A mother of three serves wonderful dinners for her family that cost less than one pound (about $1.30) to prepare due to her smart spending habits.

Natalie Riley, 39,  uses her practical capabilities to construct a monthly meal plan to remain organized and avoid overspending on unneeded goods. She believes that it is important for her family to eat properly while also keeping food expenditures low so that they may spend their money on activities and vacations rather than on food.

Riley lives with her husband and their three children.

Riley, who is a social worker, shared her experience, saying, that when her first kid was born, she was only 20 years old and needed to learn to live on a limited budget.

They were living on a tight budget because she was a student also at the time, so she could not waste much and needed to shop around for the discounts. This usually included simply purchasing seasonal fruits and vegetables, as well as shopping around for lower-priced things.

Riley shares one of her “top tips” for preparing meals for her family on a budget of less than one pound, which is to only purchase seasonal food. Her experience has shown that purchasing meat from butchers at the beginning of the month is often “more cost-effective than purchasing it at the supermarket.”

Therefore, Riley just purchases seasonal veggies since they are often less expensive, and makes meals out of them. She  also sticks to the suggested serving sizes for meat, which helps to keep the expenses of meat in check.

Riley also prepares one or two vegetarian dinners every week.

Riley’s second money-saving tip is to prepare all of her particular ingredients at the same time, which she claims saves her money on electricity costs as well.

She then splits up the components and turns them into a variety of different recipes and freezes them for later use.

Riley adds that she shops around and seeks for food with yellow or reduced tags, and that if she is “fortunate enough” to get meat or fish, she buys them and freezes in portions.

Riley creates a monthly food plan and follows it diligently. The family goes shopping  according to this plan, but if they want to rotate the meals, then they will switch things around. Besides a meatless meal per week, she also makes a chicken meal, a mince meal, spaghetti, a quick meal such as pizza, and etc.

Riley says she likes proving to their children that it is possible to eat well and healthfully even with a limited budget.