Black-Saturn's Menu Planner

Curry_Queen

Becles wrote:

How do you run your own business and still get free school meals?

I was told that if you were self employed and claiming Tax Credits you were not entitled to free school dinners, regardless of your income size. They said you only got free school dinners if you were claiming just the Child Tax Credits. Was I told the wrong information?

No, you were given the right information. This site states how you would qualify for free school meals, and WTC's aren't a passport benefit, neither is DLA

Queenie

What's a "passport" benefit?

Curry_Queen

Queenie wrote:

What's a "passport" benefit?

One that automatically entitles you to claim other benefits such as free prescriptions, NHS dentist charges, school meals/clothing, housing/council tax benefits etc.

Queenie

Oooh, you learn something new everyday . Thanks for clearing that up for me ... I thought it had another meaning

calleyw

ambergold wrote:

Hello black saturn. Thanks a lot for posting your meal plan, I thought I'd try to copy it for this week, but my total for shopping is nowhere near £7.00 and there are only two of us (step kids only on Saturday). Where do you shop? I know I'm asking a lot but could you price up your shopping list so that I can work out where I'm going wrong. I feel like a complete failure because the cheapest I can do your shopping list is for £16. Please will someone help me to find the shopping list cheaper. I feel so !!!!!! right now. I thought I was doing well and becomeing an old styler. But truthfully I have such a long way to go.

Please will somebody help me find Black saturns shopping list for cheaper than £16.00.

Ambergold,

Has been said before don't feel bad. There is no way on this earth that I could get my food bill down that low for two adults. And that is due to

1) we eat between 3-5 portions of fruit and veg everyday. A lot of the veg is frozen. I mean today I have already had 3 portions which is OJ with breakfast, Apple and banana at lunch time as dessert. Tonight there will be a at least 1 and half portions of salad with spag bog and another portion with strawberries for dessert.

2) All the bread we buy is Granary and I buy wholewheat pasta

3) Only buy value lines in things like the odd packet of biscuits and fruit juice. Personally I would never touch value bread or value mince. But do pay a little extra for steak mince.

To me there is a fine line between saving money and not having a really healthy diet. You are suppose to include a min of 5 portions of fruit a veg everyday.

Black-Saturn says they can't eat fruit or veg with out causing problems. So that is why there is not much fruit and veg in the menus so it costs a lot less. But do the family take vitamins to keep up there intake, as a lot of them come from eating fruit and veg that would of course push up the costs.

In another post I mentioned that it costs me on average from £9 per person week in a 5 week week month and about £11.25 per person per week on a 4 week month to feed us. That is averaging £90 spend per pay month. My husband is paid on the last friday of every month. And that is with a stock cupboard of flour, stock cubes, herbs etc.

We eat well and neither of us get ill and that is with trying to get my husband to gain weight and me to loose. And we eat good varied meals based around loads of veg with a small serving of meat.

If I cut out virtually all fruit and veg fresh or frozen and bought value bread and value pasta etc. I am sure I could cut £50 a month off my food bill. But I am at my comfort level and knows what makes me feel good.

So unless your income has reduced to virtually nothing I would just keep nibbling away at the edges and do what you can do to save a little money and stop comparing with other people what you spend. As it is not like for like. As CQ mentioned Black-Saturn gets free school meals which saves the making up of two lunch boxes. Even if you spending a £1 a lunch box that is an extra £10 a week for you Ambergold as there are two of you. So I hope that Black-saturn has inspired you to get better value from your meals. But if have different type of meals and like lots of meat then you are just never going to get your food bills that low.


Yours


Calley

Spendless

Queenie wrote:

No, no, no; not at all!!! (To be honest, that would have been even more misleading LOL )

Last time I worked it out, children had roughly 13 weeks a year school holidays, so for the remaining 75% of the year, the amount you are given for the cost of "free" school meals is actually very pertinent (trust me, the Government would have done their budget very similar to how we are advised to when calculating these matters ).

£13.70 per week is what another OS'er living in your area would need to calculate if they were not in receipt of "free" meals. But, if they lived near Spendless, it would be £15 (based on 2 children).

£13.70 x 6 weeks £82.20 - which is one and a half times again the figure you quoted on the other thread. Obviously, to you, this is "free"; but to those who are not receiving "free" meals, it would in fact make a considerable difference. (As I'm certain it would to you if you found yourself having to find that amount extra every 6 weeks. )

The word "free" is in itself misleading because the value of those meals over an academic year is over £500; which makes it interesting that you *don't* include this when mentally calculating your food expenses, as it is in actual fact more than *you*pay out on food shopping (especially when you deduct the dog food from the equation).

Realistically then, in addition to the amount you pay over 6 weeks for food shopping, there is a further sum of £82.20 being spent on food/meals.

I take your point that you wouldn't spend that amount during holiday times but equally, during holiday times, your children wouldn't be eating 2 dinners and puddings per day as they are during school times either.

Please don't take my post the wrong way, I'm just clarifying things in my own mind.

In addition to the 13 weeks hols there is also a May Day BH when kids are off 1 day. Our school is also a polling station so closed for that day 2 and our council states that each school has 4 teacher training days, so that adds another 6 days on. Also occassionally the summer hols end up being 7 weeks long not 6 that happened here is summer 04 and its something to do with how many days pay year a school is open. How often it happens I'm not sure cos my eldest had only just entered the school system at this point.

I'll leave it to someone else to work out the Maths involved;) . But it's an interesting point Queenie. Last Sept we went on a fortnight hol and came back to discover we'd got rid of our £500 overdraft. I really hadn't considered how much our food shopping/ school dinners, putting petrol in car etc was costing us, but now I've seen your figures I can understand why.

black saturn - thanks for putting up the thread. Look forward to trying some of your recipes. Couple of questions i've never bought tinned prawns do they work out cheaper than a bag of frozen ones and the value pizza, we buy them and use as bases and add mozarella and pepperoni, do you add anything to yours?

Queenie

Very well done on clearing that overdraft Spendless! Although, I confess to having chuckle that you had to go away on holiday to manage it :rotfl: Oooh, just though .. what a great excuse to go on holiday in future :j :j

Yes, it is amazing how all those things creep up and add up. Sometimes, you need to break things down to the nth degree to fully appreciate where the money goes and the actual cost of living.

Spendless

Queenie wrote:

Very well done on clearing that overdraft Spendless! Although, I confess to having chuckle that you had to go away on holiday to manage it :rotfl: Oooh, just though .. what a great excuse to go on holiday in future :j :j

.

LOL well we're away for nearly 3 weeks this year:D . Not letting Mr Spendless have access to a cash machine helped too:p .

sashacat

thanks a lot. I have wanted to make fisherman's pie and malt loaf for ages and now I shall try cobbler as well, especially as I have lots of fruit from my allotment. i live on the home made soup from the veggies I grow

Queenie

Spendless wrote:

... Not letting Mr Spendless have access to a cash machine helped too:p .

Hehehe, methinks you've hit a nail on it's head there Bless him!