How To Do Slimming World On A Tight Budget

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New Year, New You?

January is the most popular month of the year for Slimming World sign-ups – here’s how you can save money on all the new foods you’ll be eating while shedding those pounds – how to do Slimming World on a tight budget.

If you’ve just joined the slimming world, you may be wondering how you’ll afford all the new foods you’ll be eating. Fruit and Vegetables can be expensive and then there’s the more Slimming World specific food like Frylite, Chicken Sausages and Quark.

That on top of the weekly fee for the meeting and learning how everything works regarding syns etc, can all be a bit overwhelming.

How To Do Slimming World On a Tight Budget

In this post, I’m going to share with you my top tips for getting all of the most popular slimming word foods for less and hopefully save you some pounds while you shed some pounds.

First, it’s worth taking a look at your general supermarket shopping habits and seeing if you could be saving money across the board, as well as just on the slimming world foods.

Take a look at this post which has links to my posts on saving at most of the major supermarkets, this post for couponing and this post for shopping apps and freebies.

I also have this post with lots of fantastic general tips for saving money on food.

1. Try Muscle Foods for Lean Meats

Muscle Foods started out by targeting those who were looking to build muscle and therefore needed a high protein diet but have become equally popular with anyone wanting to save money by buying their meat in bulk.

They offer huge meat hampers that cost significantly less than buying all of the items individually from the supermarket and include foods that you are encouraged to eat while on a Slimming World diet such as 5% lean mince and Chicken Sausages.

You can buy items individually but it’s buying hampers with lots of meat in that will save you the most money. Make sure there is plenty of room in your freezer to as you’ll need it – make sure any food you won’t use in the few days after delivery is frozen so there isn’t any waste. See this post for tips on making the most the space in your freezer. 

2. Slimming World Specific Foods On A Tight Budget

Frylight

When on the Slimming World plan, Frylight will be your new best friend. It’s used to replace all cooking oil/fat that you previously used and the spray nozzle prevents overuse, therefore, saving you loads of calories in the process.

You might find yourself using a lot of this spray, especially if you’re cooking more healthily for the whole family. The average supermarket price is £2.30 for 190ml – compare that to regular vegetable oil which comes in at £1.10 for 1 litre. Although you should be using less that’s still a massive difference in price.

Firstly, as with anything keep an eye for offers. Iceland currently (12/1/18) have Frylight for £1.50 so stock up if you see it. Secondly try B&M.

While it can be difficult do a proper weeks shop there they do have some amazing prices on branded food items – including Frylight for just £1.49 as it’s usual price, not a special offer. You could also pick up this Jo Malone Dupe Candle while your there!

I have also heard that Lidl do their own version for £1.25 but I couldn’t see it at my store or on MySupermarket.

Fruit and Vegetables

One of the biggest misconceptions that people seem to have about eating healthily is that Fruit and Vegetables are expensive. And yes, sometimes they can be. But if you know where to look they can also be really cheap, especially when in season.

Here are my top tips for cutting down the cost of fruit and Vegetables

• Lidl and Aldi have a selection of fruit and vegetables on offer each week (Aldi’s are known as Super six) even if you don’t normally shop there the discounts are big enough to warrant popping in for.

• Wonky fruit and Veg seem to be very in at the moment. From cheap boxes full of vegetables in Asda and Morrison’s to individual bags of carrots, or my favourite ‘wonky avocado’s – these are much cheaper than normal veggies and help prevent food waste so it’s win-win.

• I love buying reduced food and as fruit and vegetables are fresh they are often reduced at the end of the day. I always check out the reduced section before anywhere else. Even if you shop during the day it’s still worth looking – today I got Lettuce and Raspberries reduced to 10p each at midday in my local Morrison’s.  See this post for info on Bulk Buying and Freezing Vegetables

• Frozen fruit and Vegetables are nearly always cheaper than their fresh counterparts and have just the same nutritional content.

• If you’re the only one in your house following the slimming world plan it may be worth buying frozen individual portions of certain things to save on waste. A great example of this is Iceland who has recently started doing frozen bags of cauliflower rice – much cheaper than buying it fresh and it’ll keep better too.

• It is possible to source fruit and vegetables for free – particularly in the Autumn when blackberries, cooking apples and pears come into season. We have a pear tree in our back garden and I am always more than happy to share our surplus fruit with friends and neighbours so it doesn’t go to waste

Related Post – Syn Free Vegetarian Cottage Pie

Pasta and Spaghetti

One thing people love about the Slimming World plan as that they can eat plenty of carbs and still lose weight. We eat a lot of pasta in our house, I worked as a chef in an Italian restaurant for over a year and it was already one of my favourite cuisines so my cooking at home is really heavily influenced by this.

Despite this, I only buy the really cheap own-brand super basic Pasta to use at home. I prefer Lidl over any others but at 20p for a pack of spaghetti that does 3 meals for the two of us, I think it tastes just fine and is an absolute bargain.

You can find my slow cooker Bolognese recipe here.

3. Branded Foods vs Supermarkets Own

Looking at a lot of Slimming World literature and recipes online they often seem to only mention branded products.

While in some cases I know this is because own brands may have a different syn value, there are also some cases where the brand makes no difference at all, OXO Stock cubes being a prime example.

Also, Slimming World always seems to mention Diet Coke but any low-calorie cola will do.

We currently buy Lidl’s version of Coke Zero which is just 52p per bottle around 70% cheaper than the real thing!

Lots of slimming world recipes use low-calorie drinks as a base so it’s worth looking out for supermarket own versions, especially when it’s only being used for cooking – think of it a bit like cooking wine or cooking sherry.

Here’s a recipe for Syn Free Diet Coke Chicken just in case you need one.

4. Avoid Slimming World Ready Meals

As with any method of cooking, making things from scratch is always going to be more cost-effective. Although there are plenty of Slimming World branded ready meals out there, they are a really expensive way to go (even if they do sometimes come with Free Muller Yogurts in Iceland!)

Batch-cooking healthy meals and soups so you have something to fall back on busy days is the best way to avoid buying ready meals and bumping up your food costs.

Making sure you use up all leftovers is also a great way to keep costs down.

Tight Budget Slimming World Recipes

I thought it would be great to round this post off with some nice thrifty recipes from other money-saving bloggers, here are a few of my favourites!

Leek and Potato Soup

Carrot and Sweet Potato Soup

Slimming world Fakeaway – Donner Kebab Recipe (Much cheaper than getting a Takeaway!)

Slow Cooker Slimming World Tikka Masala from Savvy Dad

Thrifty Mumma Suggests: Make overnight oats for breakfast but source the ingredients from Aldi/Lidl – fat free toffee yoghurt, plain oats & frozen fruit overnight in the fridge.

Yummy Fritatta Recipe from going on an adventure.