Help me buy and cook for the week?

[sadkoala]

Posting for traffic.

Had an unexpected bill this month and now I have £13 for food to take me through until next Thursday. There is 4 of us in the house. I know it's not a super low amount and I can realistically do something with it but need some practical advice on how to make it happen as I'm not great at meal planning.

In my house I have rice, a few potatoes (not really enough for a full dinner), bread, butter, 500g of minced beef and some veggies in the fridge.
No pasta, few basics like eggs, canned tomatoes, onions, milk, cereal or fruit.

I'm going to shop for it all in Aldi today and it would be great if people could throw some suggestions my way of what to buy and how to use it.

Anyone have any tips?
TIA

Just to clarify we have no fruit, cereal, milk, pasta, yogurts, canned tomatoes, baked beans, eggs etc so quite a few basics.

What meals do you have to cover?

I'm pretty good at budget shopping and food advice but I really can't see how you can make £13 stretch to a weeks worth of food for four people.

Can you ask any family or friends for help? Or perjury you need a food bank to cover you right now?

I know it's not a super low amount

Was £13 a typo?

No £13 was not a typo. Just to clarify 2 DC's are under 5 so do not eat huge amounts of food and one is at nursery and eats there through the day.
I have found some large shell pasta at the back of a cupboard so will be using that and the mince + some leftover veg and tomato pasta sauce from last night for dinner hopefully to last until at least lunchtime tomorrow.

500g of mince is enough for at least 4 adult portions.

Breakfasts - toast & jam
Lunch
Baked beans on toast, jacket potatoes with cheese & onion, big veg soup with some bacon and crusty bread, omelettes with cheese, tinned sardines on toast

Suppers - Cottage pie, liver & bacon with mash, chicken casserole using thighs. Veggie curry,

Can you go to a market at the end of the day & haggle for veg? Frozen meat is normally cheaper than fresh. Every garden near me has apples falling off trees so can you beg some and make a huge crumble to fill people up.

Those are good ideas Seniorschoolmum but I don't see how op could do that on £13..

for the little ones, eggy soldiers, fish fingers (£1 for 20), stewed apple with Basics ginger biscuits for pudding,

One of my favorite "I'm skint" recipes is tomato risotto. Works with normal rice (may not take as long to cook) and any bits of cheese you have leftover.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2026/quick-tomato-risotto

Bread - 80p
4 x b/ beans £1
2 x sardines 75p
Potatoes £2
F/fingers £1
Cheese £1.50
Chicken thighs £1.49
Liver 90p
Eggs 12 for £1.50
2pts milk 89p
Carrots 49p
Onions 49p
£12.81

That’s very tight and you’re sunk if you’re out of coffee or tea. I think formerbabe is right, you might need some outside help.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I know I'm definitely getting canned tomatoes as we always use it a lot in cooking and I can make tomato and basil soup as I have some fresh in a pot on the windowsill.
Just brainstorming here ...
Considering maybe getting a bag of frozen chicken or something like pp suggested and using in some pasta bakes?
If I make cottage pie it usually lasts 2 days and we can add more veg on the side.
Maybe some bacon/lardons to put in soup with some cheese and maybe bread on the side to make a full meal.

Pack of aldi pasta and a jar of their cheapest pasta bake sauce is one of my favourite cheap meals. I add cheese and have it with garlic bread.

Get some cheap bread, jam, pasta, eggs, potatos, fish fingers, maybe frozen sausages, beans ect. Make a pasta bake out of the leftover bolognase sauce. Frozen sausage. Porridge oats made with water? It's a very tight budget.

Thanks @seniorschoolmum we have sugar tea and coffee. We also have cheese, bread, carrots and a few potatoes do might only need to buy a couple of baking ones.

I've seen people mention beofre that they bulk their mine meals out with oats to make them stretch further.

before and mince. Clearly not woken up properly today. Good luck with your shop.

Bootstrap cook is going to be your friend this week. It’s really right though. When I’m properaly at the end of my money I can usually do a weeks worth of food for me and dd. I generally get:

Loaf bread
Bananas
Cream cheese
Mince
Chopped tons
Pasta
Veg
Chicken livers
Cheese
Beans
Potatoes
Eggs
Apples
Milk
Cheap cereal

So for breakfast we’ll have cereal/toast
Lunch’s - soup/beans on toast/jacket potato

Dinner - mince based so spag Bol, cottage pie, hotpot, chicken livers on toast, pasta with sauce and veg, if I have flour I make pizza bases and have pizzas.

Can you get to a food bank? You’ll be able to get a referral from the CAB/dr/hv etc. That would really help out with basics and then you can get fresh fruit/veg/cereal etc on top with your money.

*tight
*properly

Anyone you could borrow a few quid off?

Any rewards you can cash in? Nectar or Clubcard points?

Is everything cheap in Aldi or do they have a basic range? (We are nowhere near an Aldi so I've never been to one).

