5 days of balanced meals for £25 - is it possible?

LaLashes

Hi all,

As the title suggests, I'm wondering if above is possible?

I'd like to try and cut my food bill drastically down as after a few days of lurking on these boards, I've seen it's possible to live on a lot less.

It would be 3 meals a day, for OH who is a stay at home dad and for our DD who is 2yrs 4mth and one meal a day for me (dinner only as I'm doing a meal replacement diet (: )

We aren't a fussy lot, there is no foods that we don't like and love fruit and veg too.

We have a slow cooker and pressure cooker so cheaper cuts if meat aren't an issue.

Admittedly, there isn't a lot if basic ingredients in our cupboards since we've just moved in last week and prior to our move I'd been cooking from cupboards and freezer and trying not to buy too much shopping.

I have:

- various types of pasta, penne, fusilli, macaroni, lasagne sheets and linguine.
- 2 packs of cheese sauce mix
- bisto
- herbs and spices: rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, oregano, crushed chillies, tandoori spice blend and cinnamon
- 5 beef oxos, 6 chicken oxos and 3 knorr chicken stock cubes
- soy sauce
- can coconut milk
- can custard
- Heinz mushroom, tomato, vegetable and minestrone soup
- can chopped tomatoes and can peeled tomatoes
- 4 eggs
- salad cream
- 9 potato scones
- bag broth mix
- 2 garlic bread baguettes
- 3 large onions
- 750g baby pearl potatoes
- approx 150g mushrooms


I'd be extremely grateful if anyone had any ideas? The £25 is the figure I have in my head but it can be stretched a little if needs be.

I fortunately have access to all supermarkets, asda, morrisons, tesco, lidl, aldi etc

Thanks all x

Linda32

Hi,

I will have a look at your list. I'm not usually very good at being mega inventive so don't expect the greatest of ideas. I personally tend to work from an inventory of what I've already got rather than buying more.

You could cook the pasta. Then cook the tinned tomatoes and the peeled toms to make a sauce. Add some thyme and cover the pasta and serve with garlic bread.

You could do the same with the cheese sauce mix - see told you it wouldn't be great, but at least it uses what you have got.

Omlettes with the eggs. I personally don't like omlettes so I would have them fried on toast for either breakfast or tea.

errm soup for lunch. It isn't something I have so not sure about this.

I'm sure someone on here could make something with the bag of broth mix, the potatoes, onions and mushrooms


Thats all I can come up with before I'd have to go to the shops.

bbh30

I think your main problem with having balanced foods is that you dont really have many foods that are high in protein in that list. You could do:
day 1: omelette (with mushroom and onions on top) served with potato wedges
day 2: vegetarian lasagne: cheese sauce mixes, use the broth mix with onion and mushrooms and the chopped tomatoes to make a tomato and veg layer, and obv the pasta sheets
day 3: tomato pasta bake with garlic bread

If you could buy some cheap chicken thighs- you could then make:
chicken casserole using stock cubes, veg, served with pots
thai chicken curry using coconut milk (could try tandoori spices- not sure how it would work out??!!)
chicken stir fry using onions, mushrooms and soy sauce mixed with stock cube made up with about 200ml hot water(do you have any cornflour to thicken the sauce a little?- in fact you could thicken it with about 1 tsp of the custard powder- it would work the same)

lama_pdx

First, using up what you have:

1. Mix cooked pasta, mushroom soup, and tuna in a casserole dish and bake. Put aside a bit of garlic bread to make a crispy breadcrumb topping.

2. Parboil the baby potatoes and then saute them with a chopped onion, then mix with the tandoori spices and a little coconut milk and bake in the oven for a vegetarian curry.

3. Not sure what a potato scone is, but can they be used to make bread pudding? Cube and mix with eggs and coconut milk and cinnamon, then bake. Serve with custard.

4. Not sure how nice the cheese sauces are. Could you mix cooked pasta and a can of tinned tomatoes with the cheese sauce to make a pasta bake?

5. You can mix minestrone soup with pasta and broth to stretch it.

6. There are surely other ways to eat up what you have without going to the shops, but it depends on your taste. I wouldn't mind just eating plain cooked pasta with herbs on it, but that might be too dry for you.

Eating cheaply in general:

1. Rice, rice, rice. I love rice and you can get a huge bag for cheap at an Asian grocery. Mix some cooked rice with soup for a good filling meal. Or use your slow cooker to make a dish with chicken and rice... or a bean-and-rice chili. Lots of recipes out there.

2. Do you like lentils? You can make mujadarah (Middle-Eastern comfort food) or add lentils to a chili. I like making spag bol with lentils instead of ground beef.

3. Maybe give baking a try? Once you get the hang of a basic bread dough, you can make sandwich rolls for lunches, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, pizza bases, etc. All nicer and cheaper than store-bought, and it all freezes well.

Skint_yet_Again

LaLashes wrote: »

It would be 3 meals a day, for OH who is a stay at home dad and for our DD who is 2yrs 4mth and one meal a day for me (dinner only as I'm doing a meal replacement diet (: )

I have:

- various types of pasta, penne, fusilli, macaroni, lasagne sheets and linguine.
- 2 packs of cheese sauce mix
- bisto
- herbs and spices: rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, oregano, crushed chillies, tandoori spice blend and cinnamon
- 5 beef oxos, 6 chicken oxos and 3 knorr chicken stock cubes
- soy sauce
- can coconut milk
- can custard
- Heinz mushroom, tomato, vegetable and minestrone soup
- can chopped tomatoes and can peeled tomatoes
- 4 eggs
- salad cream
- 9 potato scones
- bag broth mix
- 2 garlic bread baguettes
- 3 large onions
- 750g baby pearl potatoes
- approx 150g mushrooms


I'd be extremely grateful if anyone had any ideas? The £25 is the figure I have in my head but it can be stretched a little if needs be.
x

Hi LaLashes, assuming the £25 is just for food for 5 days this is what I would buy: (prices based on my last 3 weeks receipts)

porridge oats 85p (asda)
value noodles 44p (asda 4 x 11p)
value honey 1.24 (asda)

Aldi:-
bananas 1 kg 68p
satsumas 99p
apples 99p
lean steak mince 2.69
gammon joint 2.99
bag potatoes 89p
3 pack peppers 1.49
butternut squash 89p
broccoli 75p
whole chicken 2.99
2 x 4pints milk £2
bread rolls £1
butter £1
tin sweetcorn 35p
tin pineapple 47p
4 pack beans 1.25
yoghurts 99p
rice pudding 2 large tins 1.10
15 eggs 1.25

total 27.29
Dinners

1. pasta bake. 1/2 pack mince with onion, mushrooms, peppers add tin tom soup and pasta and bake in oven, top with cheese sauce and serve with garlic bread

2. beef & veg chilli - 1/2 pack mince with onion, mushrooms, peppers, butternut squash, baby potatoes, tins of tomatoes, tin of baked beans, (take out portion for child and then add crushed chillies.) Bread rolls with butter to dip up the juices

3. roast chicken, mashed potatoes, brocolli, roast butternut squash & bisto gravy.

4. Gammon, home made wedges, tin sweetcorn, tinned pineapple. Bread roll & butter

5. Leftover gammon chopped with fried onions & mixed into jacket potato with cheese sauce on top and baked beans

Puddings - Rice pudding. Yoghurt. sliced banana and custard. Pineapple roasted in a drizzle of honey with yoghurt or custard

lunches

sandwiches with leftover chicken. Soup (add a few handfuls of cooked pasta for a more filling meal), omelette, any leftovers from dinners. Jacket potato. Value noodles, with any leftover veg/meat, soy sauce pinch of chilli if liked. Potato scone with fried egg & beans. Bread roll toasted with beans.
Apple or satsuma

Breakfast

Porridge sweetened with honey. fried egg sandwich. Toasted bread roll with beans. Boiled egg & soldiers. "Eggy" bread & beans

I know its slightly over £25 and I am not sure if these meals would be suitable for your DD (my DS is 17yo now and you forget what they eat at 2 yo) but I'm sure others will be along with better menu plans and prices, but I hope this helps. Good luck x

rosie383

Slightly different post here, but just thought I'd share when I saw the title of the thread.

