Meal Ideas PLEASE!!! What meals are satisfyingly filling but also relatively cheap????

[ami_1204]

[gingernut49]

As someone who lives on £20 a week for myself and four cats I'd say I'm the expert! I make home-made soups with whatever vegetables I can find in the reduced section, just boil everything up with a stock cube and then liquidise.

I buy whatever meat or fish is reduced and make casseroles and those last me a few days. Eggs are good and satisfying and those can be bought cheaply too. You can often get supermarkets' own reduced calorie ready meals very cheaply and I supplement those with frozen vegetables.

One or two days a week I fast, only eating up to 500 calories. I never eat breakfast and on my fasting days I have a bowl of soup for lunch and a small evening meal. At least if you're on a small budget you won't be wasting it on sweets and biscuits!

I lost three stone in six months and have maintained since last April by just fasting one day a week. I have so much more energy than I used to have when I ate a lot and I did the C25K programme and now run three times a week. I can't afford to run a car so I walk everywhere and I haven't felt as fit since my teens!

[victoria-plum]

I'm not a vegetarian, but Quorn mince is quite cheap compared to beef mince. Also lower in fat and calories, quicker to cook, and if you bung in plenty of veg you hardly notice the difference - great for spag bol or chilli.

Pulses are filling too (cheapest if you buy them dried, but I haven't got my head around all the soaking/cooking bit, so buy tinned at the moment); chickpeas/borlotti beans/flageolet/black-eyed all have great texture; you can either completely substitute them for meat, or start off by just replacing half the mince with a can, to make the meat go further - I make an excellent cottage pie this way. Good luck.

(PS Like gingernut, I use the 5:2 Fasting diet, which helps - just 7lbs to go!)

[Penel]

An inexpensive crock pot or slow cooker is a really useful way to cook cheaper cuts of meat. Buy veg in season, at a local market if you can, I find it's usually cheaper than the supermarket. As Gingernut said, soups are really filling and cheap.

[ami_1204]

thanks guys. looks like im going to stocked up on home made soups and quorn spag bol lol. xxx

[Penel in reply to ami_1204]

Forgot to say that lentils are a cheap source of protein and go well in veg soup. If you are not used to a lot of fibre, make sure you drink a fair amount of water too.

[Blackpads]

Have a look at 'A Girl Called Jack'

agirlcalledjack.com/

Very cheap - everything cooked from scratch though but not too complicated !

Best Wishes.