Very Frugal Meals

honeythewitch

SchmooSquidge wrote: »

Hello, I'm new & not sure about the different sections, so please forgive me if I'm in the wrong section.

I need to find ideas that will turn £7-£10 into a weeks worth of healthy dinners for two adults & 2 children. That's not per head, that's total. Any ideas please? Tia x

I agree with others that it is no longer possible to provide a healthy diet on such little money, however, for an emergency, and going on the assumption that you have nothing else in, and that if you have so little money you wont be bothered cooking anything unfamiliar, and that the last thing you need is the children refusing food when there is nothing else I have compiled this shopping list.


From Iceland...

40 sausages. 2.00
40 fish fingers. 2.00

From tesco.
seven packets of value instant mash . 1.96
4 packs of value rice. 1.60
large (400g) packet of bourbon cream biscuits. 0.43

From farmfoods...
Three packets of frozen peas. 2.00

This comes to £9.99.

I suggest repackaging everything into portions for every day so you dont have the worry of it running out.
It will be two meals a day.
one packet of instant mash with fish fingers and peas for one meal, and half a packet of rice (500g) with sausages and peas for the other. (swap the rice and mash some days?)
The biscuits are for the children in the morning or at night.
It will be very grim but should be adequate as a one off. Best of luck!

Tommelise

You have already received good advice. If you come back later to answer some of the questions you have had on this tread you will get better help – especially if you make a list of anything you already have in store.

From your other posts it seems you originally had a budget of 50 Pounds a week but this will be reduced to 42 Pounds in september.

Have you looked into you into your budget in general? On the debt free wannabee board you will find a friendly bunch ready to look at where you could reduce you outgoings in general if you post a statement of affairs: Link
- might be worth a try.

There are some treads with low budget meals that you could look at here on the old style board – but please note some of the treads are old and any price mentioned will be outdated . Press the blue title to go directly to the tread.

£7.00 per week - menu ideas - from 2012 - even then it was very difficult to make a menu for 2 adult for this amount - these menues are not healty longterm
Feed a family of four for £20 a week challenge also from 2012- same as above
£10 a week food shop' girl. - Jack Monroe
Food budget £12.50 a week
£10 to £15 for food a week? – from 2011
Help! £40 to feed family for the month – from 2008
Meal ideas under £1- from 2008
Meal Suggestions - £30 A Fortnight to Spend
Cheapest recipies.-Started in 2005
Meal for two for 50p. -Started in 2006
Rice recipes
The glory of porridge

Link to JackieO's miser's online cookbook - cheap recipes compiled by a very wise user of the old style board : https://www.dropbox.com/s/4owxi9d3oa...My Miser.doc

craigywv

I would do porrige for breakfast for everyone approx 1 bag and jug of milk =approx 1.80. Then 15 eggs and get reduced bread make sandwiches 2 loaves 20p at closing in our tescos eggs 1.35. Make big pot of veg soup basics frozen bag approx 50p and onion and salt and pepper say 25p.2 packs of the 2.00 mince and stretch this like a rubber band to the extreme bulk out with porrige oats if need be buy bag of spuds and bag basic rice make chips and /or fried rice using the eggs ,basic jar curry sauce 20p.spuds 1.25 rice 40p. Comes to approx 9.95 thats as good as i could get you without knowing what you have in your cupboards. Other grub is pk of batter 15p and basics sausages make toad in the hole, approx 90p sausages. I would go and see what you can get reduced first. You need fruit for the kids and veg. I could prob do it better if it was for myself but not knowing what you already have i am limited. Maybe buy a bit more the next few weeks and stock up on flour, marg,sugar and make your own buns and pancakes and suchlike. Hope someone can assist you better. I was in your postition in 2012 as husband was made redundant and it scared me witless but i came on this site and such a help i was given. Dont be afraid to ask for advice its free xxx

cats_ahoy

As well as trying to make the £7-10 go as far as possible, can you cut down spending any where else as well? Maybe do a Statement of Affairs to try and work out if there are any other areas money could be saved on. I agree with the other posters £7-10 is OK short term, but not good in the long term. Listing what food you have in cupboards fridge freezer etc can give people an idea of what meals you could make out of them.

Upsidedown_Bear

This was posted elsewhere on the OS board by Greying Pilgrim (thank you) :)

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Hey Grocery Challengers!

