Recently my maternity leave just finished, as a result of having a sick infant I am u able to return to work, my partner is also off work for 12 months due an injury.
Things are now super tight with added stress of medical fees. The one area I struggle is food shopping. We could cut costs here but there never seems to be enough food and I don't have as much time to cook as I use to. A family of 4 and 3 big eaters. Spending on average 170 pw including toiletries not including nappies etc. I try make snacks from scratch and gfs have been wonderful making cakes and cookies to take some of the pressure off, I buy roasts/ chicken breasts and carve up the left over meats for sandwhichs to save on processed over priced deli meats
Looking for tips, quick easy meal prep ideas and budgeting, recipes. How do you get buy. Consider lunch box foods and dinners. I don't have a lot of time to meal prep if you have a quick easy method that would help. Really looking for any in-depth help on how to get by and not spend so much. Meat alternativ recipes we live rural no markets etc and meat is very expensive.
5 Replies
Is there an aldi nearby you at all? It would be worth your while to make a trip there and stock up on essentials and meat.
Also do you have a slow cooker? If not, invest in one, there are tons of recipes on the web and its really as simple as putting all the stuff in the pot in the morning and turning it on. Especially with winter coming you can make hearty casseroles or slow cook meat, stirfrys.
I do a heap of cooking in the slow cooker. On good weeks when we dont have alot of bills ill buy alittle extra and make something and freeze it for the following week. I do soups, stews, curries. Use the cheap gravy beef if its cooked long and slow it comes out just like the expensive cuts.
Add a few meatless nights to the menu and you'll notice a change.
Cut your meat in half and double your vegetables in certain meals.
My family also swapped a lot of our meals to chicken and we noticed both a change in $$ and in our health as well.
The favourite budget friend meals in our household -
Spaghetti
Shepards pie
Stir frys
Pasta bakes
Fritters (which also make a great lunchbox alternative - as do crustless quiches)
Curried/devilled sausages
Chilli
Butter chicken (or many chicken tonight meals) - we grab the sauces when they're on special, or grab the coles brand sauces for under $2.
I also make batches of both savoury and sweet muffins, which can be made cheap enough and can be added to lunchboxes or grabbed as a quick snack. Just Google muffin ideas and find ones suitable.
Lentil burgers - you can make a huge batch and freeze them. And its full of veg.
Buy in season veg only. Buy reduced meat. Our local Woolies ALWAYS reduced the meat and bread etc at 5pm weekdays, so I head down then. I can buy a weeks worth of bread and meat for $30. They even occassionally have fill a bag of random fruit/veg for $3. Look for things like that. Always on later in the day.