"Normal" people who cook from scratch everyday - tell me this gets cheaper

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By normal, I mean excluding those who can feed a small African village with one can of chickpeas, an egg, and a tomato. Normal people, who eat normal portions of normal foods.

We've canceled Hello Fresh to save money, so we've started meal planning with a recipe-building app instead, otherwise, we just cycle through the same 5/6 meals all the time.

One child is away this week. The remaining child has picked;

Cheesy broccoli pasta bake, Piri piri chicken wrap “fakeaway”, easy creamy chicken curry, penne arrabbiata with roasted peppers and pancetta, easy chicken jalfrezi curry.

£75 fecking quid.

It's not even a full shop. I'm not eating breakfast or lunch coz the price now just for evening meals is way too much. I've added a couple of yoghurts and crappy pizzas for the kids lunches and breakfasts and we already have cereal in.

I bought cat litter and cat food earlier or that would have been added too.

Admittedly, we had to buy a lot of spices because Hello Fresh used to send them in handy little packets and DD has used most of the ones we did have jazzing up her instant noodles. But, the spices only added around £10ish. That's still £65 without breakfasts or lunches.

Obviously, next week we won't need as many spices and should have some butter and oil left but still...

If this is the best we can do I am going to have to consider rehoming a child.

If you’re buying lots of spices go to the world foods aisle and pick up the large bags of spices from there. There’s about 4 times as much for the same price as those tiny jars and they tend to be fresher and stronger. If you’re trying to cook from scratch on the Schwartz you’ll go bankrupt!

You can’t go wrong with a homemade pasta sauce, dead easy, super cheap. We save a fortune in summer by growing our own salad bits, doesn’t take up much space - you can do it in a box and a packet of lettuce seeds will keep you in lettuce all summer and tastes amazing.

Someone has probably already said this but dogs can’t have chicken bones without serious risk of injury.

https://heartandpaw.com/pet-parent-resources/dog-ate-chicken-bones#:~:text=Chicken%20bones%20are%20dangerous%20to,and%20airway%20obstruction%20in%20dogs.

You can use the skin and bone to make stock and then you have a base for soup or risotto. Getting the protein without needing to add meat

Added the rezala and nachos to my list for this week, thanks!

I was going to mention it but I'm pretty sure the poster was referring to raw chicken bones which don’t splinter like cooked ones do.

However, after witnessing a friend’s dog die a horrible death after stealing a cooked chicken, there is no way I would risk chicken bones cooked or raw.

Yes this can make quite a filling meal. Another similar idea is frittata with leftover veg and potatoes . Just add beaten egg and milk with a sprinkle of grated cheese for the grill phase.

I use the slowcooker,tamingtwin recipes,some others from tiktok and we eat the same things for around 4 meals possibly 5 each week

dash is on repeat and I make a carrot and coconut dalh - recipe from slimming worlds but I just literally bung it all in the slow cooker

I make a chicken casserole each week using chicken thighs as they are £3 and will feed 4 people - change the recipe so get slightly different dish at the end of it

I'm in Ireland too and just compared the price of chicken fillets in tesco UK to Ireland and I'm shocked.

950g with the clubcard prices is £5.50 versus €12

I still think with Irish prices I could have made those 5 dinners for less than €75 though so I don't know how it's costing £75

I used to buy turkey mince, throw in frozen veg and stock - that fed the dog all week. Out of the freezer in the morning )packed in flat freezer bags.

I also buy the tinfoil tins - and store one extra meal in the freezer so one night a week it’s pot luck.

All in the oven for 40 mins.

Last week in made Spag bol we are half and the other half made a lasagna for the next night and one portion in the freezer.

We do the same with takeouts and freeze the left overs or in the fridge for lunch the next day.

Why not challenge the kids to ‘cheapest meal’ and winner gets a treat with the savings?

Reading this thread and really impressed with how incentive some people are.
We got some amazing cooks here! 🥳

The link I provided seems to suggest the risk is the same for both. I thankfully don’t have any personal experience of the subject - it was just something I vaguely remembered hearing and Google seemed to agree.

I’m wondering what Africa has to do with it?

I thought the world had grown up a little and gone past that lazy and inaccurate juxtaposition of Africa and donations of the world’s scraps. I couldn’t read through the OP due to how grating that comment was. There are MANY poor corners of the world, including in the UK - if you’re desperate to try to chip away at a group of people’s dignity and make them the butt of your jokes, look in one of those corners and leave Africa out of it.

There are people of African descent who are on MN. I doubt they find this funny.

If you want to eat cheaply base meals on cheaper protein. Eggs, cheese, tinned fish, mince, chickpeas and lentils. Add plenty of potatoes or pasta.
Look in vintage cook books for inspiration.

It’s been said, @Dumbledoresniece …

For lunch (if it's just me) I tend to go for eggs, tinned fish or leftovers as a base.

Also, for your daughter (and you if it's useful) have a list of swaps for ingredients, put it on the fridge or somewhere easy to see.

Great. But my comment will still be made. My comment wasn’t made to support or sit in place of another’s comment. It was made as a MN user’s individual response to the OP.

Re; spices - try JD seasonings - really useful and saves you from needing rucks of little bottles of spices you use occasionally.

I would avoid online butchers such as muscle foods and best meats and similar, I found them very expensive in the long run, I buy from my local butcher’s, I can spend £80 a week from the supermarket and I spend about £80 a month from the butcher’s, I cook from scratch every day and husband takes a pack lunch to work, I also make cakes , biscuits and brownies for pack and for after our main meals.
Theres 2 adults in our household

I started looking at my fresh food about half way through the week.

if there were thing I wasn’t going to use, say a red pepper, I’d chop it up and freeze it. When I buy parsnips and celeriac I peel them and chop them into roasting size pieces, then drop them into the boiling water when par boiling potatoes for roasties.

I don’t blanch veg, I just freeze it from fresh. I might use half a pack of green beans, I freeze the rest. I have a bag of what I call stir fry veg in the freezer that’s cut into the right sort of sizes and literally means I can throw into a wok for a stir fry.

when the kids lived at home I’d put anything left in the pan from a spag Bol in a bag in the freezer, next week I’d do the same etc, use for a lunch or wait until it made a full portion size, it’s the same recipe and will be generally eaten within the month.

I try a batch cook from larger packs of meat as generally they are cheaper. I use a fair bit of frozen veg where it often can be cheaper and having been frozen doesn’t detract from the quality. Sweetcorn can be expensive in tins but a bag of frozen is cheaper.

I mix things up a bit so one week we may have Shepard’s pie with mash, the following with sliced potatoes on top. But I made them both on the same day and froze one, thus saving a bit of energy cost.

things like crème franchise, double cream get transferred into jam jars once opened and that helps keep anything left over longer, any cream that’s not going to get used (or maybe is a bit too gloopy to eat) gets thrown in the mixer and beaten until it turns into butter, I then add some sea salt, this can be frozen or used as needed.

id look into buying it packs of pasta and cooking larger meals as you’ve the freezer space, remove the extra portions first to stop them being eaten on the day you’ve made it.

you should then find a few weeks in you can reduce what you need to buy. I buy Aldi veg but it’s doesn’t last as well as Sainsburys. I also find shopping in Sainsburys they quite often have some good deals on bags of mixed veg etc after 7pm.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but Check out the taming twins website : https://www.tamingtwins.com/

she does budget meal plans and actually gives you a shopping list and to make use of all ingredients 😁 also lots of budget friendly recipes.

also buy meat in bulk, I buy my chicken breast from the butchers when they have the 5kg for £25 offer on and just split it up and freeze :)

We have 2 teens (who eat me out of house and home) and 1 preteen (does elite sport) and on top of the household items (eg toilet/kitchen roll, bin bags, cleaners, toiletries) our weekly shop is no longer coming below £160 anymore and that’s at Lidl! We usually end up doing a top up for bread, snacks at the weekend too 🙈

And you can boil them up for stock to make soup and risotto instead. Double win!

Definitely switch from buying chicken breasts to chicken legs - I got 4 chicken legs for £2.50 in tesco and there's a lot of meat on them! Roast in the oven and then shred the meat from the bone, can easily do 2 days meals with that.

The shops are so expensive atm I’m finding hellofresh is actually cheaper.

We love using paneer for curries or hallumi as chicken alternatives which makes meals cheaper