TIPS FOR HAVING NO MONEY

[BellaElla99]

Hi,

I need help with money as everything is getting so expensive, as a single parent, I am extremely overwhelmed. I can’t afford to top up my pre-payment meter and I can’t afford any new clothes to keep my children warm in the house this winter.

I am struggling so please be kind. If you’ve been poor/are poor or just extremely frugal, please give me your best tips to cope with this winter? Anything from tips to keep warm, tips to keep the kids warm, cheap meal options (have £10 per week left for shopping for December). We will be going to the local church for Christmas dinner and we can watch Christmas films with Christmas shaped toast for breakfast. Kids are young so they won’t know the difference but I need advice for leading up to this!

Thanks so much :)

Get a flask on Facebook marketplace and when you boil the kettle fill the flask up too. Use it as hot water for later drinks or washing up.

Food-wise, as others have said, eggs are cheap and so versatile. Omelettes, pancakes, eggy bread, scrambled etc. Lidl do fruit and veg boxes for £1.50.
Your GP can refer you to their social prescriber who can issue food bank and fuel vouchers and signpost you for other help. You can complete an econsult (if your surgery offers this, most do) and choose the admin option which saves waiting on the phone for ever and a day.
There are some great tips on here and I hope they help. Wishing you all the very best.

@S2617

All very nice suggestions but with media and the hustle of Christmas, it makes it difficult to have to do all of this.

If you’re local to me, I’m happy to do a Xmas shop for you to help you and your family this year.

That's so kind, what a lovely person you are.

I’m a CAB adviser. I would expect to refer a client in your situation to the food bank and to a local organisation that can do one off payments (we have a couple as they tend to be for people who live in name of village - these aren’t all connected to churches) for help with things like clothing. We sometimes refer to national charities.

We also do benefit checks.

There are pages on Facebook called “everything free” or a website called free cycle.

I have also seen people post locally on Facebook asking for things free or very cheap and they get lots of offers. Some people have literally had their flats furnished for free by asking. If you feel worried or embarrassed about making a post you could always say “I’m trying to do my bit for the environment if and so asking if anyone has any children’s clothes to hand down in these sizes”. Lots of people will offer!

Also I really recommended charity shops for very cheap hand crocheted blankets and “nanny knits” jumpers which are usually virtually new after being “unwanted gifts”. Wool is soooo warming.

Hello everyone.

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Sorry to hijack your thread briefly there, OP – we really hope you get it all sorted soon. In the meantime, you might find some useful information on our guide for dealing with financial difficulty. Happy Christmas from MNHQ.

red lentils make great meals, just add onion, garlic and anything else you fancy/have available

OP, do you have a freezer and what supermarkets do you use?

I eat a lot of things like dhal and know that a carrot and lentil soup is very cheap and I like both these things, but a lot of the moneysaving tips I have are based on things like buying packs of frozen garlic cubes because they're cheaper than fresh, Asian branded spices from the world food aisle in the supermarket, etc but they don't work if you don't like this food, don't have a freezer or don't have the right shops nearby.

How old are your children? I have some clothes that mine have grown out of

Go to the CAB with all your financial documents and information.

They can help you make sure you have all benefits and they can refer you to other local services.

Single parent for 17 years so this is what I do:

Save whatever points your supermarket offers. Sainsbury’s is closest to me so I save all year to get money off the Christmas shop.

Find out when the reduced food is put on sale. Freeze it or batch cook it.

Do online surveys. Yougov and Prolific are good sites and you can “withdraw” your earnings from Prolific at any time.

Free school meals if entitled.

Use Quidco when changing your house/car insurance or other services. Then you get cash back in a few months time.

EBay things.

Use Freecycle.

Go to charity shops. Also, they’ll look out the back if you ask or even keep their eye out for things you need.

Repair cafes can mend stuff for you.

Library for books (!) but they also offer stuff for children like Lego clubs and reading challenges in the holidays.

Occasional foraging (chestnuts, blackberries etc) You can find apples at the moment. Also good for Christmas craft things.

Heat one room. We sit under a large duvet to watch tv. Hot water bottles in bed.

You used to be able to get cheap fleeces from IKEA (haven’t been in ages so not sure they still do these) and you can tack them along the top edge if your curtains as a thick lining.

Make a draught excluder sausage for the bottom of your front door.

Save cardboard boxes etc for craft projects. Useful if you can find someone in a job where they can bring you paper only printed on one side.

Free (ish) kids things we like: reading, pretending to be in a mobile library van (we’re v rural so apologies if you don’t know they exist!), cards and board games, baths with lots of toys in, making play dough, lego, murder in the dark type games, making tents, making treasure hunts with lots of clues on post it notes, going for a walk, cooking

For Christmas dinner, Aldi did potatoes, carrots and sprouts last year at 19p a bag. For years, I always grilled 3 chicken breasts for us for lunch as that was enough with no waste. (They’re too big now so I buy a whole chicken).

Hit up all the local and free pages for clothes and toys. We have people on ours offering everything from new toys, Christmas paper, Christmas decorations, Christmas treats and food boxes.

Ask on your local FB page about community kitchens/shops. We have a few in our area, they run all year round, you pay a small fee and get coloured tokens for using at their shop. They also collect food from the local superstores which is free for all to take. It's left in a shelter for anyone to help themselves. They even get flowers and random items that you wouldn't expect.

Lidl do a veg/fruit box for a small amount. All the fruit and veg is fine, it's just they have found one item in the original box which has gone over. Buy pulses in bulk when you can and build meals around them.

Get a cheap oil filled radiator off FB (ours was £5), it's cheaper and more efficient then putting on the heating. We use it downstairs in the day and upstairs during the night.

