Feed a family of four for £20 a week challenge

Butterfly_Brain

New Shadow, loving your recipes.:T

I make my own beef stock, my local butcher has what he calls soup bones and they cost 50p for a huge bag and they still have meat on them.

Butterfly_Brain

Borrowed a friend's spare transit van and spent the morning at Wickes getting plasterboard and finishing plaster, which is now sitting in the utility room :eek: DH is just going to patch it until after Christmas and then he will replace the whole ceiling.
I am trying to talk him into new kitchen units from Ikea as well as a bathroom refurb

It cost a total of £25 and we felt it better to do it ourselves because we have a £200 excess on our house insurance, so no point in phoning them. It is a good job the kitchen is small, not that I am always moaning that it is
The plumber cost nothing because it was on our Homeserve policy which doesn't have an excess charge. I have had the policy for ten years and I have never had to use them before, all in all I am very happy with their service.

Butterfly_Brain

As you can see I haven't had time to sit and think about meal plans, but I will try and get my botty in gear tonight.

nursemaggie

Money the bus fares are for my son who comes shopping with me to carry things. He is also very useful for reaching things as I am rather short. I have been know to climb the shelves but I am getting a bit too old for that now. There are never any staff when you need them.

25lb cat is the best laugh I have had for ages.

No I am not donating to charity at the moment as outgoings are exceeding income at the moment without food.

Nargleblast

nursemaggie I thought of another blogger you might want to look up - Thrifty Lesley. She has posted a lot of menu ideas aiming to keep the cost of meals down to £1 per person per day, that's for breakfast, lunch and evening meal.
I know you say you're not fans of soups, but a home made veg soup with added beans and bits of bacon offcuts, served with home made bread and followed by a homemade pud with a tin or sachet of supermarket cheapo custard - there's a substantial meal. I know some forum members have a soup and pud night once a week to save on food bills.

Nargleblast

Another thought - The Pauper' s Cookbook by Jocasta Innes. Written in the Seventies, still good today for cheap meals. It has also been updated a few times since.

nursemaggie

I am really sorry if I have offended anyone. I did not ask everyone to produce lots of lists. They are useful to others.

There are no sausages available anywhere where I live so cheap as 60p.

It is obvious from reading today's thread that other MrMs do not have the restricted range the manager of my local one has introduced.

I saw the manager of my local MrM yesterday and complained about there being very little cheaper food available. The cheapest frozen bird in my MrM is a £17 1.5kilo turkey labeled as a £3 chicken which is what I usually buy.

He was obviously lying as he said none of the things were available to order, as others have said different. I was pretty sure he was lying as he paused for several minutes before he said they were not on the list to order. I thought I was speaking for many others. Obviously he does not care that the poor will struggle for 5 weeks if he ever orders them again.

Actually I cannot think that Mr M would go to the expense of producing a special order form for Christmas.

I did suggest to DS that we don't have a Christmas dinner on Christmas day and go shopping on Boxing day for reduced. He thought it was a good idea. I am certainly thinking about it. Chicken is a common meal for us anyway so I don't think it matters a bit if we don't.

Why did I put in busfares? Well actually if you are trying to cut out every penny you can and the title is "feed a family of 4 for £20 a week " I thought about why we were spending it to go to Ald! especially as we still have to walk nearly another mile after we get off the bus.

DS has something wrong with his knee that is not treatable and it limits his walking and I can't walk far due to arthritis and cancer It really is the best we can do. £4 represents nearly 25% of the £20. I decided it was quite a lot to have to save at Ald! taking into consideration there are just two of us. We cut the visits to once a month.

I could spend my entire week going on the bus round all of the supermarkets but I value the time I have and don't wish to make a full time job + of trying to save a few pence here and there. Overall for what I buy which is mainly ingredients MrM is probably as good as anywhere. All the other supermarkets are not directly accessible by bus.

Nargleblast

You could consider going shopping late Christmas Eve, and catch the reductions in meat and veg as shops reach desperation point! So you might get a Christmas dinner after all at a reduced price.

lilbert

nursemaggie wrote: »

I am really sorry if I have offended anyone. I did not ask everyone to produce lots of lists. They are useful to others.

There are no sausages available anywhere where I live so cheap as 60p.

