As many dinners as possible for under £30!!

At 32 weeks pregnant my thoughts have turned to how we will manage to function as a household and a Family in the first (sometimes horrific!!) few weeks of life with a Newborn, made extra stressful by the fact we know I will be having a C-Section which will leave me with very limited movements for at least a couple of weeks. 

I have set to as much organisation as possible to ensure everything we need can be found easily and whilst sleep deprived! Products such as loo rolls, cleaning products and toiletries have been stockpiled to prevent running out and mad dashes to the supermarket. Stocks of nappies and wipes have been building up nicely over the past couple of weeks thanks to some good offers and Supermarket baby events. All items are down from the loft and have been washed and aired ready for the new little person to who comes to live with us.

It would be a major oversight to not think of food, I can't imagine either of my boys would be very impressed if I told them they couldn't eat! So I began looking into freezer meals, particularly meals that could be bagged in advance and then popped into the crock pot to cook, Pinterest has become my new best friend and I found tonnes of ideas on there. I made a list of meals I wanted to prepare and compiled my shopping list, trouble was a lot of the items were quite heavy

The other week I received a voucher from Sainsburys giving me £10 off of a £50 home delivery shop and coincidentally they had and excellent offer on Nappies and Wipes (buy a pack of nappies for £10 and get a box of 9 packs of wipes free) so I decided I would place an order. 

I ordered £20 worth of the nappies and wipes which left me £30 to get as many meals as possible sorted for us. I purchased the following:

3 x Valley Foods Chicken Fillets 750g - Total Price GBP 8.98
2 x Richmond Thick Irish Sausages x16 725g - Total Price GBP 2.49
2 x Sainsbury's Carrots, Basics 1.5kg - Total Price GBP 1.50
1 x Sainsbury's Potatoes 7.5kg - Total Price GBP 3.70
1 x Sainsbury's Pork Loin Steaks 630g - Total Price GBP 4.00
2 x Sainsbury's Diced Onions 300g - Total Price GBP 1.20
2 x Sainsbury's Peppers, Basics (Colours May Vary) 600g - Total Price GBP 2.58
2 x Sainsbury's British Pork Mince 500g - Total Price GBP 4.00
5 x Sainsbury's Pineapple Pieces In Juice, Basics 227g - Total Price GBP 1.40
4 x Sainsbury's Long Grain Rice, Basics 1kg - Total Price GBP 1.60
4 x Sainsbury's Pasta Shapes, Basics 500g - Total Price GBP 1.56
10 x Sainsbury's Chopped Tomatoes, Basics 400g - Total Price GBP 3.10

 Total including the wipes and nappies came to £56.07, I received my £10 off making it £46.07. 

Taking off the £20 for nappies and wipes I was left with food total of £26.07 to make as many meals as I could.

Here's what I managed to make with it:

The following are all big enough to feed all 3 of us

2 x Lasagne's

3 x Sausage casseroles

1 x pork casserole

1 x Hawaiian chicken

2 x Chicken cacciatori

1 x BBQ Pork

2 x Chilli

2 x Cottage Pie

And these are just little portions the right size to feed Aidan

 2 x Bolognaise

1 x pork stew

2 x Chilli

3 x Cottage pie

2 x Macaroni cheese

2 x Lasagna

2 x Veg Curry

2 x Fish Pie (I used a tin of tuna I had in the cupboard)

 There's at least 2 weeks worth of meals in there for all of us now, more for Aidan, all for under £30. If I get the chance  energy again I will prepare a couple more.

 I bought 2 packs of foil trays from the £1 shop to store the meals in and the rest are in Ziploc bags. Most of the meat items are raw still but all I will need to do is take a bag out of the Freezer the night before and then pop them into the Slow Cooker in the morning, no thinking what to have or chopping and preparing.

 

 I can rest well knowing that it is all prepared and we can have yummy, cheap, home cooked meals for the absolute minimum of work AND I didn't have to carry it all home from the shops!!

 Just as well as I currently look like this!