How to survive on what’s in the store cupboard (plus a little money)

MrsWoolfe

Hi Kerfuffle

You're v welcome!

I don't really make it as a curry more as a spicy side dish- it doesn't really have a sauce as such and is really a variation on a vegetable dish my Dad used to like, but that actually uses the smaller black chick peas.- which you can now buy tinned in some of the larger Mr T's.- it is labelled Kala Channa

I'm not a huge spinach fan so when I make it for me it's pure chick peas, but the black ones, just fried with onions, garlic and some spices...when I'm having a vegan day (fasting) that and some spiced pumkin and chappati or roti...mmmmm (does a good homer simpson impression

Kerfuffle

Hi Mrs Woolfe,

I'm a massive chickpea fan, (except houmous!:eek:), and a massive wilted spinach fan ( I don't like it raw!:eek:), and a massive garlic fan,(any which will do!:rotfl:) so this dish sounds right up my street.:T

Toodles.

sKiTz-0

Hi all,

Just been checking my finances after bills etc and realised I now only have £50 left to last me until the 15th when it is payday. I put this mostly down to changing jobs 2 months ago, and payday moving from the last Friday of the month to the 15th, but all my bills still coming out on the 1st of every month. It's skewed things somewhat.

Anyway, that gives me 12 days until payday. £30 of that money will be spent on getting to work - i.e. £15 a week if I drive very economically. Which leaves me £20 for food for 12 days.

I'm quite frugal normally, I can usually do sandwiches/packed lunch for work for around £5 a week (multipack of crisps, own brand choccy digestives for dunking, cheap loaf and a couple of sandwich fillers. - there is a free fruit basket at work so that covers the healthy stuff at no additional cost!)

I'm wondering if there is a cheaper filling for sandwiches than the 2 for £2.50 sandwich fillers? Things like ham etc seem quite expensive in comparison. Anybody have any good ideas?

So that leaves me around £5 for breakfasts/evening meals. I have plenty of porridge in the house so breakfast is ok. Let me go through what I already have in my pantry:

3 jars of Aldi chilli sauce (very very tasty, especially for the price), 3 jars of homepride BBQ sauce, 2 jars of kung po sauce, 1 jar of sweet chilli sauce, 1 jar of curry sauce. Medium bag of easy cook brown rice. Various bits and bobs of frozen veg in the freezer (sweetcorn, peas, onions)

Now I'm thinking if I buy 3 key things, I can make a lot of meals here - pasta, some beef mince and some turkey mince. Just those 3 ingredients alone would allow me to make bbq pasta bake, chilli con carne, turkey kung po, turkey curry, sweet chilli turkey. I mostly eat alone, so could make double portions and chill in the fridge for the next day's tea, so there's 10 meals straight away!!!

I suppose my biggest question is where would I buy the cheapest minced beef and minced turkey?

Also can anybody think of any cheaper sandwich fillers? Or any other ingredients that would make more meals out of what I have?

Cheers guys

sKiTz

Bronnie

sKiTz-0 wrote: »

Hi all,




I'm wondering if there is a cheaper filling for sandwiches than the 2 for £2.50 sandwich fillers? Things like ham etc seem quite expensive in comparison. Anybody have any good ideas?


Cheers guys

sKiTz

Tub of cream cheese
Tin of tuna mixed with mayo and sweetcorn
Hard-boiled egg mashed
Cheddar type cheese goes a long way when grated.
Peanut butter

Snowy_Owl

Ok - lunches first

sandwich fillings - what about buying a block of cheese? You could get quite a bit fir £2.50 and it could probably do you for the two weeks if furgal with it. What about getting 6 "value" eggs if you get bored with the cheese?
crisps - how much movement here? could you move down a brand here? You could go to the cheap "value" packets but I understand why you may not want to do that! They just don't taste the same and sometimes you just need that proper packet of crisps!
biscuits - see crisps

The evenings meals - I would be inclined to go for turkey chunks/breasts here instead of mince just for variety from mince,mince, mince!! What about buying a chicken? Once roasted, I've had meat there for three different dishes - again making pots where you have at least 2/3 servings. I genertally eat on my own too during the week and so stock up my freezer with home-made ready meals!

Hope that gives you food for thought...

Snowy

Snowy_Owl

Bronnie - you beat me!!!

Snowy

custardy

anything you can eBay for cash?
We went through a lean couple of months and sold some big stuff that we had been meaning to sell for ages
payment was via paypal
courier was paid via paypal and collected from our house
packaging was from stuff we had in the house
eBay fees were paid by paypal

so no need to really pay out any cash
took the edge of for us and got us by

Penelope_Penguin

Hello and welcome :beer: Have you seen this thread? It gives lots of tips on how to live for a short while on a little money and a storecupboard

For sandwiches, I'd make a mackerel pate - cheap, tasty and nutritious

Cheap meat (especially mince) can be false economy - once the fat has sweated out, you're left with less real meat than you thought I'd use a local butcher, but as much good quality mince as you can afford, then bulk up with lentils - cheap and good for you

I'll add this to the above thread later.

sKiTz-0

I sold everything I could on eBay a while back and some old books on amazon when I was paying my debts off a couple of years ago. the thought did cross my mind though.

What I do have is my old car (didn't put it in for it's MOT a couple of months ago as it needs FAR too much doing) So I was also wondering about where the best place to get most money for that is. There's a few adverts in the back of the local paper ranging from £50 to £100 for scrap cars, so figured one of those might be worth a go.

I do have some savings, but I'd like very much not to touch them, and with the food I already have in, I thought it would be a nice challenge to try and stay within budget for this month. As long as I can still eat properly and it doesn't affect my health or anything.

One of the biggest cutbacks I made a couple of years ago when I was living way beyond my means and had my lightbulb moment at 8k of debt, was food. I was so suprised at the time at how much money I could actually save by making little changes at a time - taking my own lunches to work instead of buying every day - I would make double portions of tea and take the leftovers in the next day to eat. I learnt to batch cook and make my own (cheaper AND healthier) microwave ready meals - again these could be used for work. Started using own brand sauces instead of the expensive ones. I easily managed to trim off a couple of hundred from my food bill, that I wouldn't have done had I not had the lightbulb moment.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys

custardy

sKiTz-0 wrote: »

I sold everything I could on eBay a while back and some old books on amazon when I was paying my debts off a couple of years ago. the thought did cross my mind though.

What I do have is my old car (didn't put it in for it's MOT a couple of months ago as it needs FAR too much doing) So I was also wondering about where the best place to get most money for that is. There's a few adverts in the back of the local paper ranging from £50 to £100 for scrap cars, so figured one of those might be worth a go.


Thanks for all the suggestions guys

£50-£100 sounds a bit low
what car is it?
bung its details ito webuyanycar.com
this will give you a low figure (you need to deliver the car to them so not much use)
check on gumtree.com for local buyers of mot failures and fire of some emails
haggle between them
I got anbout £200 for a no MOT 96 vectra with a blown diff

One of the biggest cutbacks I made a couple of years ago when I was living way beyond my means and had my lightbulb moment at 8k of debt, was food. I was so suprised at the time at how much money I could actually save by making little changes at a time - taking my own lunches to work instead of buying every day - I would make double portions of tea and take the leftovers in the next day to eat. I learnt to batch cook and make my own (cheaper AND healthier) microwave ready meals - again these could be used for work. Started using own brand sauces instead of the expensive ones. I easily managed to trim off a couple of hundred from my food bill, that I wouldn't have done had I not had the lightbulb moment.

totally agree,when you actually pay attention to the prices when shopping its quite an eye opener
Im guilty of often just bunging stuff in and getting the shock at the checkout