from dfw been refferred here! please help!

mummyofboys

Hi,
am new to this site, am struggling in debt at the moment, finding it really hard. I currently live with my boyfriend and our 2 and a half year old. We both work him 40 hours a week and me 30 hours a week. I need to find a way of getting throught the next few weeks with as little spend as possible. My dp eats breakfast at work and lunch ( free) i dont eat breakfast, lunch is at work mon,thurs and fri (free) my little boy only eat breakfast at home on tue/wed same with lunch as the rest he has it at nursery.

we all have tea together every night. I just need to spend as little as possible , i doubt you can help me as i dont have a very stocked frdge/freezer or cupboard. here it goes, thanks in advance!

In my fridge-
4 eggs
8 sausages
8 bacon
12 meatballs
chicken breast joint
beef medalions
margerine
mayonaise
cooked ham slices
2x ready made mash potatoes
7xkiwi fruit
melon medley 2 packs
blueberries
broccolli florets
milk chocolate digestives
cookies
milk 6 pints

Freezer
apple pie
8xfish fingers
oven chips

Cupboard
tomato and garlic pasta sauce
garlic clove
soup x 5 tins
beans x 2
tin of green beans
3x tinned sweetcorn
gravy granules
1x tinned baby carrots
1xtinned sliced carrots
1x tinned mixed veg
1x tinned tuna
half a small pack of pasta
honey
lemon juice
olde el paso enchillas pack
spice mix packet for fajitas

SunnyGirl

jay_mi10 wrote: »

Hi,
am new to this site, am struggling in debt at the moment, finding it really hard. I currently live with my boyfriend and our 2 and a half year old. We both work him 40 hours a week and me 30 hours a week. I need to find a way of getting throught the next few weeks with as little spend as possible. My dp eats breakfast at work and lunch ( free) i dont eat breakfast, lunch is at work mon,thurs and fri (free) my little boy only eat breakfast at home on tue/wed same with lunch as the rest he has it at nursery.

we all have tea together every night. I just need to spend as little as possible , i doubt you can help me as i dont have a very stocked frdge/freezer or cupboard. here it goes, thanks in advance!

In my fridge-
4 eggs Make some yorkshire puddings to pad meals out & fill you up more. Useful if your boyfriend eats like any of my men!
8 sausages - Sausage Casserole & potatoes
8 bacon Make as a potato or pasta bake. Fry the bacon, an onion & chuck in a tin of sweetcron and a tin of soup (tomato or mushroom or chicken?) then pour over either cooked pasta or cooked sliced potatoes and bake in the oven for 20 mins.
12 meatballs In the pasta sauce with spaghetti & pasta
chicken breast joint Have as a roast one day & have the leftovers sliced with some veggies and the fajitas
beef medalions Casserole or chop finely and have as a shepherds pie etc. Use the ready made mash.
margerine
mayonaise
cooked ham slices
2x ready made mash potatoes
7xkiwi fruit
melon medley 2 packs Make a lovely fruit salad with the kiwis, these & the blueberries or sprinkle them onto breakfast cereal or stir into yoghurt.
blueberries
broccolli florets
milk chocolate digestives
cookies
milk 6 pints

Freezer
apple pie
8xfish fingers Fish finger pie - cook fish fingers & put in a casserole dish, add a tin of beans and top with the other mash potato, put grated cheese on and grill till golden.
oven chips

Cupboard
tomato and garlic pasta sauce
garlic clove
soup x 5 tins
beans x 2
tin of green beans
3x tinned sweetcorn
gravy granules
1x tinned baby carrots
1xtinned sliced carrots
1x tinned mixed veg
1x tinned tuna Tuna bake with tin of mixed veg & a tin of soup. Serve with the chips if you can't buy any more pasta.
half a small pack of pasta
honey
lemon juice
olde el paso enchillas pack
spice mix packet for fajitas

Hi & welcome to Old Style I have put some suggestions in pink next to your list. Hope they help a bit. Can you buy any food this week/month at all or are you buying only as much as you need to? If you could buy some value/basics pasta & potatoes you could use the soups and other tinned veggies in bakes. I often do pasta bakes with tinned soup & random veg from the fridge topped with cheese.

