oh shit

[templenewsam]

As the title suggests, shit shit shitty shit. After a lot of unexpected out goings this month we now have £95 left untill the end of the month! All bills are paid so this money only has to be spent on day to day living but given that our weekly shop (for 5) is usually in the region of £80. What would you buy to tide you over untill the end of the month??? Help!!

[OwlsOnStrings]

There are loads of threads with great advice on cutting your food budget. First work out what you mean by day-to-day expenses. You need food, and what else? Petrol? Parking? Toiletries? Cleaning stuff? Any school expenses?

[Sonnet]

Check your cupboards and freezer. Make these the basis of your meals.
I find pasta and veg or rice and veg filling
homemade soup good. Can be followed by homemade cake.
Can family help out?

[OwlsOnStrings]

Any chance you'd have any Nectar (or similar) points on a card that you could trade in for groceries?

[templenewsam]

Thanks for the replies, I have £8 per week dinner money to pay. Oh god didn't even think about the car needing fuel!(it's the bloody car thats tipped us over!) Could get a small loan from family for this. Grr just when we thought we were on track of the finances! Looks like I'll have to get creative with the meals and totally cut out anything else. I know im Lucky really in the grand scheme of things its just so frustrating when I feel like we both work so hard and yet struggle to make ends meet and its not even the end of the month!

[AdoraBell]

Use all, if possible, food you already have. Veg soups, veg curry, chopped up sausage/fish/chicken/whatever's in the freezer/fridge with pasta/rice/couscous/potatoes. Bulk meals out/replace meat with lentils, buy brown rice- it takes twice as long to cook but you only need half as much and it knocks white rice out of the park in terms of nutrition. Do you have anything like canned fish, canned soups etc?

If you normally throw the last bit of bread out start using it for bread crumbs. Use these as topping for baked food, or thickener for homemade soup. Or slice/chop bread and make a pudding. Any stale cakes can be used as bread crumbs, add to chopped fruit, yoghurt, desserts.

Could you do packed lunches instead of paying for a while? Plan meals for a week, or longer, using only what is in the house right now. Give DCs water to drink instead of buying your usual alternatives. Don't buy any treats, most homemade cakes/muffins etc freeze well so make a batch to last for a week.

Do DCs help themselves, mine drive me nuts with this new discovery of theirs, if so put a stop to that. Is DH also concerned, enough to back you up when you explain that they are to ask about all snacks etc before taking it?

Make a "fridge soup/salad/pasta/baked potato" basically whatever you can chop up and and turn into a sauce/filling/topping. Slighty tired looking veg makes a good curry. Ditto fruit, either chop and use raw in a salad or bake.

Whatever you buy on the way to/from work, stop buying it and take something from home.

HTH

[lizzywig]

Just a thought and one I wouldn't normally suggest, but could you get an arranged small overdraft?? If you normally spend £90/week on food then you could pay it back using some of this next month. You just don't want to get into trouble with debts so you need to be the sort of person who could stick to this. My bank only charge a £5 fee and no interest on arranged overdrafts so it might be viable for you also.

Re the food I would suggest the following:

Buy potatoes, leeks, large pack of beef mince, fish fingers (Iceland sell 36 for £2), beans, eggs, chopped tomatoes (value), carrots, onions and kidney beans (value)

You can make leek and potato soup, chilli and jacket, bolognase, fish fingers eggs and chips. That's all my brain will stretch to for now, perhaps you could repeat some meals. Soups are cheap to make and ok it's boring but at least it'll keep you full! What's in your cupboards at the moment?

[templenewsam]

Thanks for that lizzy, I'll look into that tomorrow think that will be our best bet until the end of the month.
At the moment I seem to have huge amounts of pasta and rice and not much else so I think I'll need to buy some basics and do Lots of pasta bakes etc.