Hopefully debt free before Mortgage renewal in June 2026

Tezzadp

daisy_1571 said:

If you can follow the instructions on a ready meal, you can cook.  Some of the best meals are simpler  to cook than them.

Beans on toast always cheap easy meal, even better with some grated cheese on top to melt with the heat of the beans.

Baked potato only takes 10 mins in micro, beans, cheese, boiled egg, tuna, whatever you like on top is all fairly nutritious especially if you eat the skin and just as quick and simple as a ready meal but way tastier.  Stab it with a fork all over to let steam escape then just shove it in on a plate and pop it in.  Watch as plate will be hot, cover your hand with your sleeve if you don't have a towel handy to pick the plate up.  (If you hard boil eggs do half a dozen at the same time and they keep in the fridge and you have meals part prepared for quick food when you get in for a few nights.)

Best of all is soup, you can follow a recipe but equally you can just chuck any veg in a pan with water, 2 lamb stock cubes and a veg cube (or 2 veg and 1 lamb), simmer in a pot till all soft then squash it up with your potato masher or leave it chunky.  Always use a white onion (those are the ones with brown papery skin and white insides) for flavour.   Some potatoes with skin left on is better for you and bulks it up.  A handful of red lentils, any tin of mixed beans, or fresh veg, whatevers cheap that week, try scraping a carrot with potato peeler rather than chopping and it tastes different, frozen veg works fine too, couple of lumps of frozen spinach can go into any veg soup.   You'll never get 2 loads that taste the same but you'll rarely get a batch that tastes rotten.  That's cheaper than buying tins unless they are on special offers of course but you'll get less salt and more fibre doing it yourself not to mention bigger amounts than you get in a tin so more meals prepared at one time and ready to heat up later.

You can also throw in a packet of the cheap super noodles or pasta if you like that in soup.   Essentially just a meal all in one bowl. 

A really simple soup is stock cubes as before, a potato, an onion, a bag of fresh spinach leaves. Makes a really billious looking bright green soup but its really tasty and a good way to get veg and fibre into your diet.  It does need smashed up, a masher might not do the trick but im imagining if you don't cook much you won't have one of those stick blenders.  Try cutting it with scissors, its just to break it up from looking like wilted leaves.  That will make a good 5 bowls worth of soup, maybe more, so for your leftovers, put one bowlful in fridge for next day, anything over that use your ladle to measure your normal soup plate amount into any plastic carton or freezer bag.  My bowls take 2 of my ladlefuls so I know thats a portion for us. Ready made, correct size portions for other days.

You can cook cos you do cook if you heat up ready meals, it doesn't have to be 'fancy' food to be 'cooking'.  The other diaries on here are endless sources of inspiration for cheap meals, you can do it.  Nothing is better than feeling well, it doesn't have to feel like punishment to pay off debt, you can feel well at the same time 

Dxx

Hi Daisy, I can cook some basic meals like beans on toast, spaghetti Bolognese, pasta bake, jacket potato with different fillings, Staffordshire Lobby what my nan used to make (basically a beef casserole/stew) and all basic things you throw in the oven to cook from frozen. But as far as throwing different fresh ingredients together to create a dish go, i dont have much knowledge or experience with that. I think that lots of fresh ingredients that go off pretty quickly needed for one dish is not cost effective for me living on my own and also the effort to prepare, cook and then clean everything afterwards is a lot of effort just for one person to have one meal, if it was to feed a family then its worth all the time and effort. A lot of the time i dont feel mentally motivated enough to do anything let alone cook. I have anxiety and depression and dont feel like doing much most days.

But i do like your ideas of getting some cheap veg and making a soup or something similar. I love spinach, i havent had spinach for years and years so i would love to try something with that. I don't eat any fresh veg or unprocessed meat, and i love veg, so i guess my body would benefit if i started eating some. I eat wayyy too much bread and would love to eat new things tbh as im bored and fed up of the same meals all the time. So next time i go shopping im going to buy less ready meals and i will get some cheap veg and try something like you said and see how it turns out. 

Thanks for the tips and motivation to try something new 

Spendless

Great tips from Daisy. I agree home made soup creates you a filling meal for pennies and is nicer than any shop bought. Question for you @daisy_1571 - why lamb stock cubes? I often see chicken stock cubes mentioned in recipes, but my daughter was vegetarian for 8 years so I could only use veggie ones (I used to use stock pots and additional flavourings to enhance taste) but when she returned to eating meat, I used a chicken one and I just didnt like it, the flavour overwhelmed the rest and I dont know if its just the way I got used to my soups tasting, so curious about lamb ones.  

joedenise

I wondered about lamb stock cubes as well.  They're not as easily available as chicken, beef or veggie ones.  I tend to use veggie stockpots when I make soups unless I want a meaty stock for some reason - something like French onion soup needs it rather than veggie stock.  Nice as this is @Tezzadp it's not a soup I would make to start with as it takes a long time to cook!

