£7.00 per week - menu ideas

debbym

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

Ok, said I wasn't going to post again but I had a little spare time and I do enjoy a challenge so I've constructed a healthy meal plan for £7 for a week

It's rather repetitive as you'll be eating the same thing every day but needs must and above all it's healthy!!!


Breakfast: banana omelette (2 eggs) = 28p (x 7) = £1.96

Lunch: chicken & quinoa soup (x 7) = £2.78

consists of:
courgette = 34p
onion = 19p
sweet potato = 35p
red pepper = 35p
carrots = 16p
quinoa = 55p
chicken drumsticks = £1.13
tin tomatoes = 31p

Dinner: spaghetti & cheese = 5p + 28p (x 7) = £2.31

All items can be bought from Tesco either loose or from value ranges. Hope this helps

Thanks for taking the time to come back to us with some menu ideas plus prices. (I am going to use Tescos again for ease of use and as per your suggestion:) )Just to clarify: pls correct me if I am wrong:D

Breakfast:banana omlette with from 2 eggs x 7
Tesco Everyday Value Eggs Minimum Weight Box Of 15 - £1.25
7 bananas (assuming 1 per day) £1.12
milk and butter? to make it into an omlette?
1 pint milk 49p
butter (250g) 98p

lunch: as quoted (I'm assuming that you are making it into a soup with plain water and aren't browning the veggies and chicken first as there is no stock cubes or oil as listed and no other spices are involved.)
btw I'm sure we would all love recipes for this kind of thing too !:) Do you blitz it or leave as is for a chunky soup?

dinner: spaghetti and cheese
again making assumptions here but just cheddar cheese grated over spag with no other seasoning such as black pepper?
value spaghetti (500g) easily enough for a week-24p
cheddar cheese - 250g pack £1.88


so:
drinks: tap water
breakfast x 7 :banana omelette
lunch x 7: chicken and quinoa soup
dinner x 7 : spaghetti and cheese


erm having typed all this into the Tescos website and I can't make your figures balance - sorry:o I get £11.71 total - even if I took off the butter and milk it would still be £10.24:o Please can you tell us where you get a things like whole pack of quinoa for 55p or a whole red pepper for 35p?
I get
tin tomatoes 31p
everyday value chicken drumsticks (cheapest option from those on website) £2.25
Quinoa 300g pack £1.69
red pepper 78p
sweet pepper 45p
onions 19p
courgettes 34p

(if you go here I have a screenshot of the Tescos basket)

This illustrates what I was trying to point out - if you have absolutely nothing to start with and have to buy full packs as you do in real life £7 doesn't get healthy or varied you are lucky just to feel full at the end of each day.

lilbert

Wow, this thread got very confrontational :eek:

I actually sympathise with what Chameleon is trying to say. Nutrition is important and shes simply trying to show that there are healthier alternatives such as eggs which might benefit you more. But it is a sad fact of life, that to eat halthier, it DOES cost MORE. You can eat healthy for not much, but for such a strict budget of £7 per week it will be very difficult, it gets better when you can stock things, such as cheap tinned tomatoes and stock cubes to make soup with any leftovers.

Anyhow, i'm not being terribly helpful either, just wanted to say at least Chameleon is trying to show it can be done healthier, just perhaps not on such a strict budget. Sometimes a strict budget has to come before healthier food to get past a bad patch.

So yesterday I had some leftover roast chicken (may or may not be useful to you, I know roast chickens are expensive but though i'd post anyway)

Used a handful of roast chicken
A handful of frozen mxed stir fry veg
2 packs value chicken noodles
Any seasoning I had in the cupbaord
Threw in an onion that was past its best and a leftover clove of garlic.

I cannot figure out the cost of this but it was less than £1 for the whole meal and it served 4. I think the stir fry veg was just over £1 and I used about 1/7th of a pack, 14p? Value chicken noodles were 11p each so 22p. Leftover roast chicken was probably the most expensive, the chicken was actually whoopsied to £2.40 for a 2.2kilo bird, but a lot of that weight will have been bones that went into the stock im making right now. I really cant figure this one out :rotfl: sorry guys! Anyhow, its flylady time and then I have to set the kids down to schoolwork. Got to go!!!

debbym

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

But my healthy meal plan costs just £7.05 a week assuming you can spare the extra £1.80 in the first week to buy a packet of quinoa & peppers which will then last three weeks!!

