The first rule if you want to save money is to stop eating takeaways and convenience foods and start cooking from scratch. It doesn’t take a genius to realise this. However, there are times when cooking from scratch is almost impossible for some of us. Maybe we have no time between work and taking the kids to their swimming lesson, have to work overtime, have caring responsibilities or are suffering from illness.
Some folk have long term chronic conditions that zap them of energy or give them constant pain. They are usually the people that would benefit most from food that is cheap and nutritious.
It’s not always easy cooking from scratch
Take my recent bout of disc problems. Most days I was in so much pain I could barely warm up a can of beans, let alone make a roast dinner. I battled on for ages, somehow producing something cheap and edible and cooking it from scratch. After all, I managed it most days working full time, so why not when I was off work?
After a time, I realised that not cooking from scratch wasn’t an admission of failure. It didn’t mean we had to bust the budget on takeaway pizzas every night or develop malnutrition eating junk food. I have found ways for us to eat healthy, budget friendly food without taking more than 15 or 20 minutes to prepare our meals.
So how do you eat a healthy diet and save money without having to make everything from scratch? Here are a few ideas.
Not cooking from scratch: staying healthy, sane and within budget
Eat salads
I have taken to buying really large, family sized bags of pre-cut salad to save time. This makes a good, healthy base to a meal. You can add hummus, cheese, tuna, eggs or tinned meat for protein and either a big chunk of bread or a can of spuds mixed with mayo to fill you up. I don’t mind having salad several days in a row and it saves cooking.
Let them eat beans
Beans on toast is a balanced meal, containing protein, carbohydrate and fibre. Some grated cheese on top or a fried egg makes it even better.
You can also buy cans of mixed beans in tomato or chilli sauce, which are nice over rice or a jacket potato.
Buy good food cheaply
Easier said than done, I hear you cry! But it is possibly to buy good food cheaply if you know where to look. Approved Food is always good for basics at cut prices, including lots of canned food and sauces in jars (this is my recommend a friend link). Lidl and Aldi do lots of fruit and vegetables on their weekly specials. Watch out for things that can be cooked quickly or chucked in a stir fry.
Fresh ready meals can often be found with yellow sticker reductions at the end of the day in other supermarkets. If you freeze them or eat them the same day they can provide quick and easy dinners.
Excellent eggs
Eggs can be very quickly turned into an omelette or tortilla with minimal preparation or energy. They are cheap and nutritious. Hard boil them and throw them on your salad leaves or have them fried or poached with chips (oven chips if you can’t be bothered to make them). Have some tinned peas, sweetcorn, grilled tomatoes or fried mushrooms too so you have at least one of your five a day.
Jars aren’t an admission of defeat
A jar of sauce is a marvellous thing. Chuck one over your chicken or vegetables and serve with rice for a super easy dinner. I also find stir fry sauce sachets an absolute godsend when I am lacking energy or motivation with a pack of supermarket chopped veg (preferably yellow stickered, obviously).
Ready made sauces are the type of thing you can pick up mega cheaply on Approved Food or in shops like B&M or Home Bargains.
Consider frozen
Iceland is brilliant for frozen food at great prices I find. Packs of frozen veg needs no prep, you can pick up chicken breasts and other meat already cut and ready to use, sausages and all kinds of vegetarian fayre.
And, of course, Iceland sell a lot of ready meals. Choose some with vegetables built into the recipe or make sure you serve with salad or vegetables so you get some of your five a day.
Frozen fruit is also nice with custard or yogurt for a healthy pudding.
In the can
Tinned veg is full of nutrients and can be served with pretty much anything. I buy a lot of tinned ratatouille when I see it as it makes a nice easy dinner with pasta or rice and grated cheese on top. Tins of curry are good too.
I am a big fan of tinned fish such as sardines and tuna. Both make good ingredients for pasta bakes and sardines are good on toast. Very cheap and full of good omega oils.
Ready made pastry
I used to always make my own pastry and I do prefer it. However, once in a while I will buy ready made and will used it as a cheat ingredient for a tuna plait or an apple pie. You can also buy tins of pie filling, although it’s probably just as cheap and easy to buy ready made pies!
Pasta
Who doesn’t like pasta? This is where I will happily use a jar of bolognese sauce, mixed with some lean mince or Quorn. I love tuna penne as it is pretty quick and easy to make, but if I can’t even be bothered with that I will mix up a packet of tuna bake and serve with salad.
Jacket potatoes
A large jacket potato with a can of chilli beans, ordinary beans in tomato sauce, tuna mayo or just plain cheese is such an easy dinner. Again this is good with a pack of salad.
The odd ping meal won’t kill you
If all else fails, a microwave meal every now and again won’t kill you, especially if you serve it with some vegetables. It’s not often I give into one, but if I do it will be a curry!
