For those of you that didn’t see, it all started here.
For the first time I’m on a food budget. 
It felt a bit strange walking through Tesco and not being able to pick up everything I wanted. In the past I might have been described as frivolous. If I couldn’t find what I wanted easily, I’d grab the organic version, just because it would save time. Not this week. This week I’m hanging around the bargain bin and calculating cost per portion.
Last night I bought these perishable foods which will go on the shopping bill regardless of whether I finish them.
3 pints milk
0.96
6 eggs
0.84
1 loaf bread
0.38
1 packet muesli (750g)
1.07
Total
3.25
So that is breakfast covered. I got 4 tins of tuna and some mayonnaise and half a cucumber to go with it. That, in my experience, will cover four lunches at least and came to £2.12. I was left with sorting out that evening’s dinner.
This time I thought I’d take advantage of special offers. I won’t do this regularly as I’d like to put up recipies for things that are always cheap. But I guess it is an important point that you can live quite well off a bargain bin. I found 2 large portions of nice undyed smoked haddock for £1.77, so I made smoked haddock florentine with new potatoes. Sounds extravagant, but it still costs less than £2.
This cheap version uses frozen leaf spinach. I didn’t get value eggs, but you could knock 5p off the price by doing that. I also was careful with the cheese sauce, making only just enough to go with the meal. Again, if you want to replace store own brand cheddar with “value white cheese” it wouldn’t be a huge problem.
This time no lasagne was involved. It was just haddock on top of spinach topped with an egg, covered with cheese sauce and served with a side of potatoes. I already had some of the ingredients covered so it is just a case of adding on the cost of the haddock (90p), spinach (12p), potatoes(22p), cheese (25p) and flour(5p).The rest of the haddock has gone in the freezer.
Including the things I already bought, I think dinner itself came to about £1.80. I’m afraid it wasn’t the most photogenic thing in the world but it contained a lot of food and is very healthy so long as you don’t go overboard with the cheese sauce.
Not bad for under £2, is it? The running shopping bill total is £7.31. I’ll be cutting down from now so hopefully, going on what I had before, 6 more dinners should be about £9. Thet leaves me about £3.50 to cover any other lunch items and snacks. A little bit tight but not impossible I think.
For those of you that didn’t see, it all started here.
For the first time I’m on a food budget. It felt a bit strange walking through Tesco and not being able to pick up everything I wanted. In the past I might have been described as frivolous. If I couldn’t find what I wanted easily, I’d grab the organic version, just because it would save time. Not this week. This week I’m hanging around the bargain bin and calculating cost per portion.
Last night I bought these perishable foods which will go on the shopping bill regardless of whether I finish them.
| 3 pints milk | 0.96 |
| 6 eggs | 0.84 |
| 1 loaf bread | 0.38 |
| 1 packet muesli (750g) | 1.07 |
| Total | 3.25 |
So that is breakfast covered. I got 4 tins of tuna and some mayonnaise and half a cucumber to go with it. That, in my experience, will cover four lunches at least and came to £2.12. I was left with sorting out that evening’s dinner.
This time I thought I’d take advantage of special offers. I won’t do this regularly as I’d like to put up recipies for things that are always cheap. But I guess it is an important point that you can live quite well off a bargain bin. I found 2 large portions of nice undyed smoked haddock for £1.77, so I made smoked haddock florentine with new potatoes. Sounds extravagant, but it still costs less than £2.
This cheap version uses frozen leaf spinach. I didn’t get value eggs, but you could knock 5p off the price by doing that. I also was careful with the cheese sauce, making only just enough to go with the meal. Again, if you want to replace store own brand cheddar with “value white cheese” it wouldn’t be a huge problem.
This time no lasagne was involved. It was just haddock on top of spinach topped with an egg, covered with cheese sauce and served with a side of potatoes. I already had some of the ingredients covered so it is just a case of adding on the cost of the haddock (90p), spinach (12p), potatoes(22p), cheese (25p) and flour(5p).The rest of the haddock has gone in the freezer.
Including the things I already bought, I think dinner itself came to about £1.80. I’m afraid it wasn’t the most photogenic thing in the world but it contained a lot of food and is very healthy so long as you don’t go overboard with the cheese sauce.
Not bad for under £2, is it? The running shopping bill total is £7.31. I’ll be cutting down from now so hopefully, going on what I had before, 6 more dinners should be about £9. Thet leaves me about £3.50 to cover any other lunch items and snacks. A little bit tight but not impossible I think.
