Help! no money till payday and a family to feed

HappyMJ

needstochange wrote: »

hes 15 months so he drinks cows milk now

OK sell the car.... if it's an option. Get food delivered and don't shop at all for a few months. It's all too tempting to overspend at the shops. Stop paying the creditors and go onto a Debt Management Plan.

squeaky

A pasta sauce? - the cheese can be missed out... [post=41695406]pasta sauce[/post] and if you don't have mustard you could sub a bit of cumin or chilli.

sexymouse

The recipe here for beef casserole sounds like it would be filling and doesn't use too many ingredients - as a vegetarian I can't say I've tried it, but the responses below sound positive - could get 2 dinners out of that. You could tweak the ingredient quantities a bit, and serve it with bread and butter (although it says you don't need that as it's filling). If you have some paprika or some sort of chilli type spice, you could then have it another day as a sort of chilli with rice.

Soup can be made a lot more filling by adding pasta to it, so you could make that into a filling lunch or dinner. My OH and I have started to have a bowl of soup once a week as a dinner served with bread, and it's actually been quite filling.

Tuna pasta bake - fry some onions, add some tomato puree, cook a corn on the cob and cut corn curnels off, and mix with cooked pasta.

Jacket potato with baked beans and lettuce

Fishfingers, chips and peas (you could make some homemade chips out of one of your potatoes if there aren't enough to go round).

Use the mini sausages in sandwiches with a bit of fried onion and some ketchup.

Or an alternative could be a sort of cowboy pie (I think it's called that) using the bakedbeans, sausages and some veg topped with some mashed potato.

Hope some of these ideas help.

squeaky

needstochange wrote: »

is there any way of making yorkshire batter without eggs?!

Apparently yes! Pick one that suits from this google search...

yorkshire without eggs

BitterAndTwisted

Instead of thinking about an eggless toad in the hole perhaps you could think about enrobing those sausages in pastry. Maybe a sausage/pastry plait if you take them out of their casings.

Split everything into separate caregoties and use only one form of protein for each meal. The beans count as protein as well. So you've got mini sausages, fish-fingers, half a portion of stewing beef (how much is this in weight?), 1 tin of beans, 2 tins soup (got any lentils or dried pulses to pad this out? If not, add pasta and make a meal out that), tuna.

I make that six meals as an absolute minimum not even counting the spuds or corn-on-the-cob. Plus pasta and rice so it can be done. I'd not use both the tinned toms and the puree in the same recipe to get everything stretching a much as poss. But you will have to get baking some bread or rolls. Toast and peanut butter if you have any is a perfectly adequate breakfast or lunch in the short-term. Got any jam, marmalade or Marmite? Mayo?

needstochange_2

thanks squeaky for all the great ideas, i think that i will do:

tonight:tuna jacket potatoes with the lettuce and corn
fri: pasta bake with the chopped toms & a hm garlic bread
sat lunch:leftover pasta bake
sat dinner:sausages and mash (with whatevers left of the potaotes), peas and carrots
sun lunch:soup and bread rolls
sun dinner:something with the beef

it actually doesnt sound too bad does it!feeling quite positive now
Happy MJ...
thanks for your concern but we have already sold our car, this went straight to pay off some of hubbys debt, he is now on a dmp. we are just a bit short this month cos of having to tax and mot car before selling. I thought this forum was meant to be for help not judgement?!

spendingmad

Needtochange - dont want to alarm you but today is Wednesday - have you got a meal sorted for tomorrow (thursday)?

To tend to think mash do not go as far so if you are limited with the potatos for your sausage and mash maybe have plain boiled potatoes instead (topped with a little butter/marg if you have some)

BitterAndTwisted

Sometimes we get waifs and strays from other parts of the forum and they can be a lot more judgmental than the lovely regulars on here. Especially if they are prone to snooping for your previous posts as A Certain Person appears to have done. Unforeseen disasters can happen to any one of us and no-cash-till-payday is very common so pay no heed.

needstochange_2

yes good idea thank you, boiled potaotes it is then!

ah yes, thats what comes of having two noisy little boys running around as im typing this... so thurs night could be.....i think ill cook the beef in the clow cooker with the veg, onions garlic and stock and stretch this to two meals, thurs with bread and then sunday with some chilli in and serve with rice (thanks sexymouse)
i can also use the fishfingers, oven chips and beans then for the boys for a lunch/dinner as theyre not keen on spicy food

Bitsy_Beans

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Sometimes we get waifs and strays from other parts of the forum and they can be a lot more judgmental than the lovely regulars on here. Especially if they are prone to snooping for your previous posts as A Certain Person appears to have done. Unforeseen disasters can happen to any one of us and no-cash-till-payday is very common so pay no heed.

Well said :T You're not the first needstochange and sadly you won't be the last.
BUT you're in the right place.

Have you checked all coats and pockets and sofa for any spare change in case you end up needing to buy something - just in case

I wondered about stretching to the stewing steak to make cornish pasties, bit of meat stretched with veg, pastry is nice and filling.

Might be some more meal ideas on this rather famous thread of mbaz https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2116179