£5 for five days

LE3

adelight wrote: »

it's really difficult from scratch. hmmm, well shopping at lidl/mrS/mrA i'd get:

porridge 39p
value jam 19p
onions 39p
carrots 49p
rice 40p
split peas 49p
SR flour 52p
value kidney beans 18p
pigs liver (£1/kg asda) 50p
value vinegar 13p
tinned potatoes 23p
passata 39p
mushy peas 8p
value grapefruit segments 34p
£4.72

i'd make loads of hm tortillas, versatile and saves yeast/cooking time. sweat some onions in vinegar to make some chutney, turn some of the liver into pate, refried beans(kidney beans, onions, little passata)
breakfast: porridge or hm tortillas with jam + grapefruit
lunches: split pea & vegetable soup, tortillas with kidney beans/onion chutney/pate, onion+carrot bhajis
dinners: split pea curry & rice, liver & onions w/spuds & carrots/peas, rice w/beans and onion

Oooh, where can you get oats for 39p? Cheapest I've found is 55p, that would give me a few extra pennies which are the difference i need!
I'm working on making tortillas etc too - unfortunately i can't eat tomatoes which form the basis of most people's meals but the ideas here are getting me thinking about alternatives that I can eat ... I can get breakfasts & dinners well within budget but then struggle for lunches ... It's coming down to what fruit& veg are on aldi's super 6 that week - I won't have a problem if it was this week as the potatoes & apples would be perfect, but if it's all stuff I can't eat next week then I'm going to struggle!!

adelight

LE3 wrote: »

Oooh, where can you get oats for 39p? Cheapest I've found is 55p, that would give me a few extra pennies which are the difference i need!
I'm working on making tortillas etc too - unfortunately i can't eat tomatoes which form the basis of most people's meals but the ideas here are getting me thinking about alternatives that I can eat ... I can get breakfasts & dinners well within budget but then struggle for lunches ... It's coming down to what fruit& veg are on aldi's super 6 that week - I won't have a problem if it was this week as the potatoes & apples would be perfect, but if it's all stuff I can't eat next week then I'm going to struggle!!

it's for 500g, not 1kg i'm afraid, from lidl

can you eat lentil soup? potato salad from tinned?

PasturesNew

It's not just the budgeting, it is the emotional and psychological effect... as a single person you are sitting alone in your grim/unheated place, watching your 1/3 a can of beans heat up and waiting for your piece of value toast... that you cut the green bits off.

People with families and friends can have a laugh for a few days, then plan their Friday night binge drink/foodfest to forget all about it. Meanwhile, the single person's sitting home alone, staring at that last piece of bread ... and their last scraping of beans ..... again.

PasturesNew

My meals would consist of:
- Giant yorkshire pudding, filled with mash, cheap root veggies and onion gravy
- Beans on toast
- Cheap noodles
- Egg curry (1 boiled egg, halved, sitting on top of a pile of rice, a curry sauce of curry powder/water on top)
- Cauliflower soup, cauliflower/potato soup
- Cauliflower curry, chickpea curry
- Pan pizza made with flour/water and topped with onions/tomatoes (probably no cheese)
- Vegetable chilli and rice
- Vegetable curry and rice
- Spanish omelette (with eggs, spuds, onions)

One meal I LOVE is just thinly sliced carrots, with thinly sliced swede, served with a pile of mash and gravy.

RAS

Difficult to do for one person – two for £10 is much better

I put this listing together over Easter when Morrisons had a half price deal on salad cheese and Lidl were doing very cheap carrots. Pasta seems to be the cheapest option is you are buying for one – 6 or 7 portions for 37p whilst potatoes would be 50p for 4 portions.

So this is built round a bag of pasta, a tin of cheap highly flavoured fish and either a tin of hotdogs or a portion of salad cheese (morrisons introductory offer). If neither of these are available, 99p stores do 99p chunks of mature cheddar and bacon.

Porridge for breakfast and soup and a sarnie for the second meal. Black tea or iced tea to drink if you select the cheaper options, water if you have no money spare.

If you can forage for wild garlic it will lift all the pasta dishes.

