One of the biggest things in my budget I feel I can control, is how much I spend on food. I very rarely eat out, but recently I have become a sucker for ‘convenient shopping’ which has been pretty costly! Therefore, as part of my ‘No Spend Feb’, I set myself a budget of £20/week for food – with my first weeks shop coming in at £16.70. This included breakfast, some lunches and my evening meals for the week, minus things I already had in the cupboard (such as rice and pasta).
Meal Plan:
I find writing a meal plan and a shopping list each week really helps me spend less when shopping, but also eat healthier . Below is an example of what I ate during one of the weeks of my no spend Feb. I usually have either toast or cereal for breakfast, but If I’m feeling fancy, I might have poached egg on toast and add some tomato if there is some spare in the fridge. I made carrot and coriander soup for lunch, but I’m also lucky in that I get free lunch/tea when I’m working which really helps out. For the days I didn’t have soup and wasn’t working, I just had leftovers from the night before. If there is space in the freezer then I do try freeze at least one or two meals for those days when I really can’t be bothered.
Mon: Car’brie’nara
Tues: Gigantis Plaki
Wed: Pea and Mint Risotto
Thurs: Shakshuka
Fri: Pizza
Sat: ‘work’
Sun: Gado Gado
When meal planning, I usually use a mix of books and pinterest, though I do have my go to recipes. One of my all time favourite recipe books is ‘A Girl Called Jack: 100 delicious budget recipes‘. It’s full of cheap and easy recipes, that still taste delicious. Another of my go to books at the moment is ‘The Green Roasting Tin‘. I only got this book in October, as a birthday present, but I love it! All the recipes are veggie or vegan and are one dish dinners – less washing up, bonus!
I’m quite lucky, as over the years I’ve stocked up on a lot of herbs, spices and cupboard staples – This definitely helps keep my weekly shops low. If you’re starting out from a bare cupboard then my suggested ‘first buys’ would be: salt, pepper, smoked paprika and mixed herbs. I also always have a supply of chopped tomatoes, beans, rice and pasta in the cupboard. These are things that I will add to my weekly shop when they need topping up. Even though I live extremely close to a Sainsbury’s, I’m making the effort to walk down the road to Aldi as I find it so much cheaper. It also means I get a free workout carrying my shopping home!
Meals:
Carrot and Coriander Soup – <50p per portion
Homemade soup is always a winner. It’s cheap, healthy and super easy to make. This recipe is from the ‘Covent Garden Book of Soups’. It’s one of my go to’s when I fancy soup as it has so few ingredients. I halved the recipe as it’s currently just me and I don’t have enough fridge/freezer space to store more than one extra portion and I also switched out the cream for yoghurt, as I don’t use cream for anything else and had spare natural yoghurt. I had this for lunch two of the days, then either had leftovers or lunch at work on the other days.
Monday: Car’brie’nara – £1 per portion
The best kind of comfort food! One of my favourites from a girl called Jack’s book. Dead easy, tastes delicious. I would usually have with rocket on the side. This also reheats well for lunch the next day.
Tuesday: Gigantis Plaki – 80p per portion
Another one of my go to recipes – A simple mediterranean bean dish. I usually have everything for this one in the cupboard already and just need to get feta, but if you want to keep costs low (or are vegan) you can easily just skip the cheese. Really versatile and delicious the next day either on it’s own or in a wrap or pitta.
Wednesday: Pea and Mint Risotto – 50p per portion (more if you add the wine)
This was my first time trying this recipe, as I’ve always had a bit of thing about mint in savoury food haha. Safe to say now I’m an adult, I’m open to trying more things.
I skipped the wine this time, but added in some leftover bacon and the dish was absolutely delicious! Will definitely be doing this one again.
Thursday: Shakshuka – 70p per portion
One of my favourite dishes. This was a super simple recipe from ‘The Green Roasting Tin book and all done in one dish in the oven. I had it was a couple of slices of bread and butter.
Friday: Pizza – £1.50
A lazy meal, but I always like to have one in the freezer. My other go to lazy freezer meal is an Aldi spicy bean burger, so good! This week however I went out for pizza with the girls from work. As I mentioned in my first post on my ‘No Spend Feb‘, I used my tip money so that it doesn’t come out of my budget. I don’t want to miss out because of this challenge, so I’m just finding what works for me!
Saturday:
I was working Saturday evening and was lucky enough to get my dinner there.
Sunday: Gado Gado – £1.50 per portion
An Indonesian salad with warm potatoes, green beans, beansprouts and a peanut-coconut dressing. Another new recipe and the bulk of the cost of this one is in the dressing, but I’m a sucker for peanut butter in sauces! Unfortunately, I picked up the wrong kind of potatoes, so they didn’t quite crisp up as they should have done, but I will definitely try this again. I also really struggled to not eat all the sauce before the rest was ready.
I love finding new recipes and can spend hours browsing pinterest. I also get a thrill from finding tasty, budget recipes. Let me know your go to recipe in the comments below.
+*Costs are estimated per portion from Aldi in Feb 2022.
Lisa Outdoors 