Weekly food budget- trying my hand at thrift!

Tryingtomoveout

[FONT=&quot]Hi everyone,

I have recently started saving as much as possible (as I need to pay off my overdraft and a few smallish debts) and then save as much as possible for a deposit.

This month is a particularly tight one, and as I do not want to spend on my CC I am only going to live on what I have available...
So I have £25.00 to live on per week for food. There are two of us, but my hubby doesn't always eat at home as he gets a hot lunch and dinner at work.

Below is my meal plan...I'm partly writing it out here to make sure I stick to it..but also I hope it provides some ideas to others!!

It is slightly 'cheating' in the sense that I have quite a lot of stuff in my cupboards and so I have left these costs out...therefore, if you were going to follow this...it would cost a bit more than £25.00...in the coming weeks when I have cleared my cupboards out..I'm sure I will be coming up with some more cost effective recipes if I am to stick to a £25.00 weekly budget. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Breakfast:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Porridge - [/FONT][FONT=&quot]10p per portion (Tesco value 1kg oats for 75p)
With (or without) - a scoop of wholeearth peanut butter, or chopped dates(I already have these).
Milk- (Longlife - 49p Tesco value)
+ 1 banana (£1.15 for 8 Tesco)[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Total: £2.39 for 7 days of breakfasts.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
For me: about £1.64 as I have porridge in the cupboard. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Lunch: (packed lunches for work)

Monday:
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]2 x sandwiches with Feta/mozarella, tomato and peri dressing
1 x banana and some nuts[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Tuesday:[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Left over Soup
1 x sandwich with cheese and tomato
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
Wednesday:
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Left over Tuna Pasta
1 x chocolate bar[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Thursday:
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Left over Fried rice with veg and yogurt with cucumber (raita)
nuts for a snack
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
Friday:
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Left over Soup and 1x sandwich with cheese and tomato, chocolate

Cost: 1 packet of sandwich rolls 80p, 1 cucumber, 65p, bag of nuts 1.50, cheese 1.50, tomatoes, 60p, packet of chocolate bars/snacks - 1.50[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Total= 4.40




Dinners:

Monday: Roasted vegetable soup with lentils and homemade garlic bread
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]1 onion, roasted squash, carrots, courgettes or other reduced veg, lentils and spices (from the cupboard), cheapest loaf baked a few mins in the oven with garlic paste and butter[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Tuesday: Tuna and vegetable pasta
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]1 onion, 1 tin tuna, pasta, chilli powder, veg from the freezer, passata [/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Wednesday: Paneer curry (make extra portions) with rice
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]2 onions, paneer, veg from freezer, mushrooms, passata (spices from the cupboard)[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Thursday: (left-over) fried rice and veg, with daal (lentil curry) or left over paneer
Hubby's day off: Meat curry for him[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]1 onion, chicken or other meat, passata (spices from curry), rice[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]
Friday: Mixed bean curry with rice
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]1 onion, kidney beans, butter beans, chickpeas, some of the roasted butternut squash, passata, yoghurt, (spices from the cupboard), garlic paste. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Saturday: [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
left-overs, and usually eat with family on the Sunday so not including it in the budget.

Shopping list for dinners (excluding what I already have)
1kg bag value onions 63p
Beans - kidney 30p, 39p, 55p
yoghurt- 45p
paste - 75p
butternut squash - 1.90
600g Carrots- 79p
mushrooms- 1.00
Everday chopped tomatoes 39p x 4 = 1.16
1 tin tuna 1.00
Paneer - 3.75 (for 3/4 portions)
Meat: 4.00
veg top-up:1.00

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Total: 17.67[/FONT][FONT=&quot]


[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Total - £23.71 / 25.00 - leaves a small contingency

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]I will post next week to let you know whether I stuck to the budget or not!! [/FONT]

DawnW

Your mealplan sounds great. Very useful to have all the costings as well

Catcherupper14

Well done for being so organised. I am very good at meal planning in theory, but not so good at sticking with it!