Pasta 39p Co-op, Sainbury's, Lidl – 37p for Spaghetti in co-op
Tomatoes 33p Co-op or Lidl (passata)
carrots 34p Lidl from 1.5kg
Greek Style Salad cheese 79p Morrisons or mature Chedder 99p stores
or 8 hotdogs in brine 68p Lidl or C-op
Sardines in oil or tomato 39p Home bargains
Bargain wholemeal loaf 49p Sainburys or Co-op – freeze and use as required
Porridge oats 76p Co-op
Fat (margarine) 89p Co-op
Onions(2) 22p – co-op 250g @ 85p/kg
Mixed herbs 20p Sainbury's

£4.71/£4.80/£5.00

Breakfast - porridge

Lunch – soup carrot – using pasta water as thickener and a one onion
Plus bread or sardine paste sandwich or hotdog in bread or cheese sandwich

mains

basic tomato sauce made with 3/4 onion, some grated carrot, fried up and tinned tomatoes added – cook down. Divide into three.

One portion – add half the tin of sardines in large flakes with oil or sauce. Boil 75g pasta and add half sardine sauce. Save half the sauce for day three.

One portion – add remaining chopped onion and 2-4 roughly chopped hotdogs. boil 100g pasta and add half the sauce (or half the sauce and the heated chopped dogs. Save other portion for day 4
Alternatively add one quarter salad cheeses and use over two days

One portion is halved.

One half mashed fine. If possible add a pinch of sugar. Use this to moisten the bread for the hotdogs or to add to salad cheese to make pizza sarnies. The other half is used on the remaining 100g pasta - you could save a hotdog for this day.

The remaining half sardines – mash finely with pepper if possible. Use as a spread on toast or bread
4 hot-dogs – heat one dog and wrap in bread (warmed slightly) moistened with the tomato sauce

Two for a tenner

Assumes both cheese and hotdogs and requires a second pack of cheap pasta.

Add

Sugar 82p 99p stores
UHT Milk 52p Lidl or 36p fresh whoopsie at Waitrose
Self raising flour 52p Lidl though I thought I saw this for 40p somewhere?
Spaghetti 37p Sainbury's
Split peas 49p Sainbury's
Tin tomatoes 33p Co-op or Lidl
onions 28p Extra cost of bag of 6 on market
Eggs 80p barn in co-op
Hotdogs 66p As above

£4.79
I would be tempted to add 20p for ground black pepper at Sainsbury's and if there was any spare buy some budget vinegar (I think Sainsbury’s is 13p?).

Allows porridge to be accompanies by sugar and milk. One day, this is replaced by Scottish pancakes (one egg, flour and milk)

More variety in main and second meal ; three with tomato based sauce (Sardine, hotdog and cheese) and one pasta dish would be mixed with two eggs with some grated cheese and herbs and the final one white sauce flavoured with onion and cheese . Extra onion allows some to be added as chunks to tomato dishes. Or use the extra eggs to make a rough tortilla?

Soup would be carrot 2 days and split pea on the other 3 days.

Some spilt peas can be simmered until just cooked and then mashed with some used either as a mock hummus for sandwiches or made into mock falafel and a little used to bulk out the sardine paste for sandwiches.

The addition of sugar enables a small amount of porridge oats to be diverted to make flap-jack – allowing a sweet snack on three or four days (depending how small the portions are).

When the oven is on for the flap-jack, one egg, and the same weight in sugar, flour and fat can be creamed together to fill either a 7” sandwich tin or 6-8 buns.

Boodle

Some interesting thoughts and ideas from everyone. It is much easier to do a family of 4 (in fact we usually do a 7 day shop on about the same anyway, apart from the odd top-up every few months) but we will try it with from-scratch cupboards which just means a little bit more effort and creativity. As a single person I actually enjoyed my solitary time quite a lot, but then I was working so spent a certain amount of time in the middle of a bustling rush hour and all day dealing with people! I suppose it would be quite different if I was unemployed. Food for thought, so to speak.

In the spirit of the challenge, I decided to try and plan for 1 person for the £5, without going over and using only a certain amount from a packet - the point for me was raising awareness of hand to mouth living so tried to keep that in mind, as well as trying to keep a relatively balanced diet. It has taken me around 6 hours of planning to get this far!

This is my list, all from Asda:

Tin of bean and pea mix 25p
500g self raising flour 40p
Smartprice mustard 34p
Smartprice malt vinegar 13p
Onions x 3 22.8p
Carrots x 5 39p
Smartprice fruit and nut mix 200g bag 58p
Smartprice tin of peaches 29p
Smartprice cornflakes 750g bag 46p
Smartprice 1 litre soya milk 59p
Smartprice salad bag 44p
Smartprice tin of baked beans 29p
Smartprice pasta 30p
Smartprice tea bags 27p

Total £4.96 .... if you preferred dairy milk, then with smartprice UHT milk at 49p the total would be £4.86.

Breakfasts
Cornflakes with milk and a cup of tea (cereal is fortified with vitamins and minerals, bonus!)

Lunches
Bean pate on scones, and a couple of peach slices diced up afterwards.

(bean pate would be made with half the tin of bean and pea mix with a little mustard and vinegar to taste)
(scones would be made with 200g self raising flour, 100ml milk, 1 tbsp vinegar and of mustard - baked at 180C for 20 minutes)

Snack
1 carrot per day cut into batons and some of the nuts from the fruit and nut mix

Dinners
Pasta with marinated onion and raisin salad, with salad leaves x 2
(marinate a sliced onion and some of the raisins from the fruit unt mix in a combo of vinegar, mustard and water for a couple of hours, then mix wit freshly cooked pasta)

Baked beans on toasted soda bread, with salad leaves

(use half the tin of baked beans. Make the soda bread using around 100g self raising flour, mix in 50ml milk with 1 tbsp vinegar and add a handful of raisins from the fruit nut mix. Shape on a bakig tray and bake at 80C for around 40 minutes. Split and toast the cut sides when cooled slightly. Top with beans.)

Southern-style Cobbler, with salad leaves x 2

(put the remaining half of the baked beans and tin of bean and pea mix in a casserole dish with a diced onion and a diced carrot. Put in an 180C oven for around 30 minutes. Mix the cobbler mix up: stir 100ml milk and 1 tbsp vinegar and 1 tsp mustard into 200g self raising flour. Spoon the cobbler mix over the top and bake a further 20-30 minutes.)

PasturesNew

I can't do the challenge... I've just spent my £5 on:
1 hot pasty (£1)
1 reduced pizza (£1.25)
Packet of chocolate biscuits and bag of bounty bars in Aldi, while looking for chillies (which they don't sell) (£1.58)
1 bag of chillies (shop doesn't sell them in 1's and I'd just done a 20 mile round trip so thought s0d it) £1.

====
£4.58 spent .... oops.

Well, I have an excuse, I'm moving, so just eating "quick/easy" food this weekend as I don't want to be lugging groceries around.

Gaia

this could be a useful thread:
Meal for two for 50p. Suggestions?
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/326929

Doom_and_Gloom

I want to do this again this year for a whole week again so £7 to work with.




Shopping list

• basic tea - 27p
• basic kidney beans x2 - 36p
• basic baked beans - 29p
• self raising flour - 52p
• basic mixed fruit - 64p
• basic onions - 90p
• soya milk - 59p
• basic rice - 40p
• tinned tomatoes x2 - 62p
• basic mixed vegetables - 75p
• 800g wholemeal bread - 47p
• 250ml vegetable oil - 38p (my share of a 1L bottle 'as if sharing' with others doing the challenge)
• Basic noodles (curry) x 2 - 22p
• Basic ketchup - 21p

That totals £6.62
So 38p for herbs and spices as well as maybe a reduction or 2 .

Breakfasts
Fruity pancakes http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org....opt=rbreakfast

Luches/dinners
Bean curry with rice.
Vegetable chilli with rice
Noodles with veg and ketchup (I won't use the sachets).
Toast and fried onions

Drinks
Water
Tea with soya milk

Winchelsea

Will be away this weekend, coming back on Monday (at DGD's hen weekend!) - so will start my 5 day challenge on Tuesday and end on Saturday.

My only problem is that I'm not very good at asking people for sponsorship - maybe I'll get better once I'm actually doing it!

By the way, last time I looked, the Lidl porridge oats had gone up to 45p. In fact I think a few things have gone up since we've been talking about all this (what's new? )