Help: meal plans

catspaw

Hi all,
hope you can help.
Now I do make meal plans and this has helped with the budget.....BUT......having given my SOA to the bank they have told me that my food bill for myself and 2 DD's is too high (oh and cat)

£140 a month: about £35 a week.

I have worked out that I would need to spend £90 a month to make my loan repayments ( my insurance doesn't cover me).

Any help on very very cheap meal plans would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks

catspaw

the_cat

Firstly, I would take what the bank say in these circumstances with a pinch of salt! Those who are in charge of going through your SOA and working out a payment plan with you are on commission and are only interested in what is best for the bank! I have just posted a query to find out what the official 'allowance' by the CCCS would be for you as I think it will be higher than you currently spend. Will post back when they reply.

In the meantime maybe post an idea of what it is you currently eat and then people will have an idea of what to suggest
Alternatively this thread will give you loads of ideas
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1157641&highlight=

Gigervamp

How old are your DD's? I don't think £35 a week is too high.

nuttybabe

I think £35 a week is about right (unless you are really good os shopping etc). I know someone up the school on benifits who spends £100 a week on food for her, 2 dd's (5 and 2) and a cat! Wish I could afford £100 a week for 5 of us!!!!!!!!!!!

Penny-Pincher!!

catspaw wrote: »

Hi all,
hope you can help.
Now I do make meal plans and this has helped with the budget.....BUT......having given my SOA to the bank they have told me that my food bill for myself and 2 DD's is too high (oh and cat)

£140 a month: about £35 a week.

I have worked out that I would need to spend £90 a month to make my loan repayments ( my insurance doesn't cover me).

Any help on very very cheap meal plans would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks

catspaw

I have just checked this and the info the bank has given you is RUBBISH!!

According to Nationaldebtline

http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/pdf/self_help_pack/workingout_pbs.pdf

You are allowed for food:

£37-£50pw on an adult
£20-£35 per child

HTH

PP
xx

debtmonkey09

Penny-Pincher!! wrote: »

You are allowed for food:

£37-£50pw on an adult
£20-£35 per child

HTH

PP
xx

Trying to figure this out ourselves... really useful link, thanks. But the 37-50 in that doc refers to housekeeping all-in, inc newspaper, toiletries, cleaning stuff and "a small amount for entertainment" - not just food, and I think catspaw was asking specifically about food.

We're eating OK on 65 a week between two of us, including some weird dietary requirements I have that push the price up. But nearly every meal we cook now generates leftovers for the following day. If it's something like chilli, just cook plenty and freeze it, or even just keep in fridge for lunch the next day. (Assuming you have a freezer!) If you need convenience foods in the week for time reasons do two lots of cooking when you -do- have some time spare and freeze it. No law against cooking at 10pm and it's free entertainment!

Boodle

I would have said that £35, even just for food specifically, was pretty darn good. I would recommend checking out Mbaz's feeding her family for £20 a month thread, Black Saturn's 2 meal planning threads, SammyK's budgeting thread for her meal planning, and the weekly meal plan threads for ideas. You could pull together some fab frugal meals from those

catspaw

Thanks to everyone for your replies.

I will check out the threads mentioned ....£20 a month sounds absolutely amazing!
The £35 a week is food AND household cleaning things, all cooked from scratch.

catspaw

And I do have a freezer- an old and kranky one but it works

the_cat

Catspaw

I have just received a reply to my query. CCCS have said that £140 is MUCH too low. They say that the minimum you should be allowing is £200 for food, cleaning stuff toiletries etc

Please get yourself some advice from either them (you can post them a question on the sticky at the top of the DFW thread-that is where I queried this for you) or start a thread on the DFW board.

Your bank have absolutely no right to tell you to how much you can spend on food, especially as is is far lower than you should be spending, according to guidelines

I am FURIOUS on your behalf!!!!!:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

That is not to say that it is not possible to spend less than £200, of course it is. Many, many people do and eat perfectly healthily. What I am objecting to is the bank trying to force you into spending less than the 'recommended' amount for their own benefit

Oneday77

catspaw wrote: »

Hi all,
hope you can help.
Now I do make meal plans and this has helped with the budget.....BUT......having given my SOA to the bank they have told me that my food bill for myself and 2 DD's is too high (oh and cat)

£140 a month: about £35 a week.

I have worked out that I would need to spend £90 a month to make my loan repayments ( my insurance doesn't cover me).

Any help on very very cheap meal plans would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks

catspaw

On a more fun point, can the FAT cat Banker eat for that little. Might have to if we keep his bonuses
I agree it is too low, yes it can be done but not at the benifit of someone elses work perfomance.