The Quid Queen who proves you can feed your family for £1 a day - Daily Star

Quids in! Mum-of-two proves you can eat for £1 a day

MUM-OF-TWO Lesley Cooper, AKA the "Quid Queen", can whip up a dinner costing just 2p, and eat three meals plus pudding for less than £1 a day…

lesley cooper, quid queen, meals for £1, budget meals, cooking, recipes, cheap meals QUIDS IN: Lesley Cooper whips up budget meals for her family [NEWS DOG MEDIA]

Got a wallet stuffed with coppers? That could be enough to feed your family for days, if you follow Lesley Cooper's top tips for eating on the cheap.

The mum-of-two is on a mission to show others that it is possible to feed yourself for £1 a day.

Lesley, 62, taught herself to cook on a VERY tight budget while bringing up her kids and has got it down to a fine art - cooking up tasty meals for as little as 2p.

“My £1 per day meals are lovely, they're just as a good as a more expensive dish”

Quid Queen Lesley Cooper

Now she is teaching others to whisk up breakfast, lunch, dinner and even dessert for peanuts.

With her money-saving meal plans Lesley is able to make her breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert for a day - all for under a quid.

She said: "Most people I speak to say you can't feed yourself for under 50p but I have more than 150 recipes which show that, actually, you can!

"Right now, there are a lot of individuals in Britain who are struggling. I'm just trying to get the message across that you can make good food for a reasonable price."

Semi-retired Lesley buys most of her ingredients from Asda.

A typical day consists of 4p pancakes for breakfast, spiced parsnip soup for 17p with 2p tomato scones for lunch and a supper of bacon and sweetcorn pie with mash and peas for just 32p.

To finish, there's a muscovado cheesecake - a steal at only 33p.


lesley cooper, quid queen, feed yourself for £1, cheap meals lesley cooper, quid queen, feed yourself for £1, cheap meals [NEWS DOG MEDIA]

Lesley, who lives with partner Mike in Heathfield, East Sussex, added: "I get a thrill from a bargain. Although I don't really have any major financial fears anymore, my early years were quite rough.

"I know what it feels like to worry about money - that memory never leaves you. So finding or making something that doesn't cost too much is a real buzz for me."

At one point, when her children were small, Lesley was virtually homeless, moving from place to place. Before that, after splitting from her children's father, the young family slept under her parents' kitchen table because the house was too crowded.

"There was literally no room left at my family home and so for the next four years my daughters and I ricocheted from place to place," said Lesley.

"We had nowhere to live and although we never actually slept rough, it came horrifyingly close.

"Without a roof over my head and no money at all, I learned to budget.

"I know that when you're struggling, having something nice to eat becomes even more important and I want to show it's possible to have that."

It isn't just food Lesley is frugal with - she also makes her body lotion from scratch by mixing glycerine and water.

She also serves up her budget dishes - such as 15p gnocchi made from instant mashed potato - at dinner parties.

"My £1 per day meals are lovely, they're just as a good as a more expensive dish. I've made them for plenty of guests and no one's ever been able to guess the price.

"People always talk about needing more money to have a better life.

"But really if you just make better use of the money that you do have, then you can achieve the same thing."

Try some of Lesley's recipes for yourself…

lesley cooper, cheap eats, quid queen, dinner Lesley with one of her cheap eats [NEWS DOG MEDIA]

lesley cooper, mum, quid queen, cheap meals The mum-of-two learned to scrape together cheap meals - even desserts [NEWS DOG MEDIA]


(32p a portion)


70g cooking bacon (Asda 81p/500g)

50g chopped onion (Asda 98p/kg, 2p)

50g sweetcorn (Asda 98p/kg)

115g self-raising flour (45p/1.5kg)

55ml vegetable oil (GBP1.50/litre)

400g potatoes - cooked and mashed (Asda GBP1.18/2.5kg)

160g peas (Asda 98p/kg)

1. Sauté the onion and potatoes in the 5ml of oil until soft. Mix the 15g flour with 100ml water and add to the pan. Stir around until thickened. Season, but be light handed with the salt as you will be adding the bacon. Stir in the chopped bacon and sweetcorn. Leave to cool a little.

2. Make the pastry. Put the 50ml oil and 100g flour in a bowl and add about 50ml water bit by bit until you have a soft dough.

3. Roll out half of the pastry and use to line a flan dish etc big enough for two portions. Pile in the filling mixture and top with the remaining pastry.

4. Bake the pie at 180C/160 fan/Gas 4 for about 30 minutes until golden. Serve with the mashed potatoes and peas.


(2p a portion)


270g self raising flour (45p/1.5kg)

100ml vegetable oil (GBP1.50/litre)

100ml water

40g tomato puree (35p/142g)

1. Put the flour in a bowl. Add the oil and water and mix to form a soft dough.

2. Turn out onto the worktop and pat gently to a square shape about 2cm thick. At this point you can either cut the scones into lots of little ones, or fewer big ones.

3. We prefer the big ones. I like to cut the dough into 6 by cutting down the middle, then cut each side into 3 pieces, giving me 6 big scones.

4. If you are making small ones, scoop all the scraps up after cutting out, squidge it together and cut out more, to use up all the dough.

5. Whichever you do, place your scones on a greased baking tray and bake at 220C/200C fan/gas 7 for 12 minutes for diddy ones and 20 minutes for my huge ones.

6. You could brush them with milk and sprinkle crunchy salt flakes on top if you have any, or grind some pepper over.

More recipes and budgeting tips can be found at