In Debt/Have No Money

Oldernotwiser

Tombo wrote: »

Are you really living on this planet? If I didn't buy things that were cheap then I would run out of things to eat in a couple of days. Meat is around £3/£4 and that will only last a couple of meals and that would be nearly a third of my entire shopping budget gone. On the other hand, I could have spent that £3/34 on food that may niot be as healthy but will last me a long time. 12 packets of crisps for 99p is very cheap and would last me longer than meat would. Also, they take longer to go off. I don't think you have quite got to grips with budgeting tbh.

I not only live on this planet but have plenty of experience of living on a budget.

If you go to the DFW board you'll find that there are families of 4 living on £10 per week for food and you'll get lots of advice to help you learn to budget.

If you think that you need to spend £2 per meal on meat then you need to broaden your horizons as to the type of meat you eat and to the possibility of meatless meals as well. We've just had a meal of lambs kidneys which cost £1.24 for 2 people (plus rice and a few spices) and tomorrow I'm making sausages in chilli sauce (Delia), which will cost only £2.50 for 2, even though I'm using Tesco's Finest sausages.

Crisps and cakes are luxury items and unnecessary if you're living on a budget, particularly if you waste your money on things like shop bought scones, which only take 10 minutes to knock up yourself.

charliefunky

I am also a student and am sorry to hear about your financial circumstances at the moment ... things can only get better!
The only way I can contribute my advice really is with ideas for meals. I agree with Rozmister about the stew, so cheap to make and lasts for ages. You don't even have to add the meat, which makes it extra cheap. I have bought veg bags reduced in the past for 30p or something silly and have chopped ita ll up added water and an oxo cube and Awith a slice of bread it's lasted me at least three meals! Another dirt cheap meal that I had to eat for a couple of weeks last year is just cooked spaghetti, keeping a little bit of the starchy water on to make a thickend sauce add some butter or olive oil to the pan and lots of black pepper and a spinklinf cheese (but thats not essential) and it does taste pretty good, mix it with a small portion of frozen veg which you can get the basics stuff for under a pound and you've got some of your five a day too.

The bets thing to maybe do is buy lots of reduced food at the end of the day in supermarkets, if you have one near you pop down every night and see what you can find when the prices have gone right down.

Oh, and maybe if you have anything worth selling that isn't that important to you, you could sell it on ebay to make some quick(ish) cash.

Good luck!

Tombo

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I not only live on this planet but have plenty of experience of living on a budget.

If you go to the DFW board you'll find that there are families of 4 living on £10 per week for food and you'll get lots of advice to help you learn to budget.

If you think that you need to spend £2 per meal on meat then you need to broaden your horizons as to the type of meat you eat and to the possibility of meatless meals as well. We've just had a meal of lambs kidneys which cost £1.24 for 2 people (plus rice and a few spices) and tomorrow I'm making sausages in chilli sauce (Delia), which will cost only £2.50 for 2, even though I'm using Tesco's Finest sausages.

Crisps and cakes are luxury items and unnecessary if you're living on a budget, particularly if you waste your money on things like shop bought scones, which only take 10 minutes to knock up yourself.

Well, can you not see that I'm an 18 year old student with very little experience living on a budget. you can't expect me to know every single tip and trick about living on a budget. I thought that I had found bargains, and I still think that they are bargains, but I look forward to next week when I can start having proper meals again instead of snacks, but I think that I will still eat snacks otherwise i'll just get too hungry.

Last time I looked for meat in Sainsbury's, everything was £2/£3+ but maybe I need to look harder and I will look into 'meatless' meats as I don't mind eating them. Thanks to roz for suggesting this earlier too.

Also, the scones were only 33p for a pack of 10, I still think that this is cheap considering at Little Chef where I used to work it was about £3/£4 for one!! :eek:

charliefunky wrote: »

I am also a student and am sorry to hear about your financial circumstances at the moment ... things can only get better!
The only way I can contribute my advice really is with ideas for meals. I agree with Rozmister about the stew, so cheap to make and lasts for ages. You don't even have to add the meat, which makes it extra cheap. I have bought veg bags reduced in the past for 30p or something silly and have chopped ita ll up added water and an oxo cube and Awith a slice of bread it's lasted me at least three meals! Another dirt cheap meal that I had to eat for a couple of weeks last year is just cooked spaghetti, keeping a little bit of the starchy water on to make a thickend sauce add some butter or olive oil to the pan and lots of black pepper and a spinklinf cheese (but thats not essential) and it does taste pretty good, mix it with a small portion of frozen veg which you can get the basics stuff for under a pound and you've got some of your five a day too.

The bets thing to maybe do is buy lots of reduced food at the end of the day in supermarkets, if you have one near you pop down every night and see what you can find when the prices have gone right down.

Oh, and maybe if you have anything worth selling that isn't that important to you, you could sell it on ebay to make some quick(ish) cash.

Good luck!

Thank you for your idea, spaghetti is dead cheap so I'll give that recipe a go in the coming weeks (maybe even this week)

Thanks for the meat-free stew suggestion as well! I think I'm gonna do my food shopping later in the day so I can grab the reduced food you mentioned

I'm gonna have to start jotting all these recipes and tips down somewhere or I can just keep coming back to the thread lol

Yeah, I've got a few things stacked on my shelf that I'm willing to sell but I'd rather do a car boot sale as I have some books and things as well. Also, I have no idea how much postage is or how to post some of the items.