I passed an advert board on a bus shelter today for a well-known pizza place declaring..... ' Feed 4 for £5 each'

As a good MSE'er it made me smile (or grimace!!).:cool:

Big_Alf

Is this for you to cook or your OH? Being a SAD the meal planning is a big part of my day, but I am fortunate that I like cooking.

One of the big bonuses I have found about being at home is there is the time to create a lot of foods from scratch which is cheaper, healthier and tastier!

I would advise investing in a bread machine. I was pretty 'meh' about getting one as I thought it would be used once before being put into action as a dust collector, but my OH was pretty insistent. Low and behold it's fantastic!

Not only does it make fresh bread for around 30p a loaf but you can also use it to make fresh pasta, pizza dough etc... with minimal effort which is heavenly compared to mass produced supermarket rubbish!

[Deleted User]

I've just had a shufty at my food spreadsheet. I'm spending £2.98 a day, which gets me 2885 calories, and exceeds the RDA for fibre by 30%, and the RDA for fruit & veg by 20%. It's also well below the RDAs for fat, saturated fat, and processed/red meat. Salt is a little high at 7g/day, but still well below the average Brits consumption of 12g/day.

Tillytrotter1

Skint_yet_Again wrote: »

Hi LaLashes, assuming the £25 is just for food for 5 days this is what I would buy: (prices based on my last 3 weeks receipts)

porridge oats 85p (asda)
value noodles 44p (asda 4 x 11p)
value honey 1.24 (asda)

Aldi:-
bananas 1 kg 68p
satsumas 99p
apples 99p
lean steak mince 2.69
gammon joint 2.99
bag potatoes 89p
3 pack peppers 1.49
butternut squash 89p
broccoli 75p
whole chicken 2.99
2 x 4pints milk £2
bread rolls £1
butter £1
tin sweetcorn 35p
tin pineapple 47p
4 pack beans 1.25
yoghurts 99p
rice pudding 2 large tins 1.10
15 eggs 1.25

total 27.29
Dinners

1. pasta bake. 1/2 pack mince with onion, mushrooms, peppers add tin tom soup and pasta and bake in oven, top with cheese sauce and serve with garlic bread

2. beef & veg chilli - 1/2 pack mince with onion, mushrooms, peppers, butternut squash, baby potatoes, tins of tomatoes, tin of baked beans, (take out portion for child and then add crushed chillies.) Bread rolls with butter to dip up the juices

3. roast chicken, mashed potatoes, brocolli, roast butternut squash & bisto gravy.

4. Gammon, home made wedges, tin sweetcorn, tinned pineapple. Bread roll & butter

5. Leftover gammon chopped with fried onions & mixed into jacket potato with cheese sauce on top and baked beans

Puddings - Rice pudding. Yoghurt. sliced banana and custard. Pineapple roasted in a drizzle of honey with yoghurt or custard

lunches

sandwiches with leftover chicken. Soup (add a few handfuls of cooked pasta for a more filling meal), omelette, any leftovers from dinners. Jacket potato. Value noodles, with any leftover veg/meat, soy sauce pinch of chilli if liked. Potato scone with fried egg & beans. Bread roll toasted with beans.
Apple or satsuma

Breakfast

Porridge sweetened with honey. fried egg sandwich. Toasted bread roll with beans. Boiled egg & soldiers. "Eggy" bread & beans

I know its slightly over £25 and I am not sure if these meals would be suitable for your DD (my DS is 17yo now and you forget what they eat at 2 yo) but I'm sure others will be along with better menu plans and prices, but I hope this helps. Good luck x

That's quite an impressive and inventive menu plan. I have already stolen some of your ideas for next week. Thanks