I meal prepped for a week for £3.72 and it only took 20 minutes

I meal-prepped for my whole week at work, and it cost me only £3.72. Meal prepping is a great way to save money and it doesn’t have to take too long. Since I started working in an office, I have become slightly obsessed with meal prepping because I have noticed how much money I could end up spending when I don’t bring food to work with me. Even spending money on a supermarket meal deal every day eventually adds up and your wallet can take a serious hit.

My own personal mission has become meal-prepping for as cheap as I can. In today’s cost-of-living crisis, cheap meals are a great way for me to save money. So, when it came to my most recent meal prep, I decided to do it on the cheap and figure out exactly how much it cost. When I discovered that the total cost of making five meals was £3.72, I was both shocked and very smug. I can’t believe I managed to do it. In fact, each meal only cost 74p. I was thrilled about that.

So, what did I make? I cooked three portions of pasta and two sandwiches, as well as two side salads to go with the sandwiches to make those lunches a bit more substantial.

For the pasta, here are the ingredients I used and how much they cost:

170g Penne pasta (from a 500g bag) – 23p

1 tin plum tomatoes – 47p

1 white onion – 36p

160g frozen vegetables – 20p

Total for the pasta = £1.26.

To cook, I fried the onions for five minutes before adding in the frozen vegetables, followed by the plum tomatoes a minute later. I added salt, pepper and chili powder to flavour, but these are optional. I simultaneously boiled my pasta for ten minutes and when everything was done, I combined it and split it into three portions.

For the sandwich and side salad meals, of which there were two, I used:

30ml soy sauce – 12p

100g couscous – 12p

1 tin sweetcorn – 85p

4 slices of bread (50p from the reduced section of the supermarket, kept in my freezer) – 2p

1 tin tuna – 80p

1 gem lettuce – 40p

80ml mayonnaise – 15p

Total cost of the sandwiches and side salad = £2.55.

To prepare the couscous, simply pour boiled water into a bowl with the couscous and cover. The water should just cover the surface of the couscous. After being covered for five minutes, it should have expanded.

I then just mixed the couscous with my soy sauce and the remainder of the sweetcorn. I also split the lettuce between the sandwiches and the salads.

In total, I came out with five meals that would be enough to fill me during my work lunch break. And for 74p each, I was more than happy with the result.