I also heard a rumour today that Noodles are 9p in Sainsbury's. If it is true then I'm gonna have to hop on it like sonic!!


In terms of debt, I rang Santander today but they told me to ring back tommorow as the office I needed was closed

I'm also considering sending the unfair bank notice charge letters that an article on this site mentions.

rozmister

charliefunky wrote: »

about the stew, so cheap to make and lasts for ages. You don't even have to add the meat, which makes it extra cheap.

The bets thing to maybe do is buy lots of reduced food at the end of the day in supermarkets, if you have one near you pop down every night and see what you can find when the prices have gone right down.

I know I keep harping on about stew but you can even just use veg lurking in the back of your fridge that's gone a bit soft but not off or is kicking about in the bottom of your freezer (except salad veg, cauliflower or broccoli). It's so versatile!

Talking about pasta I find a tbsp of basics soft cheese is a good sauce for pasta with some mixed herbs, garlic, odd bits of veg and cooked meat from the fridge. You could get 6 tbsp out of a tub of basics soft cheese so if you've got the pasta 6 meals. Yum!

I forgot all about reduced stuff (grew up on it so it seems normal to me)
but Charlie is right it's a good place to get bargains for your freezer. Sunday afternoons or about half 6 seem to be a good time for bargains in the supermarket I work in!

MrsBananarama

I'm really surprised to see Sainsbury's mentioned so many times here, and that you don't go with the option of Lidl/Aldi. For a lot of things you won't notice any difference in quality but things tend to be much much cheaper than Sainsbury's. I also like Poundland for odd bits and pieces - I'd never go anywhere else for washing up liquid etc (unless there's a great offer on big sized products somewhere else) and 2L of milk for £1 is not to be scoffed at. A grocery shop at Sainsburys always works out more expensive than doing it at Tesco or Asda, and especially so if you're shopping at smaller branches eg Tesco Express because they only stock the most expensive version of each item - no basics to be found.

Have to say I agree with some of the comments about not spending your money on cakey snacks etc. Obvs as you say it's much cheaper to buy in bulk than getting stuff from vending machines, but it's probably healthier and cheaper to make up some sandwiches and take some fruit with you - my fave would be a mixture of brazil nuts and dates, though that's probably not the cheapest. But if you aim to bring things that are more filling than cakes and biscuits, then you probably won't need to eat as many.

Good luck with everything - I've never been in trouble that bad, but having graduated last summer and no longer having student loan to help me out and having little luck in getting a fulltime permanent job, I know very well how it feels to not have enough money to cover debts and keep living the life you're used to (says she, sitting in bed to stay warm because gas is so expensive and the heating's off. Brrrr.)

rozmister

MrsBananarama wrote: »

I'm really surprised to see Sainsbury's mentioned so many times here, and that you don't go with the option of Lidl/Aldi. For a lot of things you won't notice any difference in quality but things tend to be much much cheaper than Sainsbury's. I also like Poundland for odd bits and pieces - I'd never go anywhere else for washing up liquid etc (unless there's a great offer on big sized products somewhere else) and 2L of milk for £1 is not to be scoffed at. A grocery shop at Sainsburys always works out more expensive than doing it at Tesco or Asda, and especially so if you're shopping at smaller branches eg Tesco Express because they only stock the most expensive version of each item - no basics to be found.

Aldi/Lidl aren't always the cheapest option. When the prices for an average shop have been compared it's shown there isn't a massive difference if you did all your shopping there. If you shop around though Aldi/Lidl do make a difference on things like fruit, veg and more expensive meat (joints, breasts, etc).

If you shopped carefully at a big Sainsburys buying mainly basics food and supplemented it with Aldi/Lidl/Poundland it's not going to be a big difference. I spend £30 on food shopping every two weeks following that formula (Sainsburys for basics like chopped toms, aldi for fruit and veg, extras from Poundland, milk from Iceland) and I eat very well. It's all about taking the time to plan and shop around. The internet is really good for this; I look online at the cost of things before I plan my meals and work around what is cheap rather than what I'd like. I could probably spend less but I follow a low fat diet so some basics products are out of the question!

Tombo

Thanks to a very nice forum member, Kazzah60, I now have 30 CVs so I am going to go job hunting later on today, I am really excited and really thankful

I have also spoken to Cancer Research UK about doing some volunteering, I have a meeting on Saturday

Housing meeting today and student funding meeting on Monday, as well as the next session of my clinical study (I get £180) at the end of it

Tombo

My trust fund account was closed today so I was able to pay off my Tooth Fairy Loan which is good :j

Job hunt went quite well, I handed in quite a few CVs, found a few vacancies and got some application forms :j

So generally I am quite happy :money:

kazzah60

well done Tom

you can e mail me when you run out of cv's and I'll do you some more!
best of luck
Karen

oliversw

I have just read your posts from front to back and am rather sorry to hear your plight, I am not in the same situation as you because I have always been rather prudent but I can sympathise not having any money (I'm saving up for a deposit on a house). But one thing I will recommend is road running, for my 1st year of uni (last year) I would go running at the crack of dawn, not only is it free,it will help your mind and body. I also found that there is no better high than setting yourself a target and beating it, I.e running from point A to B in X amount of time.