Learn to live on less - by cooking instead of buying a takeaway

Learning to cook is so huge as far as saving money goes, I only really thought about it after going to University as before this I was living at home and didn't really do the cooking myself Currently between myself and my boyfriend we spend around £25-30 a week on groceries, we buy a decent amount of own brand food, but "splash out" for Heinz beans etc., our weekly grocery list typically has almost no items above £1, it usually looks something like:

• Loaf of bread 50p 
• 2 x 4 pack of yoghurt 66p
• Milk £1
• Chorizo/pepperoni/salami slices, 1 or 2 packs, £2-3
• Grated mild cheese £3
• Sliced cooked ham £1
• Scotch eggs £1.50
• Cheese slices £3 (£5-£8 per kilo depending on how frugal I'm feeling), you can buy a block of cheese for much cheaper.
• Heinz Beans 4 pack £2 or £4 depending how many beans we need
• Whatever chicken instant noodles are cheapest, around 20p a packet, stocked up every so often £2
• 15 eggs £1.25, sometimes two packs
• Tin of chopped tomatoes 31p
• Bananas 80p
• Potatoes if there are any massive ones, around £1/kilo

The above is around £20, we also buy frozen basics every so often (Pork/beef mince, chicken breasts, hot and spicy chicken fillets, mixed berries for smoothies), packs of onions, limes/nachos when I'm feeling it, and we splurge on dumplings sometimes. You can get a lot of staples like these chopped tomatoes delivered if you get a trial of Amazon Prime and you can get stuff like ketchup for cheaper than your local Tesco depending on sales. They have a deal on Amazon pantry right now as well that if you buy 4 qualifying products (stuff like laundry powder, fabric conditioner, detergent, pet food), you can get free delivery on your pantry box, see the deal here.

If we got a subway for lunch each twice a week (£5 footlong each person so £20 a week), a takeaway once a week (£15 a week) and KFC every 2 weeks (£5 a week), that is an extra £40 spent on food that only feeds you for 7 meals, what about the other at least 7 lunches/dinners if you skip breakfast? Over the year you would spend £2080 just for some convenience.

If people would be interested I could post some more cheap/easy recipes that I like making as my staples, let me know in the comments, click follow on the left and talk to me on Google+ or contact me by email with the form on the right hand side!