One is Fun?

Bambi234

Hi All

This is my first post on this part of the board; I’ve had a search and can’t seem to find an answer to my dilemma.

While all the budget planning and store cupboard challenges are a useful starting point I can’t seem to find anything that relates specifically to buying, cooking and living ‘Old Style’ when you are only doing it for one person i.e. you live on your own. At the moment I am generally spending around the £25 mark each week for food, but know I can do it cheaper and probably a lot healthier too. All advice would be appreciated.

P.S…………I really really hate fish.

comping_cat

You can always meal plan for a week, and then you know exactly what ingredients you need to buy (if any). Also, being in a single household, look for recipes you can 'batch cook' and then freeze portions - if you have a freezer/store cupboard inventory, this will help when meal planning, as once you have some meals cooked and frozen, its almost like having your own home made ready meals!!!

Bargain_Rzl

I also live alone and spend about £15pw on food. Catowen is right, plan to cook in large batches and freeze the remainder in portion-sized amounts (plus it means you don't have to cook properly every day, and it's better for your freezer's running costs if you keep it full!) Casseroles and pasta dishes both work well in bulk.

Edit: one more thing. Rather than starting off with a meal plan, I scour the supermarkets at closing time for huge reductions on yellow-stickered meat for the freezer, then I form my meal plans around whatever I've got. On a good week this can cut my costs right down, nearer to £10. You can quite frequently pick up meat with an RRP of £4-£5 for 50p or less.

loumac

Hi Bambi234. I also live alone (bar two cats!) and have been working towards all of the tips and challenges on this site. As you'll see from my signature my monthly food budget is really high compared to some others so i've still a lot to learn so I just keep visiting and reading!

I have started batch cooking and freezing and last week stuck to my first meal plan!

If you want an online buddy to share advice with then that would be cool.

Topher

Hi there, I don't know if having a small freezer discourages the batch cooking/baking habit, but one of the American sites I've seen, together with one of the Cook for a day, Eat for a month, books I read states that a fridge top freezer would hold the portions they recommended.
I have tried it, it does work... not conveniently, but it does work.
T

loumac

My freezer isn't huge but I'm getting there. I bought some plastic tubs like a takeway would come in (6 for £1) and they fit a meal in and stack nicely in a drawer.

I'm nowhere near cooking for a day and eating for a month but cooked some meals last week which lasted a couple of days and I just froze one portion which will do me for next week. I've just meal planned and discovered really I can get away with just buying bread, milk and cat food as I have enough meals in the freezer.

I guess a lot of it is just getting into a routine.

Mr_Proctalgia

I too live alone and initially found it very difficult to cook single portions, also I have two stuffed freezers, so, picking up on a hint from this board, I started shopping from my own pantry and freezer and am slowly making some space which is getting refilled with batch cooked "take away" meals. It is difficult as things seem to go down very slowly,and, coupled to the fact that I love cooking makes this even harder. Last night I cooked 2 kilos of lasagne and sliced it into portions, it is now chillin' ready for freezing but it doesn't seem to have lowered my stash of ingredients down much. So I will have to make some space for it later. Today it is Crayfish tail curry with saffron rice as I have the stuff and it really ought to be used up and I have two trays left over for it to go in. I put the curry in the bottom of the tray, level it off, chill it down then put the rice on top and freeze it, it goes straigh into the freezer and is upended onto a plate for nuking back to a hot meal (which is once again the "right way up")
I find this way of working is good for me at the moment as I usually get home from work at about 11pm and am not up to much at that time of night.

HTH

squeaky

Bambi234 wrote:

Hi All

This is my first post on this part of the board; I’ve had a search and can’t seem to find an answer to my dilemma.

While all the budget planning and store cupboard challenges are a useful starting point I can’t seem to find anything that relates specifically to buying, cooking and living ‘Old Style’ when you are only doing it for one person i.e. you live on your own. At the moment I am generally spending around the £25 mark each week for food, but know I can do it cheaper and probably a lot healthier too. All advice would be appreciated.

P.S…………I really really hate fish.

Then you missed one Take a look here:-

GETTING STARTED

A collection of assorted threads where people have asked "How and where do I start?" There are lots of different answers to browse here.

catznine

If you can find it (out of print now but often found in charity shops or ebay) then Shirley Goodes "Goode for One" has lots of recipes and advice.

Bambi234

Thanks to all off you who have replied. I only have a small freezer (came with the place) bit it is larger than a fridgetop one. Im off out today to puchase a slow-cooker as suggested in a few other threads and would be a good way of doing something that i could batch freeze. And like Mr Proctalgia i want to get proper potion sizes no only saving me money but reducing my growing waistline

GardenMillie

Mr_Proctalgia wrote:

I too live alone and initially found it very difficult to cook single portions, also I have two stuffed freezers, so, picking up on a hint from this board, I started shopping from my own pantry and freezer and am slowly making some space which is getting refilled with batch cooked "take away" meals. It is difficult as things seem to go down very slowly,and, coupled to the fact that I love cooking makes this even harder. Last night I cooked 2 kilos of lasagne and sliced it into portions, it is now chillin' ready for freezing but it doesn't seem to have lowered my stash of ingredients down much. So I will have to make some space for it later. Today it is Crayfish tail curry with saffron rice as I have the stuff and it really ought to be used up and I have two trays left over for it to go in. I put the curry in the bottom of the tray, level it off, chill it down then put the rice on top and freeze it, it goes straigh into the freezer and is upended onto a plate for nuking back to a hot meal (which is once again the "right way up")
I find this way of working is good for me at the moment as I usually get home from work at about 11pm and am not up to much at that time of night.

HTH

I have exactly the same problem - I love cooking and do loads of batch cooking - curries, soups, stews, chilli etc However I don't like eating the same thing two nights in a row so I freeze portions and the freezer seems to take ages to empty (in the meantime I'm doing more cooking). The great thing is I never buy convenience food and if you're organised - I was last week I take out a meal from the freezer in the morning and it's defrosted by evening so I can cook up some pasta a rice to go with it.