debtors going without food.

carefullycautious

I understand totally where Pastures is coming from. You know that your nest egg has to work for you as there is no one out there who is going to bail you out if you get into a mess financially. Some of us do not wish to get into any kind of debt or have to go cap in hand to this government. Pastures does not have children or a spouse so her eating habits are in keeping with what she needs to survive. I bet pastures could walk into any house in this country and show you all where you have been going wrong financially. We dont need most of what we have we just want it. THere in lies the problem

Fire_Fox

wageslave wrote: »

I
However I do think that people without children sometimes under-estimate how expensive it can be to make sure they have a healthy diet though.

The whole five a day thing is a nightmare. It isn't as though the little [STRIKE]monsters[/STRIKE] darlings will eat five portions of cabbage. Protein (and by protein I dont mean popcorn chicken) is hugely expensive. Carbs are cheap but kids cant live on chips all the time. Even when they want too.

Have you read Weezl74's 'Eat Healthily on 50p per day'? She calculated the cheapest way to get five-a-day. :money: Bear in mind beans and lentils count and a lot of frozen veg is very reasonable. We grew almost all our own fruit and veg when I was a child in our back garden plus an allotment, and both my parents worked.

A lot of meat is expensive - tho cheaper if adults adhere to government recommended portion sizes - but plenty of protein foods are cheap. Virtually all dried beans and lentils are dirt cheap, Smartprice eggs, Value whole chickens, pork and turkey mince, offal, plain yoghurt, cream cheese, powdered milk, fresh sprats, fresh mackerel, tinned pink salmon.

worldtraveller

wageslave wrote: »

BTW For those who feel inclined I would rather not read fourteen posts about how she should have been sending her kids to school dressed from the jumble sale with two jam sandwiches in their lunchboxes. So lets take it as a given:rolleyes:

What's a lunchbox? :rolleyes:

wageslave

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Have you read Weezl74's 'Eat Healthily on 50p per day'? She calculated the cheapest way to get five-a-day. :money: Bear in mind beans and lentils count and a lot of frozen veg is very reasonable. We grew almost all our own fruit and veg when I was a child in our back garden plus an allotment, and both my parents worked.

A lot of meat is expensive - tho cheaper if adults adhere to government recommended portion sizes - but plenty of protein foods are cheap. Virtually all dried beans and lentils are dirt cheap, Smartprice eggs, Value whole chickens, pork and turkey mince, offal, plain yoghurt, cream cheese, powdered milk, fresh sprats, fresh mackerel, tinned pink salmon.

I will have a look at the thread if I can find it.

I could seriously use some help when it comes to eating cheaply. I spend about hundred quid a week on groceries which I realise is a horrendous amount.

But I have to be honest I wouldn't feed the brat value chickens.

lostinrates

wageslave wrote: »

I will have a look at the thread if I can find it.

I could seriously use some help when it comes to eating cheaply. I spend about hundred quid a week on groceries which I realise is a horrendous amount.

But I have to be honest I wouldn't feed the brat value chickens.

Out of choice neither would I (eat or feed value meat etc). But I guess the majority of people are not trying to cut down on bills, but try and survive on a tiht budget. :)

DH and I try to eat only meat I feel comfortable with. Bearing in mind my background thats fairly limited, and expensive. Rather than sigh and resign to poor quality meat that means we don't eat very much meat, use all of it (stock etc). ( Gets harder with the animal food IMO. Also, we don't eat MacD etc, but the occasional takeaway/meal out needs a lot of thought'' and we don't always get it right at all....e.g. we were talking about dim sum recently here. I'm actually as funny about dairy etc but if you buy anythig made ever, e.g. sandwich/coffee/chocolate...there is a line of practicality versus belief that is hard to stay the right side of and live ''normally''). All that is my choice, and though its as important to me as religion is to some, I guess there is a huge chance I'd feel different if in financial fear and with a child to feed.