None of the above is likely to be news to you. It’s all just common sense really. The point I am trying to make is that I beat myself up for taking short cuts for far too long. Sometimes you need to. Hopefully now that I am starting to feel better I will do more scratch cooking, but if I don’t feel like it then I won’t!
What about you? Are you a slave to cooking from scratch or do you like some convenience meals?
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Well said. There is a time and place for everything.
I almost gave up on frugal lifestyle blogs because for a while it was like reading poverty porn, I grow everything, cook batches and more.
Jarred sauces are your friend on a busy night. Bagged salad? Well where I live a lettuce will set you back $3-4. Mixed salad bags are $2.99 and they work just as well in sandwiches as lettuce leaves.
Yellow stickers (or in my case pink triangles) buy them, use right away or freeze them. I look for the cooked chicken breasts for fast and easy curry night.
I stick to my budget and we eat well.
Glad it’s not just me then . ‘Poverty porn’ – great phrase!
We look for bargains, and I am certainly not against a quick meal! Not every meal has to be gourmet quality, as long as it’s nutritious and filling who cares if you worked for 3 hours or poured a jar of premade sauce over it! I’ve cooked dinners every night for maybe 50 years (I’m 70) and if I want to take a shortcut I have no guilt whatsoever! I always use bagged salad, a whole lettuce would go bad before the 2 of us could eat it…and bagged salad (or coleslaw) is so versatile.
Totally agree
Hi, what do you mean when you say mix up a packet of tuna bake ? xx
Colman’s tuna pasta bake mix, or similar. Cheaper than the stuff out of a jar. You add oasta, Tina and cheese. So easy
As much as I love cooking but for me it also exhausting especially since I do it on the daily basis which sometimes feels like a chore.
I agree. Mr S is useless at cooking so it’s all down to me. He makes up for it in other ways, bless him. It does get tiring, especially after a full day at work!
Over the last year or so my cooking/eating habits have gone through a real mix -from eating as much homegrown and homemade as I possibly could to all sling and pings, pot noodles for days when even boiling a kettle feels like so much effort, cup a soups etc. I now seem to have reached a happier compromise for me – on days when I can cook I make extra portions of whatever it is and put them in the freezer as home-made ready meals but I also don’t beat myself up about the bought in instant meals either. I have also headed down the road of frozen fruit for quick desserts/breakfasts and frozen veg for adding a bit extra to meals, some of it is bought in, some of it what we have grown ourselves – although a freezer catastrophe about 6 months ago meant we lost a lot of our stores. I really enjoy cooking but have accepted that compromises are a must in this life and don’t have to mean defeat.
Completely mirrors how I have been, Tanya, minus the pot noodles. Can’t stomach those!
I cook a lot of meals from scratch and always batch cook and freeze where possible. I buy a lot of yellow sticker foods and sometimes if there’s a really good deal on something ready made than I buy it. Some quick meal ideas to save me time are baked beans, jars of curry sauces and oven chips (we like Aldi oven chips at 99p a bag). Some days I really can’t be faffed with cooking which is where the batch cooked meals come in. Occasionally, I am on my own for evening meal and will just have soup but usually I have two hungry boys to cook for! Snack meals just don’t fill them up!
Batch cooking is a good idea. I do that too. Your own healthy ready meals!
I normally cook from scratch but sometimes I cannot be bothered so I would eat things like egg salad, tuna salad or omelette. Sometimes we buy ready made pizza from a supermarket but that doesn’t happen very often as I know it’s not very healthy.
I’ve just had 2 days of porridge for dinner because
1) DH & DD took over the kitchen to do a fry up for everyone (yuck!)
2) Was a ready-made lasagne that I don’t eat
If I’m not having the meal I’ll usually do that, as I can’t be bothered to make myself separate afterwards!
I think of it as a detox, as I always feel better for it! 🙂
I cook from scratch from September through March and then I mostly give myself a break. I have RA and fibromyalgia so need to pace myself and when I’ve had enough, I adapt.
It’s just me so that does help – salad in a bag, eggs, tinned fish, beans & lots of Fruit & Veg (and there’s nothing wrong with tinned or frozen) are my friends. When it all gets to be too much I’d rather spend money on a couple of cooked chicken breasts (each will do me for two meals) than go the full takeout route – but even if I did I find that one meal can do me 2 and even 3 meals with some veg added so it’s still cost effective.
I’ve had a very busy few days and the rest of this week is extremely busy (I work in a church office) so after a lot of extra running around tonight I settled for a supper of a couple of crisp bread, a few slices of ham, a bit of cheese & beetroot – and it really hit the spot.
The trick, as you’ve discovered is to have those time savers on hand at all times so you aren’t heading to the chippie or ordering pizza every night.