Rather than buying lots of ready meals could you make a meal for 4 and then eat one, one in the fridge for the next day or the day after and 2 meals into the freezer for a home made ready meal.  It really doesn't have to be anything complicated.  You've said you can do spaghetti bolognaise so make up extra bolognaise and split it as above.  You have the basis for doing other meals from it - eg chilli by adding some chilli powder and beans; base of shepherds pie; add curry powder and frozen peas for a keema curry.  Each of which you'd just need to add a carb - rice or mash.

daisy_1571

Oh, thanks for the stock questions!  I don't know why lamb are hard to find, I tend to get 2 when I see them to last me till I see them again.  Every supermarket seems to be the same, only has lamb from time to time.   I use chicken if I don't have any but (although I don't care for the taste of lamb meat) I find lamb cubes in soups like spinach, celery or leak and potato tastes better.  Perhaps after not eating them for so long you are used to tge less salt tadte?  Cos essentially that's the majority of a  stock cube.  I always pick up low salt versions of stock cubes if they are available otherwiseI find the end product too salty.   I think I started using them as the leak and potato soup recipe I had used them.  Then once I stopped looking at recipes for soup and just use the chuck it in technique I kept with either lamb or chicken.  Beef definitely has too strong a taste and colour for most veg soups.

I wasn't sure how much freezer space tezzadp had but I'd also always recommend cooking a big pot of something and freezing portions so they are homemade ready meals for 1.  Its not really much more bother to wash a bigger pot than a tiny pot but you've made 8 portions rather than 1 portion in much the same timescale. 

Dxx

Tezzadp

No money spent today
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Natwest CC Daily payment £2.62 Total daily payments made this month £25.75

Total of all Natwest CC payments, including weekly and monthly payments made this month £106.78 leaving a balance of £3738.20

*This month refers to 30th May to 29th June (the day before pay day)

daisy_1571

Tezzadp said:

daisy_1571 said:

If you can follow the instructions on a ready meal, you can cook.  Some of the best meals are simpler  to cook than them.

Beans on toast always cheap easy meal, even better with some grated cheese on top to melt with the heat of the beans.

Baked potato only takes 10 mins in micro, beans, cheese, boiled egg, tuna, whatever you like on top is all fairly nutritious especially if you eat the skin and just as quick and simple as a ready meal but way tastier.  Stab it with a fork all over to let steam escape then just shove it in on a plate and pop it in.  Watch as plate will be hot, cover your hand with your sleeve if you don't have a towel handy to pick the plate up.  (If you hard boil eggs do half a dozen at the same time and they keep in the fridge and you have meals part prepared for quick food when you get in for a few nights.)

Best of all is soup, you can follow a recipe but equally you can just chuck any veg in a pan with water, 2 lamb stock cubes and a veg cube (or 2 veg and 1 lamb), simmer in a pot till all soft then squash it up with your potato masher or leave it chunky.  Always use a white onion (those are the ones with brown papery skin and white insides) for flavour.   Some potatoes with skin left on is better for you and bulks it up.  A handful of red lentils, any tin of mixed beans, or fresh veg, whatevers cheap that week, try scraping a carrot with potato peeler rather than chopping and it tastes different, frozen veg works fine too, couple of lumps of frozen spinach can go into any veg soup.   You'll never get 2 loads that taste the same but you'll rarely get a batch that tastes rotten.  That's cheaper than buying tins unless they are on special offers of course but you'll get less salt and more fibre doing it yourself not to mention bigger amounts than you get in a tin so more meals prepared at one time and ready to heat up later.

You can also throw in a packet of the cheap super noodles or pasta if you like that in soup.   Essentially just a meal all in one bowl. 

A really simple soup is stock cubes as before, a potato, an onion, a bag of fresh spinach leaves. Makes a really billious looking bright green soup but its really tasty and a good way to get veg and fibre into your diet.  It does need smashed up, a masher might not do the trick but im imagining if you don't cook much you won't have one of those stick blenders.  Try cutting it with scissors, its just to break it up from looking like wilted leaves.  That will make a good 5 bowls worth of soup, maybe more, so for your leftovers, put one bowlful in fridge for next day, anything over that use your ladle to measure your normal soup plate amount into any plastic carton or freezer bag.  My bowls take 2 of my ladlefuls so I know thats a portion for us. Ready made, correct size portions for other days.

