to feed my children ready meals every day

[OnlyWantsOne]

.... currently I suck at meal planning

I don't actually feed my children ready meals but I'm fed up of spending £150 a week on shopping to feed me, dp and 3 children 7 and under.

I need to do an online order and I can't focus on what to buy and meal plan. I've filled my basket with ready meals and it's coming to less than £90!!!

For some people ready meals are cheaper

Why don't you do it for a week and see if it is healthier?

It's really hot, no one wants to cook right now. We're eating salads, breads and tapasy things with cold ham and eggs.

Not healthier, cheaper

Because I don't want to feed my children all that salt and crap

Is there some where you can download a meal plan ?

Sainsburys has a meal planner if you look on their website. We've tried those that suit our palettes and it's great!

Think tge change for life website has some

You're doing what I do, getting yourself into a panic and thinking that the meal plan has to be perfect or else it's not good enough.

Calm down. Cup of tea, biscuit, start again. It's too hot to think about food properly so don't stress.

What ready meals have you got in that basket? Lasagnes, fish pies, what? You obviously like those, so why not buy the ingredients to make those meals. You'll make far bigger amounts from scratch and can freeze some portions too.

Any missing days, fill up with roast chicken and salad, fish and veg, one pasta thing, one jacket potato thing, and maybe a leftovers day.

Why not do a compromise? Stick a couple of days' worth in for when it's too hot to even think of cooking but you fancy something warm then order a chicken to cook in the morning and eat cold, a load of salad and some tasty bits and pieces like namechange is suggesting?

I'm rubbish too. I had a thing where I tried to cook something new and simple every week and that worked a little bit.

Who do you do your shopping with?

What kind of food do you like to eat?

Do you like ready meals or just eat them for convenience?

Do you lack confidence in the kitchen?

How often does DP cook?

Are the DCs fussy?

Do you all eat together?

YABU. Completely

Ready meals are full of goodness knows what -- certainly too much salt and over processed vegetables.

Get a basic cook book. It's not difficult to learn 5 meals and rotate them. Learn together with your DH, and your children, to cook simple nutritious meals.

Find a decent greengrocer. For £10 you can buy a week's worth of fresh vegetables.

You should be able to produce meals that are cheaper than ready-meals. Where you might be able to improve is if your planned meals are too rich and therefore expensive. When you're doing your planning, slip in a few simpler/cheaper dishes ... beans on toast, omelettes, jacket potatoes, soup, salad ... rather than using too many expensive ingredients like meat.

Also... you may have 'only' sent £90 on ready meals but your grocery list is going to include other things like cleaning products and toiletries.

go to poundland get some freezable boxes that are the same size as ready meals and batch cook freeze them and there you go (im off to poundland today to do the exact thing its too hot to cook every night!)

Jesus some people clearly lack the ability to read the OP.

I cook everything from scratch. I personally eat gluten free and no processed carbs. Children are ok ish there are a handful of things they will all eat without moaning.

Dp cooks too, it just astounds me that a weeks worth of ready meals are so cheap!!

Agree Sainsburys used to do good meal planning things - would imagine they still do. I would avoid ready meals out of poure laziness - the time taken to heat up 4 meals separately then decant them on to plates would bug me more I think.

In this heat we are living off sandwiches and non-cook foods - too hot to be chopping and stirring.

My simple can't-be-bothered dishes are:

fritatta - just eggs and whatever else you've got made into a glorified omelette - can include fish/prawns or just veg.

Mussels - unbelievably cheap & easy. Garlic, onion, white wine, tomatoes, chilli (or however you want to season). Throw mussels infor up to 5 mins, serve with bread.

Haloumi skewers - just chunks of haloumi & veg on skewers & grilled.

Brie & mushroom on nice bread & grilled

Spaghetti/Linguini with prawns, chilli, brocolli, tomatoes

Griddled tuna steaks with wedges & salad. Make the wedges by slicing large potatoes, shaking in a tub with oil, salt/pepper/garlic/whatever & bake.

We spend about 100 on a big shop at the beginning of the month then top up with fresj stuff every week spending around 30-50. There are 4 of us.

staryyeyed It's 3 hours since I had my breakfast & now I want lunch! What a list of deliciousness.

Would it be easier to meal plan for 3 days at a time instead of a week? Although if you are doing online shopping, this might bump up delivery costs.

If it appears that ready meals are coming up much cheaper than cooking from scratch you cannot be comparing like with like in terms of quantity or quality, because ready meals work out much more expensive over all. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply wrong.

I batch cook and freeze. I've just taken a pot of bolognaise out of the freezer and thought 'that's dinner sorted' I'll just chuck some garlic bread in the oven later and a pot of pasta and it'll be ready.

