Eating for one month on £60

Doom_and_Gloom

It is definatly possible to do I'd say. I've feed my meat loving bf and my vegan self comfortably on £46.14 but we did have oats, rice, couscous, pasta and the like in as usual and we don't own a cat but we do have 3 mice hehe. My bf buys alot of tinned soups and other food and frozen pizzas, all I'm sure can be made cheaper yourselves.

Right helpful bit: letils and other pulses bulk out meals and make them go farther. Soya mince with a bit of soya sauce can be added to meals with mince in and I doubt it would be too noticeable. Buy everything you can that you need when reduced to a reasonable price. Soups, stews, dahl, dishes with mince and the like are cheap and easy to batch cook. The knowladge that there is a meal in the freezer will usually deter you from looking into take outs if that's a weakness as it will more likely take less time to defrost and cook in a microwave than the whole takeout process would.
Home made bread is often cheaper than store bought and you know what goes into it and the dough can also be used to make pizza bases for cheaper home made pizzas. Vegetarian protiens are usually cheaper so blending these in, while minamising the expencive meat, to bulk out meals will make a meal cheaper and make it go farther. If you use cheese buy a strong one as you will use less of it and if you know you won't use all of it before the use by date you can freeze it in blocks or grated up for later on.

Vegetable soup with basic ingredients: All veg at 100g lentils at 50g (can change amounts if needed)
Carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, onoins, tinned tomatoes, red lentils, sweetcorn (frozen) = about £1.03
Put lentils and water in the pan first for aproximatly 5-10 min before everyting else. chop the carrots, broccolli, cauliflower and onions quite small and add to pan with the tinned tomatoes adding enough water to the pan also and heat for about 10-15 min. You then take the pan off the heat and use a hand blender on the veg. Put back on heat and add the sweetcorn. Heat untill sure all ingredients arr heated through thouroughly. Cost = about £1.03 and makes 4-6 portions depending on size of portion. Meat can be added to make it more friendly to a meat lover! Spices and herbs can also be used to bring more flavour into the dish.

Have you tryed your cat on Sainsbury's Cat Food Chunks in Jelly Selection (6x400g) it's cheaper than the 12 pack as it's £3.78 for a 12 pack and not £3.99. Don't know if that would work for you or not. The mushy buscuits may be your best bet if not.

At the end of the day little changes in helping save the money can make a big difference to what you are left with at the end of the month.

lynzpower

DBELLE

Have you done a menu plan or anything as yet, im on pins here waiting to see what you have achieved

dbelle

Getting there!

dbelle

The Menu Plan!

Starts from this Friday night. For two weeks.

Macaroni and Cheese
Sausages and Mash with Gravy
Roast Chicken, Potatoes, Old Carrots that are lurking in the fridge!
Chicken Pasta (leftover
Spinach Gnnochi (HM) with some leftover chicken if we still have it and savoy cabbage
Gallette Au Chou (Gingham Ribbons famous recipe!) with boiled or mashed spuds
Creamy mushroom pasta

HM Bread with Sausage Casserole
HM Pizza with Mozerella and Cheddar + Plum Crumble (plums from garden)
HM Garlic Bread and Cauli Cheese + Plum Crumble
Lentil Shepherds Pie
Veggie Lasagne
Butter Bean and Cheese Burgers and Couscous
Keema Curry or Spag Bol

Lunches:
Mixture of tuna and mayo sarnies, feta and spinach sarnies and cous cous and leftover veg/chicken.

Breakfast - Toast, HM Jam and Tea/Coffee.
I'll be back to do the shopping list in a mo!

Austin_Allegro

Dbelle, I'm not sure from your post if the £60 is for both of you or for each person? If it's for each person, it's not too difficult as that's about what I spend, if it's between two it will be more of a challenge.

Meat will have to be cut back drastically
You'll need to buy potatoes, rice, lentils etc in bulk.
Shop at street markets for fruit/veg or buy bulk frozen veg from supermarkets.
Pick as much as possible from the hedgerows, this is the best time of year for berries etc. Order a copy of 'Free Food' by Richard Mabey and 'Self Reliance' by John Yeoman (from the library of course!)

The cat is tricky. Normally I'd say let him fend for himself - cats are natural hunters after all, but the lack of teeth is a problem. I suggest trying blended food scraps with a meat stock cube added for a meatier taste.

Bogof_Babe

I'd be careful re. the stock cube, it's very salty and that is a no-no for cats.

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there dbelle

Glad to see your thread is growing:j

I have just got back from my shopping trip and have spent a grand total of 16.68euros or exactly £12 :T :T luckily i have all my toiletries, cleaning stuff and some stuff in the fridge/freezer n cupboards... so i got.....

2 kilo carrots
1 kilo broccoli
1 kilo baby onions
a huge cabbage
3 red grapefruit
600g frozen mixed veggies
1 tin sweetcorn
2 lrg tins pineapple
1 lrg tin peaches
2 lt milk
10 eggs
300g tub LF cream cheese
7 yogurts - 250g tubs :j
1 tub creme fraiche
3 LF choc/vanilla puds -for me:p
and a tub of wallnut icecream for hubby

I think thats pretty much it.... luckily i have chicken etc in the freezer and have allready worked out my meals for the week....and on top of that i have another 2euro coin for my tin....yeehaa

Big_Bird_4

dbelle good luck with this!

Have you thought of turning a negative into a positive by eating the cat?

tickleoria_2

I totally agree about the soya mince from holland and barrett. We buy a 500g tub of minced beef from lidl for £2 and by bulking out with soya mince I can make a generous lasagne for four, plus 4 1/4 pounder size burgers or bolognese for 4. With the lidl tinned toms it works out at about 35p plus the pasta each portion (the toms are also cheap cheap cheap at lidl!). Plus if you are ok with tinned food they do tins of baked beans with plastic sausages in them for 29p easily a meal with toast?! There are many bits and pieces there like that.

IMO Lidl is well worth it for a stock up to save money. I have easily halved my shopping bills since swapping tescos for there.

cuddlymarm

Hi

I know feeding the cat can take a chunk out of your budget but you also need to take into account that if you mess about to much with its food you might end up with vets bills (which will wipe out any good work you do budgetwise)

On the up side if you cut down on meat, bought sweeties and cakes and booze it will probably help your health as well as your budget. My problem is that I when I bake any cakes or biccies they never seem to last long , sometimes I'm lucky if they manage to cool completely so I don't think we will ever be slim in our house.

Good luck:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: