want to start eating healthier to look after my body and as it turns out, it is healthier for us to buy 'bad' frozen food.

We are looking to spend £40 a week to cover both of us.

Monday we went to Sainsbury's and spent £30 and brought lots of frozen stuff such as basic chicken burgers, scampi, pizza's etc (all for me) and then some frozen fish and gammon for OH to have.

Can anyone offer any suggestions how we can make our money go further and get more healthy foods like fruit and veg? I did buy a massive bag of Sainsburys basic frozen veg but ideally I would love to cook with fresh veg.

Thanks in advance for any replies x

aplaceinthesun

I'm no expert but hope I can help a little ! Can you get to your local supermarket when they put their reduced stuff out , all supermarkets vary as to when they do this - you could then pick up some great bargains on fresh produce - fruit,veg, meat and fish. Or maybe go to your local market especially towards the end of the day when they want to shift their produce, quality can vary at markets but most are great. You would be better off health wise yourself to avoid the sort of processed foods you have purchased this week and stick to products that have not been messed about with.... From one chicken you could make a good few meals for the two of you - at least 2 lots of dinners and stock from the bones could be used to make soup - you meed very little veg to make a tasty soup. Mince is another which stretches a long way and you can batch cook a lot in one go - just bulk it out with lots of veggies.

I am not sure where this idea:

it is healthier for us to buy 'bad' frozen food.

has come from but I would certainly disagree, unprocessed more natural food is surely far healthier.

A great site to look at , thanks to Weezl on this forums is :

http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/index.html?opt=pc

Her meal plans help food a family of four , healthily and frugally for £100 per month although ibviously some adjustments would have to be made for your OH's dietary requirements....

Good luck, I am sure you will get lots more good advice from the lovely people on here!

hotcookie101

It would probably be cheaper to buy the ingredients to make your own food, and to both eat the same thing, rather than frozen meals like chicken burgers scampi etc.

Buy frozen fish and serve that (for both of you) with potatoes and veg, or stir fried veg and rice (do the fish with some soy and garlic and chilli)
Cook veggie food for both of you-risotto is very tasty and not that expensive to make. Pasta is out obviously, but you can make veggie "lasagnes" by layering veg in tomato sauce, with spinach, aubergine, potato etc and a cheese sauce (made with cornflour, as i believe that is GF)
Make oven chips/wedges yourself and serve with peas &gammon, or fish, or chicken etc.
Obviously more difficult avoiding pasta (I use this ALOT as our cheap carb) but am sure that would be very easy to feed you both well, for £40 per week. Aldi do cheap veg (fresh) as do lidl (but we don't have one of them) I think the key will be to wean yourself off the preprepared frozen stuff, onto home cooked things

Aarons_mummy

Frozen veg is really good for you but if you have the option try going to various shops where some fruit and veg are cheaper than others. Aldi has their super 5/6 and it's 39p a pack.

Morrisons I have found are really good for fruit and veg, mainly cheap as well. Make sure you buy all value range there is no difference between that and cheaper brands, it might be a bit of a funny shape but to be honest it's never that different.

I never buy tinned sweetcorn a huge bag is only 98p and lasts a good while.

Potatoes are great for all sorts, wedges, potato slices covered in herbs, mash which can be turned into patties for baking.

If you buy in season it'll be cheaper. Right now I'm using apples, bananas and oranges. Around £3 and enough for a week I would say. If you're buying blueberries, raspberries etc at this time of year it will be more expensive.

For pizzas I would make your own, even if you use a pitta/naan bread as a base, spread some sauce, cheese and some veggies on. Cheaper (even more so if you make your own bases) and most likely healthier.

Carrots/mushrooms are really good for adding to mince dishes, stretch them further and adding oats/lentils makes it healthy and stretches it a bit more, they're pretty cheap to buy as well.

Hope some of these have helped even a little.

adelight

Processed food is expensive and bad for you, don't do ittt! Please ditch the basic chicken burgers and pizzas, they are full of starchy rubbish to bulk them out they are just calories and have negligible nutritional value. If you must buy frozen, buy bags of frozen chicken portions, Iceland do very cheap bags of diced/portions and frozen fish(not fish fingers!).
Could you get a book on nutrition/healthy eating/cooking out from your local library? Or do some research online? It might help to join a site like caloriecount.com where you can log your food and activity and it will tell you what of your RDA vitamins, fibre etc you are getting.

Veg stir fry(you can buy bags of frozen stir fry/oriental veg but do NOT buy a frozen stir fry as it may contain things OH can't eat) or veg+chicken curry with rice is something you can both eat.
Try making thick or chunky vegetable soups, they make great lunches. Lentil soup is easy, tasty, cheap, healthy, suitable for both of you. If you like spice/curry try a spicy butternut squash soup, curried parsnip, spiced leek & potato. If you want to thicken a soup but can't use flour, try adding a handful of dry brown rice when boiling the veg then blend the soup.
Try turkey mince instead of beef, it's lower in fat and makes great turkey burgers and spag bol.
Add beans to stews and chillis, or just make a mixed bean soup/stew, very hearty and healthy.

ALIBOBSY

You don't say whether your actual income is low or if it is the disposable income you are short on. If its the first ensure you are getting any benefits due, and for us whilst OH was out of work the nhs vouchers for veg and milk were a godsend-but this only applies if on benefits and pregnant/have young children.

Weazel (may have spelt that wrong sorry hun) did a brilliant thread where she made very low cost healthy meals so worth a look. Healthwise study after study proves the more processed a product is the less good it is for you. Manufacturers like profit so will use as cheap ingredients as they can get away with. This tends to mean, high fat content, high salt, plenty of fillers/stabalisers/preservatives/colours etc etc. Invariably it also means lowere nutritional values when compared to a homemade version, plus lower welfare for any animal products use to make it.
They use sneaky tricks like labeling things low fat then sticking half a bag of sugar in, or making calorie controller versions of ready meals that are full of sugar and salt and are simply tiny portions to get down the cals.

My OH has to avoid certain dietary stuff and cooking from scratch works every time, espcially if you shop well and bulk cook. IE you spot some mince beef "whoopsied"-other shop reductions are available lol, so you get 2 packs cheap. You spot some cheapy root veg (aldi's super 7 are brill). You make a pan of chilli and a pan of bolognaise sauce (I tend to split my meat so more goes into chilli-less into pasta sauce, but thats me). Pad both out with loads of veggies/toms/beans/lentils etc etc. You have one meal that night and portion the other up for the freezer-loads of cheap healthy "ready meals" stashed for another day.

Do that for a few nights and you start to have loads of options in the freezer.

I also love my slow cooker, mine was unwanted by a relative (ask around you will be suprised how many people buy stuff use it once then stick it in the back of the cupboard) so free, but aldi/lidl/tesco/argos etc regularly have offers on them. Cheap cuts can cook away all day and be really tender by teatime.

At one point when we were really short of money we fed 4 of us on about £40 per week pretty easily, and even now with 6 of us we could live on about £50-£60 no problems, although when the kids and OH come shopping it mostly ends up nearer £80 per week lol.

ali x

meanmarie

You can also get gluten free pasta....I have a packet of penne, made by Cucina which is ok but you have to be very careful not to overcook it. You can do pizza too if you use gluten free flour, Dove is quite inexpensive....will give you more good value variety.

Good luck

Marie

BitterAndTwisted

If your OH has coeliac disease surely they should have a prescription for gluten-free flours and whatnot? A pal of mine has coeliac and there are heaps of things she can get on prescription for baking. I'm not sure if she gets gluten-free pasta but from what I know she enjoys a really interesting and varied diet. Soy sauce is bit of a sacrifice but there are lots of other condiments and flavourings which are available and just as good.

I can't see why you can't feed both of you on £40 a week but it could mean either ditching or restricting the amount of ready-made stuff. You could consider doing some batch-cooking on the weekends and filling the fridge or freezer if time is short on week nights.

Daydreamer2011

Thanks for all the replies, slight typing error in the original post! I meant to say its cheaper for us to eat bad food than healthy!

I will have a good thorough look into all of this as I hate eating processed food but have had to this week as more or less everything was £1 each which was perfect for our budget!

We do get decent gluten free range of food (pasta, pizza bases etc) but it does cost a little. I have recently got some gluten free baking products but I am also a very unexperienced cook so its baby steps at the moment!

I do love my fruit and veg and we are quite lucky to be very close to a weekly market, next time I will try to go down towards end of the day to spot out some bargains!

My problem is because I have never properly cooked from scratch before, I am worried about putting what money I have into a meal only to screw it up and then I have to fork out more money to replace the meal!

As for our budget, we both work full time and on good (enough) wages we are just trying really hard to clear our debt so we are giving ourselves budgets.

Again, thanks for all the input x

Daydreamer2011

Can I just add - Aplaceinthesun - thank you for that link! That is probably one of the most useful sites I have ever come across (apart from here of course!)

It has now been saved to my favourites and I look forward to trying those recipes out!

Can I ask a really silly question though... I am still coming to terms with the whole batch freezing etc so are there any rough guidelines to follow when defrosting?

Is the general rule to leave out overnight at room temperature to de-frost or de-frost in microwave? Only thinking for things like hummous - to make in bulk and freeze portions but when want to eat it I dont want it warmed up and cooked? Sorry if this is a really silly question...

Aarons_mummy

Generally I leave it out overnight to cool at room temp but if pushed I defrost in the microwave although I wouldn't do it with hummous I'd leave that out overnight

Oh and there are no silly questions, I've asked a lot of them once you get the hang of it it'll just come to you. I wasn't in anyway experienced and after having my wee one etc I wanted to give him a good diet and then forced myself to cook. Majority of things won't be unsalvagable in some way. If you're following a recipe just do as it says and you'll do fine