Sorry you don't *know* me - I'm not currently doing the challenge - but I wanted to pass on some information/recipes that I've come across, regarding recipes for tight budgets.

Some of you may know that in the US, folks are issued 'food stamps' - although the program has now been renamed 'SNAP'. Anyhow, it only equates to about $4 per person perday for food - not a lot huh? So a gal - called Leanne Brown - who was doing a masters degree in food nutrition, noticed that folks on this program ate a lot of carbs to fill up. So she got practical, and devised a cookbook to make meals that were within the budget of $4 per day. Her efforts were warmly welcomed in the US, and she has sought to make it available to folk, so the PDF version of her book, called 'Good and Cheap' is free and you can find it HEREand she has also done another book called 'From Scratch' which you can find, for free, HERE. If you would like to find out more about Leanne, have a look HERE

I know you don't 'know' me, but the links are legit - and Leanne wants people to cook the meals and share the info. So if you, or someone you know, could use these recipes, then share them around. In the US, you can buy a print version of the book, and/or choose to donate $5 so that a print version could be given to a person in need. Pretty much like people bought version of Jack Monroe's book to give to Foodbanks.

Hope this helps someone - there are meat and veggie recipes, and I shall certainly be giving some of the veggie ones a go

Greying

gayle1

sorry need to ask what age are kids do u get healthy start vouchersx

Feral_Moon

It just defies belief that a family can actually have less to feed their entire family per week than another spends in tobacco products per day. There's gotta be more to this. Huge debts or unnecessary spending on lavish Sky packages etc. Could this be a wind up maybe?

honeythewitch

Feral_Moon wrote: »

It just defies belief that a family can actually have less to feed their entire family per week than another spends in tobacco products per day. There's gotta be more to this. Huge debts or unnecessary spending on lavish Sky packages etc. Could this be a wind up maybe?

It could well be a wind up or a journalist looking for material. We have had both, and no way of knowing. But very often families DO have almost no money to live on, often because of the delay when you claim benefits, or sanctions etc, or just unforeseen circumstances.
If the suggestions can help someone in that situation, whether they are the OP or just a reader, then it is worthwhile.

Ladyluck1

Feral_Moon wrote: »

It just defies belief that a family can actually have less to feed their entire family per week than another spends in tobacco products per day. There's gotta be more to this. Huge debts or unnecessary spending on lavish Sky packages etc. Could this be a wind up maybe?

I don't see this as a fair statement AT ALL....
I have been in this position before, my husband works long hours on not much more than Minimum wage. Our rent is quite costly in our entire area and moving away (we live on an island) would mean loosing my whole support network (family). Which I rely on heavily!
My kids are young (one is a baby) so I don't work.

We have a small debt from furnishing our house but we don't smoke, drink OR have sky and I have a pay and go mobile.

Yet I know people who don't work who have all of those things and eat KFC 3 days a week....
I don't think is fair to judge this person based on what they have posted, because they dont have much to feed her family.

My food budget is the only thing I can change/cutdown if an emergency comes up (lightbulbs, car needs fixing etc) seems every month.
So again maybe that has happened.

Please don't judge too quickly. It's hard to be working class at the moment.

gayleygoo

It would be very difficult to live long-term on £10 a week for a family of four. You need to make sure you are meeting minimum calorie requirements, especially the growing children. Do you have anything in the cupboards/fridge/freezer that we could help you figure out meals to make for one or two weeks? What supermarkets can you get to? Are the children entitled to free school meals or healthy start vouchers?

If you can get to supermarket in the evenings, you may be able to find some YS bread, potatoes and veggies to see you through a few days. Other than that, buy value porridge and make it up with water for breakfast. For lunches, pasta and a simple tomato sauce made with value tinned tomatoes and value dried herbs will do a few cheap meals. Lentils added to it are a cheap source of protein. (Depends on the supermarket though, value herbs are 85p in Tesco :eek: but only 25p in Asda). Value biscuits will give the children energy even if they don't provide other nutrition.

See if there is a foodbank in your area, as you probably qualify. Check if there are other ways to reduce your spending. Do you receive all the benefits you are entitled to? For two children you should be getting at least £30 a week in CB and more in tax credits.

Just a thought, but I see in your signature you are saving towards something. Can this be put aside for now? It is probably not worth living on £10 a week if you are saving £15 a week for something else.