Help! no money till payday and a family to feed

needstochange_2

thanks eveyrone for the really positive and kind words!
well we managed to find about £4 in coat pockets and down the side of the sofa so ive bought some eggs for a bit of protein for the boys, and went into my local market just before closing time and managed to get apples, banans and a few oranges all for £1.50! thats snacks for the boys sorted now.
im doing that sausage pasta tonight and have been making so much bread my kitchen looks like a bakery!thanks for the tip about flavoured rolls i never thought of that.
how would i go about making the iced buns? they would be a lovely weekend treat. is it just a normal bread mixture or do you add sugar?

Butterfly_Brain

You can use ordinary bread dough for iced buns, just cover them with icing and that will be sweet enough.

Hannah_10

I'm not sure if it to you personally needstochange but I thought I'd add some other things that I have picked up about managing to eat when you're flat broke, for anyone else reading who is in a similar position right now...

Food sellers that take Paypal include approvedfood.co.uk (who specialise in out of date and short date items which are still safe to eat) and pizza delivery company dominos.co.uk. This can be helpful if you have money in your Paypal account but don't have time to wait for a transfer.

In the library they have books on the safe identification of wild plants, roots and mushrooms for eating. I advise you read carefully and proceed with caution but actually you will be suprised much is edible. If you live on the coast you are laughing (don't everyone do it, I want some left for me, but Rock Samphire in spring is just like asparagus with lemon).

Speaking of finding food, if you or the other half usually have an air rifle or a fishing rod for leisure then put them to use for rabbit and fish for tea.

Stop paying the debts. Nothing takes priority over food. The DFW board will help you.

Ask your local GP, church, CAB or health visitor if your area has a foodbank scheme. Those are schemes which give free food to those who need it. You can always treat it as a loan and donate identical food back again later if charity is not your thing.

Call a mate and suggest a dinner swap, how about they cook for you one night before payday and you will cook for them one night after. You'd have to be a pretty hard faced mate to say no to this.

Ask on freecycle for any unwanted food tins which are usable. I think we all have at least one lurking we will never use (mine is grapefruit, bought in error).

Earn something cash in hand. Kids have been known to knock on doors and offer cheap car washing, lawn mowing or dog walking for cash, there is no reason you can't as an adult.

Ruthlessly scour the sofa, drawers, car and penny pot. You probably have more than you think.

Sell or pawn something.

Does anyone owe you anything, even a fiver? Now is time to call it back in.

Drink more water. It is free at the point of use, mega healthy and fills you up. Much hunger is attributable to thirst in disguise. Obviously this is not a food substitute but when times are tough increasing your water intake can keep a reduced food intake bearable.

If you really have to stretch it, eat smaller meals, 3 times a day, with no snacks in between. Do not eat all your food in three days and have 3 days with nothing- you will make yourself ill or at the very least, miserable.

There is a school of thought called Freeganism, which can be researched online. I understand their practices include skip diving for edible but unwanted food. Clearly there is a risk with this, but it does work for some people. I leave it to you to evaluate that yourself.

If you are on means tested benefits and happen to lose your wallet you can claim a crisis loan for a small amount to cover food until you are next paid. It is then repaid slowly, at a rate that you should be able to cover, and it's interest free. See your local benefits agency or job centre plus.

Family and freinds can also be good for a tenner or twenty of loan money in a crisis.

The one kind of loan to avoid like the plague is payday loans. They are riddled with hidden traps and shocking APR. We hear about them all the time on the DFW board and they are so dangerous, please be absolutely certain there is no other way to eat before you do this.

Do a car boot sale. Bear in mind you will need to have the pitch money (usually about £6) and you may need to sell things for a lot less than you think someone should pay, but you wont shift anything at all if people think your prices are too high. Expect people to haggle.

Certain items, like gig tickets, can be sold on eBay in a listing that takes just 24 hours. Check eBay for more info.

The milkman often does deliveries but does not bill until the end of the week or month. Most milkmen deliver things like potatos, eggs and orange juice as well as the milk. See milkandmore.co.uk

Do you use cashback sites or survey sites? If so have you checked your balance lately? You may have earned enough to get paid.

annie123

Do you have any foreign currency lying around? post office will change even small amounts

cocalls

good luck with your quest i'm sure you can do it

annie123 wrote: »

Do you have any foreign currency lying around? post office will change even small amounts

Do they change coins at all??

annie123

Yes. Well at least they did for my friend in Ashford. She took in euros, mainly coins, and Thai bahts and came away with just under £5 which kept her going till payday.

HariboJunkie

Edited as no longer relevant.

curlytop12

hannah,once again,you prove what a star you are!LOVE this post:)
G

Hannah_10

HariboJunkie wrote: »

OP, I hope you are managing ok and you've had some great advice here but please don't follow this particular piece of advice. It's called fraud by false representation. _pale_

Are you sure? Only I was of the belief that the legal offence would have been Obtaining a Pecuniary Advantage by Deception. If I'm right then you should know that OPAD formed part of the 1968 Theft Act of England and Wales. This part of the act was repealled in the 1970's because frankly it was daft. It still exists the in the popular conciousness, but only there. It sits along side other popular misconceptions about debt, like the one that the houses of new bankrupts are routinely stripped of thier TV's and higher value everyday goods.

You could theorhetically be haulled up under the current 1978 Theft Act only if it can be demonstrated that you had no intention of paying the bill created. In reality even this would be subject to the Crown Prosecution Service deeming that the case was in the public interest to fund and fight. While "the system" is not known for it's humanity, can you really see it being in the public interest to do someone over a low value (lets say £20) cheque which bounced in a corporate giant like Tesco or Asda and which was paid apologetically a few days later? How about if that bouncy cheque bought nothing but food? The press would have a feeding frenzy!

There are risks attatched to many of the things I have listed. Skip diving and gathering wild food come with the risk of getting ill. Borrowing of any kind comes with the risk of accidentally making a debt issue worse. Anything that involves taking food from strangers (foodbanks, freecycle) means the purity of the food can not be vouched for. Any time you approach a friend or relative for any help you risk souring the relationship. These are all risks. When you are starving these risks are often the lesser of the evils and are definately risks each individual should assess for themself.

Shoplifting is an actual criminal offence and being starving hungry isn't a legal defence for it (although people have been let off for for being honestly starved, other have received no such compassion). Bouncing a cheque does not qualify as a technical offence of shoplifting though. So paying with a bounced cheque doesn't get you done there either.

If you really tried you could probably find something you could argue on a technicality which made writing a bouncy cheque which you paid for ASAP illegal. You would be highly unlikely to find a policeman who would arrest you for it though. Driving at 35mph in a 30mph zone though, well we don't tend to lose sleep about that, but hundreds are convicted of it every year. In perspective, perhaps bouncing a cheque and paying the debt at the first opportunity is really not a level of risk worth starving to avoid? As always, it is for the person in crisis to evaluate what risk feels acceptable to them in thier own circumstances.

VJsmum

Hannah_10 wrote: »

You would be highly unlikely to find a policeman who would arrest you for it though. Driving at 35mph in a 30mph zone though, well we don't tend to lose sleep about that, but hundreds are convicted of it every year.

Gosh you write well and logically - are you a lawyer? Most of your advice is great and sound - things i wouldn't have thought of.:T

However I got done for driving at 38 in a 30 and had to go on a speed awareness course, once you realise that at 30 someone you hit has 80% chance of living and at 40 it would be an 80% chance of dying it makes you think twice about your speed. Over 40 and you've probably killed them anyway, so those 30mph limits do make sense (sorry, I have bored my husband about this for months now, so it's someone elses turn )