Help! Meal Planing

[Rno3gfr]

Could people please help me with some healthy meal planning/ideas for the weekly shop?

We have a budget of £70 a week (for toiletries/cleaning too) and I’m struggling to stick to that. We are two adults and a 3 year old. We shop in Tesco but are happy to go back to shopping at Lidl.

I used to be great at planning meals as we used to only have a budget of £30 a week for everything for all of us. I just can’t seem to do it now, even with a larger budget. Money is getting tighter at the moment so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Following as I am in the same position as you.

Do you want actual recipe suggestions? If so maybe you could add what kind of foods you like... meat/fish/vegan/allergies etc?

What do you like to eat? How much time do you have to cook and do you have a decent size freezer?

What did you used to make on am even tighter budget? Can that not be adapted to include 3 year old?

Feed yourself for £1 a day is a good group to follow for cheap meal planning ideas.
Make sure you download Olio, it's great for picking up veg and potatoes in particular which does make a difference.

I think you're best to buy a large chicken or large packet of mince or beef with the intention of stretching it over a couple of meals. So your large chicken could do roast chicken dinner on Sunday and a curry on Monday. Mince or veggie mince would make spag Bol on Tuesday, chilli on Wednesday and burgers on Thursday. Or beef pieces could make you a stew and a pie. Friday is no cook night so frozen pizza or something like that.

Going back to Lidl sounds like the first move.

Tesco is my main shop and there aren't the offers there were.

I love meal planning to a budget (I know, I'm weird). What do you like? Do you feed DD separately and the adults eat later for dinner, or all together? Any dietary needs / preferences?

Cost of food has gone up, so that might be one of the reasons. I am sure by switching to Lidl you'll be able to get more.

Some tips that come to my mind:

• buy the largest possible sizes of everything, or check the 'price per' to make sure you are buying at the lowest price. That will allow you to batch cook.
• freeze, freeze, freeze. That allows you to avoid food waste.
• plan for a variety of meals: chicken on Monday, eggs on Tuesday, veg on Thursday etc. You'll be able to balance more expensive options and cheaper options.

Agree with PP about doubling things up with regards to ingredients. I usually do a roast chicken one night then take the remaining meat off to use the following day, usually either a curry, chicken fricassee or jerk chicken, none of which are expensive to make. A packet of mince gets used for more than one meal and adding extra veg can stretch it further, for example I add frozen peas, red and brown onions to the mince when I use it for cottage pie. If we have mash potato I buy a big bag of potatoes and make sure that we have another meal with mash planned in so none of them go to waste. I shop once a week and meal plan. We're a family of 3 with a 2 year old.

Thanks everyone! Some really good suggestions. We do have a large enough freezer and ds eats the same as we do (when he will eat dinner 🙄). We don’t have any dietary needs/preferences, although we don’t eat much red meat or pork. I like to get 2 portions of fish in a week when I can (although I’m not a big fan of fish but it’s good for you).

So the main points so far are:
-definitely go back to shopping at Lidl
-buy larger and freeze/double up on cooking
-definitely start buying whole chicken
-£1 day suggestion

@RocketAndAFuckingMelon haha I’m glad you do! Maybe you can train me to do it again 😅

Do you like tinned sardines or pilchards: they are very nutritious.
A dozen eggs works out cheaper per egg than half a dozen usually.

I think, if you have the time and freezer space, the Batch Lady‘s „10 meals with mince in an hour“ are very good value particularly if shopping at Lidl/Morrisons and you could freeze the meals for later in the week.

If you are trying to incorporate 2 portions of fish it’s worth buying some of the bags of frozen fillets as they are really good value. I buy the frozen cod and salmon fillets.

They are really good in tray bakes I do one with the salmon, new potatoes, green beans, red onion, lemon, parsley and whole grain mustard.

Or the cod topped with mango chutney, cauliflower, peppers, red onion with a few spices and some olive oil.

Also, tinned tuna still counts as fish, tuna, sweet potato ginger, chilli and spring onion fish cakes are really tasty and there’s always the tuna pasta bake!