You can cook cos you do cook if you heat up ready meals, it doesn't have to be 'fancy' food to be 'cooking'.  The other diaries on here are endless sources of inspiration for cheap meals, you can do it.  Nothing is better than feeling well, it doesn't have to feel like punishment to pay off debt, you can feel well at the same time 

Dxx

Hi Daisy, I can cook some basic meals like beans on toast, spaghetti Bolognese, pasta bake, jacket potato with different fillings, Staffordshire Lobby what my nan used to make (basically a beef casserole/stew) and all basic things you throw in the oven to cook from frozen. But as far as throwing different fresh ingredients together to create a dish go, i dont have much knowledge or experience with that. I think that lots of fresh ingredients that go off pretty quickly needed for one dish is not cost effective for me living on my own and also the effort to prepare, cook and then clean everything afterwards is a lot of effort just for one person to have one meal, if it was to feed a family then its worth all the time and effort. A lot of the time i dont feel mentally motivated enough to do anything let alone cook. I have anxiety and depression and dont feel like doing much most days.

But i do like your ideas of getting some cheap veg and making a soup or something similar. I love spinach, i havent had spinach for years and years so i would love to try something with that. I don't eat any fresh veg or unprocessed meat, and i love veg, so i guess my body would benefit if i started eating some. I eat wayyy too much bread and would love to eat new things tbh as im bored and fed up of the same meals all the time. So next time i go shopping im going to buy less ready meals and i will get some cheap veg and try something like you said and see how it turns out. 

Thanks for the tips and motivation to try something new 

I see, you are pretty accomplished compared to real beginner as I assumed.  Fabulous that you can do all those things, it would be lovely if you felt the enthusiasm to make a few meals for yourself to break up the week.


Fresh stuff in large packets is indeed likely to go off but if you can freeze it in portion sizes its good for months.  Either make it into a cooked thing ie fresh meat into stew, fresh veg into soup, or freeze it uncooked ready to use as and when.  

I also wasn't sure if you felt able to incorporate it into your weekly shopping finance-wise.  You clearly like the routine of weekly shops and buying larger amounts once a month then eating from your freezer for a week of the month might still come to tge same over the month....but would throw off your weekly amounts.   Onky you know how you feel about that.

Anyhoo, glad to know that when you are ready you will try a wee bit more cooking.  Let me know how the spinach soup goes down if you ever do make it.  Mr d calls it 'evil green soup' as it does have an alarming colour lol, but it tastes good.

Dxx

Tezzadp

No money spent today
No direct debits today

Natwest CC Daily payment £2.63 Total daily payments made this month £28.38

Total of all Natwest CC payments, including weekly and monthly payments made this month £109.41 leaving a balance of £3735.57

*This month refers to 30th May to 29th June (the day before pay day)

Tezzadp

daisy_1571 said:

Tezzadp said:

daisy_1571 said:

If you can follow the instructions on a ready meal, you can cook.  Some of the best meals are simpler  to cook than them.

Beans on toast always cheap easy meal, even better with some grated cheese on top to melt with the heat of the beans.

Baked potato only takes 10 mins in micro, beans, cheese, boiled egg, tuna, whatever you like on top is all fairly nutritious especially if you eat the skin and just as quick and simple as a ready meal but way tastier.  Stab it with a fork all over to let steam escape then just shove it in on a plate and pop it in.  Watch as plate will be hot, cover your hand with your sleeve if you don't have a towel handy to pick the plate up.  (If you hard boil eggs do half a dozen at the same time and they keep in the fridge and you have meals part prepared for quick food when you get in for a few nights.)

Best of all is soup, you can follow a recipe but equally you can just chuck any veg in a pan with water, 2 lamb stock cubes and a veg cube (or 2 veg and 1 lamb), simmer in a pot till all soft then squash it up with your potato masher or leave it chunky.  Always use a white onion (those are the ones with brown papery skin and white insides) for flavour.   Some potatoes with skin left on is better for you and bulks it up.  A handful of red lentils, any tin of mixed beans, or fresh veg, whatevers cheap that week, try scraping a carrot with potato peeler rather than chopping and it tastes different, frozen veg works fine too, couple of lumps of frozen spinach can go into any veg soup.   You'll never get 2 loads that taste the same but you'll rarely get a batch that tastes rotten.  That's cheaper than buying tins unless they are on special offers of course but you'll get less salt and more fibre doing it yourself not to mention bigger amounts than you get in a tin so more meals prepared at one time and ready to heat up later.

