Oh ‘Bo-ring’ I can hear! ‘I don’t like cheap food!’ Neither do I. Fifteen minutes a week planning and a couple of hours cooking will save you cash to spend in other ways. Two treat meals a week. Deal? You need a freezer and the vision that food underpins family life.
Give each member a budget to feed everyone for one day, say a pound a head? (Unless they aren’t weaned yet, in which case they’re excused, but small people could be encouraged to cater) What they save they put into the treat-kitty. Living on tap water for the day is not really a meal plan so it doesn’t count.
Decide all meals for five days (Monday to Friday maybe) and cook as many meals as you can in advance and freeze them. Shirley Conran said sometimes the only good thing about pasta is that you don’t need to peel it! I never tire of pasta; a great, cheap filler and lifted to ambrosial heights by the sauce. Oil and garlic is a simple lunch dressing for it, other possibles are, parmesan cheese on its own, Quorn (or beef) mince in a tinned tomato sauce with mushrooms, onions, courgettes and olives. Goat cheese melted into pasta is glorious. Don’t use ready made sauces; you can eat twice as much of home-made for a fraction of the price.
More to life than pasta? How about Quorn fillets in sauces like curry or Bolognese with seasonal or home grown vegetables. Or try Quorn chicken pieces in a stir-fry, brown the pieces, season the stir-fry with sesame oil or Thai seven spices. Make a huge pot of ratatouille. Baked potatoes are a delicious accompaniment for any of these fillings. Or why not try home- made oven chips with egg and Quorn rashers (a pack will feed 4).
Then treat yourselves, sensibly of course.