If you're on Facebook you could see if there is a local FreeBay page - there us one for my town and on "Want it Wednesdays" people can request things they need. People often request kids clothes etc. The rest of the week people post things for free that they are giving away.

My tips:
Look on facebook for recycle/reuse groups - ppl give stuff away and some of it could be useful to you.
Look at a couple of apps - Olio and To Good To Go - for very cheap or free food. My son uses these at Uni and has had some great free meals - it can be fun too finding out what you are going to get.
Have you got a local food bank/food charity that you can use.
Concentrate on doing stuff not things (my son has said one of his best memories was staying up late making a set of snowmen out of cotton wool and toilet rolls when he was young!)
Good luck!!

It can be cheaper to cook food you know your children will eat.

Baked potatoes with cheese and beans, tuna and mayo etc

Pasta with tomato sauce, cheese sauce or, in emergency, just olive oil plus herbs and chilli

Rice with whatever you’ve got stirred in.

Omelettes

Boiled eggs and soldiers

The little plain pizzas (about 50p each) with toppings you like. Cut potatoes into wedges and shake in a freezer back with oil, salt and herbs to make wedges.

Kebabs. Pork cubes with whatever you have - tomatoes, mushroom, tinned pineapple etc. Or swap the meat for halloumi.

Toast with beans, veg ravioli, cheese, tinned spaghetti etc

Make soup with veg that is looking a bit tired.

Tinned rice pudding or tinned fruit and yoghurt.

Porridge for breakfast or boxed cereal.

Sometimes you can cook something with enough for lunch the next day.

See if you energy provider does the Warm Homes discount.

Aldi does a Super 6 cheap fruit and veg every week. You can see it online if it’s what you like.

Line the windows with tin foil.

Soup can be as filling and nutritious as a plate of stew. Make a big pot once a week. Also red lentils and chickpeas are cheap. Make great curries and bolognese. If family are getting you christmas presents can you ask for tokens? Like Tesco or Sainsbury. Hot water bottles u der a fleecy tnrow are jusf brilliant, like your own personal radiator.

@Kippersfortea

I remember being advised to go on a budgeting course when I had no money too! I responded that there was no point as I already knew how to budget I just didn't have any money to budget with.

So very true.

Talk honestly to the church- many churches have funds set aside to help out with this.
As a child a local church regularly delivered and paid for shopping- the congregation won’t be told, but the deacons will often feel privileged to help out.
Talk to your neighbours. Be honest if you feel you can - people will pass unused toys and clothes your way.
It is so hard. Your children will have so much respect for you as adults.

There’s so many good things going on to me on a local level. Facebook is your friend here to have a look about.
My local church has an informal food bank with cafe you can drop in for free breakfast and advice. I’ve just seen a local charity has Christmas crafts on in the holidays and they feed the children every day. There’s numerous cheap food initiatives as well. It will depend where you live though.
I think you need to find what you can get for free and save your money for what you really need to spend it on.

Is there a local Facebook group for your area? A lot of kids toys and clothes are given away on ours. Especially if people make a call out when money is tight.

We also use the app Too Good To Go to buy big bags of veg for £3 though it's very much dependent on your area what's on offer.

Sending

Mega cheap meal options. The cheapest and most value for money pasta is spaghetti. You can get smart price/value spaghetti for 20p for 500g. Buy passata for 35p, Tom purée for 30p and basil and oregano for 90p each. Hot dogs 50p a tin. So if you buy

Herbs £1.80
Tom purée 30p
3 spaghetti 60p
9 passata £3.15
9 hot dogs £4.5

totalling £10.35 and will use all the ingredients but that will make 36 portions at a cost of just under 30p per portion.

An alternative on this is spaghetti with a few slices of chopped bacon , half a tub of cheap value Philly and a hand full of defrosted peas and sweetcorn.

Reduced pitta beads/French stick makes an excellent base for pizza ( Passata, basil oregano as a sauce) and then any toppings you have lying around in the fridge or freezer. Frozen Sweetcorn works great with a ton of tuna flakes. You don't need lots of cheese.

Half a tin of corned beef, mash and a tin of beans is mega cheap and very filling.

Beans on toast, or sausage and beans on toast is still a perfectly legitimate meal. You can melt a plastic cheese slice into the beans to make cheesy beans. You can also use cheese slices to make cheap tomatoes or top pasta.

Please do reach out to your kids school. I am now in a better position than when my kids were younger and so I repay the kindness I was shown and donate new toys to the school. I absolutely want children to get a present or two on Christmas no matter what their circumstances and I would be delighted to anonymously helps family like yours. I also typically over order on my festive shop and can't fit it in the freezer so always offer a few bags of assorted Christmas food on my local "what you see totally free" group.

Please reach out for support.

Thanks for all the amazing tips and responses.

It is so hard. I have storage heaters which make the situation 10x worse. I have been in charity shops but it seems that even they have increased! I wish I could work but I can’t because universal credit pay up to 85% of childcare but the maximum is still only £646 and nursery’s where I live are £56-£60 per day so I would end up worse off plus having to put more petrol in.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I have electrics on the meter at the moment but just can’t afford to use it all because I still have the rest of the month to get through so I was looking for tips to reduce the spend. If I put the heating on, it’s literally draining it (by like £10 per day) so I need to really find ways to keep warm without putting it on!

I can’t afford to buy an electric blanket at the moment but I’ll definitely do the sleeping in one room thing. Maybe I can move a mattress into the living room and just live out of there for the time being. Kids will probably think it’s a massive sleepover and sleep better anyway.