You can also throw in a packet of the cheap super noodles or pasta if you like that in soup.   Essentially just a meal all in one bowl. 

A really simple soup is stock cubes as before, a potato, an onion, a bag of fresh spinach leaves. Makes a really billious looking bright green soup but its really tasty and a good way to get veg and fibre into your diet.  It does need smashed up, a masher might not do the trick but im imagining if you don't cook much you won't have one of those stick blenders.  Try cutting it with scissors, its just to break it up from looking like wilted leaves.  That will make a good 5 bowls worth of soup, maybe more, so for your leftovers, put one bowlful in fridge for next day, anything over that use your ladle to measure your normal soup plate amount into any plastic carton or freezer bag.  My bowls take 2 of my ladlefuls so I know thats a portion for us. Ready made, correct size portions for other days.

You can cook cos you do cook if you heat up ready meals, it doesn't have to be 'fancy' food to be 'cooking'.  The other diaries on here are endless sources of inspiration for cheap meals, you can do it.  Nothing is better than feeling well, it doesn't have to feel like punishment to pay off debt, you can feel well at the same time 

Dxx

Hi Daisy, I can cook some basic meals like beans on toast, spaghetti Bolognese, pasta bake, jacket potato with different fillings, Staffordshire Lobby what my nan used to make (basically a beef casserole/stew) and all basic things you throw in the oven to cook from frozen. But as far as throwing different fresh ingredients together to create a dish go, i dont have much knowledge or experience with that. I think that lots of fresh ingredients that go off pretty quickly needed for one dish is not cost effective for me living on my own and also the effort to prepare, cook and then clean everything afterwards is a lot of effort just for one person to have one meal, if it was to feed a family then its worth all the time and effort. A lot of the time i dont feel mentally motivated enough to do anything let alone cook. I have anxiety and depression and dont feel like doing much most days.

But i do like your ideas of getting some cheap veg and making a soup or something similar. I love spinach, i havent had spinach for years and years so i would love to try something with that. I don't eat any fresh veg or unprocessed meat, and i love veg, so i guess my body would benefit if i started eating some. I eat wayyy too much bread and would love to eat new things tbh as im bored and fed up of the same meals all the time. So next time i go shopping im going to buy less ready meals and i will get some cheap veg and try something like you said and see how it turns out. 

Thanks for the tips and motivation to try something new 

I see, you are pretty accomplished compared to real beginner as I assumed.  Fabulous that you can do all those things, it would be lovely if you felt the enthusiasm to make a few meals for yourself to break up the week.


Fresh stuff in large packets is indeed likely to go off but if you can freeze it in portion sizes its good for months.  Either make it into a cooked thing ie fresh meat into stew, fresh veg into soup, or freeze it uncooked ready to use as and when.  

I also wasn't sure if you felt able to incorporate it into your weekly shopping finance-wise.  You clearly like the routine of weekly shops and buying larger amounts once a month then eating from your freezer for a week of the month might still come to tge same over the month....but would throw off your weekly amounts.   Onky you know how you feel about that.

Anyhoo, glad to know that when you are ready you will try a wee bit more cooking.  Let me know how the spinach soup goes down if you ever do make it.  Mr d calls it 'evil green soup' as it does have an alarming colour lol, but it tastes good.

Dxx

I have had a quick look at spinach soup/broth recipes online and they seem more complicated than i thought haha. A lot of them are creamy spinach soup which means putting it in a blender of some sort which i havent got. So ive found a recipe for a chunky spinach and veg soup, which is basically spinach and veg thrown into a pot. like a casserole if you like, which i like more than a thin soup, its more filling i feel.

Its my food shop day tomorrow so I will simply get some carrots, potato, leek, swede, onion, spinach and some veg/lamb/chicken stock (whichever i can find) and throw it all in a pot and see how it turns out. I will just buy a couple less ready meals to make sure it doesnt affect my budget this week. if its a success i can try some other things out, if its not cost effective or it doesnt taste very good or im simply no good at it then i will just go back to what i was doing before, i will survive lol.  

Thanks all for your advice. 

joedenise

I think a chunky soup is much more of a meal than a blended one.  I tend to only have blended soup as a lunch rather than a main meal.  You can't really go wrong with soup unless you add too much stock so it's better to use a bit less than you think as you can always add some more later if needed.

daisy_1571

That does look complicated but go for it and see how it goes.  I think the spinach recipe i noted is so simple, (literally just bag of spinach, 1 onion, 1 or 2 potato if they are a bit smaller, stock cubes and water)  I always enjoy how it turns out and it freezes well but of course yes the beauty of soup is you can add anything you have in the cupboard   😀 

Daisy xx