Food bill- help!

afreshstart2014

Hello,

I'd be really grateful for any advice offered. I'm having a bit of a moment and I can't see how I can make my money stretch.

I have £41 to buy food for 8 breakfasts (for one), lunch (for 2) and dinners (for 3).
My daughter has a fruit and sugar allergy so i need to be careful (she's disabled generally from health condition).

If anyone can just point me in the direction of some cheap meals i would be grateful. My head hurts

Thanks so much.

Lavandula_Rosemary

£41 for about a weeks worth of meals is quite adequate. There are plenty of threads on here about cheap meals.

Fosterdog

If you post a list of what you already have in the cupboards, fridge and freezer, also a list of what your daughter can't have it would make it easier for people to help you.

Which meals will your daughter be eating? Are the meals for adults or children?

fairy3

Hello and welcome FS you have come to the right place and there are lots of resources to help you here. As Fosterdog says we could do with a little more information before we make a start, so after a cup of tea take a pen and record everything you have in already to either make a meal or part meal.
By my calculations (maths not a strong point!) you need
8 breakfasts, 16 lunches and 24 evening meals so it will be tight but definitely doable as long as you don't have a training athlete in the family lol.
Some idea of what is absolutely out and general likes would be useful too and what stores you are near to or whether you have access to a market? Also do you have any loyalty points?

Good luck and a hug for the headache...it gets better

F x

Lavandula_Rosemary

I may be being over cautious but I do find these types of posts rather suspicious. For a start £41 is about what I spend every week on my weekly supermarket shop and we eat good wholesome healthy and filling meals.

trina2010

If the op is used to having more to spend/spending more a reduction can be hard to fathom. £41 is nothing to some people, to us its a lot and to some of you as well, there's no need to judge when someone is asking for help

Lavandula_Rosemary

I would just say be careful. Some people have been conned on here by people saying they have no money to feed themselves etc. Never send money!

Fosterdog

That's the first time I've heard of members sending money to other members. People come on here with similar questions every week and they get lots of advice and moral support but no money sent to them.

That reminds me OP is there a food bank running in your area, if you can get a referral they should be able to help by providing some food.

kboss2010

afreshstart2014 wrote: »

Hello,

I'd be really grateful for any advice offered. I'm having a bit of a moment and I can't see how I can make my money stretch.

I have £41 to buy food for 8 breakfasts (for one), lunch (for 2) and dinners (for 3).
My daughter has a fruit and sugar allergy so i need to be careful (she's disabled generally from health condition).

If anyone can just point me in the direction of some cheap meals i would be grateful. My head hurts

Thanks so much.

Breakfast: easy - porridge! A bag of oats will cost around 80p. For taste add a tsp of sugar or a tsp of Nutella.

Lunch: HM quiche and sweet potato (the recipe below makes 4 portions of quiche)
People are scared of making pastry and I don't know why, it's easy, takes minutes and costs pennies! I was the queen of microwave meals in my teens, if I can make pastry in less than 5 minutes from 3 ingredients, so can you!

Basic pastry:
200g plain flour
100g margarine
Pinch of salt
Splash of cold water

Rub the butter and flour together with your fingers until it's like breadcrumbs. Add salt then mix with a splash of water, adding a little at a time until the pastry can be made into a ball but NOT wet. Roll and place in the bottom of an oven-proof dish. Bake at 200 oC for 15 minutes. Take out and add the filling then bake until the middle is firm.

Filling:
3 eggs
250 mL milk
Whatever you have in the cupboards: chopped ham, grated cheese, diced onions, broccoli, feta cheese (crumbled), frozen peas.

Bake a sweet potato in the oven or microwave and serve with some frozen veg (peas, sweetcorn, carrots etc,)

Dinner: Lasagna (serves 4)
125g beef mince
1 tin tomatoes
2 beef stock cubes
1 large diced onion
3 large diced carrots
Sprinkle of mixed herbs

White sauce:
300 mL milk
100g plain flour
Salt and pepper
Handful grated cheese

Value pasta sheets soaked in cold water for 30 minutes before layering.

Saut!e the mince, veg, tomatoes and herbs/stock in water until the mince is cooked and the veg is soft.
Make the sauce, stirring until thick.
Layer mince/pasta/sauce/mince/pasta/sauce and bake at 200 oC until it bubbles.

Serve with value garlic bread and salad.

Veg curry: (serves 4)
1/2 diced boiled butternut squash
1/2 tin chickpeas
1 large diced onion/2 small
1 sliced carrot
Tin of tomatoes
1 tbsp each of coriander, cumin and garam masala.
1 garlic clove chopped
Salt and pepper

Boil the diced butternut squash in the microwave (boiling water in a bowl on high for 10 minutes until a knife goes through the cubes easily)
Fry everything together in a pan until the tomato juice reduces and thickens and the chickpeas and onions are soft.

Serve with boiled white rice.

Tip: to make this into a pasta dish, leave out the coriander, cumin and garam masala and add 200 mL single cream and a handful of grated cheese. Boil some pasta, drain and mix in with the veg and tomato sauce!

Shopping tips: for stock cubes, rice, pasta, porridge oats, tinned tomatoes, herbs and spices etc. buy value ranges! The expensive stuff isn't any better when you're cooking it all together!

Buy yellow sticker (YS) cheese, grate and freeze it when it's cheap then use it in sauces, cheesy beans, HM scones etc.

ANY veg can be chopped up and frozen. There's no excuse for anyone to throw away veg.

Bulk out curries and tomato-based sauces with a handful of lentils. Makes your meat and veg go further.

Replace half of the meat in chilli, curry, bolognese etc with diced veg.

Spices, chickpeas or anything supermarkets charge the earth for can be bought in larger quantities and cheaper in the world food aisles of your local big supermarket or from your local ethnic supermarket.
E.g. Tin of chickpeas in the beans section: 80p. Tin of Asian branded chickpeas in Indian food aisle: 33p.
Jar of Schwartz coriander: £1.50 for a small jar. Large bag of coriander from Asian supermarket £1.30.

rosieben

Lavandula Rosemary, I'm saddened by your attitude here. Your first answer is unhelpful and unfriendly and anyone who is genuinely in need of help is likely to be put off from posting again. If you're new here yourself then maybe you haven't quite grasped the principles of Old Style. If you're not new here, then you should know better.

Yes we have had one or two people trying to scam money, we have also had journalists using OS as a source for their lazy research. That doesn't mean that we turn aside every plea for help.

Lets give people the benefit of the doubt.

Horace

Porridge definitely for breakfast - Aldi do a lovely everyday essentials porridge for 75p (it is the nicest porridge I have ever had).

I make fridge forage soup too, this generally consists of whatever veg I find in the fridge. In my case, I always have carrot, onion and tomato - I chop these and sling them in the slow cooker with a handful of pearl barley, cover with water, add herbs and a load of black pepper. I cook it on auto/or low all day and then I put the stick blender in to blitz it (it looks better) and serve it with a crusty bread roll.