How long can I make £187.15 last?

mumtoomany

Hi all. This year I've been trying to keep our shopping bill, groceries, toiletries, cleaning products, etc, at £2460, for the year. I receive £1440 from DD1, we all share a house, and add £1200 to this. I am feeding seven of us at present, DD1, her husband and their three children, myself and OH. DD1 and DS-i-L1 do buy some extras, such as bits for children's pack lunches, ready meals for when they are on long shifts and wine. I cook most of the meals, and provide other stuff, e.g.toilet roll. 
In previous years, I've managed to come pretty close to my target. However with increased prices, this year I have only £187.15 left! We won't starve if I go over, but I would like to see how near to the end of the year we can get.
I've been re-reading @weezl74 thread, living on 50p a head a day,  and thought posting might keep me accountable. We have three freezers, stuffed to capacity. Cupboards that are groaning, and still have stuff growing outside.

So to start today. OH and I had leftovers from yesterday's tea, for lunch. I had jacket potatoes and cheese, OH had leftover salad. Tea for seven is sausage pasta bake, have also put some sponge in the oven to make trifle tomorrow. No money spent today.

Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xxx

Wicked_Lady

Good luck with this. It sounds like you've made a promising start.

Are you breaking it down into so much per remaining week, just so that you can see how it's going? Do you have Olio around your way or isn't it worth the drive to get whatever's on offer?

I shall be watching with interest anyway

maman

You could try a meat free Bolognese with beans for protein instead of the meat. I do the same for chilli.

 I use red beans and the cheapest baked beans (with or without the sauce). I'm making the assumption that you have herbs and spices in stock .

If you have a slow cooker, do it in there and any leftovers make extra meals. Use the cheap pasta (spaghetti or penne from Aldi) or pour over jacket potato or make a cottage pie.

Do you have Too good to Go bags available in your area as they often have sandwiches and other bits ideal for lunches.

Good luck. 😊

mumtoomany

Hi, @Wicked_Lady, thank you. We live very rurally here in South Wales. No olio, I'm afraid, nor community pantry/kitchen etc. Nearest supermarket is half an hour away, more if stuck behind a tractor. I think this is less than £20 per week. I have found a £3 voucher for m&s, and I think I'm due some more next month. We both have m&s credit cards. 
@maman, I've never looked to see if we have to good to go, too far to drive. We are rarely in town late, so would have to make a journey just to pick up. Probably not worth the diesel. Meat is not really an issue, as long as we want pork! We took collection of our two pigs from the abattoir two weeks ago. I do however cook lots of meals with very little meat. Thanks for the ideas.
I've taken a leg of pork joint out for tomorrow night's tea, and for at least one other meal.
Tonight's tea went down well with all but DGD1, some left for lunch tomorrow, but don't think there's more than one portion. 
Speak to you all tomorrow, hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

[Deleted User]

Hi lovely lady, 

Great idea for a thread, I will be following with interest and cheering you on of course ☺️

This is doable, no doubt about it. Not easy, but doable. You’re far more of a pro at this than I am, but here’s my ideas:
- porridge, pre soaked overnight in water to reduce cooking time
- cheap sliced bread with beans and a bit of cheese on for lunch
- homemade soups with your own produce, maybe add lentils / other pulses for bulk
- eggy bread with your own eggs 
- tinned fruit and veg to reduce the costs of fresh. We are eating tinned peaches with Greek yoghurt for puddings at present
- crumbles with foraged apples and berries

Bulk out meals with a big serving of Yorkshire puddings on a plate as a starter, large portions of stuffing (the basics stuffing mix is still really cheap).

You know all this already I know you do. But whilst I don’t have an exact figure to work within I do have to keep our food spends absolutely as low as we can if we are to get through this winter warm and fed, with healthy happy animals and children. 

Speak soon and take care xxxx

mumtoomany

Hi @Deleted_User. Good to hear from you. Thanks for the ideas, however the hens seem to have gone on strike! No eggs today and only one yesterday. Maybe i should start mumbling "pies" as I walk past! 
Hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

goldfinches

I shall be watching with interest and cheering you on too.

I noticed this Nigella recipe which might give you a useful idea for a crispy coating if you decided to eat the chickens. Crunchy Chicken Cutlets | Nigella's Recipes | Nigella Lawson

This recipe of Delia's is infinitely adaptable Chilladas | Recipes | Delia Online and makes delicious little lentil rissoles. You can use any colour of lentils and rather than frying them you can just shape them and then warm them in a sauce. I have also made it as one big patty in a frying pan which was very nice too. It goes down well with spiced red cabbage or brussels sprouts.

mumtoomany

Thanks, @goldfinches. I think the chickens will have a stay of execution for a while, probably just the cold weather slowing their laying. There is a spare cockerel who will be going in the pot at some point in the next few months. Let him grow to full size first.
Don't think the lentils would go down well here! DS-i-L, having eaten them in much of my cooking for five years, spotted one some months ago and declared he didn't like them! Need to be better hidden, I think.
Breakfasts all done, toast, yogurt, fruit, cereal, omelette, (DS-i-L bought some eggs) in various combinations. Along with much tea and coffee.
Going to make a trifle now, home made sponge, home grown raspberries, our of date YS jelly, custard from of of date custard powder and left over cream.
Speak soon, hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

YoungBlueEyes

I can't add anything that hasn't already been said - but good luck to ya @mumtoomany, I'll be reading with interest

mumtoomany

Thank you @YoungBlueEyes, hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

London_1

Well done on what you are doing .I think I would try to work out how many meals

A . Needed between now and end of December
B. how many you could cobble together in that time from existing stocks

then take one from the other, and see if you are in the plus or minus situation .

Work out also a rough menu plan. I do my menu's every Sunday morning and have for over 60 years
 (yes I am that ancient ) I know that at the moment I could probably if I only bought fresh fruit and veg and perhaps bread last on my stores until at least mid December.

I went food shopping on Tuesday of this week for the first time this month, (I had been away for five days, and previously I had used up all my fresh stuff in the fridge so I only had three tomatoes left in there when I went away . Ok so some meals were a bit odd and cobbled together from odds and ends but absolute zero waste of anything edible.

Admittedly I live alone so can  please myself what I eat, and food is just fuel to keep me going, and I will eat anything that I have bought so have no one to say their likes or dislikes.

At the end of September I had a good root around the cupboards, and found all sorts of things to eat. Some I dug out I had forgotten about One of my meals was a red pepper omelette using some of a forgotten jar of small peppers that I had bought on offer back in March for salads. They were acutually quite nice in the omelette diced up.

So my shopping this month on Tuesday was just a top up mainly of fresh fruit and veg and some essentials I had run out of it came to just over £46 and I know I have more than enough to last me now until the new month starts in November.

My monthly food only budget for me is £60.00, and I suppose I am fortunate that although living in a small place in north Kent I do have four of the big supermarkets within two miles of my house which helps.

But I dislike shopping, so the less I do the better Probably a throw back to my childhood of queueing and rationing.But I learned from my late Mum how to streetch food  as much as possible (wartime food rationing made experts of most housewives back then ) So I too can eke out stuff 

But I shall follow this thread with interest as I like to see what other sorts of recipes I  can glean from other like minded folk. 
With the cost of food rocketing it seems eminently sensible to streetch food anyway as apart from energy its the top most thing that people will be spending their cash on this winter.

So going on your £187.15 left in your money pot that equates to roughly  £2.60 a day between now and 31December (72 days ) or 216 meals at three meals a day.

 Having got through the previous 293 days since 1st January you have done extremely well, 879 meals at 3 meals a day. 

I know it sounds a bit anal but its how I work out costings for my budget at home.

 X amount of cash divided by days then by average 3 meals a day  

It's surprising when you break down the figures how you can cut odd bits off.Luckily as you say you have a good bit int he way of veg and fruit and your two pigs will help to bulk out things a good deal along with the chooks. (my late ma-in-law had a couple of porkers and chickens) which helped her budgets no end when my late husband was growing up as she had two thirds of an acre for growing stuff as well. 

I rely on foraging for apples and blackberries locally ,but also exchange stuff with neighbours, their fruit and veg for cakes

I think you should be really pleased at how well you have coped with a houseful on your budget Well done 

JackieO xx