Please let us know how you are getting on as the week goes on.

Butterfly_Brain

There is a £20 a week thread here.................
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4148389

jackyann

This looks very good.
I would suggest considering dried milk for the porridge - though I do realise at the moment you are using up long-life.
I don't like long-life milk, but find that ordinary milk freezes very well (though be aware it takes a long time to defrost) so I buy 4 litres, freeze in 250-500 ml lots, and use dried milk for porridge.

[Deleted User]

Sounds like you have a really good plan there well done for sorting it out so well.

Now the next and hardest bit is sticking to it.One small tip once you have bought your shopping go NOWHERE near a shop again for a week at least.or you will end up buying the £5.00 loaf ,by that I mean you will think 'Oh I'll just pop out for a loaf then you will be tempted to buy something else.

I live very well by only shopping for stuff I have run out of and using only cash and going to the shops when I only have a list of between 7-10 things needed if I have run out of just one thing then I'll change and adapt something else to eat instead

My average budget is around £60.00 per month, and I live alone.True I don't have to cook a Sunday dinner as I have that at my DDs and often if there is not enough left over to feed her tribe, she will plate up some left over bits on Sunday night so I just have to add a few veg and gravy for Monday nights dinner.
HM soup is definitely a must and a good vatful can be made easily with 'bendy' or past its best veg and lentils.
You seem to be on the right track at least

I suppose I spend about a third of my budget on fruit and veg and although I do eat meat I try not to use too much at a time. 500gms of mince will make me with some lentils or oats added at least three cottage pies,three chillis and three pasta bakes .I bulk out the meat, and when cooked I portion it up and freeze into individual portions .

With a little bit of thought its possible to live well, and at a reasonable cost.A couple of weeks ago I saw a large chicken and mushroom pie in M&S that had been reduced to £2.20.I bought it and took it home and cut into four decent sized quarters, one of those with veg is a dinner, the other three was wrapped in foil and frozen for another day so my meat part of my meal was 55p plus a few vegs, and a rice pudding portion for pudding My meal I costed out to around a pound.

With HM soup and crackers for lunch and porridge for breakfast my meals that day costed out at under £2.00.I make my own cake and also biscuits which are cheaper and nicer than shop-bought stuff. Yesterday my DD gave me a nice avocado that my DGS had decided he wasn't keen on as its a bit hard, but in a day or so once ripened it will be a nice change for me for a dinner I will scoop the stone out and pile some tuna from a tin (the rest of the tuna will go in the fridge to go with some pasta the following day) mixed up with a nice dollop of chilli mayo on top and have it with salad another meal made out of very little.

I like tuna mixed with mayo and some sweetcorn as a filling for a jacket spud, or just with a small salad a small tin will easily do two meals for very little money.
Well done on your meal plan and costing it out gives you an idea of how you can streeetch your cash
JackieO xxx

NewShadow

Really like the look of your plan, and think i might be stealing your idea to add chilli powder to a tuna bake...

Just wanted to suggest thinking about your portion sizes if you want to stretch things.

Everyone's different, but 100g of oats is about double the recommended serving. I try and follow slimming world, which means i actually have 35g of oats each morning (with a banana, blueberries from the freezer, and a spoon of dried fruit). While i microwave it, it threatens to overflow the bowl, and this more than fills me up until lunch.

It also means that my 1kg bag of oats lasts me a month rather than a week and my waist is getting slowly smaller in the process :money:

just a thought.

Tryingtomoveout

Hi everyone

Thanks for the replies...I thought I would just update everyone on my progress....So I kept to the meal plan n the food went further than I thought...I spent a little over (£2.20 for a Friday coffee and £11.00 on alcohol but that was for a night in with friends and we would have spent way more going out) so overall I'm very happy.

My overall scrimping is saving me quite a bit...which will go towards paying my loans off early.

I plan to keep the 25 pound budget up permanently

Owain_Moneysaver

Try and budget for a £30 week occasionally as you will have to top up the store-cupboard.