Saves loads of time when we get in from work and no more hassle than a ready meal apart from the batch cooking - I tend to batch about 4 different meals x þ family size servings at a time.

I use similar bases for them all so a bag of onions is cheaper than individual, same with veg, 3 for a tenner meat packs etc.

Meal planing is a thankless task, I've often felt the same way. Make your dp come up with one or two ideas.

Roast chicken one day, then the left overs with a jacket spud is one of my can't be arsed to think, 2 days covered, meals. If someone wants a jacket with just cheese and peas, that's fine. If someone else wants it with chicken, salami and jalapeños, salad, that is also fine.

Those pre flavoured while chickens are good. Often not that strong, the breast meat in the piri piri ones aren't spicy. They also tend to come in their own roasting bag, so onto nasty washing up.

We have hot sandwiches a couple of times a week in summer. Turkey or beef steaks, sausages, meatballs, burgers, chicken breast, kebab, roast chicken in some kind of nice bread. Again you can make things as complicated or simple has you like. Someone can have their meat and bread simple or you can go for full on marinating, then every condiment and extra possible.

Last night we had sausages in baguette, those part baked ones. The meal before we had kebabs, which I got marinating in the morning, in homemade pita. Sometimes I'll put the bread maker on to make dough for rolls, or make flat bread but then use supermarket meat balls or burgers. Or I'll get my arse into great and make burgers, use left overs to make mini meatballs for the freezer but then buy bread.

There are days when some kind of breaded chicken and oven chips is the only thing

OnlyWantsOne
Jesus some people clearly lack the ability to read the OP

So it's literally just the planning that's the problem, not inspiration or skills? What I did when I was really skint and had to plan down to the last penny out of necessity was just draw a basic table with each of the days listed and then a row for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then I'd put a something in each box like "pasta", "salad", "fish" so I had an overview of the type of food which would be central to that meal on that day anc ould see at a glance whether the whole week was balanced. Then I'd go back and add more detail so "pasta" would become "spaghetti bolognese". Finally I'd use the table to total up the cost of ingredients.

UptheChimney
staryyeyed It's 3 hours since I had my breakfast & now I want lunch! What a list of deliciousness

I should actually say I'm not following my own advice at the moment as we are doing the "emptying the freezer and cupboard ahead of our holidays" routine and currently if it doesn't involve frozen sprouts it
doesn't get made at the moment.

Mind you I'm always surprised too at the price of ready meals - the family packs are really cheap. I was in Tesco the other day and they do a massive lasagne, garlic bread and something else for about four quid for a whole family. Makes you wonder what shit they put in them really.

Op we eat the same stuff all the time during the week (batch cooking as above) but it's cheaper and easier. Weekends we try new recipes, make treat meals and have steak night some weekends when ds is in bed

I just had to lower my standards on variety. We've been eating shed loads of broccoli cos tesco have had it on for 49p.

Ooh - just thought, check your local butchers and grocers. I'm up north where living is cheaper anyway but my butcher does amazing meat packs delivered. Chicken pack for example is 6items (you choose from sets of 2 chicken breasts in sauce etc, full chickens etc) for £20. Grocers do a pack too. Well worth a look.

I have been tempted to load up the basket with 7 of those meal deal offers before.

I suppose one reason only buying ready meals comes up cheaper is because you don't have all the extra that would be included in a meal. If you buy a shop made pasta or stew, you only get a bit of pasta with meat. Or meat, potatoes in gravy. They not really a complete meal with enough veggies. If you make spag Bol, cottage pie, stews, pastas you'd be having veggies to put in them, then more veggies and salad to serve on the side.

Ready meals are pumped full of water, cheap oil, sugar and other cheap and / or nasty ingredients. That's why they are cheaper. A ready meal as full of protein and fresh veg as a homemade one would be at least as expensive.
I know what you mean though. Our food bills are huge and I sometimes want to buy cheap fish fingers and oven chips.

If you're spending £150 a week on food, that's a lot.

I shop in Tesco - not always the cheapest of places. Still, I Spent £80 last week, which was fresh food for a week (fruit and veg), but I also stocked up on the tinned stuff, cereals etc for a few weeks, and filled the freezer with meat. That's for two adults and two dc (one of which eats more than I do)

Sorry OP you didn't make it clear you were only experimenting to compare prices. I think that's why you are getting all the 'ready meals are crap' (which most are)

Maybe use the ready meals as a basis for cooking from fresh?

www.mumsnet.com/food-content/eat-on-the-cheap#Meal_planning. Is as good a place as any to start.