A savvy shopper has revealed how she cooks up family meals from scratch from just 62p a portion. Laura, a mum-of-two from Southampton, serves up popular dishes for pennies, including making her own chicken nuggets and sausage rolls.
She also provides enough leftovers for her husband to enjoy at work the following day. Laura has been shopping frugally for years, having reduced her weekly spend from £215 to just £40 after her second daughter was born eight years ago.
As such, she has learnt how to cook on a budget and make the most of her reduced outlay. Laura shops at discount retailers, relies on own-brand products and follows a weekly meal plan to keep her food costs down.
She also checks her cupboards, fridge and freezer when devising a shopping list to ensure everything is used with no waste. She gets meat via value hampers from online food retailer MuscleFood.com, which is put towards family favourite meals.
These include a carbonara, at just 62p per portion, slow cooker peach chicken, coming in at 67p each, Chinese beef stir fry, 99p per portion, and maple and honey pork loin traybake, costing a pound each. Laura also rustles up some sausage rolls for packed lunches which cost her just 22p each to cook.
Laura, who runs the blog Savings4SavvyMums, said: “When we first seriously looked at our finances eight years ago, I was shocked at just how much we were spending. We went from two salaries to one so we had to make some serious savings.
“I found that making small changes was the best way for us to cut costs. Small things like my husband taking leftovers for lunch saved £3 a day, switching to the budget-own brand lines saved us a fortune and buying in bulk to keep costs down.
“Now, with food prices going up all the time, my strict budgeting and everything I’ve learnt over the last eight years is really helping us keep costs down. Buying our meat in bulk from MuscleFood certainly helps.
“I’ve always bought chicken in bulk and the quality from the online retailer means I use less meat than if I was buying frozen, essentials chicken from the supermarket. For example, I use two chicken breasts for the four of us in my chicken chow mein.
“That provides enough for all of us for dinner in the evening with leftovers for the next day. I’m making that for 77p a portion so it's a really cheap, healthy meal.
“My children love chicken nuggets and chips, just like all kids, so rather than buying them frozen, I’m making them from scratch and saving money.”
Laura also aims to dispel the myth that cooking from scratch is too time-consuming. “Cooking from scratch really can save you cash and it doesn’t have to be as time consuming as people may think,” she continued.
“When I recently made beef lasagne I compared making my own sauce to buying the cheapest, own-brand sauces from the supermarkets. Mine worked out at 15p cheaper. Those 15ps soon add up.”
Laura provided her top tips for anyone looking to cook on a budget amid the rising cost of living:
Check your cupboards and freezer - always check what you already have before you go shopping. Tinned and frozen veg are great staples to have as you can use them in anything and they taste good too. There’s also zero food waste.
Use the slow cooker - make the slow cooker your friend. If you’re short of time, throw it all in before you head out and cook on low for around eight hours. You can prepare and freeze bags of meat and veg to pop in the slow cooker. Just remember these will retain moisture so finish off the last 30min to an hour of slow cooking with the lid removed.
Eat own-brand - always buy the cheapest own-brand item and move up to the next one if you don't like it. Most people can’t tell the difference. This is a no-brainer with pasta, rice and budget vegetables.
