Only £10-15 a month for shopping :(

quintwins

Mushy peas are 8p at tesco so what about pea soup?

Value stock (i'd go for a meaty one like chicken or beef to add flavour) and a tin of 8p peas.

Or noodles soup, chicken stock (10p for 10 make 2 for a bigish pot) 1/5 bag of frozen veg (75p) and a packet of noodles 11p

i make my own noodle soup i tend to do grated carrot, dices frozen brocolli, diced onion, and if i have any (because i only ever buy it reduced to 10p) celery.

I'd also suggest making a big pot of tomatoe sauce, 2 cartons of passata 29p (asda it's dearer everywhere else) 1/3 bag of frozen mixed veg) you really can put anything in this, i like to do mushrooms, peppers and celery but apart from peppers i only buy them reduced so just use whtever i have) once cooked you can add it to pasta as sauce, to spag bol/chilli, top a baked tatie or thin down with stock for soup .

RAS

This thread raises a number of issues; plainly the days when 50p would fund a basic but balanced diet are gone. The first full menu plan and shopping list provided less than 900 calories a day.

Following this up has been an education –

lard @ 44p per 250g is expensive compared the rapeseed oil at £1.29 per litre, when both deliver 900 calories per 100g;

sugar @ 83p per kilo only delivers 400 calories per 100g and works out @2.1p per 100 calories rather than 1.5p for oil.

Lidl have flour @ 55p per 1.5 kg – 2.8p per 100g

Which may explain why Lidl can offer custard creams @31p for 400g and 60 calories per biscuit (1.7p per 100 calories).

Salad cheese is cheaper (75-93p) than mild cheddar slices in Lidl that have 460 calories per 100g compared with 260 for the salad cheese.

Cheese-flavoured slices (aka burger cheese) is still cheaper (60-66p) but has even fewer calories per 100g and costs more per calorie because the bulk potato starch and skimmed milk or whey are low fat.

There are an awful lot of fresh and made products that come in at about 10p per 100 calories from sausages to frozen pizzas, cheap pates, Lidl chocolate @ 35p and budget curry sauces.

The active male requires 2300 calories per day or 69000 calories per 30 day month. At 10p per hundred calories, that is £69.

At 2p per 100 calories the cost is £13.80; at £16 the diet would have to consist of budget rice, oil, bread, split peas, porridge oats and Lidl custard creams and perhaps flour and sugar. The saving grace would be the whoopsie shelf; one local store occasionally offers 200g slabs of pate or a tub of Cornish clotted cream for 10-20p. Forget vegetables and balanced diets.

To be blunt the cheapest option would be to buy a pack of Lidl custard creams for each day totalling £9.30, add a kilo of pasta and 500gs of value mayonnaise to make a pasta salad each day to which provide most of the required calories, which would leave up to £4 to spend on whoopsies, concentrating on buying fresh fruit and veggies and some cheap protein.

immie

(Sorry I haven;t read the whole thread )
What are his other expenses? £10-£15 does seem very little for a month's worth of food. I think dumpster-diving would be a good idea, even going as far as taking food left on the side/tables in fast food shops /big chain pubs, as long as you're doing it discretely/ not being a nuisance no-one even notices.
Maybe he can ask around the area for odd jobs? or gardening? People pay anything up to £30 for an afternoon of casual labour. Or leaflet distributing? He could always cold call local pizza/ kebab/ chinese / indian takeaways to see if they want any leaflets done. If he finds just one job a month he could at double his food budget to £30... is there a market where he lives? he could ask each stall if they want help on saturdays, especially setting up and packing up? (or even work for free in return for food)
Is he studying at the local college? Perhaps they have provisions for a hardship fund? or a bridge loan? and is he getting all the benefits he's entitled to?

immie

RAS wrote: »

This thread raises a number of issues; plainly the days when 50p would fund a basic but balanced diet are gone.

I like your method of working out cost per calorie, never thought of that before!:money:

cabriolean

Is there a neighbour or someone who he can help, sometimes people ask me if I can proof read an essay, or help them put up something, and because it sometimes takes a while, I often get offered biscuits, a share of the meal if they're eating etc. It's a helpful way to spread your budget a little further.
He could do a little housework for a friend, like the washing up etc. in exchange for breakfast.

Happyscrimper

I really don't envy your situation. We don't have a heck of a lot but we have cut back tremendously on things to make sure we have food.
We both got new phone contracts from carphone warehouse. They had a phone plan for £7.50 in which you got a samsung smartphone and assorted bells and whistles. My hubby went for the one with more online minutes and his is about £15/ month.
That helped us alot.

We also try to make sure to turn off any lights or appliances we are not using, that will help save on electric, not much but everything helps a bit.

Now, as far as the actual shopping goes -

Bags of Scottish porridge at tesco for approx 60-70p a bag. Into that you can add sultanas or yoghurt with a bit of honey,brown sugar or golden syrup.

Own brand super noodles from the shops are always pretty cheap.
beans and toast
Spaghetti and sauce. You can buy a bag a noodles for a pound or less and you can make sauce out of chopped tomatoes, passata and some spices, make a big batch and freeze the leftovers.
You can get chicken thighs pretty cheaply, we slather them in bbq sauce and put them in the oven, very yummy.
there are alot of threads about batch cooking but as you said he has a small freezer. Canned goods and dry cupboard items are your friend. Or if you do't live together, could you batch cook a bunch of stuff and bring a few things over at a time to him? You can do this you just have to be creative.

