['rosie]

Me and my boyfriend have been living off takeaways for the past month/forever. and we soon want that to change.

Now, my question is, in your opinion, do I make **** from scratch or buy ready meals?

Take shepards pie as an example, would it be cheaper to buy the ingredients to make a large pie, or to buy two individual ones. What would be tastier with cost in mind, etc etc.

Any help would be very helpful

Thanks! Rosie x

[tehforum]

(Original post by 'rosie)
Me and my boyfriend have been living off takeaways for the past month/forever. and we soon want that to change.

Now, my question is, in your opinion, do I make **** from scratch or buy ready meals?

Take shepards pie as an example, would it be cheaper to buy the ingredients to make a large pie, or to buy two individual ones. What would be tastier with cost in mind, etc etc.

Any help would be very helpful

Thanks! Rosie x

Just buy jamie's 30 minute meals recipe book.

It would be cheaper and tastier to make your own large pie.

[. . .]

Make it yourself. There is nothing like the satisfaction from a self cooked meal. It will usually work out cheaper. You can change it slightly for your tasting. And cooking is a valuable life skill. Only problem is it requires careful planning and preparation. And sometime you can **** up pretty bad I remember reading somebody on here managed to burn spaghetti.

['rosie]

Yeah that's what I thought, that when you're done with the ingredients you still have some left over to make something else?

tell me about it.. i burnt rice the other day -.-

[Soph.Jade]

Making it yourself usually works out cheaper and you get a lot more for your money and it can be a lot healthier as you can monitor salt etc. Good luck with the cooking though - I'm still learning how to make basic stuff but it's fun and soooo rewarding when you make a nice meal from scratch.

[. . .]

(Original post by 'rosie)
Yeah that's what I thought, that when you're done with the ingredients you still have some left over to make something else?

tell me about it.. i burnt rice the other day -.-

Yeah and sometime you can buy fresh and cheap by buying from local grocery shops which tastes so much better.

How did you manage that?

[Fusion]

In the supermarket buy mostly stuff on special offer

[Dalimyr]

(Original post by Fusion)
In the supermarket buy mostly stuff on special offer

I'd be wary about that. Supermarkets can be really shady with their pricing. Couple of months ago, Asda started selling these 150g bags of McCoys. In the space of a week I went in the store four times - first day was the first time I'd come across the crisps and they were £1.04. Went in the next day and they were £1.02. Went in a few days later and they were labelled as "Was £1.20, Now £1" (which I'm pretty sure is actually illegal), went in another day or two later and they were back to £1.04. The last series of Watchdog featured shady supermarket deals. They'd found things like a supermarket saying that an item "Was £12, Now £8" (I think this was a pack of beer cans/bottles) and they had recorded the price of the item over the course of six months to a year; in one case the £12 price was something they'd had for about three days four months ago and the last two price changes were actually increases from £6 to £7 and then to the £8 deal it was currently listed at (while claiming it was reduced from £12). Another thing was listed as being reduced from £7 to £5, but over the past year it had consistently been £5 except for a period of about a week where it had been put up to £7 before dropping back down.

Point is that buying things on special offer may not be saving you as much money as you might expect if you're not careful. If you buy the same things on a regular basis, you'll be far more aware of what the normal range of prices are for those things and when the supermarkets are playing silly buggers with the pricing then you'd be more likely to notice and would probably want to look for something else to try and save your money.

(Original post by . . .)
I remember reading somebody on here managed to burn spaghetti.

Erm, not exactly. You remember reading someone say they had just burned their spaghetti, but that doesn't mean they actually did it. Far from it, that thread was created at the end of April but the pic they posted had been doing the rounds on the internet for at least a month before that


And to answer the OP...

(Original post by 'rosie)
Me and my boyfriend have been living off takeaways for the past month/forever. and we soon want that to change.

Now, my question is, in your opinion, do I make **** from scratch or buy ready meals?

Take shepards pie as an example, would it be cheaper to buy the ingredients to make a large pie, or to buy two individual ones. What would be tastier with cost in mind, etc etc.

Any help would be very helpful

Thanks! Rosie x

Make **** from scratch. If you know you'll have things left over (which is a given, really) then to cut down on waste plan out things to make that'll use up those leftovers. When I make pizzas at home, I have lots of the toppings and stuff left over, so I make small calzones or strombolis for my lunches for the next few days. If I'm making burgers I'll usually have some of the mince mixture left over so I make some extra burgers and stick them in the freezer to have sometime later, or I'll make meatballs to have with pasta or something like that. Leftover veggies like when you get a recipe that calls for half an onion or half a pepper and you're not sure what to do with the other half, I buy tortillas and some chicken and have fajitas So long as you are capable of being a little creative to avoid wasting your leftovers, cooking stuff from scratch will almost always be cheaper than buying ready-made things (there are some exceptions, like the breadcrumbed chicken you can get that's made from "chopped, shaped chicken", but since that sort of stuff is made from the scraps left over from the premium cuts that are sold fresh, you probably want to be aiming to make a better-quality product than that )

[aarora]

sometimes its cheaper to make food from scratch, for example it is cheaper to make your own pasta sauce, but i tried this last week and it turned out quite disgusting so I'm just going to stick to the jars! Also ready meals are usually on offer most of the time for £1 and some taste alright so you could try that maybe.

[blueflower114]

(Original post by 'rosie)
Me and my boyfriend have been living off takeaways for the past month/forever. and we soon want that to change.

Now, my question is, in your opinion, do I make **** from scratch or buy ready meals?

Take shepherds pie as an example, would it be cheaper to buy the ingredients to make a large pie, or to buy two individual ones. What would be tastier with cost in mind, etc etc.

Any help would be very helpful

Thanks! Rosie x

Buying ingredients on most things is usually cheaper than buying a ready meal for two people. Plus it's a healthier option and you will learn how to cook things properly too! If you really can't be bothered to cook/cheap option just buy frozen food- e.g. if you want veg you can buy frozen veg which is usually cheaper, lasts longer than unfrozen food- it has all the same nutritional content in as well.

[ily_em]

You can make your own ready meals... eg whenever you make shepherd's pie/ bolognese/ chilli/ curry etc, make a really big batch and freeze the rest. Put them in your leftover takeaway pots (I assume you saved some) and you have portion sized meals ready cooked.

[hyakushiki1234]

It's always cheaper and tastier to buy fresh and cook yourself. You can go even further and save more money by learning how to use ingredients more efficiently, as well. If you know how to properly disjoint a chicken, for example, then you'll get five or so meals out of it for about a 4 pound investment (depending on how hungry you are ). Two thighs, two breasts, two drumsticks as well as the carcass and the wings (which can be used in soup) are a great deal for less than a fiver.

[ThisIsTheLife]

I make most of our food from scratch and its usually cheaper and a lot better quality too.

I usually also make a MASSIVE portion of the stuff and either freeze it or fridge it, and the meal can last a good few days.

[robo donkey]

Ready meals are NEVER the way to go. Unless you love salt and bottom of the barrel ingredients. Nothing better than making your own meals at all I'd say, once you can do a basic spag bol, chili and curry you can do so much variation on them