It is obvious from reading today's thread that other MrMs do not have the restricted range the manager of my local one has introduced.

I saw the manager of my local MrM yesterday and complained about there being very little cheaper food available. The cheapest frozen bird in my MrM is a £17 1.5kilo turkey labeled as a £3 chicken which is what I usually buy.

He was obviously lying as he said none of the things were available to order, as others have said different. I was pretty sure he was lying as he paused for several minutes before he said they were not on the list to order. I thought I was speaking for many others. Obviously he does not care that the poor will struggle for 5 weeks if he ever orders them again.

Actually I cannot think that Mr M would go to the expense of producing a special order form for Christmas.

I did suggest to DS that we don't have a Christmas dinner on Christmas day and go shopping on Boxing day for reduced. He thought it was a good idea. I am certainly thinking about it. Chicken is a common meal for us anyway so I don't think it matters a bit if we don't.

Why did I put in busfares? Well actually if you are trying to cut out every penny you can and the title is "feed a family of 4 for £20 a week " I thought about why we were spending it to go to Ald! especially as we still have to walk nearly another mile after we get off the bus.

DS has something wrong with his knee that is not treatable and it limits his walking and I can't walk far due to arthritis and cancer It really is the best we can do. £4 represents nearly 25% of the £20. I decided it was quite a lot to have to save at Ald! taking into consideration there are just two of us. We cut the visits to once a month.

I could spend my entire week going on the bus round all of the supermarkets but I value the time I have and don't wish to make a full time job + of trying to save a few pence here and there. Overall for what I buy which is mainly ingredients MrM is probably as good as anywhere. All the other supermarkets are not directly accessible by bus.

nursemaggie - I felt really sad to hear of your struggles and my instant thought was 'what can I do to help'. I think that's why people have been posting suggestion and lists etc. Sorry if your offended by this, honestly people were just trying to help that's all this forum is about. I appreciate your input I've not had to live on £20 week for my family of 4 but this thread is saved as an emergency stop gap. Good to know the effects is has having to live this way though would it help if we tried to come up with cheap recipes to fill in missing calories at all? x

nursemaggie

Really there is no need. I am trying to hang on to no precessed food and no GM food. It is the diet I am advised to have by my oncologist.

I am not offended, I just wanted to point that out there did not appear to be enough calories. I was very worried the day before yesterday as DS was refusing to eat at all. He is blaming himself but it is not his fault. I do not know anyone who can be in two places at once. He did spend 40 minutes on the phone letting the DWP know he was on the course. He was told he had to be on the course and did not have to be at the job centre at the same time. As DS has not done anything wrong (though he may have been wrongly advised the first time) it is not his fault. The first time he was sanctioned he kept telling them at the job centre he was moving house. He told them for weeks beforehand and when he knew he went in and told them the date. He pointed out he was moving 500 miles, we did it to save rent.

They all laughed at him when he kept telling them he was moving and they also said they would cancel his appointment. They did not cancel it. and It seems to me the laugh from everyone was because they had already decided they would sanction him. They should have told him he also had to inform the DWP. It is wrong these things are kept secret.

I know what happens with these things I used to work for a local authority their rule for disciplinaries was once guilty always guilty even it they had not proved it either way at any time. No it was not a written rule but it was always what happened.

Yes I did train in the NHS. I have a total of 3 children the eldest is 42. I was a SAHM for the youngest two. In those days you did not get credits for staying at home to take care of your children. For years I worked part time in nursing homes until my back went.

My Dr refused to treat me if I did not change my job. I spent my last 20 years as a warden. There was no lifting with that.

Years ago if you left the NHS even just to have a baby you had your pension payments returned to you. As I only work part time until the last 20 years I only have half a state pension and a very small local authority pension. I retired early because of my arthritis. My back is so painful it feels broken when I wake. The pain is identical to a fresh break. It takes me about 15 minutes to get out of bed and is excruciatingly painful. I had what little pension I do have reduced by 25% for retiring early. It had ceased to be possible to retire on health grounds.

Please keep posting recipes for other people. Not everyone has cooked from scratch all there life.

I had forgotten the name of Monday pie. I am sure it did not have soya mince in it when I first cooked it. It was in the dairy diary about 35 years ago. I have adapted it lots of ways. It is a good recipe if you do not have enough cold meat to go round.