Diet on an extremely minimal budget

I am in the UK so food prices/availability is bit different over here.
I have spent quite a lot of today preparing food for the week. I make sure all my food for the next day is prepped and bagged the night before so I can just grab it in the morning.

Breakfast - protein shake with fruit or porridge (oatmeal) with fruit . Overnight oatmeal is good as can all be prepped night before.

Snacks (am) banana, apple, hard boiled eggs

Lunch - soup with protein on side (this week crackers and pate), or salad with protein. Pudding is fruit (this week pineapple, kiwi and coconut) with yoghurt

Snack (pm) this week is oatmeal raisin cookie, but otherwise dried fruit and nuts

Dinner - often curry or stew in slow cooker with rice (veg in the curry/stew), or salad with protein and potatoes or bread.

I make soup with leftover veg (broccoli stalks work well) or frozen veg. I buy bags of bacon offcuts and add these, leftover herbs and stock. Sometimes I use chorizo instead of bacon and sometimes chickpeas or split peas (dried ones are cheap and if you have a freezer you can soak and boil and then freeze ready to use). I box it up for the week, any extra gets frozen for busy weeks as can grab/reheat straight from the freezer.

Doing something like pulled pork in the slow cooker (trim fat off first) lasts for a few meals and can be done in several ways.

The biggest thing is meal planning and preparation.

Finally a topic I'm knowledgeable about

Frankly, when on a budget you pretty much have to make a choice between higher sodium, longer preparation time or higher calories...

The problem (for me) with Ramen noodles, pre-made pizzas, tv dinners, etc... is that they don't really fill me up despite having a fairly large amount of calories. Canned goods can also be pretty expensive when bought in bulk, and high in sodium.

My personal favorites:
- large bags of beans, boiled during the weekend and kept for later
- instant brown rice, it's filling and can be quite cheap (depending on where you live)
- frozen spinach, broccoli and cauliflower (healthy, filling and quick, bland but absorbs flavour)
- soup stock, high in sodium but very cheap and a quick way to add flavour to anything
- eggs and canned fish for protein, beef sausages are both cheap and fairly healthy
- you can also buy ground meat, fry it up during the weekend and keep for later

I'll add more if I can think of more.

In my broke 2nd/3rd year of uni, I was fortunate enough to work in a cafe that had great healthy food and a stupid wasteful policy that whatever doesn't get sold, get thrown out. As staff we had a meal allowance a day, and we could take whatever food we wanted from the leftovers. I used to stack up on ALOT of the food when I could, salads, sandwiches, fruit juices etc. I saved so much money and lots a nice amount of weight doing that. I left because it was also weird hours (worked in the airport) and piled on the weight, because I had a new waitressing job in an italian restaurant. I ate a lot of fast foods.

Its really hard to be prepared, when you are stuck for time. However, I used to always use this as an excuse but still find time to watch tv/ go on facebook. Making a good healthy salad or sandwich for lunch takes 20 minutes. Get up 20 minutes earlier than you do already. Easier said then done, but that 20 minutes won't do much to your energy levels.

As for money, its much better to buy in bulk. Eating as you go along is really expensive. I can spend roughly £8 on lunches for a week. But eating out for the week costs £5 a day.

Yes, I agree about cooking winter squash in the microwave. Just remember to poke some holes in it with a fork so it doesn't explode!

EGGS are relatively inexpensive, and they are high in protein, low in calories! We try to keep boiled eggs in the refrigerator at all times. When making scrambled eggs I use one whole egg and 3 egg whites. Tuna is another relatively inexpensive great item. They now have the pouches and you can keep them in your backpack.

Ditto on the eggs. When I was a broke single mom, we ate eggs. Cheap, nutritious, easy to prepare ahead. Hard boil a dozen--make some egg salad for sandwiches, slice some up on salad, eat them whole...whatever works. "Fried rice" was a staple too. Frozen mixed veggies, rice, scrambled egg and seasoning.

Check out your local grocery store ads. Albertson's almost always has killer deals on meat. Recently, they had full racks of ribs, pork chops, and petite sirloin steaks all Buy ONE Get THREE free! For the ribs, we got like $100 worth of ribs for ~$25. Sometimes they have frozen bags of Tilapia for that crazy deal, but as of right now I am the only one who eats fish in my household (staying with my parents temporarily), so that'd be overkill for me.

My 2 favorite meals from when I was a broke college student (still am, but my boyfriend graduated and got a killer job)"

Pasta salad:

A bag of rotini pasta
6-9 sweet peppers
feta cheese
olive oil
vinegar (I like pomegranate)
pepper and garlic powder to taste

Boil noodles, cut up peppers, mix everything. I don't really measure when I cook (though now that I'm counting calories I'm going to have to!) so be sure to taste-test everything. Don't oil/vinegar/seasoning in huge amounts at first.

Vegetable soup:

This one's great, because you can buy whatever vegetables you like, and are on sale. Frozen is okay.
Add a potato or 2 (cut up into little chunks)
A can of tomato paste + water and (it's a little expensive at first, but per use is pretty cheap) Braggs liquid aminos (you could probably use salt instead of this, but I don't know the ratio for that, plus salty soup is high in sodium) for the base. Pepper for taste.

But both of these yield a ton of food, especially for 1-2 people. You can freeze the soup too if you don't feel like eating that.

I'd also recommend the book "I don't know how to cook, book." It's a cook book for newbies, but it has a ton of really good, cheap recipes. The chili is awesome (though I add way more seasoning than it calls for).



ALSO, join consumer testing panels, like BzzAgent. I've gotten so much free food (they have other campaigns too, but the majority of the campaigns I've gotten in are for food) from them. They'll either send coupons, or the actual product. I've gotten free food from: Silk, Food Should Taste Good chips, Kroger Private Selection x2, SkinnyGirl cocktails (not free, but almost, and also not worth it), Filippo Berio olive oil, Campbell's GO soup, Morningstar Farms, Green Mountain Coffee, and UNREAL candy (gross).

Plan meals ahead of time before you grocery shop. No wasted food, no wasted money.

Do you have a crockpot? You can make tons of cheap dishes with very little effort.
Soups, stews and chilis last for days and are easy take along lunches.

Whole wheat pasta is cheap, just remember portion sizes.

Frozen veggies are very quick and can be paired with anything.

Frozen fruit for smoothies in the morning is quick and cheap.

EGGS, EGGS, EGGS.

For breakfast I recommend oatmeal. It's got a good amount of fiber, and even a little bit of protein. Tuna, and tinned salmon are great. You can make salmon burgers or tuna burgers. Eggs and egg whites are something that you can have at any time of the day. I eat a lot of omelettes. Whole grain pasta (just watch the serving size people tend to eat way more than the actual serving), and brown rice. To save money on vegetables buy what's in season. Frozen veggies are awesome too. Chili is pretty cheap to make and very nutritious. I usually make a huge batch with lean meats like turkey, chicken or lean ground beef, eat half for the week and freeze the rest. When I'm in school I find that planning my meals help. Pay attention the flyers of local groceries and plan around the sale items.