My 12 day mini skintness challenge..

immoral_angeluk

Thanks to unforeseen car repairs and 90% of my monthly bills going out at the start of the month, this has left me very short of money until I next get my ESA and PIP in 12 days time.

Until then I have £114.70 to last me and pay for literally EVERYTHING else for one adult, 2 kids, 3 cats and 4 chickens. That includes food, petrol, treats, clothes etc etc etc. That equates to £9.55 a day, which considering our weekly food bill is usually £100-£130 a week and I have barely any petrol in the car, should be interesting.

I've posted this so that you guys can help keep me on track so I don't end up going over and screw up!

Thanks in advance.

If anyone wants to join me of course you're more than welcome, the more the merrier..:beer:

immoral_angeluk

So today is one of my volunteer days, which involves 2 hours helping out at a local wildlife sanctuary. We use my partner's car to get there as he volunteers too, which means I don't need to worry about my lack of petrol!

No other plans for today other than potentially going up to my allotment which is about a 3 mile round trip (which, if I've calculated right, should be 7p in petrol for the journey!). But dinner may be an issue as we have barely anything in!

Will worry about that later though.

PollyPrissypants

That's a pretty big food bill. Mine used to be like that. Can I ask where you're shopping and what the big expenses are? Maybe we could help cut it down.

immoral_angeluk

PollyPrissypants wrote: »

That's a pretty big food bill. Mine used to be like that. Can I ask where you're shopping and what the big expenses are? Maybe we could help cut it down.

I know, I hate it. Years ago I used to be able to feed 4 on £50 a week, but nowadays it seems like the cost of food is going up on a daily basis.
Annoyingly, I have to shop at Tesco. That's great for clubcard points, but the main reason is that I have anxiety/depression and there's only the one store locally that I can 'deal' with. I know it sounds odd, but ASDA gives me panic attacks and Aldi/Lidl are so cramped they make me very anxious so I've come to avoid them. Our local tesco is very spaced out and usually very quiet, so have come to find it's the only one which doesn't set me off.

As for what we eat, generally it's proper meat, fresh fruit and veg/potatoes, pastas and that kind of thing. We very rarely eat processed food for main meals. I use poundland which is near my college that I go to one day a week for snacky things like weight watchers crisps, biscuits etc.

PollyPrissypants

What about going on mysupermarket.com? You could put in your regular list and it would tell you where those foods are cheapest then you could do an online order instaed of struggling through a supermarket.
Or if they're willing to help, your could give your partner a list and send them to aldi for you. My food bill now is half what it was because an aldi opened up near us. Before that we were held to ransom by m*rrisons.

andyfromotley

Hi immoral,

i'll be following and wishing you luck. i'm going to make some suggestions which include some big assumptions on my part, so if my assumptions are wrong just ignore them!! But i do think that if you have paid your monthly bills then you can easily smash this out of the park!

Walk to the allotment. A mile and a half ew isn't too bad.
Treats and Clothes will have to be off the agenda for the coming 12 days.
Toad in the hole/beans for tea? i'm a 1 adult 2 kid household and i priced this meal up as £2.35 all in! the kids scored it 8 out of 10!!

asparagus1968

Good Morning


Can you do an inventory of EVERY bit of food you have in/have access to? (anything on the allotment ?)
start with doing a meal plan from that list, thinking about cheaper substitutes/double usage/lower brands/ veg like carrots which are so cheap compared to other stuff .Maybe frozen foods instead of fresh?
Then I'd do a shopping list, and ask someone else to do the shopping for you at Aldi, that will be a big help. Though, how many loyalty points with Tesco have you got? Enough to buy some groceries?
I find going out and leaving my purse at home /or not going out at all is the best way for me to avoid spending, my will power is rubbish, and I'm a sucker for a "bargain".
Can you do without the crisps/biscuits for 12 days? Could you home-make some veg crisps intead?
good luck.

wiltsguy_2

food bills are a big debate in my house, we have found Tecso to be very expensive. we were spending £170 per week in Tesco, for the same amount of food we now only pay £90 pw in Aldi. I was an Aldi snob at first-god knows why it's great. I tend to go shopping aroun 7-30 to 8pm on a saturday evening and tend to find it to be quiet at that time.

MrWillyWonka

Only works first time but most supermarkets have £x off £x shop for online shopping.

Sainsburys: £20 off £60 shop
Tesco: £15 off £60 shop
Ocado: £20 off £80 shop
ASDA: £10.50 off £50 shop (click n collect)

if you haven't already taken advantage of these yet then that's a good saving (apart from Ocado perhaps, the prices there may negate the savings).

Meal plans? I'm moving house in a few weeks and I've meal planned everything to get rid of all existing stock. Should run out of food about 3 days before the move .

And how about cheap bulk dinners? Butternut squash bake is really cheap, tasty and easy to make in bulk.

freshstart2015

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Thanks to unforeseen car repairs and 90% of my monthly bills going out at the start of the month, this has left me very short of money until I next get my ESA and PIP in 12 days time.

Until then I have £114.70 to last me and pay for literally EVERYTHING else for one adult, 2 kids, 3 cats and 4 chickens. That includes food, petrol, treats, clothes etc etc etc. That equates to £9.55 a day, which considering our weekly food bill is usually £100-£130 a week and I have barely any petrol in the car, should be interesting.

I've posted this so that you guys can help keep me on track so I don't end up going over and screw up!

Thanks in advance.

If anyone wants to join me of course you're more than welcome, the more the merrier..:beer:

Good luck with your challenge. I think it's doable.

Firstly, agree, treats and clothes aren't needed surely for the next 12 days or treats can be done on the cheap? I also agree with trying to do an online shop which should enable you to avoid the shop itself altogether. If you never done an online shop you might even get money off (ASDA does it sometimes too). While doing the online shop I can be much more restrained.

Are your hens laying eggs? Fritata or omlettes are cheap dinner options. I would definitely try and cut down on the meat for the next two weeks as it is expensive in tesco whereas fruit and veg aren't too bad. Are you buying fresh veg? Try the frozen ones like beans, peas etc. Much cheaper but sometimes even better as they are frozen fresh from the fields where as 'fresh" veg have been in a lorry or cold house for days. Try go when they do the reductions (after 6 and 8pm in our tesco). There are many useful websites out there to cook healthy on a budget without eating spag bol every day. Speaking of spag bol, lol, I always stretch mine now with red lentils and other old veg and my carnivorous husband likes it even better for the flavour and it makes proper mince go much further.

I guess walking to the allotment will ony take you 20-30 min but I guess that depends if your kids are coming and how young they are or if you need to take much equipment or anything with you.

Good luck, I will be following your journey.

wiltsguy_2

freshstart2015 wrote: »

Are your hens laying eggs? Fritata or omlettes are cheap dinner options.

or southern fried chicken? :rotfl: