Cheap meals

[RosieLeaLovesTea]

Hi all
I want to hear about all your ideas for cheap meals and how to make your money go further. I’ve been reviewing our budget and we spend too much on eating out, snacks. We really need to try to cut down. As for family meals I struggle as no one seems to like the same thing. My son who is 5 will only eat plain chicken, mash potato with beans and pasta. He does not like stews or Bolognese or foods with a sauce. So difficult to batch cook. Please share your tips!

You can easily cut down the eating out, that’s totally within your control. We had a bit of a takeaway/eating out habit until recently and now we do it once a month, saved a fortune! Much cheaper to eat at home.

I don’t really batch cook aside from pasta sauce which I make in vast quantities and freeze. To cope with the fussy child I’d just plan for indulging him - make the plain pasta and chicken, have a sauce with yours. They grow out of it. Mine is now 10, at age 5 existed on dust, air and plain pasta. She’s just started being much more adventurous with her food.

meal plan a repertoire of say 8 meals that the family will eat and do them on a rota, then you can buy the ingredients in bulk. For instance I always have plenty of tinned tomatoes, tomato purée, flour, lentils, beans, frozen onions, frozen veg, rice - you can knock up quite a few things from that.

for snacks I just buy a certain (small) amount and when it’s gone it’s gone. Tbh we aren’t big snackers and like to eat raw veg so it’s not a huge deal for us?

then there’s all the usual things - shop once a week, don’t go to the local shop for top ups etc. By being disciplined you can save money, a bit of planning really helps (especially with the eating out issue). I aim to do one very big shop at the beginning of the month to include cleaning stuff, then small top ups weekly of things like yoghurt, milk, fresh produce. If I get to the end of something before the end of the month I just do without, for instance I buy a certain amount of cheese per month and that’s it, if it gets eaten in the first week so be it, it’s not the end of the world!

If he eats beans with mash with he eat baked beans on jacket potatoes or baked beans on toast? We have one day of jacket potatoes and one day something on toast each week and it really cuts down on costs.

I agree I'd probably just let your son have that. It's an ok balance, not especially expensive and nothing more soul destroying than throwing food away when you're trying to cut down on costs. And if nobody likes the same thing at all, there are worse things than you and DH both batch cooking dishes that you like and the other doesn't.

For cheapo meals, do you want just suggestions or recipes too? These are my cheapest ones.

• Home made soup is really cheap and easy. Couple of onions and carrots, lentils, barley, seasonings and chicken stock all in together and it's so tasty in the cold weather. Good for lunch or have for evening meal one night a week with a sandwich to bulk out
• Egg fried rice with any vegetables that are hanging around. You will obv need oil and soy sauce but these are pennies per use. If your son leaves any of the chicken that can be saved for the next day too, even a couple of handfuls adds to the flavour. Worth investing in a hot sauce that you like, it really does tart up rice and veggie stuff.
• Pork and root veg casserole. Pork shoulder is one of the cheapest cuts and stews beautifully

What is it that makes you most likely to eat out? Is it something you do when you're out and about already or is it something you treat yourself to at the end of a long week? Because I think the tactics for reduction are different depending on why you do it. For example if you know you've no willpower on a Friday when you fancy something tasty, you might actually be better spending a bit more at the shops and getting yourselves nice steaks or one of the supermarket takeaway things.