I adore lentils, and always have, so if I had a kid it would eat lots of lentils.:D

sjaypink

wageslave wrote: »

A neighbour of mine once turned up at my door lateish one night to ask if she could borrow a candle. Said she was having problems with her power supply.

Turned out the problem was she had no cash to put in her prepayment thingy.

She is a single parent with two very young children and works in a care home for minimum wage. She is in debt to just about everyone and was struggling desperately to meet all the payments.

She is on a DMP now but I am not sure that things are that very much better for her and her kids. She just doesn't earn enough and I imagine that's why she got into debt in the first place.

BTW For those who feel inclined I would rather not read fourteen posts about how she should have been sending her kids to school dressed from the jumble sale with two jam sandwiches in their lunchboxes. So lets take it as a given:rolleyes:

But she could just..... oh, OK...... I won't bother

It is hard being so skint. I was hugely in debt a few years back- well, 5 or 6..? Anyway, I often went without food, heating, electric etc because I paid the 'scary bailiff letters' before I sorted the essentials. I was a bit young and stupid I guess....

Think it depends how much you know of the system. On the bankruptcy boards you sometimes get new posters saying they are going BR and here is their SOA, they therefore have X amount disposable income to pay debts- then you get other posters saying you haven't added your hair cut money, holiday allowance, school lunches, you should be spending more on food & gas etc etc- ooh look you have 0 disposable

Those that don't have information on the system available to them will suffer most- which is the point of this site I suppose

PasturesNew

wageslave wrote: »

I will have a look at the thread if I can find it.

I could seriously use some help when it comes to eating cheaply. I spend about hundred quid a week on groceries which I realise is a horrendous amount.

But I have to be honest I wouldn't feed the brat value chickens.

Hey - I tracked down that "other person". I was confusing you with sjaypink.

£100/week! You don't know you're born :P

I was brought up on cheap gristley sausages and cheap gristley meat. We had a 2lb 6oz chicken on a Sunday (and Monday) between 5 of us, which seemed a big enough meal, we didn't go hungry.

My early experiences of nasty, cheap, gristley meat means that I rarely bother with it as an adult. Lean meat seems so expensive and I couldn't bear to touch raw skin/bones or a carcass, so I just give it a miss.

It's far better to miss out meat entirely than to have cheap nasty meat.

PasturesNew

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Have you read Weezl74's 'Eat Healthily on 50p per day'? She calculated the cheapest way to get five-a-day.

The trouble with that thread is you can't actually track down the detail, far too much chat.

For 50p/day she's probably got the time to be in the right shops at the right times for cheapos and has the right shops close to her. Probably also grows her own stuff, gets given it (family/friends/allotments) and has a freezer.

I'd imagine somebody with no car, no nearby supermarkets, working full-time and in a flat with no outdoor space couldn't do most of it.

I can do 50p/day ... but you have to love beans!
Even a simple egg and chips is 15p/egg these days. Outrageous.

Mr_Mumble

Asda are selling 6 eggs for 50p at the mo.:money:

Pretty sure you could have a varied diet on 50p per person per day. Bread is pretty expensive nowadays but can be had for 10-20p a loaf if you visit the supermarket at the right time and get the yellow-stickered stuff.

olly300

wageslave wrote: »

Heating a house costs a kings ransom and if you have children, especially small children, you cant have the place like an icebox..

Before most homes had central heating - and a lot of homes didn't have it until the 1980s - people including children survived living in cold houses. In fact talking to people who are only a few years older than me on many occasions, they remember their house being cold as a child. They didn't like it but put up with it.

A lot of people I've shared houses what resort to putting on the heating before putting on a jumper over their t-shirt. I've had to teach them how to layer clothes for warmth. However on the other hand I've shared with people who have taken layering to the extreme and have forced them to put the heating on, particularly if they are studying or working at home, even if I'm not been in and am paying part of the bill.