£10.00 per week for food Help please

Quillion

I am posting on behalf of my friend who is skint and has a budget of 10.00 for each week.

No staples in the house at all and will need to feed a child at the weekend as well.

Likes most things but has been living on cheese and toast.

Thanks in advance.

sandiep

Cheese is expensive!! LOL!!

It's do-able definitely. Veggies or meateaters? Any other restrictions?

Quillion

meat eaters and likes pasta rice etc etc

Cheese spread i think !!

SailorSam

Loads of meals to choose from here.
You could feed the five thousand for £10
cheap meals Meal ideas under £1 - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums

Penelope_Penguin

Quillion wrote: »

I am posting on behalf of my friend who is skint and has a budget of 10.00 for each week.

No staples in the house at all and will need to feed a child at the weekend as well.

Likes most things but has been living on cheese and toast.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Quillon! Can I ask why she only has £10/week? Benefit levels allow for more than this, and if she's on a debt management plan (DMP) this should allow for more.

Penny. x

PasturesNew

I'd stock up on potatoes, baked beans, eggs, cheese (never paying more than £5/Kg), onions, carrots, swede, cheapo flavoured noodles, long-life bread, supermarket own brand peas, rice.

The first week's hardest as you have to start from scratch. At the start of the 2nd week you'll still have some of that first week's food left over, so when you top up you have some left over for more appetising things.

With that list my meals could be:
omelette; cheese omelette; spanish omelette; toast; beans on toast; scrambled eggs on toast; scrambled eggs on toast with beans; veg soup with toast; cheese/potato pie; potato wedges; veg curry with rice. A quick meal would be a packet of noodles on their own, or as a treat I'd add in half a tin of peas with them.

Beyond that, learn 101 things you can do with just flour/butter/eggs/milk. eg pancakes, yorkshire pudding, pastry. Then you can add to your repertoire and do things like giant yorkshire puddings filled with vegetables, mash and gravy; dumplings (to go in the veg stew); home made biscuits; home made cakes.

After that is the next level of affluence, when you start to have bits of meat. Maybe a whole reduced chicken, or a pack of sausages, or a pack of mince.

sandiep

Can they cook?

OK. First thing to find out is what time the shift changes are at the local supermarket in the evening, and then hit the supermarket just after that time. Just before is pointless because shelves are empty, the new shift restocks, and marks down prices for the end of the day. Usually around 8pm is good time. This is a good way to get lots of the healthier stuff for much marked down prices.

A chicken is a good buy, you can get 3 days meals out of a chicken, much cheaper than buying chicken joints.

Veggies are good, buy loose, not peeled and prepacked. And use all of them, use soups and stews and casseroles to make sure everything is used up. Use veggies and lentils added to to bulk up things like curries, stews, spag bol etc.

DONT't BUY; biscuits, crisps, fizzy pop. - skip the entire aisle in the supermarket. If you need a treat, then buy a single portion item when you need it. It makes you think twice about whether you actually really want/need it and 9 times out of 10 you'll talk yourself out of it.

Porrige is really good for breakfast - and cheap, healthy and filling.

Staples; they must have something, unless they don't cook. Getting a cupboard full of those odd bits and pieces is the way to be able to cook on a budget.

Nargleblast

Can you help your friend by giving him/her a box of basic ingredients that can be used to create meals? Staples such as flour, sugar, tinned stuff, herbs and spices, pasta, rice etc. Or a nice box of fruit that can be eaten as it is or put into recipes? The way to eating healthily on a budget is to get back to cooking meals from scratch, and there are loads of suggestions on this site for recipes.

PasturesNew

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

Hi Quillon! Can I ask why she only has £10/week? Benefit levels allow for more than this, and if she's on a debt management plan (DMP) this should allow for more.

Penny. x

If the friend is a single person, over 25, living alone, on JSA (say), she'd get £64/week. There is mention of a weekend child visitor, but I read it as a visitor.

After gas, electricity, water, TV license, telephone, broadband, contents insurance, it's easy to see how you can get down to £10/week because those are the basics to cover and then there are other things that need paying for to. If somebody's in a flat that can't be water metered and they have electric heating and poor insulation/single glazed windows too, all their dole could be gone by then.

With £64/week it's harder to budget/save/build up the slack... and that's if the person has NO debts.

Penelope_Penguin

PasturesNew wrote: »

If the friend is a single person, over 25, living alone, on JSA (say), she'd get £64/week. There is mention of a weekend child visitor, but I read it as a visitor.

After gas, electricity, water, TV license, telephone, broadband, contents insurance, it's easy to see how you can get down to £10/week because those are the basics to cover and then there are other things that need paying for to. If somebody's in a flat that can't be water metered and they have electric heating and poor insulation/single glazed windows too, all their dole could be gone by then.

With £64/week it's harder to budget/save/build up the slack... and that's if the person has NO debts.

I'm aware of all of this (I'm a debt worker with CAB, so do it every day ). I'd say that of someone only has £10 for food, they need to assess whether broadband and contents insurance, for instance, are essentials.

Quillon, please don't take offence at what I say, I'm trying to get a full picture on which to assist you and your friend.

Penny. x

Fire_Fox

PasturesNew wrote: »

If the friend is a single person, over 25, living alone, on JSA (say), she'd get £64/week. There is mention of a weekend child visitor, but I read it as a visitor.

After gas, electricity, water, TV license, telephone, broadband, contents insurance, it's easy to see how you can get down to £10/week because those are the basics to cover and then there are other things that need paying for to. If somebody's in a flat that can't be water metered and they have electric heating and poor insulation/single glazed windows too, all their dole could be gone by then.

With £64/week it's harder to budget/save/build up the slack... and that's if the person has NO debts.

I agree with this: I am newly on JSA and I am struggling to see an adult can live alone on £64 a week; many flats have electric heating which can easily eat up £80 a month in winter. I have broadband which costs me just £6 a month (and you can watch iPlayer!) but I don't have either a TV license or contents insurance.

Weezl74's 'Eat Healthily on 50p per Day':
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1157641