A thrifty mum has told her more than 27,000 followers on TikTok how she makes 50p dinners.
Known as " The Duchess of Thrift " online, the mum says she can feed her family of six for a total of just £3 - meaning she spends just 50p a head on meals.
And her secret involves using leftovers as well as ignoring the "best before" dates on food that is still safe to eat.
"Best before" dates are about the quality of food, while "use by" dates are used to show when a product is no longer safe to eat.
The content creator says she has committed to buying no new things in 2022 in a bid to save on money and energy.
Her bargain recipe is made up of everyday cupboard staples, making it easier for the average household to follow suit.
Speaking to her TikTok followers, the mum-of-four said: "I am again using leftovers," as she filmed the food needed for her meal.
She added: "I give the kids out-of-date food. I wouldn't give them out-of-date food if it was going to hurt them, but I've got some cherry tomatoes here.
"You can see the date is the 25th of September and they're still solid. They're not going mushy. Why would I throw them away? It would be madness."
The mum uses a number of ingredients, including chili, chorizo, passata, macaroni, and garlic - yet only spends "pennies" on the recipe.
She said: "I'm just going to make a pasta dish with that."
The mum uses a £2 on chorizo and macaroni that costs just 50p.
She said: "Pennies, absolute pennies. This probably cost about £3 to make, this meal."
To make the recipe, she boils the pasta and in a separate pan fries chorizo, chili and garlic.
Then, she chops up her cherry tomatoes and uses a pre-made pasta sauce to make the meal cheaper.
The Duchess of Thrift added: "(The tomatoes) weren't even ripe. Throwing those away just because of that date is just wasteful."
"Instead of a shop-bought sauce I'm just going to put some of this passata in because it's pennies to buy," she explained.
"The shop-bought sauce was £2.50 for one of them. It was absolutely insane. This is a lot cheaper."
She stirs the tomatoes in to warm them through, and then adds this to the pasta along with the passata.
"There it is. Dinner that would feed about six - there's shed loads of it - for £3 using leftovers, bits that were out-of-date, and bits that were in the cupboard," she said.
TikTok users rushed to the comment, agreeing that home cooks should ignore the dates of food.
One user said: "Always use your nose and common sense! Don’t pay attention to dates unless it’s meat."
Another wrote: "I’m really paranoid about food but when it comes to fruit and veg I ignore them they usually last way longer."
"I do the sniff test and if it smells and looks OK then I will eat it," one added.
Another said: "So glad supermarkets are taking dates off fruit and veg. So many people throw away perfectly good food."
