Quick and Cheap Meals

One of the ways we cut down on food expenses was to buy frozen meals from the supermarket (around NZD5-NZD7 )because eating at restaurants was rather costly. A plate of fried rice or fried noodles Chinese style would cost about NZD10. My children love fast food, so we also ate at KFC, McDonald’s and Burger King and the price is about dollar to dollar.

For lunch we would usually eat at the local deli of the town (good variety of pies and sandwiches) and then head to the supermarket to buy our frozen meals for dinner. There is quite a good selection – chicken, beef or lamb (usually with rice or mashed potatoes), lasagna, etc. We would pack these in the insulated bags (available at supermarkets for around NZD2 – NZD3 ). Once we even bought a large frozen pizza but it took a rather long time to reheat in the electric oven (it couldn’t fit into the microwave!).

the Wattie's brand also has a good variety of frozen meals

Every major town has a supermarket and our favourites were New World and Countdown (equivalent to our hypermarts in Malaysia). After purchasing our meals and groceries, we would spend the entire afternoon visiting the attractions in town and only return to the motel in time for dinner. The frozen dinners need a reheating time (with the microwave oven) of around 20-30 minutes each, so we had to plan our time wisely or risk having hungry, grumpy children because dinner is late!