Cooking your own meals 6 April 2022 at 9:38AM edited 27 April 2022 at 12:41PM in Old style MoneySaving 10 replies 891 views

Scooperman

For breakfast buy a big bag of porridge. £1.15 for a 1kg bag. It will last you for quite a long time.

Buy a slow cooker from wherever you can find the cheapest one. I actually bought one for £5 and another for £10, so look out for old stock and bargains.

You can still buy a 3.5L for less than £15 at the moment.

Fill your slow cooker with chicken, onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms, potato or whatever takes your fancy. Make some chicken stock with Oxo cubes.

I normally buy a cooked chicken from Tesco at £5.50, but if you find out which day they cook them and go in the next day they are normally a lot cheaper £3.50 or so.

I put my vegetables in the night before and leave them cooking all night. The next morning cut your chicken up into pieces and add it to the pot. Add some salt and pepper to taste.

If you work awkward hours you can use a timer.

If you fill the 3L pot or if you have a family you can buy a 6L pot, the food will last you for 3 days.

You should be able to buy everything for under £6 if you buy the chicken at a reduced price £3.50 or you can cook it yourself.

So you have 3 main meals lasting for 3 days. COST around £2 a day. Obviously this varies depending on how many you are cooking for and if your are using a 6 Litre or 3 Litre pot.

But however much you have to spend it is a very healthy and tasty meal costing a lot less than eating out.

arnoldy

Good post and a refreshing change from the helplessness that sometimes is encountered about cost of living. Like you have done, control what you can control and take ownership. Often the cheapest cuts such as shin of beef are superb in the slow cooker as they don't dry out. 

Murphybear

We have 2 small slow cookers bought a few years ago for silly money.  My favourite things are beef chilli in one and rice pudding in the other.  I usually drain the tinned tomatoes otherwise the chilli will end up a bit sloppy.

we have a large freezer and buy beef mince reduced or on special offer.  

PLRFD

Hmmmm I never strain the juice from tomatoes when doing chilli it reduces as it’s cooking. I recently saw a chilli recipe on YouTube and dark chocolate was gated into it anyway next chilli I did I put a spoonful of proper cocoa in and the chilli was very good you wouldn’t immediately go oh there’s cocoa or something different in there but like I said it turned out a really good chilli. Huge respect to anyone who goes to the effort of cooking for the family and sticking a bit in the freezer for another time.

Perfumeflower57

As I am a type 2 diabetic and have to do a lot of low carb cooking from scratch, unfortunately, buying and cooking fresh ingredients can work out quite expensive on a daily basis as opposed to buying frozen and processed foods.

Using fresh ingredients also tend to have a shorter life span too but I have to cook low carb in order to stabilise my blood sugar and I can't cheat as have to have 3 monthly blood tests to check sugar levels.

Some people tend to think that a diabetic diet can be quite boring but I have bought quite a few diabetic cook books from Amazon which have loads of recipe ideas so it's not quite so bad...

PLRFD

Awww that must be hard at times.

Perfumeflower57

PLRFD said:

Awww that must be hard at times.

It can be. Especially when I'm dying for a bit of Cadbury's chocolate or fancy some Haribo's or my favourite Maynard's wine gums. I can't just have one. End up eating the whole bag. It's Easter weekend too!  So have to behave myself

PennyForThem_2

Do you have room for a reasonable sized freezer?  If so, batch cook.

MrsStepford

We were poor for five years when first married. We had an allotment, ate yellow sticker stuff, bought value lines and special offers, bought veg from fetes and boot fairs and foraged. My parents bought us a freezer as a wedding present so that we could freeze offers. Five years of eating meals made with soya mince 5 nights per week, rice, pasta, spuds, bread and soya marg, gave me Type 2 diabetes. 

The lowest carb chocolate I know is Lindt Excellence 90% cocoa chocolate 14g carbs per 100g bar,but not cheap although ASDA often does 2 bars for £3. Cadbury's does treatsize bags of buttons 10g carbs per bag (usually 5 bag pack for £1 at Iceland) and they have the Dairy Milk taste. Cadbury's Dairy Milk Little Bars are 10g carbs per bar too, but taste awful, as do the 35% less sugar Dairy Milk bars from Amazon. 

The Skinny Food Co does a 150g low carb gluten free bread mix. Husband gets 6 rolls out the bag and with a 10% off Subscribe & Save deal that makes them 44p each. Best bread mix we've tried so far and 2.5g carbs per roll. 

Hunter Gather unsweetened tomato ketchup tastes great and it's 3.23 on Subscribe & Save. Yes that's expensive, but less than 1g carbs per serving and 78% less sugar than ordinary ketchup. ASDA sells swedes for 50p, and they make great oven-fried chips. Birds Eye 12 gluten free frozen fish fingers 5g carbs each.when oven-baked are 2.50 at Waitrose to 17 May, otherwise cheapest price is £3 at Morrisons. 

Cheesies are an alternative to crisps 0g carbs. Holland & Barrett sells them, Sainsbury's has had them, Amazon sells them, as do Cheesies themselves Cheesies | Crunchy Baked Cheese Snacks 

The lowest carb actual crisps I know are Walkers Salt & Shake. crisps 12.5g carbs per 24g bag and Iceland has 6 packs for 1.70, currently on offer 2 bags for 2.70 saving 70p

Protermars pork, beef or chicken snacks available from them, ebay, The Range, Amazon 0.1g carbs per bag 
Pork Snack – protermars-snacks

Fatt bars are available from them, Amazon, Ketosource and generally 1 or 2g carbs per bar Coffee & walnut is on sale 1.65 each (others are 1.85) Coffee + Walnut - Live Fatt

Barber's Popped Cheese very similar to Cheesies Barber's Cheese Pops (barbers.co.uk) 0g carbs per 20g bag only available from Barber's. 

Organix 6 x 14g raisin boxes, designed for toddlers 10g carbs per 14g, currently 1.50 at Morrisons 
Organix gingerbread men toddler snack biscuits 135g 2.20 Sainsbury's 4.3g carbs per biscuit

Nature Valley Protein peanuts & chocolate 4 x 40g bars 2.90 many supermarkets 9.2g carbs per bar. Definitely not a gone in a moment bar. 

A LOT of snacks have high carb content even Slimming World, FibreOne or really dodgy ingredients which can have a laxative effect (been there done that). 

Katiehound

I'm not sure why you'd buy a ready cooked chicken (as per 1st post)
You can get a kilo of skin on, bone in fresh chicken thighs for £1.99 from Aldi. That goes a long way in a slow cooker. I take most of the skin off & leave the bone in.  last time I worked out each thigh was 25 pence (Of course it depends on the size!) but there were 9 in the pack.

Own brand stock cubes much cheaper in Aldi

As far as I know the cheapest (small) slow cooker is from Asda (£12)  with Currys next (£12.99) When I bought mine I read the reviews- the Crockpot doesn't have a 'power-on' light.

otb666

i have batched cooked 5 casseroles 2 beetroot salad and 2 currys and a soup for next 10 days I also have to not have carbs.  Just chucked into slow cooker and batched up in containers then put in fridge freezer. Dont bother peeling just wash veg and chop up and chuck in slow cooker.