cheap meals with no fridge/freezer?

Perpetuallyconfused

I wondered if anyone can help me? I am on a very tight budget, I cant really afford to spend more than £30 a week on food to feed two adults. The problem is we have never owned a freezer and the fridge has now given up the ghost. There is absolutely no spare cash to buy a new one or even a second hand one for quite a few months so Im kind of stuck for foods. We do have a coldish bedroom that we keep the window open in to chill foods to an extent. I need something to munch on as a kind of brunch (we figure we will combine breakfast and lunch to save money) and a dinner?

We can shop every 2 days if need be, we would prefer not to shop more than that as its quite a way to the supermarket (asda or morrisons) and thats going to use petrol and use even more money. It would take 3 changes of bus for hubby to get there and I cant go at all on public transport as Im disabled.

Any suggestions for me and a hubby who likes his big, bulky meals please? (Im thinking bulk them out with cheap veg and hope he doesnt miss his meat?) I am an average cook if I put my mind to it and so is hubby.

merlot123

Are you sure you couldn't afford a small amount of money towards a fridge, take a look at preloved, not sure where you are in the country but I have found a fridge for £20, and I haven't searched very much.

merlot123
http://www.preloved.co.uk/fuseaction-adverts.showadvert/index-1034678389/921c1c36.html

Do you have anything to sell at say cash convertor type place in order for you to raise a wee bit of money to buy a second hand fridge? Are you entitled to a crisis loan? or are you a member of a credit union.

Perpetuallyconfused

Oh thank you! I never knew fridges were that cheap! Things are that bad that we might manage to get £20 together in a month. Im disabled and hubby is my carer so neither of us have a wage and we are paying off debts from when hubby was working too so things are pretty difficult. We literally have £140 until the end of November (household bills are covered) and £20 of that is for petrol for food shopping and to get me to my hospital appointments.

As £20-£30 fridge sounds doable by December so I only need 4-5 weeks of very cheap non-fridge meals which Im sure we can survive on. Id eat beans on toast for 2 weeks and spaghetti on toast for the next two but hubby likes to feel like he has had a dinner, hes a meat and potatoes man so I need foods that will fool him into thinking hes had a big meal :-).

withabix

Try Freegle or Freecycle.

Or, as the poster above suggests, can you get a Crisis Loan?

Perpetuallyconfused

I have thought of a crisis loan but Im trying to avoid it as its more debt and we have enough of that unfortunately. I will have a look around online for something going cheap or free with any luck on freecycle. Thank you!

merlot123

I hope I'm not sticking my nose in where its not wanted, but you say you have debts? Are you making the minimum payments? If so, you shouldn't be leaving yourself short of money for essentials (and a fridge is an essential, in my opinion), could you talk to the Citizens Advice Bureau or a debt charity (cccs are a free to use charity, googled it) and set up a token payment plan (some creditors will take as little as £1 per month), and then you will have a little spare cash to make ends meet a little easier.

Sorry, I can't help with the meal ideas.

Perpetuallyconfused

We are making minimum payments,its all we can afford. Its my stupid fault for becoming ill and hubby having to give up working, we were able to pay them off before that happened and still manage to survive ok. Most months things are tight but its doable, its just we got hit with the electricity bill, the gas bill and the quarterly tv license all in one month, actually in one week of each other. We have paid off our bills but now we are kind of stuck until December. Thanks for the suggestion, I will get hubby to pop along to the Citizens Advice anyway,it cant do any harm.

merlot123

Its not your fault, things happen in life and situations change.

You cannot afford the minimum payments if you are going without essentials, please phone the CCCS today http://www.cccs.co.uk/?gclid=CIX-lrzaiqwCFUtB4Qod22V4ng they will help you today and mention you are very short of cash this month and your fridge has broken. The call is free and they will not judge you, but will help and advise you.

FarmersWife_2

I agree with merlot123. Phone the cccs. We had debts of £40k from my partners previous marriage... we were paying nearly £700 a month towards these debts which obviously we couldnt afford, we now pay £136 which lets us live our lives now, its a huge weight off your mind trust me. Yes we might be paying them for the next 18 years but at least we are paying them and still living

Perpetuallyconfused

Thanks so much, I will give them a call today and see if they can help at all. We do want to pay back our debts as its totally our fault that we got them, it would be nice to not have to panic about money every month though.

JayJay14

Good advice from the other posters about CCCS - your certainly won't lose by calling them and you could gain big time.

In the mean time, if you are not averse to tinned meatballs and the like try serving them in giant yorkshires, I always find a nice big yorkie makes any filling seem luxury. Toad in the hole is one of my favourites. There are usually basic mixes in the supermarkets and if they need milk dried is fine.

If you can shop every two days then eating meat on day one and then vegie on the other would work. It would be worth trawling page 1 of the grocery challenge thread, there are literally hundreds of recipe ideas listed there many of them cheap and chearful. The other good place to start is http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/ which was set up by our very own Weezl and everything is tried and tested by MSE posters.

Good luck and get on the phone to CCCS today.