Speakers' Corner

Five tricks for thrifty menu plans

Money-saving foodie blogger Jane Sparrow shares her tips for tasty, cost-effective meal planning.

I’ve found that a small amount of kitchen planning saves a significant amount of money every month, and it also means I eat a healthier, more varied diet.

The benefits far outweigh the small amount of time and effort that’s needed to put a menu together.

 1. Who’s at home, and when?

Before I start my weekly menu plan, I always check who’s going to be home on particular nights. If everyone’s home on a particular evening we eat together where possible to save on waste, preparation time, and the energy needed to heat the grill, oven and hob. It’s also much more sociable and pleasant.

Then I draw up a plan with numbers of people who need to be fed on each evening, to make sure we buy in the right amount of groceries.

The groceries have to include breakfasts, packed lunches and dinners, and sometimes brunch at the weekend, but I only tend to write down the weeknight suppers, and weekend lunches and dinners.

2. What’s on offer, what’s in season?

Next, I look for some cheap but tasty ingredients. I have a quick scan of my usual supermarket’s best offers by checking prices on MySupermarket.co.uk, mainly to see whether they have cheap meat, fish or cheese. Protein foods have a tendency to be more expensive than carb-rich foods, so that’s usually where the biggest savings are made.

I remind myself of different foods that are in season too, since they’re plentiful and therefore often cheapest. The Great British Kitchen and Eat The Seasons are useful websites. I also have a cherished old copy of The Cookery Year by Margaret Coombes that I “borrowed” from my mum when I left home – this has some great, tried-and-tested seasonal recipes.

3. Quick and healthy meals

The best menus make life cheaper and simpler. My midweek suppers are based on dishes that are tasty and quick to prepare, including pasta, big salads, egg dishes, tinned beans, noodle soups and filled baked potatoes.

When I have more time – mainly at weekends – I’ll do things that need longer to cook, such as pies, bakes, slow roasts and casseroles. These all have the potential to make cheaper ingredients such as shoulder cuts of meat into something special.

Menu planning makes it so much easier to have balanced meals as well, whether you’re trying to lose a few pounds, watch your cholesterol, eat more vegetables or follow a fitness regime. If you want to know more about this, the NHS Food and Diet information is helpful, and I really like their tips on how to eat well on a tight budget, and healthy meals for kids.

4. Start fresh, then go to the store cupboard

As much as I want to save cash, I also need to save time since I work quite long hours. For convenience I do one weekly supermarket shop, and top up with a brief weekly visit to a nearby fruit and veg market.

So that there’s no risk of food going off and going to waste, the freshest foods like fish get eaten soonest after the supermarket visit, and the day before the next shopping trip we’ll eat something from the freezer or the store cupboard that doesn’t need much in the way of perishable ingredients.

5. Everyone needs to join in

Once it’s all planned out, I put my list up on the fridge for the household to see. That way people are less likely to open something and snack on it, and accidentally leave us with no food for the following evening: everyone needs to co-operate in order for a menu plan to work.

Trim the waste from your weekly food shop

Trim the waste from your food shop and be a leaner, greener shopper says our foodie blogger Jane Sparrow

I used to throw away unused food on a regular basis but soon changed my ways when I realised how much it was costing me.

The Love Food, Hate Waste campaign estimates that the average family with children chucks out food worth £680 a year, or almost £60 a month.

Things are now different at the Sparrow’s Nest. I’ve nearly halved my food bills and the cash that’s saved goes towards other household expenses and the occasional treat instead.

I’ve managed this with a mixture of old-fashioned and modern techniques, including menu planning, understanding and extending use-by dates, and using up leftovers.

Sounds like a plan

Menu planning was the biggest surprise of all. I’d resisted it for a long time because I thought it would make mealtimes less spontaneous and, frankly, a bit boring. Within a couple of weeks of trying it out, it was clear that the food was healthier, fresher and more of a pleasure to eat. I rediscovered my enthusiasm for finding new and interesting recipes, got out of a mealtime rut and found there was more variety in my dinners.

A small magnetic message board from Poundland now sits happily on my fridge. On one side is the weekly menu (I probably shouldn’t admit this but as I walk by it in the morning I’m already looking forward to that night’s dinner) and the other side is for the shopping list. The list means I only buy what’s needed after checking what’s already in the house, rather than buying the groceries on auto-pilot.

