£33 per month for food!

Flibbertygibbet

I ploughed through the whole thread and found it to have far too much negativity even though some people have put forward really good ideas.

My thoughts.
Reducing the outgoings

Could you reduce your electric bill by getting a storage heater (yep ask on freecycle), heating one room and going onto eco seven. I do everything I can before 7am (8 in the summer) shower, precook stuff, washing, washing up and people are amazed how low my bills are.

Dont get rid of the TV license. It is mega cheap entertainment and keeps you in touch. You sound as though you live on your own (until you get a lodger and they will expect a TV!)
To anybody who thinks having a tv and not having a license is money saving.....it is not, it is theft and such suggestions have no place in this forum

Do you make a lot of phone calls? Do you phone just one or 2 people in the main? If so all change to lycamobile plus and then your calls are free between them. I reckon you should be able to cut that bill when your contract ends if you have one or immediately.

Look on freecycle for stuff. People who are moving house will post food items, so will people whose kids wont eat things they have just paid out for. Also cleaning items people have bought and dont like etc

Food costs

Do you have a garden? Could you keep chickens. Get some ex batts and sell the eggs you dont use to your friends/neighbours to pay for the chook feed, any free food that you get that you dont like within reason (avoid salt,avocados and other poisonous to birds) can be fed to them and you can also ask at supermarkets for food for the chickens and you might get useable stuff for yourself. Eggs for your own use then should be free.

Someone said buy sausages and burgers. Dont
Spend everything you have on proper ingredients. Most cheap sausages are just flavoured bread. Spend the same amount on mince and make your own.

Garden. Someone else suggested... not too late for pumpkins and they will get you through the winter, again I suggest you ask for fruit herb and veg plants on freecycle. (Toms, courgettes, pumpkins runner beans, peas would give you a late crop now if the frosts dont come too early) Get some seeds in Lidl for lettuce, radish swede, spring cabbage and broccoli and get it in now.

Most of all be positive, it is more than feasible to live on the amount you say and maybe if the phone/eco 7 thing works for you will have a little more available.

Good luck and tell us how it is going

podperson

Have to agree there's been some very negative posts on this thread. The main things that have helped me cut the food bill down have been meal planning and batch cooking. Look for things that do you a few meals - for example I get a big bag of veggie mince and cook it with a simple tomato sauce and then freeze it. Will have one day as bologense with smartprice pasta/spaghetti, another day will make into chilli and that usually does me 2 meals as might have one day with a jacket pot and another day as burritos (tend to find tortillas fairly often in the oopsies section of the supermarket) would use the rest of the tortillas with some stir fry veg or something the next day then probably finish off the veg the day after with a cheap indian or chinese sauce and some basics rice. Also things like beans on toast or omelette with some leftovers chucked in are really quick and easy as well as dirt cheap. I think it's definately do-able - good luck with it x

Mistral001

The OP has gone it seems. Hope he has not jumped, but it is a possibility. I can understand how he feels. I am about his age and single as well.

I am not unemployed, but might as well be. I am self-employed in the building industry. I barely make enough money each month to pay the professional indemnity insurance that I must pay when my business is going and for a further 6 years should I decide to stop the business.

When I noticed a sharp tail-off in work nearly two years ago, I did all I could to save money. I did it fervently. I cut back on work overheads, like fax telephone line, changed business telephone line to a residential line etc. Then I cut back on personal bills at the same time. I cut down on personal car journeys, bought mostly supermarket own-brand food, cut back on heat and electricity.

Then things started to get really bad and went over my overdraft limit for the first time. The bank just did not want to know. Then I started to stop paying my pension each month nearly a year ago. It is called a "pension premium holiday" and it is meant to go on for 12 months but it looks like it will be longer than that.

However, after this fervent cutting back for a year, the ferventness stopped and it just became normal and just depressing. When I started to realise that income was down and I would need to make savings, I would discuss it with people I knew and they would make suggestions. That stopped after a few months as I began to realise that these people just did not know anything about my situation. I once had to listen to a person lecture me on how fresh fruit and vegetables were much cheaper than processed food and much healthier. This is just not true. Now I just do not go to the fruit and vegetable isles and buy the 8p curry sauce and 27p tins of sausages and beans, pasta for 20p and powered potatoes for 10p etc. Fresh meat like mince is out as it is just too expensive. Chicken wings and liver even seems expensive compared the 48p sausages from Tesco which can form the basis of 4 meals. The farmers markets are no cheaper than the supermarkets. I grow my own vegetables now and it helps, but the winter months are practically fresh-vegetable-free.

But you know the worst thing is that after a while, the boasting about how much money you can save by being resourceful and very clever changes to just a sinking feeling. Telling friends and family about the problems you face changes to hiding them. Hiding the tins of own-brand food when people come to visit almost in the way an alcoholic hides the empty bottles. Spending about a week’s electricity to heat the house up when you have a relative coming for a few hours in the winter and switching it off immediately after they leave. That is what happens.

I have tried to look for a job, but I still have some commitments with firm and could only work part time. I have started to do some freelance work using elance.com, but I find that I am competing with the Asian sub-continent and for work and get paid accordingly. Minimum wage? What minimum wage?

Anyway, I hope the OP is OK. If he was a troll then I do not really mind as his story is true for many people.

savingqueen

Just wanted to add to last couple of posts. I also think far too many negative posts on this thread (and in many others on some of the forums). Its all getting silly, even criticising incorrect grammer etc in some cases. Everyone needs good advice now and then, that's what MSE is all about surely.

This isn't really the right forum for this thread though, useful as some replies are. Try the Old Style Forum and maybe others like Debt Free etc for lots and lots of support and useful ideas.

Good luck

wantsajob

savingqueen wrote: »

even criticising incorrect grammer etc in some cases.

Which shows how deeply ingrained discrimination is against people with disabilities like Dyslexia. People mistakenly assume it is all some skill you learn, that they themselves learned it superbly, and that anyone else who appears to have not learned as well as they, are stupid and lazy. The grammar and spelling Police just want to feel superior to others. But that's an entirely different topic really.

have-hope

I felt the poster was looking for help - it seemed he was desperate, building a budget and realising you have a £1 is depressing.

I am looking for work and have had some very dark days but fortunately my situation isn't as bad (as I have a partner who is earning). We are managing to buy food but we've had to slash our budget and I'm fearful of going shopping.

Ready, if you're still looking at the thread ignore the negative comments and join in the employment thread - people in a similar situation are able to be more supportive.