Minced beef is also a good one. You can make spag bol, chili, stew,cottage pie and probably other things i've not thought of from minced beef.

I have had to in the past, feed a family of 4 on £25 so i know what you are going through. Cut back where you can but always feed yourself a good meal. You don't have to spend a fortune to eat well, you just have to do some research and think things through. Try to stay away from processed foods as they take up freezer space and as we've seen recently they are full of all sorts of stuff.

Hope this helps, good luck!

RAS

immie wrote: »

I like your method of working out cost per calorie, never thought of that before!:money:

Actually it was the technique favoured by a very impoverished mum of three girls; not my invention at all.

tessie_bear

RAS wrote: »

Actually it was the technique favoured by a very impoverished mum of three girls; not my invention at all.

seems a pointless exercise to me...the human body needs a variety of nutrients all the calories in the world wont make sure u are getting enough vitc for example

Austin_Allegro

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

It is illegal to take fish from rivers, you have to put them back alive

I don't think that's quite true. It depends on the season, what species you catch, riparian rights (the rights of the landowner on whose bank you are fishing), local byelaws etc. More about it here:

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/recreation/fishing/31465.aspx

RAS

Could someone check this out, costs and calories.

It does not meet the full calorie requirement but is still within £20.

Shopping list

Rice 1 kg– 40p – 8 portions 3550
Pasta 2x500g – 78p – 13 portions @ 200
Rapeseed oil 1 litre - £1.29 9000
Mild cheddar cheese slices – 200g (461) – 99p
Pate 2x100g – 79p 370
Curry sauce 440 – 37p (240 total)
Yellow split peas – 500g 55p - 6 portions (300)
Porridge oats 1kg – 80p – 26 portions (175 with semi skimmed milk)
Roasted peanuts – 200g 48p (458)
Custard creams 2x 400g @ 31p 62p 64 portions (60 per portion)
Bread 2x wholemeal 94 p (268) 3760
Sugar – 1 kg – 83p 400
kidney beans – tin 18p 280
Chocolate 100g – 35p – 360
Salt 19p
Herbs - 18-20p
Eggs x 15 1.79 1215
Potatoes x 2 1.38 1520
Pizza – 63p – 295 per half 2 days.
Flour – 1,5 kg 55p @ 360 per 100g = 2.8p per 100g
Peas x 4 32p 880 – note locally they are much more expensive than this.
Passata 29px2 58p 640
Creamfields milk 2l x 2 £2.00 2600
1 kg value Onions 69p 42 per 100g
Hot dogs 55p 756
Juice 42p 255
Mayonnaise – 45p 3000
Value carrots - 59p

Calories 49639

£18.28

Will have some flour left over and approximately half sugar

Breakfast

Replace toast with porridge 23 days to increase calories and lower GI. At weekends, use flour and one egg plus a little milk to make Scotch pancakes (2 weekends). Or fry bread and one egg (max 2 days).

Lunch
Weekday lunch is mainly sarnies with thin layer of pate or half a slice of cheese (10 days).
Include some cold pasta lunches (6 using half a portion of pasta dressed with mayonnaise) and potato salad lunches (portion potatoes with mayo and a little chopped onion). You could nick one hotdog from the potato bake to add variation or a tbsp. of pasta sauce mixed in.
Weekend lunches – split peas soup inc onions with croutons.
Use some bread (butt ends) to make croutons to add calories to soup or as fried breadcrumbs for pasta.
Calorie dense snacks to add to lunch – 2 x custard creams each day.

Mains
Replace noodles with pasta – cheaper and double calories. Use passata, onion and half the cheese to make pasta bakes (9 days). Pasta – cook 2or 3 days at a time,
Replace veggies with split peas and kidney beans to add protein, fibre and calories to the curry dishes and extend to 8 days. Use oil to fry and to add calories to rice (pilau), topping each day with onion fried in oil.
Half pizza and chips for 2 days.
Either roast or chip the potatoes as they have a higher calorie intake than baked potatoes. Make a batch of either in the oven and use to cook other meals.
At the same time make toad in the hole with half the hot dogs, and some onion in chunks, flapjack (100g oil, 150g each oats and sugar).
Toad and chips 2 days. Gravy would be nice but .. Unless you make your own in the pan with flour and water.
Potato and hotdog bake – potatoes, onion, hotdogs, oil, water or stock 2 days. Make at the same time.
Egg and potatoes for 5 days; try a rough frittata – chopped roast potato, chopped fried onion, add one egg to make a “Spanish omelette”, egg and chips, omelette and fried potatoes.

Calorie dense snacks at the weekend – quarter pack peanuts or 4 chunks chocolate.

Add energy dense snacks to increase calorie intake – infiltrate throughout the day to prevent sugar overload eg one mid-morning, one with lunch, one mid-afternoon, one on arriving home to give time to sort out supper.

Freeze half orange juice and dilute other half (prevents runs). One seventh portion for week one, use the rest in week three
Other ideas

Make pancakes and fill with chilli and a little cheese. Fry lightly until the cheese melts.