Living for a month off £100

danothy

For the rest of September my budget is quite tight (£100). I've covered direct debits, rent and my bus pass already, and my father has said he will cover an emergency if one crops up.

Essentially I need to know (if it's possible to) how to make it though the month on the £100 for consumables (preferably including buying some beer on my birthday next weekend).

I have some saleable items that I could put on ebay or similar to try to supplement the £100, but I don't want to factor them into the budget just yet in case they don't sell for any reason.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

blueberrypie

So what other usual expenses do you have? Presumably groceries - how much do you usually spend on that? What have you got in that you can use up? How many people are you feeding?

Birthday weekend...why not buy what's necessary to make pizza (very cheap to make yourself) and invite some friends over? - I daresay someone will bring beer...

thatsean

I'd say this is doable pretty easily - plan a shop taking into account what you have in cupboards and your freezer. Do you need to buy lunch at work, or can you take it in with you?

What else needs to come out of the money apart from food?

sarah69696pink

I also seem to only have £100 pounds this month (my wage is due to drop soon so I am trying to live off what it will be).
I'm not doing so well so far....have spent £39 today!!! Arrrggghhh....got a bit carried away with ebay!! Still everything was a bargain and stuff I need for house move, was meant to be going out tonight but not now in order to make up for it!
But I do think it is poss...petrol is the big one for me really...but making sure I walk where poss (healthier too!!)...food wise I'm planning on a lot of pasta with homemade sauces...pretty cheap!

danothy

Over the last two months I've spent approx £255 on groceries (food and cooking / cleaning products) that excludes all alcohol and eating out but includes bought lunches at work and takeaways. I suppose everything on top of that could be considered optional. I should be all right for bathroom toiletries though, as I got a load of shower gel and hand wash on two for one offer last month.

I'm just taking care of myself (a vegetarian), and I've got quite a lot of pasta in (although not enough to last if I was to eat it every day I don't think), some frozen veg, plenty of flour for the pizza idea (I was planning on using it up before I bought another loaf of bread) a bit of rice and couscous, a block of cheese and some fresh foods in the fridge that I'm using up first so they don't go to waste. I've also got litres and litres of squash stocked up.

I try to take lunch with me to work, but as I said above, I have bought lunches and things like that. This just won't be an option this month though.

It's good to hear that people think it can be done, and after adding up my last two months spends, on average I'm not far off the target ...

blueberrypie

Definitely can be done - there are families being fed on less than that - have a look at the Old Style board.

Takeaways, booze and lunches bought out are definitely extras! Hide the take-away menus! Do you have a way of heating lunches up at work? If so it might work out cheaper to cook slightly more for tea and put some aside to take to work for the next day's lunch. Put the lunch bit aside first - in a container, in the fridge - so that you don't just eat more for dinner instead.

Beans are cheap - dried are cheapest, but even tinned still makes for cheap meals.

Whatever you add cheese to, mix it with a little bit of mustard - it will intensify the cheesy taste and allow you to use less cheese.

Beans on toast, cheese on toast, pasta with cheese sauce, pasta with tomato sauce (tin of crushed tomatoes, add a few herbs, thicken with dried soy mince if you like), chili, baked potatoes with whatever's floating about chopped up and put on top, or a good dollop of the chili you made last night ;-), pizza with toppings of whatever you've got, potato pie (search the OS board for a recipe but it's essentially layers of sliced potato, onions and beans), fried rice (any peas/corn/carrots in fridge or freezer?) - lots of stuff can be made for very little cost - quite a lot of it with stuff you've got in. Eggs are cheap for what you get, and scrambled with a bit of toast can feel like a remarkably filling meal. Soups can be made quite cheaply too - one of our family favourites is potato and carrot. Curries are tasty and filling and easy. Cauliflower cheese? Peanut butter on toast? You can make a good hummus substitute from half a can of chickpeas blitzed up with some garlic, peanut butter, lemon juice and yogurt (if you want the recipe I can dig it out).

Make a mealplan, taking into account what you've got, then *only* buy what else you need for it - and stick to it.

danothy

Thanks, I really appreciate the advice on what meals are generally cheap to produce. I usually plan my meals and buy what I need fairly strictly, so this month I guess it'll just be the sort of things you have suggested above to keep the cost down.

opinions4u

Do you have any points on loyalty cards e.g. Nectar, Tesco, Boots etc?

Can these be used for a treat such as a meal out etc?

Tesco in particular has some excellent value 4x value deals which take about a week to come through after order.

Linky to restaurant list.

I know in my skint days these loyalty schemes helped add a little bit of fun and variety to life.

danothy

opinions4u wrote: »

Do you have any points on loyalty cards e.g. Nectar, Tesco, Boots etc?

The short answer to this is no ... I had a look at the Tesco offers a while ago and there wasn't really anything there that tickled my fancy or I already spent money on, so I just end up spending the vouchers on booze in store.

I might have enough for a boots meal deal on my card though, and if I buy the most calorific combination available then that will be a chip in the right direction at no cost ...

ganonman

danothy wrote: »

The short answer to this is no ... I had a look at the Tesco offers a while ago and there wasn't really anything there that tickled my fancy or I already spent money on, so I just end up spending the vouchers on booze in store.

I might have enough for a boots meal deal on my card though, and if I buy the most calorific combination available then that will be a chip in the right direction at no cost ...

That's a start in the right line of thinking. Put it like this, once you can live like this for one month, hopefully you can do it easier next month, and within a year or so you'll be out of your overdraft properly (snowballing). :j

(You include your student loan in your sig? I just chalk it down to graduate tax... Makes me feel better)

huw01

some people turn their noses up at Lidl - I don't. You can really save some money by choosing where you shop without really comprimising on quality. Also try shops like B&M Bargains, Home Bargains etc - Excellent offers on food stuff