There is a  Facebook group set up for people expressing an interest for extremely cheap meals, not a £1 a day, but  an even more frugal 50p a day. So if you’re saving really hard for a house deposit, a special holiday, a new car perhaps, or maybe illness, redundancy, divorce, the immoral scourge of zero hours contracts or the ghastly benefit sanction have wreaked havoc on the household budget, or there is simply too much month left at the end of the money. This post may be the one for you.

Feeding yourself at such a very low level requires extremely cheap meals and a lot of discipline – no sneaky extra biscuits! I haven’t done a meal plan as such. What I’ve got here are many options to enable you to make choices that will keep you in budget. All the recipes are easy to make, don’t need complicated equipment and use basic ordinary ingredients. A basic store cupboard if you have one, would be helpful. Things like salt and pepper, basic self raising and plain flour, sugar and oil. Then there are flavourings that bring life to a dish, soy sauce and fish sauce, worcestershire sauce and mustard.

Extremely Cheap Meals

I have scoured the Thrifty Lesley Recipe archives for anything cheap enough. I thought as a rough budget it should be split 10p for breakfast, 10p for lunch and 30p for dinner, and if you’ve managed it for less, as you will with many of these options, then there is a bit left for cake, or extra veg, or maybe a bit of fruit.

Breakfasts – budget of 10p

Sandwich Pastes

Many of the sandwich pastes cost up to 10p, or even less, with a couple of slices of value wholemeal, or white, bread

Jammy Oat Bars

Raisin Pancakes

Cinnamon Toast

Carrot & Sultana Loaf

Lunches – budget of 10p

Lunches can also involve the sandwich pastes, perhaps in a sandwich, a home made penny wrap or a home made pitta. Much nicer than shop bought and they can all be frozen. These uber cheap wraps and pitta can contain many and varied delicious morsels. You don’t need much filling and it’s amazing what lovely little dishes can be created from this and that in the fridge

Flatbreads

Cheapy Bread Rolls

or you might prefer rolls instead of wraps

Sparkling Water Tomato Rolls

or even tomato rolls made with no yeast, just sparkling water, and no kneading!

Home Made Pitta

or delicious home made pitta, super cheap. Sorry about the closeup eyes, I was showing off newly acquired false lashes!

Split Pea Soup

This split pea soup requires only 3 ingredients and is just 8p, (even cheaper than when I first  posted about it in January 2016!), leaving enough for a bread roll as well. Particularly delicious when made with chicken or turkey stock

Hummus & Grated Carrot Sandwich

Beans on Toast

Or the classic cheap lunch, 2 slices value bread with half a tin of value beans, 16p

Want to know how to eat for 50p a day? Yes, it can be done, and with tasty food too Click To Tweet

 

 

Dinners – budget of 30p

Many, many options cost up to 30p or even less, so lots of choices for dinner, even at 50p a day!

Pea Crumb Fritters

The cheapest dinner on Thrifty Lesley at 6p, although to be fair, you’ll need something else to go with it. So maybe a jacket potato (10p) and a knob of buttery spread (2p) and a portion of mixed frozen veg (10p), a total of 28p

Stuffed Potato Cakes

These stuffed potato cakes are really good, and certainly don’t taste like a budget basic meal.

Salted Cashew Couscous

Gajar Matar, Everyday Vegetables Wearing a Sari

Gnocchi Made With Dried Mash

Raw Chickpea and Carrot Falafel

These falafel are cheap enough to allow the addition of a portion or two of vegetables to go with them.

Balti Spring Green Pancakes

Lots of spicy flavour in these balti pancakes. The spices used can be varied too for variety. A good strong tasting meal

Pea Fritters

Sweetcorn Fritters

 

Here are a trio of dahls, many different flavours can be made, these are suggestions to start you off

Tomato Dhal

Coconut Dhal

Lemon Dhal

Cheese & Ham Toastie

Home Made Sausages

Each spicy banger is 19p, leaving you with a bit left for chips and beans, or mash and peas, or a jacket potato with butter, or beans

Lentil Dumplings

Stuffed Pancakes

Sardine Toast, Sandwich & Pasta

Sardine Fish Cakes

More ideas for fishcakes

More Fish Cake Ideas

Zombie Burgers

Peanut Noodles

Ham & Cheese Pancakes

Scone Based Pizza

Olive Drop Scones, Fried Onions & Carrot Ribbon Salad

Beetroot & Feta Tart

Tuna & Onion Pie

Chicken & Onion Pie

Pasta & Soft Cheese

Vegetable Crumble

Faggots & Gravy

Baconey Tomatoey Pasta

Lentil Nut Loaf

Chole & Nan

Broccoli Pesto & Pasta

Spinach Dumplings

Olive Drop Scones & Garlicky Soft Cheese

 

Wild Garlic Pesto

Spaghetti with Beef & Tomato Sauce

Chorizo & Roasted Veg Pizza

Fishless Kedgeree

A Trio of Vegetable Hummus – Green Pea, Butternut Squash & Sweetcorn

 

A 2nd Trio of Vegetable Hummus – Beetroot, Parsnip & Swede

Bacon, Olive & Cheese Savoury Loaf Cake

34p a serving, so you’d probably need to have it on it’s own, but you get 544 calories and masses of protein

Lentil Ragu & Spaghetti

You’d need to omit the cheese to hit the 30p budget

Soups

Soup makes a perfectly acceptable main meal, especially with a fresh scone, warm from the oven. A filling and warming meal

Roasted Vegetable Soup

Parsnip Soup

Spiced Parsnip Soup

Spiced Broccoli Soup

 

Fillers

Herby Scones

Rosemary & Mustard Scones

Tomato Scones

Fruit Scones

 

Two Ingredient Cake

Coconut Biscuits

Bannocks, With/Out Roasted Veg Hummus

 

Thrifty Lesley has an associated Facebook Group also for extremely cheap meals. Do come over and say hello if you haven’t already joined. I’d love to see you

 

I’m a perpetual dieter, and to help with that endeavour, there is now also a Thrifty Lesley dieting group, a lovely, growing community

 

 

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