If I think of anything else I'll post it & I'm sure there'll be lots of clever people along soon with more ideas. In the meantime have a look at this thread it's about a lady called Mbaz (also from DFW) who fed her family of four on £28 for the month. It inspired me to make lots of changes & gave me lots of ideas. HTH.

Edited to add: Just had another idea. You could throw the tinned veggies into a pan (drain them first) with some water or stock and heat through then blend for a soup. Serve with ham sandwiches or toast. I freeze ham in sandwiches if I think it'll go out of date before I use it so it's not wasted.

kunekune

The way I'd go about this is divide your list into the different components of means, eg, protein, veg, starchy filler, then you can work out what to spend a very small budget on for the next few weeks. You have quite a lot of fruit, so one tactic might be to have some meals of soup followed by a pudding, rather than have the fruit just as snacks.

Protein:

4 eggs
8 sausages (2 meals if you chop them up and bulk it out)
8 bacon (top up meat for 2 semi-veg meals)
12 meatballs
chicken breast joint (probably 2 meals)
cooked ham slices
beef medalions (assume this is enough for one meal)
8xfish fingers
beans x 2
1x tinned tuna

You could actually get 14 meals out of this, if you go easy on the amounts of things like sausages. You also have quite a lot of fruit and veg, once you include the tins. Soup makes good lunches or could do an evening meal followed by a pudding. What you seem to be very short of is dairy produce - milk, cheese - and starch - rice, pasta, potatoes. There doesn't seem to be any bread or not much bread. Some extra vegetables would be useful too - perhaps frozen peas and corn, carrots are cheap at the moment, maybe some cabbage so you do a big bowl of coleslaw. You need these things to make the protein go further. But those are cheap things to buy: for £15-20 on a few bits and pieces, I reckon you could feed your family quite well for 2-3 weeks.

Good luck - you seem to be very responsible to me.

mummyofboys

thanks alot for your ideas, im not the best cook ! can any one advise whats best to bulk up a sausage caserole from the things listed? I think i can stick beans in there? or am i totally wrong lol The soups i have are veg, chicken and tomatoe

dobs

yeh i have put beans in with sausage casserole before, even spag bol to bulk it out, they loved it! You could add some ham or bacon to it as well.

Pink.

Hi jay_mi10,

Beans are great in sausage casserole, also you could add the carrots, mixed veg or broccoli florets.

There are lots of recipes in these threads that might help:

Sausage casserole recipe (merged)

Does anyone have a recipe for a simple sausage casserole I can make in the SC?

Pink

SunnyGirl

For the sausage casserole I'd slice the sausages quite thinly across and add an onion, tin of beans, tins of tomatoes & tin of sweetcorn. Add some of the gravy granules, a squirt of tomatoe puree if you have it, a pinch of sugar and any extra water if there's not enough sauce.

The soups you have would be ideal for the tuna bake, potato bake & anything else you can put the other one in If you get some flour, cheese, potatoes, pasta and bread you'll have the building blocks for a least two weeks. I make pancakes for the kids (and DH) and they love them! They're only eggs, milk & flour and you can put syrup, jam, sugar & lemon on them or fill them with a bolognese style mix, roll them up, put into a dish, top with grated cheese & grill.

Well done for doing so much so quickly :T to sort everything out.

Butterfly_Brain

Try these threads they are really useful
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1129333&highlight=mbaz
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1568103&highlight=mbaz

the_cat

Ok, it must be starting to look like I'm stalking you!!!:rotfl::rotfl:

How about:

Tuna and sweetcorn pie - use chicken soup, top with mash
beef casserole - bulk up with veggies, make sauce with granules
sausage casserole - as above
pasta with sauce made from soup, plus veggies - do this twice
chicken enchiladas. be stingy with the chicken,just use half. bulk with veg
chicken pie - rest of chicken, gravy granule sauce sweetcorn, top with other mash
fish fingers,chips and beans
meatballs, tomato sauce, pasta or jacket potatoes
spanish omelette
bacon and potato hotpot
jacket potatoes with assorted leftover veg at end of week, white sauce and some of the ham

That's 12 - with only pasta, potatoes and bread needed. Maybe add a box of value eggs(lunches or another omelette day), a couple more tins of value beans (baked and kidney)for bulking out.