Planning before shopping is the biggest “quick win” when it comes to making savings and preventing waste, and there are mobile phone apps and online communities devoted to it. You might like to give Menu Plan Monday by Organizing Junkie a whirl to get some inspiration from what other people are cooking.

Making life easier

Menu planning doesn’t have to chain you to the cooker either; you can fit it around just about any lifestyle. My midweek menus invariably include quick, simple dishes such as omelettes, salads, pastas and so on that need very little prep time or washing up.

I also cook large batches of favourite recipes and have them fresh one night and reheated the next night, or frozen as home-made ready meals.

There’s more time at weekends for complicated recipes.

Use-by dates

Food labelling in the UK has been confusing for a long time, with “sell-by” and “use-by” dates on the packaging of most foods. It’s the use-by date that can save you from a dose of food poisoning. If in doubt, err on the side of caution with dairy, eggs, meat and fish.

If there’s a risk something could go off before you can use it then freeze it if possible. My bread goes straight into the freezer when it’s bought, so it never goes stale.

Using everything up

If you have two or three ingredients that need using up but don’t know what to do with them, type their names into Google along with the word recipe. Look for suggestions that rely on cheap store-cupboard ingredients to complete the meal.

The final part of the equation is using up your leftovers, which I’ll be writing about in the coming weeks.

To learn more about preventing food waste, visit the Love Food, Hate Waste website to see how much you could save and pick up a few handy tips.

Making your own ready meals on the cheap

Money-saving blogger Jane Sparrow beats takeaway temptation and explains how to cut costs by making her own ready meals.

By Jane Sparrow

My husband and I both work long hours during the week, and neither of us feel like cooking anything from scratch when we get home late. In the past, we’d always reach for a takeaway menu or buy ready meals from the supermarket on the way home.

Eventually, of course, we realised that we weren’t doing ourselves any favours: the diet was making us feel unhealthy, and our food costs were spiralling out of control.

I began to create weekly menus, learned some new quick-cook recipes, and then started making my own ready meals to help prevent those expensive moments of weakness. We felt the difference financially and health wise almost immediately, and it’s easy to keep up.

Making your own takeaways

Having some pre-cooked dinners in the freezer just makes life easier, particularly on weeknights after work. There’s no panic buying, it’s simple and organised, and you can make tasty, healthy meals that don’t wreck your budget.

I cook homemade ready meals once a month, making large quantities and freezing them in old takeaway containers. To avoid mealtime boredom I make two base recipes each time and customise each base to make different variations.

Building on one base

Mince and onions is one of my favourite ready-meal bases, although I’ve found that the cheapest economy minced meat half vanishes in the pan because of all the fat that runs off it, so now I stick to standard mince made from leaner cuts.

I make a few different meals from this base, for example:

·    Adding garlic, wine, herbs, tinned tomatoes and mushrooms turns it into a luxury bolognese sauce for spaghetti.

·    Red peppers, ground spices and cooked kidney beans make a tasty chilli, perfect in a bowl with cheese or folded into a flour tortilla.

·    Freeze it in an ovenproof dish, maybe with some peas and diced carrot in the mixture, topped with mashed potato to make cottage pie.

·    Adding cinnamon, nutmeg, grilled aubergine and a little crumbled feta cheese on top makes a low-fat moussaka.

Casseroles, bakes and curries

Casseroles freeze nicely and turn cheaper cuts of meat into something special. The most popular version in my house is sausage casserole, with sliced leeks, small chunks of potato, lots of gravy, fresh parsley, a bay leaf and a little mustard. Sometimes I make a veggie casserole with root vegetables, green beans and butter beans too.

Pasta bakes were a bit of a learning curve but the most important thing is to undercook the pasta so it isn’t mushy. They’re easy to customise, and I make a few different flavours on the same cooking day by varying sauces, cheeses, herbs and veggies. Sometimes I add a little chopped ham, salami, cooked bacon or chicken.

One of my other favourites is a basic curry sauce base. You start by gently frying finely chopped onions and garlic, grated root ginger and aromatic spices like ground coriander, turmeric, and cumin, then adding tomato passata before putting into an electric blender. I often divide the basic mixture in half then cook one batch with chicken, and another with chickpeas and spinach.

Have you tried making your own ready meals to save money? Tell us about your success stories, or favourite dinners that freeze well.