Meal planning / budgeting for one person

[CleanShirt]

Does anyone currently do this and would be happy to share?

I'm imminently about to live alone and would like to keep my shopping bill as small as possible. I eat everything.

Thank you!

Do you have a freezer? I batch cook then freeze individual portions, definitely keeps it cheaper and don't have to cook every day.

I do and I was planning to prep some work lunches / dinners in advance 👌

I love planning and budgeting for solo meals. I don't have a rigid meal plan but I do tend to eat similar meals each week. I've just done an online Asda shop for £20 arriving Sunday so will come back and post some ideas. Do you pick up reduced stuff and freeze? Got some king prawns yesterday in Aldi 75% off, ate half, half into freezer for next week. I eat a lot of chicken so buy the big packs of chicken breasts and freeze them individually. I buy the cheapest spaghetti / rice / tinned toms and other store cupboard stuff. What do you typically eat in a week?

This is helpful, thank you!

I eat pretty much everything and enjoy cooking. Been doing Gousto for a few months which is great but expensive and as my situation changes I need to pinch the pennies.

I did a lot of freezing of the ends of things when I was living on my own and then making casseroles or soups.

I'm not a massive fan of batch cooking as I never found I fancied it much whatever I'd spend a morning cooking.

Though I'll often freeze a leftover portion of soup or something and have that for lunch.

it's also nice to have something special or a treat when you can, yellow sticker is good for that. Or buying a nice sliver of cheese, or a small selection of olives from the deli counter.

I read Nigel Slater cook books and Nigella who website who both have lovely ideas for treat meals for when you are cooking for yourself.

I like this guy too https://frugalfoodieblog.com/category/eating-in/

Eating more plant based meals can help to keep costs down. Batch cooking saves time and cooking costs too, as does the airfryer, slow cooker and microwave.

I've just started using the CherryPicker app to plan batch cooking/ shopping and I keep a list on the front of the freezer to see what I have / what I'm running low on. I also buy and freeze reduced bits, fruit, berries, veg for batch cooking etc.

I'll look at that app, thank you!

Depends a bit where you live, and what local shops you have. Where I live there are shops where you can buy one carrot and an onion, or half a pound of mince, so I can eat well and cheaply cooking from scratch. But if you only have supermarkets with pre-packed veg and meat etc, batch-cooking is the only option. I do batch-cook sometimes, but it’s easy to do one-off meals without any waste.

Simply Cook can be good for this as you get small spice pots, so don't have loads of jars going off in the fridge, and you can order it for 2 person meals. ( and then just buy the ingredients you need ). Biggest challenge I find, cooking for one, is the fact that so many ingredients are sold family size, so it's easy for fresh food to go off, or having to eat the same thing all week!

Said I'd be back after my Asda delivery arrived Sunday.

Sunday dinner: mini chicken breast fillets marinated in an Asian style sauce (soy, honey, fish sauce, sesame seeds) served with brown rice and diced pineapple

Leftover Asian chicken had in a tortilla wrap today with avocado and spinach)

Monday dinner: needed to be quick. I call it Spring Chicken bowl. Half packet Cous Cous, chicken breast roasted (added dah Nando's sauce), on bed of spinach with diced tomato and avocado, roasted broccoli and artichoke, homemade honey mustard dressing (keeps for ages in a tight closed jar)

Leftover chicken to use during week

Tonight: king prawn linguine (half pack prawns from freezer) diced broccoli, half tinned tomatoes, artichoke from jar, lots of dried cupboard herbs for flavour. This will be lunch tomo.

I think living alone makes you better at making lots of different things from the same ingredients. It can help reduce the repetition a bit so instead of buying a pack of peppers then having stuffed peppers three nights in a row you have one night of stuffed peppers, then fajitas, then a red pepper and cauliflower curry. The cauli is then also used for a cauliflower cheese and roasted with garlic and cumin for a salad. Salad has a base of raw spinach the rest of which is used in the previously mentioned curry and wilted into a pasta dish etc etc. It does help to have a really good store cupboard so you can give the same ingredients different flavours.