Tenner Week Oct 2018: Day 1: Comfort food menu plan

Hi there. It’s Day One of our latest Tenner Week Challenge with its  new ‘Get cosy for the Autumn‘ theme – are you ready to live on £10 or less for a week? Today we’re starting off with a Menu Monday activity, and this time around it’s a comfort food menu plan.

Your weekly menu plan needs to include breakfasts, lunches, snacks and dinners. Try to make at least couple of those meals comfort food, whatever you think is warming or comforting for the cooler months of the year. That could be anything from bangers and mash to shepherd’s pie to homemade curry and rice. It could also include a dessert such as a fruit crumble, a chocolate fondant, a rice pudding or anything with custard. Whatever you like!

Before you start, do a quick stocktake of any food you might already have in your home, if you haven’t done so already. If there’s anything that’s near its use-by date then work out how you’re going to use that up first, then decide what your comfort food dishes are going to be and work those into your menu plan, ideally by using what you already have in stock.

Remember to keep any grocery list as short and as cheap as possible, and improvise and simplify dishes if you need to because you might need to rely on the extra cash in your budget at the end of the week. Make use of the freezer to stop staples such as bread and milk going off and move perishable items to the front of the shelves in the fridge.

Try to plan some meals where you batch cook or create leftovers to make life easier and / or include at least one or two quick and easy to make meals in your menu plan (even if it’s beans on toast). Cooking from scratch usually saves a lot of money, but it can also be time consuming so try to strike a balance with the preparation and fit your easier, simpler meals around busier evenings during the week.

What’s happening here

My stocktake is done and I’ll be looking forward to some baked potato wedges next weekend, and will be having some spiced lentil soup for my lunches as well. I’ve just realised there’s a lot of home grown rhubarb in the freezer too, so maybe there will be a rhubarb and ginger crumble with custard on the way as well.

Hopefully today will be a zero-spend day so I can keep my £10 note intact for just a little longer, and I have free tickets for something this evening. Hurrah for freebies, eh?

Which comfort foods would you put on a thrifty menu plan for a cosy Autumn? Join in if you could do with saving some money this week. Let’s get budgeting…