Eating for one month on £60

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there dbelle

Well done to you...thats a great achievement:T ..even though this thread started off about food...lets be honest most of us are on here because we have things to pay off:D ...which is a much better use for the money we have been eating in waste:p .....it makes all the effort worth while doesnt it:beer:

I have 1 store card - evans..and im waiting for the statement for that its about £200....and im planning on paying that of as soon as i get it. and then i have a loan which im hoping to put some of the "housekeeping;) " to so i can get it paid off quicker.... its a pain though as i am going to have to keep hold of the money until we go back to the UK in December to pick my mum and brother up for xmas....

I only have a barclays bank account you see... my hubby has a german account..but i didnt see the need for one -and i dont know if i could transfer funds from there if i had

So :T :T :T :T to you dbelle....

FrugalJo

Just a quick update.
Success yesterday, HM pizzas went down a treat, kids wrecked the kitchen with the dough, but had fun ! Reduced and pulped a tin of value chopped tomatoes, loads of garlic, oregano and basil, easy on the cheese - thanks for the tip re less topping MrsM, certainly don't need as much as you think, will attempt philly option next time.
Fed whole family for about £3.

dbelle

We are making HM pizzas today.
We have managed to get tons of meat off our chicken from yesterday (and we didn't have small portions for our roast either) so we've got enough for chicken pasta and to put on pizza's today.

FrugalJo

Enjoy your pizza dbelle We have roast chicken today ! Was going to have MrsMC's layered potato dish - opted for mash as tomorrow I'm going to go for the leftover chicken and gravy in a pie dish and layer the potato on top in sort of cobbler fashion, can visualize it just hoping it works !

MRSMCAWBER

Hi everyone..

Well you have all been busy:j ....

Hubby went away friday and will be back in the early hours of tommorrow morning... so i have been eatin out of the freezer:T .... hubby will be happ, as usually when im on my own i have sandwiches etc... but ive had chicken dinner and today was liver and onions with potatoes n veg.....

Tommorow is shopping day... i love going to the fridge and knowing that i have enough in to eat properly but not loads of stuff that is getting close to going out of date etc..that i would then proceed to eat...just because it is there:mad:

I have worked out a 4 week meal plan....but at the moment we are enjoying what we are eating allready, so i think that may wait until the end of september.... by then we will probably want more casseroles etc... winter looks set to be a good one here... At the moment i could live on roast chicken dinners... with homemade stuffing mmmmm and since ive found fresh chicken portions that work out at 30/40p each :T ... and hubby commented the other day that it was much nicer than the whole chicken we had been having

Im in the midst of sorting out our spare room and the final packing boxes ... and i keep on finding toiletries ... i knew i had lots, but at this rate i cant see me having to buy anything but loo rolls for about a year still that makes my budget easier to stick to:T

Dbelle are you planning on doing this next month?? My 4 weeks are up on the 17th sep - but i think im gonna start over again.... i think im gonna do it until just before xmas at least... then i might need a bit more as mum and my bro come for 2 weeks at xmas... ooh and i have to get my stuff to make xmas cake, xmas puddings etc...allready have mincemeat left from last year:T
But if i can get away with sticking to it im goint to.:D

dbelle

I think I am planning on doing it next month, maybe with a little bit more money though, it depends how I do in the last 2 weeks.

Am planning Friday's shop today, so far a litte uninspired. Have realised over the last week or so that I really crave meat when we are going OS.:o Which is more pricey!

Feeling very OS today though, made chicken stock and soup, garlic bread, a white loaf, pizza dough (we ate that though!) and homemade hobnobs. It all probably cost no more than about £1.50 with ingredients that I already had in.

Am going to try and get some free fresh yeast next time I go to a supermarket, Asda is probably the best bet but I work right next to Waitrose - do Waitrose give it away as well?

I know what you mean about not having food going out of date, ever since I started meal planning (about a year ago!) I have hardly thrown anything away because of overbuying. The last thing I threw away was some red pesto, it had gone green it was so off! I don't think I can eat pesto again for a while. We cleaned out the jar for when we make jam again though!

The pizzas were gorgeous btw, I am happy to say they are better than anything I've had from the takeaway.

xx

MRSMCAWBER

Hi

Its not very often we have a meal without meat... i am obssessed with chicken at the moment...:D ... a chicken easily does us, 2 roast dinners , a hot pasta dish, a pasta salad and the carcass makes soup:rotfl: so i can get 8 meals plus soup...

I dont know about you but i find that when i do vegetarian options my hubby with get hungry later on...with a roast dinner or at least meat he doesnt :T

I think im goint to try and stick to the same budget ..... i may end up stretching it to 100 euros eventually and that still leaves me plenty to save ....

Im shopping tommorow, i have plenty of chicken in....i got 10 fresh portions the other day that worked out at under 40p each...:j so tommorow im going to get some pork and make some sausages.... that should keep hubby happy:D

I cant believe how well we are eating on such a budget and im losing weight without any "exercise"-apart from housework..makes me cringe when i think how much i have been known to spend:o and how much i have be known to eat:rotfl:

newlywed

Just come back from holiday and was very proud that for 8 days worth of evening meals and breakfasts we came in at £35 for the 4 of us and still had food left over to bring back. Discovered an Aldi so it all worked out less than expected.