Can you get a bit of a loan from your family if this is only a temporary cash flow issue?

It is only a week so you don't need to worry too much about nutrition or variety, assuming you'll have a normal budget again soon.

If you genuinely only have £13, I would buy the things on my shopping list below, after using up what you have in the house.

Use your pasta and mince and tomatoes and cheese - but don't waste the cheese AND the mince on the same meals. Have pasta in a tomato sauce with onions and a little bit of mince. Then have pasta in a tomatoe sauce wiht onions and a grate of cheese. Add in your veggies.

Use up your cereals.

With the shipping list you are having:
Breakfast - Porridge with whole milk (watered down)
Lunch - peanut butter sandwiches/toast
Dinner - rice or potatoes with a sauce made with tinned tomatoes, onions, carrots and sausages and there is some cheese you can throw over too for extra cals.

Same same same but there will be enough calories here.

LIST - TOTAL £12.77

2x Grower's Harvest Porridge Oats 1Kg - £1.50
1x Tesco British Whole Milk 3.408L, 6 Pints - £1.50

2x Tesco Everyday Value Crunchy Peanut Butter 340G - £1.40
3x H W Nevill's White Bread 800G - £1.08

1x Tesco Easy Cook Long Grain Rice 1Kg - £1.20
1x Redmere Farms White Potato 2.5Kg - £1.09
1x Redmere Farms Carrots 1Kg - £0.43
1x Tesco Brown Onions 1Kg - £0.75
1x Richmond 12 Thick Pork Sausages 681G - £1.50
8x Grower's Harvest Chopped Tomatoes 400G - £2.32

You can bulk out mince with porridge oats they are cheap and can fiver breakfast too. Pasta and canned tomatoes are always helpful.

I would forget about variety and go for cheap but nutritious basics at the cost of repeating meals over a number of days. So breakfasts: traditional porridge made with oats, water and a pinch of salt with a splash of milk poured over it. Lunches: huge pot of soup made by simmering red lentils, chopped onion, chopped carrots, tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, salt and pepper in water. Add a generous sprinkling of mixed herbs and cayenne pepper if you happen to have any already in the cupboard. Serve with bread. Warming, filling, cheap, and will get you all a couple of your five a day.
For nutritional purposes I would probably forget about meat and fruit this week and concentrate on carbs and veg. Cheap, bulky veg like carrots and cabbage get you quite a lot of bang for your buck because they fill you up so much. Baked beans on toast too. Do you have oil and/or spices in the cupboard already? That will really help if so.

I would buy frozen veg where possible. Bananas and apples
Breakfast toast or weetabix
Lunch homemade soup- leek and potato is filling. Need a stock cube and an onion in addition. 2 leeks and 4/5 potatoes should do 4/5 adult portions. A slice of bread and butter on the side.
Pasta and gnocchi are super cheap. Cost 70p a pack and you could add tinned tomatoes (or pesto to make it super tasty. ) I think of it was me they would be my evening meals. Child friendly, tasty and if you buy an onion and bacon larders even better. You could easily get meals for 5-6 nights out of that.

Do you have anything in the freezer?

Some good advice here. Don't get obsessed with trying to make meals balanced if it's just for a week.

Jack Monroe's site here has lots of super cheap recipe ideas. Like kidney bean and carrot burgers which cost pence to make, and bean goulash, and minestrone soup. Cheap root veg and pulses are your friends.

Meatloaf can eek out some meat, you need about 50/50 sausage meat(either buy as sausage meat or split cheap sausages) and mince and then bulk it out with crushed cornflakes, have it hot with baked beans on day one then the adults can have the cold left overs.

Milk cheese on toast, my mum used to do this. Make toast as usual. In a pan warm up some milk and crumble in crumbly cheese - you could probably use grated cheddar instead, once melted pour over the toast and serve.

A yorkshire pudding batter can be used to make a toad i the hole and the left over batter makes pancakes. Most people think of pancakes as sweet but you can stuff with mushrooms and cream cheese.

Mushrooms and cream cheese also make a good pasta sauce.

Stuffed cabbage leaves are surprisingly filling.

So my list

Corn flakes
1 large cream cheese
mushrooms
sausages - cheap or frozen are fine
plain flour
milk
cheese
2 tins beans
1 packet of passatta (2 would be better)
1 cabbage
1 pack cheap pasta
1 packet of rice
any cheap veg you can find, onions, carrots, parsnips

day one, use half the mince, 1/2 sausages and make a meatloaf serve with beans
Day 2 use the other mince and 1/2 the passatta make a pasta bolognese or meatballs and pasta - you can use some of the sausage meat to bulk out the meatballs
Day 3 milky cheese on toast
Day 4 toad in the hole
Day 5 stuffed cabbage leaves - use any left over mince/sausage meat, rice, grated veg cover in the other 1/2 of passatta and oven bake
Day 6 beans on toast (with cheese)
Day 7 veg curry and rice (you can make flat bread with just flour and water)