£11 a week food shop

[Novynu]

Looking for very cheap meal ideas. I do eat meat but meat is probably out of budget.

I have around £11 per week for one persons food for the next 5 weeks.

So far I have spaghetti and sauce
Cous cous with a few vegetables thrown in
Batch cook salad to eat over few days lunch

TIA ☺️

Do you have a poundstretcher near you? Ours were selling packs of ramen noodles for 24p yesterday, you could get a few of those and add some frozen mixed veg. I find cup a soups quite filling too, Tesco sell a pack of 5 with croutons for 75p. A bag of oat and a bunch of bananas. Plus a cheap loaf and jam.

You're prob going to need bread and milk each week but how about... buy own brand foods...
Week 1 pasta, cereal, frozen mixed veg, potatoes £7
Week 2 protein powder, few cans of tinned meat, £11
Week 3 rice, tinned toms, cream cheese (cheaper than butter) £5)
Week 4 cup of soups, fruit, crackers £4
Week 5 of your choice

You should have leftovers from one week to the next. Just buy supermarket own brands . Protein powder for example slimfast just blend with water you have a meal I have mine for lunch at times. Sometimes I skip breakfast. Cost of living is expensive but for me to keep healthy.

Meal ideas
pasta with tuna/ stew in steak/ cream cheese
Rice & corned beef (fried)/ tinned curry

OP check out the tins of beans. I get tins of mixed bean salad in vinagarette. The "salad" is chopped green beans, sweetcorn and chopped pepper, but it's mostly various beans. You can get it plain in water if you don't like the other bits. You only need a few spoons of it so it does a few meals from one tin, it's very filling and you can add to salad, rice, couscous etc to make a meal.

Just want to say thank you again for all the suggestions and for people taking the time out of their day to respond to my thread

I would have beans on toast for lunches.
Pasta with frozen veg chucked in for dinner.
I don't tend to have breakfast so can't help with that.

Wow fab post.
Very helpful for you op.

You’ve had some really good suggestions here.

One thing which I think is tricky when you’re working to a really tight budget is variety and cooking costs.

If you have a freezer one good option is in week 1 if you make enough eg veggie chilli to put 4 portions in the freezer.

In week 2 have the chilli one night and also make enough Dahl to put 4 portions in the freezer.

In week 3 have veggie chilli one night, Dahl one night and make enough curry to put 4 portions in the freezer.

In week 4 have veggie chilli, Dahl, curry to cover 3 nights. Make some cheap bolognaise and put 4 portions in the freezer.

In week 5 have one of each have one of each and instead of cooking for the freezer use the spare money to stock up on one or two extra cupboard things.

Then week 6 you’re back to veggie chilli etc etc.

Obviously you don’t have to do those meals, and with £11 a week you’ll need to think carefully about what’s affordable but that cooking in bulk and freezing system saves loads of money and time and electricity

I just had an idea based on lard being really cheap compared to butter, it is about 1/4 the price, and can be entirely substituted for butter, and so you could make scones with the addition of SR flour and milk, or pastry with the addition of plain flour and water, both of which you could use with jam to make tarts or scones, if you wanted a treat. I think you could add salt to lard, SR flour, to make dumplings which you could add to soup to make them more of a treat/ substantial for a meal.

At the moment if you download the Asda app you can get £5 off your shopping- this was on the Money Savings Expert site. Don’t think there is a minimum purchase either.

This is the one one the Feed Your Family Facebook page

https://meal-plans.co.uk/sign-up/?fbclid=IwAR3VwhyoqWMbsZ0EfK8sJOA3WDUdMS8J5HFIJd02Mb4QTXu90V53k7Rsqos

It is at times like these that I always recommend Thrifty Lesley.

Her website has a variety of low cost meals, but she also has about 15 week long meal plans, for 2, for very little. The cost has gone up recently, but she doesn't assume you have anything at all, other than salt and pepper (if you like to add it).

She also has individual recipes that you can search through.

thriftylesley.com/thrifty-lesley-meal-plans/#google_vignette

Her plans used to be £15 a week, for 2 adults.
She's recently re-costed them, and they come out at about £18-20 needed at the checkout per week, with some leftovers.

She makes suggestions too, if there are ingredients you can't get.

You could print off a week plan, and use it over 2 weeks.

Thinks I like that are really cheap;
Rice (adding whatever veg/sauce/salad you have.)- go to asia supermarket if you have one.
Tomatos on toast
Eggs- bulked up with veg/salad- omlette or whatever way you like eggs.
Frozen pizza (tesco less than £1; add your own extra toppings to make it better)
Soup (already covered!)
Own brand super noodles
Own brand box of cereal/oats
Jacket potatos.

I actually think it is do-able if you plan properly.
Good luck and hope things improve for you soon.

dal and rice - buy the biggest bags of red lentils or yellow dal you can find and same with rice for best savings

green lentils cooking with tomato sauce - again, buy dry and boil with a stock cube if you have it or just water, then cook with a store bought pasta sauce, have with rice or pasta

eggs and whatever you have - eggs, especially if you live near to someone who sells their own, are relatively cheap protein and will fill you up. Eggs on toast or eggs and baked beans or boil a load of them and put in fridge, then you can add then to the side of any of the meals above to fill you up.

Jacket potatoes - you can add lots of the above to a jacket as well.