However lunches out, petrol and ice creams etc all added up so need to spend as little as possible till payday (as there isn't much money left).

So for the next 3 weeks I need to spend hardly anything at all - but OH wants fruit so will spend some on that. Have most meal stuff in already for this week and so am hoping to do the last two weeks for £25 per week - though this will be a miracle if I can do it!! :rolleyes:

Thanks for this thread for the tips - going to be using as many as I can this month and may post a store cupboard challenge next week too.

dbelle

I have chicken soup and homemade bread for lunch today and I just scoffed some homemade hob nobs too. Who says there is no such thing as a free lunch (ok a very cheap lunch)?

How do you make sausages Mrsmcawber? I always thought they were quite a hassle and you need the right tools and all that!

justin1972uk

You have to be really careful not to put on weight when eating to a budget.

As many other posters have pointed out, fresh fruit and vegetables are expensive and I find them wasteful, especially as I live alone.

For instance, I never buy lettuce. The average lettuce is around 99p when for the same price you can buy seven packs of Smart Price dried spaghetti from ASDA. I might eat the lettuce in a salad one day and then on sandwiches the next, but by day three it'll start to go brown and ends up being chucked.

This is why Jamie Oliver annoys me so much with his ridiculous healthy eating campaigns. A lot of people can't afford to eat healthily! It's not so much "Let them eat cake" as "Let them eat polenta".

If you eat a lot of pasta, you will put weight on - so be careful.

I recommend ASDA's savoury rice (the kind you add boiling water to and then microwave). You can easily make a tuna rissotto for under £2.50 which will feed two if eaten with pitta bread.

Tuna Rissotto

Salt and Pepper (negligible)
Two wholemeal ASDA pitta breads (Aprox 12p)
One large onion (Aprox 29p)
Spray oil (negligible)
Garlic granules (negligible)
Two cans of ASDA Smart Price Tuna in brine (74p)
A handful of frozen garden peas (Aprox 5p)
One 240g sachet of ASDA Golden Vegetable Savoury Rice (69p)
Two tablespoons of ASDA Bolognese Sauce (Aprox 10p)
A couple of large open-cup mushrooms, washed, peeled and sliced (Aprox 30p)

1. Boil 1 pint of water in the kettle
2. Spray a large non-stick wok with a few squirts of spray oil and add the chopped onion, salt and pepper. If the onions start to brown too quickly, just add a little water as you go along
3. Add boiling water to a large pyrex bowl, along with the savoury rice. Cover with a plate and microwave on full power for 15 minutes
4. Once the fried onions start to go translucent, add the sliced mushrooms. Once the mushrooms start to wilt, remove from the heat and stir through half a teaspoon of garlic granules
5. Open and drain the cans of tuna. Separate the chunks roughly with a fork and add to the cooling wok
6. Once the rice has dinged, add to the wok along with the two tablespoons of bolognese sauce and return to the heat
7. Stir the wok on a high heat for another three minutes or so until most of the liquid has boiled off. Add a handful of frozen garden peas, stir through and again remove from the heat
8. Lightly toast two pitta breads under the grill (not in a toaster as this tends to overcook them, turning them into cardboard)

Of course, if your single, you can just freeze half of it.

You don't have to serve with the pitta bread. If you don't have the bread with it, the saturated fat content is less than a packet of crisps - and it makes shed-loads! I'd also advise you that cheaper frozen peas may require cooking in a small dish in the microwave, prior to being added, as they can be harder than premium varieties.

I also mix Smart Price coffee granules with Nescafe as a previous poster mentioned.

I also recommend the frozen Smart Price chicken breasts. They're exactly £4.00 for 1,400g which is around nine breasts on average. They're skinless so you're not tempted to eat the skin and can be cooked from frozen in around 35 minutes. I believe that they can be cooked from frozen due to their being injected with water - as they do tend to shrink a little after cooking. They are very low fat though - around 2g of fat per breast. I like to make a paste of lemon juice, garlic granules and ASDA Tandoori Powder and coat them in this prior to roasting.

Other Smart Price products I'd recommend are:

Smart Price Fruit & Fibre cereal - 69p. Contains a surprising amount of fruit for a budget brand.
Smart Price Quiche - 72p. Obviously not low fat but great as a once-a-week treat. Very cheesey.
Smart Price Cottage Cheese - 23p. Great for adding to a "salad" of chopped cucumber, onions, tomatoes, canned sweetcorn and grated carrot. Naturally low-fat too.

As for toiletries, cleaning and laundry products, Pound Shops are a God-send. However, no matter how poor I am, I always use Ariel and Ariel Color for my laundry. Budget brands can cause bobbling and fading which makes them a false economy.

I also can't bring myself to buy battery eggs - so I just don't buy eggs a lot of the time.

p.s. I don't work for ASDA - I just love (most of) their Smart Price range.