Credit crunch weekly meal planner

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Family dinners for a week for £40

With food prices continuing to rise, you may find that there's a lot less in your shopping basket for the same money.

According to June 2009 figures on the mySupermarket website which tracks UK supermarket food prices, a basket of 24 staple grocery items increased by 18% in the 12 months between December 2007 and December 2008.

Although food price rises have been slowing, they're still higher than they have been. To help you beat the credit crunch, we've put together a fortnight's worth of cheap family recipes that will feed a family of four for just £40.

Some websites offer meals for under a fiver, but you soon realise you can't buy single eggs and tablespoons of milk - and suddenly your meal isn't looking so cheap. Here, we've done the sums for you and added what you'll need for the week without cheating on the quantities you need to buy products in.

Meals for week one:
Sunday: Cheat's chicken puff pies
Monday: Cheese and tomato bake
Tuesday: Smoked pork sausage frittata
Wednesday: Chicken and bacon risotto
Thursday: Hearty macaroni cheese
Friday: Crispy cod nuggets with sweet potato wedges
Saturday: Tuna and potato layer

Meals for week two
Sunday: Chicken roast
Monday: Spicy pork chops
Tuesday: Eggs Flamenco
Wednesday: Quick fish pie
Thursday: Fusilli with egg and broccoli
Friday: Chicken Madras curry

Meals for week three
Sunday: Irish beef lasagne
Monday: Sausage and mushroom crumble
Tuesday: Salsa baked potatoes with chilli
Wednesday: Gary Rhodes' bacon and potato frittata
Thursday: Garlic mushroom pasta bake
Friday: Turkey, leek and mushroom pie
Saturday: Tomato baked chicken

On the next page is your credit crunch shopping list for week one, with all the ingredients you'll need. Just print it out and take to the shops with you.