Smaller portions of ingredients often have the highest price per hundred grams, so cooking for one can be expensive.
It can be tempting to rely on perfectly packaged ready meals or pay over the odds on small packs of ingredients, but a cheaper way to get around this is to make multiple portions each time you cook, divide up the cooked food and freeze some for later. This way you save money on shopping and save time on cooking.
It's best to use most frozen foods within about four months, which gives you lots of time to rotate meals and have a variety to choose from. A neat little trick is to grab a marker pen and write the date you put the item in the freezer, and what is actually in there - which will avoid any guess work.
More meals and ingredients than you might think will freeze well (even cheese)! Read this blog post on how to make friends with your freezer to save some real cheddar!
There are also cheap fresh ingredients that don’t go off too quickly that you can use in small quantities. One trick is, if you buy six eggs at the start of the week, you can make portions of baked eggs with ham or frozen spinach in a ramekin, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs or omelettes, to give you multiple meals from one pack.