£0 for 28 days!!! Any advice???

Mallotum_X

This time of year there will be people harvesting food from gardens/allotments, most will have way more than they need. May not be much spare but perhaps there are some local FB groups/Freecycyle where someone is happy to give away a bag of apples or similar.

Whilst it may be hard to borrow money of friends, is there anyone you can get some help from by way of a meal or two?

Anything you can sell on ebay - collection only - you don't need much to add a few extras.

What part of the country are you in? there will be hedgerow fruits ripening now - blackberries and the like - not going to be terribly exciting but a few fresh bits to go with the frozen.

BrussellSprout

FireWyrm - Yep agree with you, not worried about my calorie intake or the baby. My pregnant comment was more the fact I'm being a hungry, angry beast! lol

Just got to suck it up I guess.

I've got what I have in, then this £5.50 - which looking on tesco's website can go miles - pita bread for 22p..etc, tins of cheap fruit, so hopefully I can top myself up with that with bits I run out of. I'd have never thought Of checking old bonus cards if someone hadn't have mentioned it!

Mallotum - already mentioned in a comment previously about my selling situation - I like to be a bit of a del boy with stuff like that but I've run out! lol

Claree__x

FireWyrm wrote: »

I've seen a specimen 'basket' from a food bank and I wouldnt rate anything in it as food frankly.

Disgusting comment.
Food banks run purely off of donations of both cash and food. Yes, food. People are starving in what we like to think is a civilised country and if you hadn't eat for 3 days you'd be perfectly happy to have what is provided by people who give up their own time to help when the government can't or won't.

I'm sorry that we can't give everyone meat and fresh food but it's just not sustainable. We shouldn't have to be in the position to give them anything but that's the sad reality of the UK at the moment.

Have you ever seen a grown woman eat beans cold out of the tin because she's starving? Maybe if you had you wouldn't be so flippant about the food that we provide.

hohum

Please do consider food banks, and loaning £50 off a friend. There's no need to be living in food poverty. Your family and friends would probably be gutted to hear that you're in such a tight spot and didn't ask for help! I know it's all down to your choices etc, but you're trying to sort it out and there is no harm in asking for support. If you had a friend in a similar situation I'm sure you'd be happy to lend them a tenner if you could, or have them round for tea one night.

That said, my additional suggestion to vouchers etc is to rinse the Nectar Surveys/ Adpoints if you're a member. It'll probably take you about a week to earn £2.50 worth of vouchers (and is it ever yawnsome) but this has helped me out in the past! You can then redeem in Sainsburys for additional things to supplement what's in the cupboards - milk, butter, etc

I've done £0 spend for a week but transport was always the issue for me, I assume you're covered for that/ are within a reasonable walking distance of where you need to get to?

BrussellSprout

Claree__x - I think you are getting a little over offended by Fyre's comment! I think he was responding to me and the lady who said because I am pregnant I should get to a foodbank so I get some real food fresh fruit and veg. - I highlighted that a foodbank wouldn't have more substance than what I already have in my house as basics, i.e. rice, pasta, tinned food..etc. So using my own food is more sensible.

Hohum - £50 I wouldn't spend myself on food so wouldn't borrow that off anyone, but no... my closest friend is jobless with her own child and as her own support (in fact I usually help her!) I'm pretty much off the grid when it comes to friends.

Vouchers - already covered this earlier and found some as I mentioned

FireWyrm

Claree__x wrote: »

Disgusting comment.
Food banks run purely off of donations of both cash and food.
Yes, food.

Since when is tinned custard food? The specimen basket I saw was mostly useless sugar laden rubbish. If food banks wanted to make a difference, they should unify and ensure the food parcels they give out are of sufficient quality to actually be useful. Better still, go to a ration system and be done with it. If you are in need, you get a ration which is calibrated to provide sufficient sustenance for 'x' people for 'x' days.

Claree__x wrote: »

People are starving in what we like to think is a civilised country

No they arnt. They just arnt getting as much food of the types they are used to. No one starves in this country and to suggest otherwise is disingenuous and frankly insulting to people who are truly starving in the world.

Claree__x wrote: »

and if you hadn't eat for 3 days you'd be perfectly happy to have what is provided by people who give up their own time to help when the government can't or won't.

Dont presume to suggest I dont know what going without means. You have no idea what my life has been like and what lengths I have had to go to in order to provide for myself and my dependents.

Claree__x wrote: »

I'm sorry that we can't give everyone meat and fresh food but it's just not sustainable. We shouldn't have to be in the position to give them anything but that's the sad reality of the UK at the moment.

You dont. These people never required the help until a few years ago and times were an awful lot meaner in decades passed.

Claree__x wrote: »

Have you ever seen a grown woman eat beans cold out of the tin because she's starving?

Give over.

Claree__x wrote: »

Maybe if you had you wouldn't be so flippant about the food that we provide.

Again. Do not presume to know what I have been through or the experiences of my life. You have no idea what you are talking about. It makes me mad and you look silly.

jobbingmusician

I do sympathise, but I have problems imagining that you live somewhere where you have NO access to fruit, at this time of year.

1. Keep your eyes open. Every open space, in my experience, has blackberries.

2. Try street markets. This is a bit desperate, but you will always find fruit on the floor after they've left. (And quite frankly, if I were pregnant, I think I would find the bottle to ask stallholders for an apple or two - promising to return next month and buy something. Or you could ask for the display samples at the end of the day - things like avocados they have cut in half to show what good quality they are.)

The very best of luck with this one - I think you can be an inspiration to all of us, having a no spend MONTH. (BTW you do know about A Girl Called Jack and her recipes, don't you?)

BrussellSprout

FireWyrm...

Your straight to the point attitude has actually cheered me up about the whole thing. Bit of perspective is what I needed not suggestions of berry picking - I'd only end up poisoning myself lol.

For the record I have eaten cold beans out of a tin. I did not like it. But I know plenty who do!

Please don't have an argument about food banks on my thread I don't want to go to one unless I have nothing. But right now the rubbish I have got left in my house in the cupboard is probably the kind of rubbish I would give away for harvest or a food bank, so I know what firewyrm means

BrussellSprout

Food off the floor after a street market? ... I'm not that desperate for fresh fruit (yet!!)

I leave for work at 7am and get home about 6:30pm, my town has an indoor market that closes it's doors, the only fruit I could access for free would be to nick from tesco and hope the alarms don't go off

FireWyrm

BrussellSprout wrote: »

Please don't have an argument about food banks on my thread

I wasnt intending too....

BrussellSprout wrote: »

I don't want to go to one unless I have nothing. But right now the rubbish I have got left in my house in the cupboard is probably the kind of rubbish I would give away for harvest or a food bank, so I know what firewyrm means

Your attitude is exactly right and nothing less than I would expect from a grown up. Well done.

Treat this as an experience and a learning exercise and when it is over, I suggest your very first job is to lay in sufficient stores so that this cannot happen again. Even if you tape a £20 behind the mantelpiece picture or something, it will mitigate these circumstances if they happened again.