£7.00 per week - menu ideas

debtmess

Thank you , not used Tesco since 2008 for online shopping after an awful shop with so much missing, which Tesco basically called me a liar for.
We have a Lidl opening shortly (next week sometime) so that will be interesting for any extra spends or to base this list upon if I hold out rather than have my shop arrive at the weekend.

I also have some bits in freezer and cupboard but want to add to my stores for September, so could have cut all meat and some store cupboard bits out of this current shop.

Juice I can get away with watering down a little I normally give them 2-3 cartons a week 2 apple and 1 orange

The chickens do 3 meals each one, 1 roast and 2 with rice or pasta base to them, the soup is done with noodles and frozen peas/sweetcorn and the odd potato.

This thread has pointed out how greedy my house has been over the last year with some things, becoming debt free was great but I lost some sense of budgetting food wise.

Fruball

prepareathome wrote: »

You are all so amazing - I can tweak ( I use Mr S basics sweet and sour as cannot make it for that price) but to write the menu is beyond me.

What I am going to do is cost everything I eat for the next week or so (full price and price of my portion) and see how it goes and see if I can work out a menu but just looking at sites am no good.

I thought it was beyond me too - and it was several hours between me saying I might post a meal plan/shopping list and actually doing it.

I gave up once... didn't think I could possibly do it, then defiance got the better of me so I persevered.

It takes some work, but can be done - not healthily but enough to stop you being hungry on a bad week.

I shocked myself by finding a mealplan where I could feed 2 for £7 - ie £3.50 each... for a week :eek:

I hope and pray I am never in that situation but I know only too well that I could easily be, like many others

xx

debbym

Since this thread contains so much info that it is getting hard to find I've collected the links together so far (when its complete we can ask one of the posters from page 1 to cut and paste it in - pretty please; WIP of course:D bear with me up to p8 and its the school hols:rotfl:

Useful Links
Cheap Family Recipes
Meal for two for 50p thread
Scrummy cheap meal thread
Who doesn't have a stock cupboard thread
Fare share food banks
The Trussell Trust foodbank Network
Trussell Trust Homepage
Frozen veg v. fresh veg medical article
Turkish Food Supermarkets (London based)
Updated prices Cheap Family Recipes
50p til Christmas
Old Style vs the USDA head-to-head challenge
http://www.mumssurvivalguides.co.uk/


recipes
Flour tortillas
Yogurt in a slowcooker
Battered Sausage Chips and Peas
Jacket potato with home made coleslaw and chicken
Vegetable pasta
Vegetable curry and rice
Toad in the hole
pea and ham soup
Tuna Fish Pie
Chicken portions with pea and spring onion champ
Chicken noodle soup
sausage casarole
Beef stew and dumplings
sherperds pie
Onion rings
bacon, onion, tatie soup
quiche
Cheese and bacon lasagne with chips
breakfast hash
Banana yogurt and toasted oat pots
Mushy pea curry and rice
Home made pizza and chips
Sausages with home made croquettes and celeriac mash and peas
Fish cake and salad
Sausage and bean pie
Roast chicken dinner
PG's hm pizza.
mini pizzas
Falafal burger with garlic bread and cheese
Spicy lentil casserole
Creamy courgette lasagne
Cheats' sausage casserole.
Smoked salmon jacket potato
Mussel spaghetti
Bacon hash


menu plans
2 people for 3 weeks upfront (qwintwins)
Menu for 2 (ButterflyBrain) week 2 - with recipes

debbym

More MSE threads on super cheap foods both were started by Weezl of cheap family recipes fame.
50p til Christmas
and the original and still the best
Old Style vs the USDA head-to-head challenge

Soworried

Debbym, that is great. :j

Butterfly_Brain

debtmess if you go into Farmfoods 12 tins of pepsi max are only £3 ( I know I love it too)

Mrs_Addicted_to_Spending

quintwins wrote: »

i've never found the os board any less than welcoming and have never heard anything other than good things about it, lots of other forums send people in rouble this way.

anyway back to the task in hand

this is avery unhealthy one but....

cheats fish and chips

value fish in batter 69p
1/3 bag value frozen chips 43p
tin mushy pea's 4p

toatl £1.16 per person 29p

we had this fish a few weeks back as i have very very busy days on a thur and wanted something quick and easy, it was really nice hubby acually said i should buy it again (this is the man that grew up on m&s and branded food) we don't like mushy peas so we had beans with ours, and value frozen chips at £1.30 a bag feature in our freezer often as a back up (read that as avoid chinese tool) we use around 1/3 of a bag for 5 of us and a split 2 fish between the 3 kids they really liked it.

Just for the recorded this has more fish in it that the youngs chip shop fish.

Hi - which shop do you get the value fish from? Thanks :T.

debtmess wrote: »

Thank you , not used Tesco since 2008 for online shopping after an awful shop with so much missing, which Tesco basically called me a liar for.
We have a Lidl opening shortly (next week sometime) so that will be interesting for any extra spends or to base this list upon if I hold out rather than have my shop arrive at the weekend.

