Stretch your food further

It’s all very well being savvy with your food shopping and keeping the prices down for your weekly shop. But how about the way you use the food that you buy - how can you make the most of it, and stretch it to go as far as possible? Here are some of our tips:

If you have a freezer, and you are able to buy larger quantities of the necessary items, make double of dishes likes bolognese, curry or stew and freeze them for a nutritious ‘ready meal’ when you don’t have time to cook - or take a portion with you the next day if you take lunch to work.

Don’t assume food has gone off if it’s past its ‘best before’ date - it’s is just a guide, so smell it, taste a bit, and use it if possible. ‘Use by’ dates are different and should be adhered to for food hygiene reasons, especially for meat, poultry and fish. The Food Standards Agency have a helpful video to explain the difference in these dates on food and what they mean.

Leftover veg that don’t look very appetizing are perfect for a quick soup or stew - check out this article for some inspiration!

Aim to take a packed lunch to work if you don’t already (it’s much cheaper than buying, and you can make that sandwich exactly how you like it!) - or how about linking up with a colleague and making lunch for each other once or twice a week?

Check out some of the thrifty chefs suggesting tasty recipes that won’t break the bank - for example Jack Monroe’s Cooking on a Bootstrap or Thrifty Lesley’s website.

Finally, here’s a tip from one of our recent Money Course guests - experiment with Chat GPT tools to get ‘artificial intelligence’ suggestions for specific meal plans - you can try asking for a week of gluten-free, vegetarian meal suggestions, for example, with the AI producing recipes, shopping lists and a budget on request!