OH has left me with naff all shopping money, eek!!

Alleycat

Hi all,

Well, I go away for a week and come back to £30 left in the shopping budget to last the next two and a half weeks :mad: It was already looking a bit tight and I warned OH to try and be economical but does he listen??? He's bought batteries (there are already some in the cupboard), fabric softener by the truck load (apparently it was on special offer), posh sausages etc. There was only £4 in the account last night, but thankfully its been topped up with child benefit today, though some of that is for bills.

I have raided the cupboards and made a list of everything we have and made the best of a meal planner that I can. We still need quite a few boring bits, i.e. bread, ham, toilet roll etc but I think I have done pretty well considering. So far on the tesco website I have theoretically spent £18.68, but haven't included catfood or meat from the market. We should have enough catfood to last until friday, more catfood will be nearly £3 and I reckon I will spend about £5 for meat from the market (mince, el cheapo bacon etc), thus leaving only a couple of pounds to create 4 teas and three lunches :eek: . There is me, OH and dd (1yrs). I could cry I really could. Its always him as well, that wants the premium bread, milk etc. Well he is going to have to go take a running jump if he thinks he will be getting hovis.

Anyway, I still have a few things left on my list of whats in the cupboard and can probably top the shopping budget up to about £5 or £6 if any of you kind people can help me to put it all together!

I have -

Pilau rice (enough for one meal for us all)
3 x tins of pineapple chunks
1 x onion
frozen rice and peas
frozen carrots and peas
stock cubes
Flour (plain and self raising)
Plus usual things like pepper, baking powder, soy sauce etc.

I have already got the usual spag bol, shepherds pie, chicken for sunday and leftovers on monday etc, so anything different that is bargain basement would be wonderful.

Thanks in advance!! :A

Penny-Pincher!!

Personally, I would let your OH starve and just concentrate on you and DD..LOL.

Do you still have receipts for the batteries and fabric conditioners? If so, take them back and get a refund.

How many meals are we talking and how much money do you have to buy the ingredients? You will need to do a meal plan and use as cheap ingredients as possible.

Dont panic hun, Im sure we can help you;)

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((hugs hun)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

PP
xx

Alleycat

Thanks for the hugs Penny-pincher!

I need to create 4 evening meals for us 2 and the bairn, 2 lunches for us all and 2 lunches for me and OH (for work).

I've got about £6 if I top it up with some loose change and I have the following in the cupboard:

Pilau rice (enough for one meal for us all)
3 x tins of pineapple chunks
1 x onion
frozen rice and peas
frozen carrots and peas
stock cubes
Flour (plain and self raising)
Plus usual things like pepper, baking powder, soy sauce etc.

Spendless

They're great aren't they men:rolleyes: . I suggest we stick them all in a house together with some ol'style basics and a limited budget that they have to survive on. And get MATH to project manage them:D .

Anyway my suggestion is you buy cheap food/veggies that will do for more than one meal. eg carrots and white cabbage with your Sunday roast can be used in HM coleslaw. Mince can be used in shepherds pie and then make HM beefburgers. Big bag of potatoes and you can peel and roast/mash the smaller ones leaving the larger ones for jackets.

Have you gone thru the Feb use it up thread? I was shocked by how much opened and unopened stuff I had.

MrsB_2

Oh Alleycat, what a bummer!!

I always find eggs are a great help when the budgets low. We have:

Egg and chips (once in a while )
Omlette - use mushrooms / ham / cheese to flavour it up
Spanish Omlette - add onions and potatoes if you've got them.
Egg Fried rice - use the frozen rice and peas, add mushrooms and any scraps of veggies you've got.

What about doing your shopping somewhere like Lidl / Aldi? Their prices are much lower, the quality is excellent, and there's no delivery charge.

Other than that the only other suggestion I have is to sit OH down, show him what you've acheived so far, let him see what a mess he's left you in, and get him to figure it out.

Big hugs - it'll all work out ok. Promise.

Mup_2

Hi
I came across a link for this site on here earlier and it might help cobble some meals together...
http://www.cookingbynumbers.com/frames.html

Good luck with it all and hope it helps : )
Mup.

elona

Some idea for cheap meals

Home made yorkies filled with veg and gravy

Baked potato with cheese or tuna or baked beans

Home made pizza with any "bits" you already have as a topping

Home made soup with a "stew pack" of veg for about 50p

Ham shank to make soup and then slice and use as gammon or bacon in other dishes

Home made quiches

Alleycat

Thanks for all the support! I have one more meal sort of, just need a bit of help. I forgot the left over chicken for one of the mondays, so was thinking of some sort of stirfry with the rice and peas and pineapple chunks, onion. I have lots of spices, just don't know what sort or how to do a sauce with it.

Any suggestions?!

Just three more dinners to go!

P.S. Anyone know how much a packet of ham costs at Aldi, Lidl or Nettos?

savingmum

Well my suggestions would be

500g red lentils around 80p – these make a good basis for pasta sauces – don’t need soaking just cover 4 – 6 ozs with hot water and a stock cube and cook for a bout 25 mins they will absorb the water you can cook on stove or I do it personally in the microwave. When cooked add 1 tin of value tomatoes – 15p ( I take off the stem part) some garlic and herbs and serve over value pasta – about 30p for 500g. myself, dh and 2 teenagers love this – I cook it first and serve to kids then add some veggies say a handful of mushrooms and ½ courgette for dh & I . You can also bulk it out with a tin of value baked beans- 15p

so this meal would cost 20p for lentils ( ¼ of the pkt) + 8p for pasta ( again ¼ of pkt) + tom 15p & beans 15p = 58p

If you make double the amount it can be frozen for later on in the week.- you used as a basis for a soup or over rice

Value bean chilli can be made from 2 tins value baked beans, 1 tin butter beans , 1 tin of kidney beans and 1 tin value tomatoes plus spices ( if you don’t have chillie powder just use whatever herbs/spices you have)

Cost for this meal would be 2 x 15p=30p + 15p ( lidl kidney beans) + 22p ( lidl butter beans) + 15p ( tom) = £0.82p if you don’t have enough rice buy 500g easy cook about 85p which can be used for egg fried rice as another meal (20p extra for rice)

Egg fried rice – use cooked rice with your frozen peas, soy sauce and 2/3 beaten eggs

Meatless burgers – mash tin butter beans & kidney beans add soy sauce, herbs 1 egg and bind with some porridge oats ( 40p big value bag), make into rounds and fry lightly or put whole mixture into into dish, cook and serve as slices.

As you see no meat as we are all vegetarians. I have the following book

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0722525710/qid=1139317327/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2_2/202-7005463-4331852

Although not available – might be in local library – here the non meat protein she suggests are tinned sardines which I know can be cheap also value tuna in a tin of conc cream of mushroom soup over some of the remaining pasta would be a change from a tom based sauce.

These are some main meal suggestion hope they help

Alleycat

Yippeee!! Just three lunches left, but I think we can manage that!

OH has just come in for his lunch and has been suitably admonished. I have told him I will be watering down his shower gel, so he said he would just buy the cheap stuff in future, good.

Thank you, thank you all for your ideas. I love that cooking by numbers site. I have bookmarked that for future use.

I'll have to restock pretty much everything in March though!

twink

what about a cheap tin of tuna and some potatoes to make fishcakes or macaroni cheese using a packet of cheese sauce a packet costs about 37p or hardboiled eggs in a cheese sauce i usually go to asda thurs afternoons they fill a chill cabinet with marked down fruit and veg