Cutting on a budget: Week 2 Meal Prep

Having gone through mine and Mr ATL's bank accounts - I was horrified that we have spent so much in Sainsbury's over June and July (I couldn't cope going back further). Horrified. Needless to say cutting on a budget needed to happen, I'm just glad we planned it before going to look through the finances so the motivation was there before the need.

This week's shop is going to be a little bit different as we picked up some reduced sausages in the week and they are in the process of slow cooking so lunch meals. Just a reminder we already had some staples in the cupboard such as rice and oats so we don't have to factor those in for the next three months.

Leftovers from last week to be used:
1 courgette from Sainsbury's, 1 donated courgette, 1kg carrots, 1/2 bag mushrooms.

Our list is as follows for this week:

Sainsbury's
Basics Chicken Portions - 2.5kg £4
Basics Courgettes - 1kg £1.75
Sweet Potatoes - 1.25kg £1.50
Celery - £0.60

Asian Supermarket
Canned tomatoes x4 (on offer all the time) £1
Mushrooms - £1
4 x fruit/veggies bags - £4
Milk 6 pints - £1.79
Eggs x30 - £2.69

Week Total (without any reduced goods): £18.33
NB - We spent £22.50 this week in total, bring us £2.50 under our weekly allowance of £25

Lunches for the week: Slow Cooker Sausage Casserole


(Image Step 1: Cook veggies on high for 1hr)

Ingredients:
32 Sausages (55p x4 packs of 8) = £2.20
Onion - FREE
Courgette - FREE - with still over 3/4 of it left!
Carrots - 200g from a 1.5kg bag = approx. £0.05 (6% weight ish of a 75p bag)
Canned tomatoes x2 = £0.50 (from last week's shop)
Black beans - From cupboard store - was £0.25 when on offer a few months back
Price total = £3.00

It really depends how many sausages you want per lunch and if you wanted to bulk out with some rice but the breakdown is as follows:
At 4 sausages a lunch = £0.37 per meal (8 meals)
At 3 sausages a lunch (with 2 sausages spare) = £0.30 per meal (10 meals)
At 2 sausages a lunch = £0.19 (16 meals - you may want to add rice!)
At 1 sausage a lunch = £0.09 (32 meals - you may definitely want to add rice or pasta!)

We'll be working on the 3 sausages approach so we'll be eating at £0.30 per lunch.

I'm in a mood for limited faff today with the cooking and meal prep so all that's going to happen with this is:
1. Chop veggies
2. Open cans
3. Cook veggies on high for 1 hour
4. Add sausages (if you prefer brown them off first)
5. Cook for further 3hrs
5. Box up and pop in fridge or freezer

Evening meals
The plan for these is to either have zoodles or coodles with the chicken and some of the vegetables from the week. Tonight I am making risotto so will post that a bit later - and work out if we can make enough to freeze for in the week.