cheap meals with no fridge/freezer?

adelight

Store things that need to be in the fridge on the window sil at night, like milk and err that's about it- or buy uht milk. People do this at the ymca by me, they don't have fridges so each window is lined with milk in the winter. Do you have a cool bag or a really cold part of the house/garden? Could you hunt it out with a thermometer? If you want meat, buy something cheap like sausages and cook them all on the night you buy them, then put the rest in the coldest place and use in the next 1-2 days (depending how cold it is, i guess in a few weeks it'll be even colder) or buy frozen meat from the shop and leave it to defrost as it'll give you an extra 1-2 days before you need to cook it. If you shop in the evenings stuff will last frozen that little bit longer and you can look for whoopsies- only if they are really cheaper and can replace some other part of your shopping list/meal plan of course.

Limiting asda/morisson trips to save petrol sounds good, just 1-2 times a week maybe? Luckily they're both quite cheap supermarkets with good offers. You can eat for £20/week okay and save the £10 for a new fridge. Buy big bags of the cheapest potatoes, carrots, onions, value rice and pasta and look out for any cheese, tinned tuna, fruit etc that's on offer and make dinners from the 50p meals thread, cheap family recipes etc like jackets and beans/veg chilli, tomato potato bake, curry, pasta bake etc.
Not sure what you would eat for a big brunch, maybe eggs(£1.25 for 15) and toast (2 loaves 50p each)? Or porridge (75p/kilo made with water/half milk) with jam and a banana(£1.15 for 1.5kg)? I would probably just have porridge or toast for breakfast then have a cheap lunch like pasta in hm sauce or soup made from leftover veg blended with stock.
If you think "cheap as possible" rather than "under £30" you will be able to do it even cheap, some weeks you might even manage it for £15 or less

merlot123

Do let us know how you got on with the CCCS.

There is a board on these forums for people having financial difficulties, you may want to pop over to the debt free board and take a look, you will not be judge on that board, the peeps are there to help and advise, alot of us are in the same boat, as I said earlier situations change, it can happen to anyone, it would be great if we had a crystal ball and could plan for future changes but in reality that doesn't happen, and sometimes life gets tougher through no fault of ones own.

rising_from_the_ashes

Perpetuallyconfused wrote: »

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.

Stop beating yourself up .... you can't help that you fell ill.

Already good advice given so I won't repeat except to say sign up for Freecycle/ Freegle and check it several times a day - even if you get an "ok" fridge it'd last for a while until you were able to buy a better on.


For meals, if your hubby can get to the supermarket every few days then small packs of meat etc could be bought for that night - yes it'd be more expensive than buying bigger packs and using over a couple of days but hopefully it'd give him his "meat & 2 veg" fix!

squeaky

I'd suggest that you have a good look here:- Debt-Free Wannabe

This board is brilliant when it comes to helping members deal with their debts. Honest

Good luck

valk_scot

Our council run a scheme where unwanted furniture and white goods are collected at a central warehouse, checked for safety etc and then distributed to needly people for free or a very small donation. It's mostly aimed at people setting up first time homes on very restricted incomes but I know single parents, the elderly and people with disabilities are also welcome. I sent my mum's fridge, washing machine and cooker there when we cleared out her house and all of them were less than a year old. It might be worth seeing if your council has a similar scheme.

In addition, try your local Freecycle or stick a notice up in your local newsagent window or supermarket community notice board. You'd be surprised how many people have things like this sitting in their garage waiting for the owner to get round to taking them to the tip, even though the appliance is perfectly sound. If you've got a car and can save them the journey, you might well strike lucky. My old fridge (bought as an emergency stop-gap item between last fridge dying and kitchen getting refitted two years later) was snapped up from Freecycle in minutes by a very nice young couple setting up house together.

Butterfly_Brain

Get in touch with your local CAB maybe they will be able to help you into a food bank in your area . Or is your local Salvation Army close by? They are always willing to help.

babyshoes

You have had some good advice on here - definitely call the advice lines to see if they can help.

Another place to look for a fridge is on e-bay - there is an option to search only within a certain radius of your postcode, so you can find things which you can pick up. As big stuff can't really be posted, large items like fridges have a smaller 'audience' of people to sell to, and you may find one going really cheaply in your local area. We have previously bought both a dishwasher and chest freezer cheaply on ebay, and lugged them home in the car. You may be lucky and get one for a few quid!

Also just ask around your friends and family - someone may well have an old fridge in a shed or garage that you could borrow or keep. Even one of those novelty mini-fridges would help to keep a few bits cool. (The type designed to hold a six-pack or for student rooms).

The 'value' frozen meat/sausages etc tend to be one of the cheaper options, so if you buy those and put them straight into a cooler bag they should last a few days as well as keeping other stuff like milk cool.

Could you maybe sweet-talk a neighbour or friend into letting you use a little in their fridge/freezer until you can afford a new fridge? That way you could stock up on heavily reduced yellow stickered meat and just take out one thing every day or two to defrost in your cooler bag.