Sorry hun but you are missing the point. Right at the start of the first menu post I said and reiterated again later you can't walk into your average shop and ask for part of a packet - you have to pay for the whole thing then and there and carry it over. Remember that I am assuming that you have nothing at all in (as laid down as part of the challenge by OP on page 1) not even salt and pepper. If you only include part of the pack price for each thing there is loads of wiggle room to make the menu plan more healthy as you have shown;) That's not what I was doing though - you aren't comparing like for like.

If you go back to page 1 you'll also see the challenge was for 2 people for £1 per day with no storecupboard - now that is impossible!

debbym

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

So where was your salt & pepper on your shopping list then or do you cook your pasta without salt? :eek:

Actually I never use salt as I think I get enough from things like shop-bought bread etc. I am sorry you have taken offence that I have not followed the same guidelines as you for your menu plan - I stated quite clearly what I was trying to do.
It is a shame that you are giving up on helping people as you obviously know a lot about food/nutrition/shopping and ultimately we are all trying to offer a starting point to give other people ideas...

Pips_Mum

Been reading thread for a couple of days and now ready to stick my two pennyworth in!!


Chameleon, I ALWAYS boil my pasta without salt and don't understand why thats so shocking to you? Thank you for posting your meal suggestion, however personally I would not really eat anything on it. I can't eat eggs due to an allergy and aren't eggs really high in cholesterol? I live in the centre of town and there are no farm shops, allotments or the like, I wish there were, so its probably not possible for the OP to visit these places either.
Just to reiterate again that people have said living on £7.00 isn't ever going to be the healthiest option, its a short term thing. But I think everybody who has posted ideas has treied to make it as healthy as possible.

Thank you to Soworried and others who have posted ideas.

Both OH and I have both been made redundant, we have a 3 year old and I am 29 weeks pregnant. We would happily eat all the things suggested.

Butterfly_Brain

Oh dear what happened to the thread :eek::(.
Chameleon I hear what you are saying about healthy options, but as others have said if you only have £7 for 3 meals a day for 2 people and no stock cupboard it is nigh impossible to live on. Frozen and tinned fruit and veg is part of your 5 a day and is in the government health campaign here is a link for the list from the NHS.
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Pages/Whatcounts.aspx
You just have to get the fruit in natural juice if buying canned. Not all people like quinoa or would be willing to try on such a tight budget, if they didn't like it that would be a waste. As for having the same meal every night, no I don't think so, it would become very boring very quickly.
It is very upsetting to see a thread that can help people in really dire straits and people having to live below the breadline or from food banks...who by the way do not get fresh foods, they have to take what they are given and try to fill their families bellies. Some are in hostels, hotels or B&B's with no cooking facilities. Sadly it is a fact of life that when you are hungry healthy eating, in all its glory ie fresh fruit and veg, meat and fish goes out of the window.
I would much prefer to suggest a gammon joint cooked to do a couple of meals plus sandwiches, but that is £5 so you would only have £2 left for the rest of your meals
Please don't feel that you are being picked on, all ideas are welcome even though they may not be what people would eat, some might enjoy them.
I will endeavour to try and post more meal plans and as you can see from what I have done so far, I have tried to keep the meals as healthy and varied on such a tight budget as I can.

Butterfly_Brain

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

Ermmm excuse me but I've already demonstrated above how somebody can still eat healthy meals on the tight £1 a day budget suggested, and it includes fresh fruit & veg!! I don't understand all the animosity toward it. Obviously I'm not part of your tight-knit clan so I'll offer no more suggestions as they're very obviously unwelcome

Then so be it .......Goodbye

Lozzy88

Thank you all, some really brilliant ideas for meals on here, i am not on as a tight budget as this but it is giving me more ideas for meals.

Soworried

http://www.premier-stores.co.uk/#voucher

A free 100g bar of chocolate up for grabs, the voucher is emailled to you straight away. I hope some people can get this deal before it runs out.x

Many thanks to laacaz x

rosieben

I appreciate what Chameleon was saying but sadly I don't think it was very helpful in the context of this thread. For me, it would be depressing enough struggling to make ends meet and the thought of eating the same 3 meals every day of the week would be the last straw

I've taken a few meal ideas from here to my folder, not so much to save money as to find different ideas for easy meal, so thanks to all contributors