How can I make £100 last a month?

System

£36 a month bus fare suggests its not that far and possibly within cycling distance. Know anyone with a bike you could borrow temporarily? What about car share to work/uni?

JustAboutThere

At a pinch, cous cous and a dissolved stock cube will fill you up.

Fireflyaway

Yes £50 could feed you for 1 month. Probably worth it if it means being out of debt. Beans, soup, noodles, tin tomatoes,pasta, bread, eggs all from a cheap supermarket or own basic brand and if you have an Iceland nearby you are sorted! Waffles, pizza etc just a couple of pounds.

determined_new_ms

I made jack monroe's chilli bean soup the other day using dried beans worked out 30p for 5 portions. Very much recommend. There's a group I've been following on Facebook called "feed your family for £1 per day" loads of super cheap meals on there, also jack monroes website really worth checking out.

Agree a borrowed or freecycled bike would help out.

In a fix I think I could manage on that for a month. Good luck

CrabbitDutchie

When I was studying for my MSc and working part time, having £100 left over after rent was a really good month! These days I spend far more, but it's suprising how manageable that amount is when you put a little bit of advance planning in place.

To keep life as cheap as possible I used to walk to work and uni (one job was 3.6 miles from home and towards the end I was doing this in well under an hour) uni was 1.5 -2 miles. Later on when I was faced with a placement 4 miles away (opposite direction to job) I managed to borrow a bike which freed up quite a lot of time and meant I didn't have to rely on public transport.

Food wise I am lucky that my closest shops are an iceland and lidl right next to eachother and I have a couple of asian supermarkets about a 5 minute walk away. I never found food to be a problem for £10 a week or under. In fact the challenge was how well I could eat for that amount of money! Huge batches of veggie chilli and comforting soups with homemade soda bread, pastas, pasta bakes, dahl and vegetable curries were (and still are) the basis of my cooking. Porridge with berries picked in summer for breakfast, but sultanas/raisins at 84p per 500g are a pretty decent alternative if you happen not to have spent days foraging in summer . As unhealthy treats/snacks you can't go wrong with 30p bars of chocolate (the 100g basics range ones) or ginger nuts at 25p for a huge pack. Other snacks would include carrot/celery sticks with homemade chickpea dip (reluctant to call it hummous as I don't tend to use tahini) or roasted chickpeas with spices.

That's all good and well, but everyone knows just how great the temptation of a coffee between lectures or a pint with coursemates after class is. On my course most people were various degrees of skint, so nobody batted an eyelid if you came to socialise, but didn't buy anything. We quite often scouted out free public lectures promising refreshments as places to socialise. For the coffee to get through the day I used to bring a flask of coffee in which would do me for several cups. I always carried a mug, some instant coffee and a few tea bags too. In one of our libraries there was a water dispenser which did hot as well as cold water which was amazing and after a few months we'd managed to get permission to use the kettle in a few staffroom/PhD student areas to fuel the caffeine addiction.

For practical ways to make the £100 last take out a weekly cash amount you are allowed to spend and don't take any cards out of the house except for the weekly ATM trip. Then with your weekly amount immediately do the sensible food shop so that you have enough food for the week. What's leftover can go towards little things over the course of the week. If your budget is £10 a week I'd suggest trying to spend about £8-9 on the food shop (use a list and a calculator if you need) and then you have a little bit leftover for mini luxuries when you feel you really need them. Like the 30p chocolate bar, a coffee from a uni outlet, a cupcake in a bake sale that's raising money for endangered turtles, a half pint in the pub - you get the idea, little pick me ups that can go a long way towards making things less rubbish and to allow you to do a bit of socialising and 'impulsive' spending.

Good luck

On_my_way

If you get paid every two weeks is there no way at all that you could ask your boss if you can really go for it with your hours for the next few weeks? Then you can pay what you owe. I get it that you're studying but if you really go for it on the work front for two weeks or so you can really get this sorted out.

Money_saving_maniac

Get yourself onto the oldstyle board, you'll find a lot of help there.

reddishryan

Hey Oriola!

My wife is a vegetarian, but my stepson and I are (Normal people) omnivores, and we have found a cheap dish to satisfy all of us – Melanzane Alla Parmigiana – which can be tweaked to be cheaper than most dishes! I have seen this on the menu in Pesto and other Italian restaurants for around £8 for one portion, which I think is extortionate! Heed.............

You need an onion (c. 8p), an aubergine (55p), heaped tsp of dried oregano (Store cupboard item or 49p for a new one at Aldi), a clove of garlic (c. 5p) , 2 tbsp veg oil (c. 5p), one carton of Passata (39p) one tin of chopped tomatoes (25p) and 3 slices of stale bread (c. 10p) and about 50g of cheese (c. 25p). This will make 3 meals, so I reckon on it costing £2.21/3 = 74p per serving unless you already have the oregano, in which case it will be c. 57p per serving.

Fry the onion, garlic and oregano in the veg oil until translucent, then add the tomatoes and Passata; bring to the boil and then reduce heat to simmer, stir frequently. While this is going on, take the stalk off the aubergine and slice into 0.5cm slices. These then need to be griddled on a high heat until the aubergine takes on a char. Do both sides, you will need to do this in batches.

When the tomato mix has thickened (About 20 minutes), ladle half into an ovenproof dish. Spread half of the cheese evenly over it, then layer half of the charred aubergine over it. Small gaps don't matter between the aubergine slices, but covering any gaping ones, the tomato sauce will bubble through them and make the croutons soggy! Repeat these 3 steps. Cover the dish with foil, and bake for 30 minutes. We have experimented with different cheeses, Mozzarella works well, but is expensive, we use the Aldi Mature Cheddar, and it doesn’t overpower the dish!

Chop the stale bread into 1cm cubes and either lay on a baking tray and put it in the oven, or shallow fry them in hot veg oil (This will add to the cost per serving). When they are just turning into something like croutons, take the foil off the aubergine dish and put the croutons on top. Leave the foil off. Bake for another 5 minutes. You can add Parmesan before serving, but this will add to the cost per serving! If you really want to live the dream, you can flesh the dish out with a layer of courgettes, or a layer of mushrooms! Risqu!!

This is the only dish that is guaranteed to be fully eaten every time in my household! I await adulation.:dance:

Danien

Have you actually contacted the council or are you just going by the letter you've received?

If you contact the council you can usually make a payment arrangement, which would mean no need to pay the debt all in one go, and sometimes the court fee will be waived.

Maximum_Saving

Hello Oriola. I wonder if you could borrow a bike and cycle to your part-time job? Then you wouldn't have your bus fares to pay. On you way home you could shop for reduced cost food like vegetables and fruit that are close to their sell by date. I suggest you buy a low cost loaf of bread to eat. It is ideal for sandwiches to have at work. Pasta, rice and noodles can be cheap to buy. For a treat have rich tea biscuits or a cheap packet of chocolate. Have you thought of joining a survey filling site? It is possible to sell some things on Facebook for free. Some towns have local markets. You could ask if they have any greens for your pet rabbit. You could get free internet at a library and there you could borrow some books on a library card. They might have books to help your studies. Good luck.