I also have some bits in freezer and cupboard but want to add to my stores for September, so could have cut all meat and some store cupboard bits out of this current shop.

Juice I can get away with watering down a little I normally give them 2-3 cartons a week 2 apple and 1 orange

The chickens do 3 meals each one, 1 roast and 2 with rice or pasta base to them, the soup is done with noodles and frozen peas/sweetcorn and the odd potato.

This thread has pointed out how greedy my house has been over the last year with some things, becoming debt free was great but I lost some sense of budgetting food wise.

I do most of my shopping in Lid! now as it's cheaper and the quality of the food is great. I just get a few bits that I can't get at Lid! in the main sm's.


When I was a student (a long time ago) I only had £4 a week for food (not including weekends as I saw my boyfriend then (now DH) and he fed me - took pity on me :rotfl:). I survived on jacket potatoes with beans, tuna or coleslaw, rice with peas and sweetcorn, pasta either just with olive oil and seasoning or with tomato sauce (made with tinned toms). I had cheap cereal or toast for brekkie and sarnies for lunch (sometimes just with jam or lemon curd) and had an apple every day (as it was the cheapest fruit at the time).

It was a very limited diet but necessary at the time when you couldn't get student loans. I must admit, I wouldn't want to live like that again for very long. Luckily it was only for a year as it was a post graduate course :eek:.

Your suggestions on here are much more varied and creative though - I wish I'd had access to them before now! Thank you :T.

quintwins

Mrs_Addicted_to_Spending wrote: »

Hi - which shop do you get the value fish from? Thanks :T.

Tesco it's frozen in a wee small box, the fish isn't massive but theres plenty for 4 people.



I do most of my shopping in Lid! now as it's cheaper and the quality of the food is great. I just get a few bits that I can't get at Lid! in the main sm's.


When I was a student (a long time ago) I only had £4 a week for food (not including weekends as I saw my boyfriend then (now DH) and he fed me - took pity on me :rotfl:). I survived on jacket potatoes with beans, tuna or coleslaw, rice with peas and sweetcorn, pasta either just with olive oil and seasoning or with tomato sauce (made with tinned toms). I had cheap cereal or toast for brekkie and sarnies for lunch (sometimes just with jam or lemon curd) and had an apple every day (as it was the cheapest fruit at the time).

An apple a day keeps the dr away:rotfl:

It was a very limited diet but necessary at the time when you couldn't get student loans. I must admit, I wouldn't want to live like that again for very long. Luckily it was only for a year as it was a post graduate course :eek:.

Your suggestions on here are much more varied and creative though - I wish I'd had access to them before now! Thank you :T.

it could be worse think of all the student debt you missed out on, i have to say i was no where near this creative when i was younger, when we first got married 6 years ago we had £20 to live off a week after our rent was paid and that had to include electric and clothes, i was pregnant with twins at the time, and i just went to iceland and got whatever i could, bacon mash and beans and fishfingers and chips featured alot, it wasn't til i had the kids that i stepped up my game to try and get as much fruit and veg and healthy food into our budget (also we had tax credits and cb at that point aswell).

debbym thats amazing welldone.

BAGGY

Got to page 10 and I am so impressed.
Don't know if this has been mentioned but has Heuvos Rancheros been posted? This is my cheap, quick to cook meal when you need to use up floppy veg from the fridge. Normally...
1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 stick celey (poss 1/2 a pepper if Aldi super 6). Fry this up with value bacon, left over sausage (the spicier the better), ham or garlic sausage slices. Add a tin of chopped toms and 1/2 tin of value baked beans or handfull of sweetcorn for bulk. I suppose tinned peas even but I've not bought these ever, although if only 4p I will investigate, add chilli and mixed herbs and S&P. when bubbling plop in an egg each person. You may need to add some water if it looks dry. Cover with a lid and poach the eggs to your preference. We eat this with HM bread or value pitta.

PhGage

I had a meal plan for the week which I've now changed in order to try out the £7 menu that I have in mind. No menu is going to suit that many people: if we had to, this menu would work for us because we like fish, chickpea/besan flour, dried peas and rice and because I have a sweet tooth for savoury items

As mentioned above, one problem would be that if other people's suggestions are unfamiliar to you, you wouldn't be willing to risk the money out of your tiny budget in case you loathed it.

Interestingly, I've already had to change the fish on my shopping list because My Supermarket reports that Princes Pilchards in Tomato Sauce are 75% fish but the label states 65% and that 42g difference was enough to blow out one of the lunches so I had to rethink that.

I'm trying out the recipes so will post a shopping list etc. when I'm happy with them.

The talk about Coca Cola reminded me of the Jimmy's Food Factory segment about it where he made his own. Stefan Gates has a recipe as well (I think it's in The Extraordinary Cookbook) that won a taste test on This Morning. I think you'd need to pay for at least a year's worth upfront with the price of the oils and the soda sparkle