£33 per month for food!

DCFC79

catgil wrote: »

How can you live on £12 a month????

im guessing its buying alot of food that you can make a variety of meals with,

Emmzi

there was a threqd on DFW a year or two back about a girl who essentially lived on porridge lentils and value vitamin pills...

scheming_gypsy

SailorSam wrote: »

And if you want to watch a Tv programme there's always the Iplayer on your computer, i don't think you need a licence for that.

if you can watch TV.... you probably will need a license.

liney

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

if you can watch TV.... you probably will need a license.

Currently you do not need a license to watch programmes 'on demand' like Iplayer, only live TV.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/01/iplayer_does_not_require_a_tv_1.html

Caroline_a

OP, I think you need to address the problem in the long-term. You need to find a job, whatever sort of job it is. I'm not sure what part of the country you are in, but if you are on your own you will have a lot of flexibility. When I was recently made redundant I applied for a minimum of 8 jobs a day - I made sure my CV was tailored for every one, as was my letter of application. Job-hunting is a numbers game, the more you apply for, the more likely you are going to get one.

You can't pull the age card either - I'm older than you! As it was I got a job within my redundancy notice, so my redundancy all went into my savings. I had quite a few interviews, but it was all because I just applied for anything that was slightly relevant to my CV. You may have to take a pay cut from what you were earning, unfortunately that's life, but it's better than being unemployed! Also, once you have a job you can then look for something that you feel is more suitable.

What you have in abundance is time. Make sure you are getting up at a 'work-reasonable' time, and set yourself a timetable for applying for jobs. You could set, say, mornings for CV development and applications, and then go around some companies locally and hand out copies of your CV. Are there still such things as JobClubs, could you do some voluntary work? Lots of options out there, but you just need to be proactive rather than reactive.

Good luck!

RatInMeKitchen

I've been living on the same kind of budget for the past few years. I can't really see an end to the 'student lifestyle' of shared houses and not being able to go out much (especially at weekends).
I've just got back to the UK..........I almost feel depressed.

Strider590

ready_to_jump wrote: »

Due to redundancy I have to try and survive on £33 per month for food.
I have and do buy food at the right times, and in the right places, but still struggle......

I'm 52, live alone, with a mortgage, do not want to lose my home, how do I eat for £33 a month?

If I get a job interview, I am totally stuffed because i have no money for a haircut....................

Get down your local Netto's before it closes, buy things like pasta and sauces, soup and frozen stuff. It's better quality than gossip/hearsay would have you believe.

Recently walked out of my local store with a full to the brim trolley for £76.80 and this included a case of cider and 3 bottles of wine.
It'll last me nearly 2 months.

Same shop in the bigger stores would have cost me £120+, in fact i've seen people walk out of Morrisons with a small trolley full for over £100.

I spend about £40 a month on food, I buy the odd thing at other stores, I even get asked at work how I can afford to take salmon/salad for my lunch twice a week :rotfl:

Not looking forward to it becoming an Asda next month..... Food bills about to go through the roof me thinks

lilacclaire

I would seriously think on about taking in a lodger, it seems to be your only feasible option I can see at this moment in time, it would also give you some spare cash to get haircut/decent food, you sound really down just now and its no wonder.
In your circumstances, im not sure I would declare it either...!

mitch161

lodgers great idea. even charging them just £50 a week would net you £200 a month easy. and at £50 a week is a bargain. even the council houses charge more to people on low incomes. check out estate agents and room share adverts in newspapers for average charges for a room in your area.

im also a single male with a ... large build which is not muscle lol so yes lentils and vitamin pills wont do it for me.. but i manage to eat for £30 a month.

potatos with everything is the key. mash them chip them boil them or bake them. either way they are a cheap way to fil a third of a plate. next economy burgers or sausages. under £1 at supermarkets gives you 8 sausages or burgers. =4 meals worth. and own branded spaghetti/beans tins

asda for instance has beens at 25p-30p but spagetti is 14p

even dried pasta and a home made sauce can save you more.

i buy the cheapest nastiest coffee granuales there is and simply mix in a lil bit of orange juice or grate a small cube of asda basis chocolate to add flavour to it.

use this time to learn new cooking skills.. i use to be a junk food freak when employed. now i make big platefuls of food for under £1 a day i look back and think about that single mcdonalds or KFC mean costing £4-£6 mades me sick thinking about how much money i was wasting.

single large potato costs 10p roughly. half a tin of spaghetti 7p and 2 sausages is 20p =37p a meal. in the evening.
bread (toasted) with a sliver of butter for breakfast 4p brings you to a total of 41p.
and then for lunch well cut up a quater of cucumber. a couple cherry tomatoes a few leafs of lettuce and asda basics coleslaw maximum 50p (due to coleslaw) brings you to under £1(90p) a day=£7 a week=£28 a month leaving you with way more then £5 for coffee and milk orange squash. or a luxury of some chicken portions and gravy for sunday roast treat.

yes you can even save more money like i said before such as use dried pasta and maybe a dollop of salad cream instead of coleslaw for ur lunch salad.
get rid of the bottles of cola and drink water with some fruit squash.

try to get daily food for 6 days under £1 spend. and then on a sunday you treat yourself to a nice roast.

dont get into a mindset that you want 1 luxury dinner a day, you will appreciate the sunday roast more when you can pile on all the potatos and sprouts ur plate can fit. and still have money to spare. then if a haircut is needed then do without spending £'s on juicy luxury meat and gravy/ sprouts and get a haircut.

best time to shop for meats is in the evenings when the deli counters/shop about to close. they put reduced stuff on shelves they dont wanna see the next day

i have failed to lose weight for years when employed. now unemployed i have lost 25% of weight (in a year) and im over the moon. i can now buy normal clothes from normal clothing shops. not XXXL shops so its all helped me

ceridwen

lilacclaire wrote: »

I would seriously think on about taking in a lodger, it seems to be your only feasible option I can see at this moment in time, it would also give you some spare cash to get haircut/decent food, you sound really down just now and its no wonder.
In your circumstances, im not sure I would declare it either...!

It would be wise to declare it - you would probably come within the Rent A Room Allowance level (though its not changed for several years.....) - but the DWP would still make your life a misery if they found out....and "there's always someone" (which could be the lodger themselves - if they fell out with you subsequently).

EDIT: and I would be interested to see Dave454545's answer on how he eats for £3 a week - as I've asked before and not been answered on that. Not being the "awkward squad" here - but it does get intriguing when someone has claimed to eat for that several times - but never elucidated how that I've noticed..