This is a great book for anyone on a tight budget, wanting to learn more about how to eat well for less. It includes an excellent knowledge base covering store cupboard essentials, food groups (e.g. fruits, protein, dairy) and shopping tips. The recipes are easy to follow, ingredients lists aren’t overly long, include portion information (e.g. makes 12, feeds 4) and the all important cost per recipe and portion. The range of recipes is excellent, covering breakfast and dinner, as well as batch cooking, desserts, and staples such as pasta, pizza dough, tomato sauce and tortillas. I’d highly recommend this book for anyone with an interest in cooking good, homemade, simple meals.

I loved this book, some of the meals I tried were delicious! It wasn’t just about using good basic ingredients to create meals that won’t break the bank, but also about healthier meals and changing your lifestyle. I would recommend this book.

While it seems obvious to privileged readers that cooking one's own meals are an easy way to save money and eat healthy, there are diverse reasons why it is challenging for many. If you are looking for innovative ways to cook straightforward, healthy dishes that are inexpensive yet not a packet of ramen, this book will be inspiring. However, I wish it incorporated meal planning to its recipes. It's more frugal to craft meals that play off one another so leftovers can become something new. Or cooking in advance to speed up future meals, such as because the oven is already on.

An interesting concept, and beautifully illustrated, this book does have some good ideas for cheap and nutritious food. However, I thought some of the information was really very obvious - such as popcorn being cheap to make, what to put on hotdogs (not what I would call good food!) ... Also, if you are watching the pennies, then surely the method of cooking - which of course comes out of our overall budget- is something to consider. Putting one head of garlic in the oven for an hour, before adding to a dish, seems like a very unfrugal idea - maybe if you're using the oven for something else at the same time, but otherwise wasteful. I also think that good cheap food can be made by batch cooking (thus using the whole oven at once, or making a large potfull to be portioned and frozen), or using a slow cooker/crockpot. Anyhow, it would be helpful perhaps to those who are fairly new to cooking as the recipes are quite simple, with information on equipment etc too.

Review of an advance digital copy from the publisher.