What's the least you can survive on?

[Neveralonewithaclone]

I'm just thinking about ww2 rationing, tightwad tips and wondering how little money a person could live on and survive. I read that the budget for food for prisoners is less than £3pd (obviously you have to factor in economies of scale).

I am lucky enough to live near a "that Bread and Butter thing" so for £17 we get 6 sometimes 7 bags of shopping. This feeds 5 of us (all adult sized) for about 4 days. We do need to buy things to add to it, usually rice/pasta/lentils etc but on a tight week we can spend another £30 and get through. Therefore it's about £10 per person for the week. I know we are lucky though.

I had to exist on UC £85 a week) for nearly two years recently and I ate a mostly rice and beans diet. I bought bones from the butcher and made stock with them and all the veggie peelings that I’d saved in the freezer, no cabbage family though, and more or less had curry three times a day. You can make a decent ‘chapati’ type bread with soaked lentils and water whizzed in the blender and that was nice for breakfast with dhal and rice. Basic spices are cheap in an Indian shop and tired veg are cheap on the market at the end of the day. Tesco do good discounts sometimes.
I was too ill to carry on working so didn’t have to have smart clean clothes everyday which saved on washing. I think the only new thing I bought in two years was a coat on eBay for £10 when the zip broke on my existing one.
Things are much better now I get the state pension and PIP.
I didn’t have to worry about being evicted though as was in my own house and had a wardrobe of clothes and an equipped kitchen, so was already with many advantages.
I don’t understand how any government official can sit in an office and work out that £85 a week covers the basics to keep body and soul together for a single person. What planet do they live on?

I remember being a mature student in London over 20 years ago and working in a shop 3 days a week and surviving on very little money.

But the only reason I could do that was because bills and rent were much, much lower than they are now and I had no student tuition fees to pay (I just managed to get into university before they were introduced).

With the current cost of living it now it would be impossible for me to survive in the same circumstances now.

Interesting re budget for prisoners - I can easily shop for three adults on £60pw and could cut back more in terms of cheaper choices. We eat well on this. Today I'll have cereal, a cake, wrap with cream cheese, cucumber and tomatoes on side, apple, clementine, gnocchi with a creamy tomato and aubergine sauce with a green veg on side. In the day, DH have a cake, something like egg/beans on toast for lunch with tomato, a banana and yogurt after tea. DD has last night's leftovers, a banana and nuts for the day.

Something like WW2 will dictate shortages of certain goods, but people adapted growing their own veggies, different recipes like carrot cake etc.

If we really didn't have the money, clothes would be kept longer - no throwing something because it had a stain on it, and sewing up patches. We spend £135pm here on gas and electric, but if we couldn't afford that or it wasn't available, we'd just have to do without. Both sets of grandparents didn't have heating, one had a gas fire, the other an open fire and a mini log stove thing in the kitchen.

We want far more than many had years ago, most people have a landline and mobile phone, tvs, computers/laptops etc, cars, pets, holidays, subscriptions, going to classes, eating out and there are lots of extras we have like garden furniture, plants.

When my exh ran off with my wealthy friend that's where they put me with 3 children. I often went without meals to feed my kids. We had nothing. Nothing.
I really do hate him and what he did.

I recommend reading The Moneyless Man, about a man who decided to live without money for a year.

It's not exactly a lifestyle I aspire to, but it does really help you rethink your needs Vs wants, and how to enjoy/feed/exercise yourself for free.

DH and I saw how little we can spend, when we have to, through the first lockdown. That period where noone knew what was going to happen and we didn't know if either or both of us would lose our jobs. And nothing was open anyway.

I'm not exaggerating when I say we didn't even spend £10 a week on discretionary purchases for 3 months. No eating out, no going to the pub or for a coffee, no driving or getting the train anywhere - walking everywhere - so no paying for parking either. No gym - just running and cycling for free. No haircuts, no new clothes, nothing new for the house or garden. If something broke we raided the garage to find what we needed to repair it. I decorated a bedroom with old paint that we had stored in the shed - I wasn't fussed about the colour, it had to do.

It wouldn't be sustainable to live like it forever, and if something big breaks, you're screwed, but I'm comforted that we can 'switch off' our spending if ever we need to in a crisis.

20 years ago a Prison Officer came to where I worked to talk to the disaffected youth. He pointed out that the amount per prisoner for a day's food was less than they'd spent on their McDonald's. I pointed out that the amount per prisoner was double what I spent on myself and 4 children as a full time working single parent.

So there's that.

I used to survive on £20 a week after bills. This was in 2007/2008. That had to buy all food/toiletries. I never bought new clothes. I used to buy

Loaf of bread
Small block of cheese
Cheap porridge oats
Milk
Pasta
Jar of pasta bake
Mince
Tin of tomatoes
Bananas
Carrots
Butter
Rice
Supermarket brand crisps

Which took up the £20.

I would have porridge for breakfast, cheese sandwich with crisps, banana and carrot sticks for lunch. Then I'd make a batch of pasta bake and a batch of chilli to freeze which would last the week for dinners.

It was boring and repetitive and carb heavy but I survived. Did it for about 9 months. You'd probably need around £30 to buy all that stuff now, mince was a lot cheaper then.

When ds was little we had to live off jobseekers which was roughly 70 a week. It was rough, I nearly cried when dh put our last £10 on the wrong electric key. We used to buy tins of 18p hotdogs to live on. We had about £20 a week to spend on food after bills for 3 of us. Our weekly treat was a jar of homepride potato bake sauce so we could have potato bake. It was an awful existence

And that's the reality of benefits not the lifestyle that Rishi and co would have people believe,it's a minority that scam and cheat the majority really struggle.

Years ago I worked in a Bupa care home, in the kitchen. I think the cost per week to live there was around £800 at the time. The cook had a budget of £1.50 per main meal for each resident.

It's always going to end up cheaper per person, the more you feed. Now I only cook for myself, some ready meals work out much cheaper than me buying all the separate ingredients and making it myself. Might not be as nice or as healthy but it's cheaper.

I probably spend around £40 a week on actual food. What pushes the cost up is cat food and litter (2 cats), things like bin bags, washing powder, loo roll, those kinds of things. They may not need buying weekly, but there's usually something that needs topping up.

I suppose I could just about survive on £85 a week. My utilities are around £30 p/w. So I'd have to get everything else down to £55. It wouldn't be much fun but probably just about possible, if nothing broke down or needed replacing.

If i lived alone I'd use flannels instead of toilet roll (apart from what I stole) that requires a washing machine though. I think a vat of bean, vegetable and lentil casserole / soup for all lunches and dinners would probably be healthier and cheaper. I mean you'd want to shoot yourself but luckily couldn't afford a gun.

I remember one Christmas i could only buy my ds a playmobile garage from a charity shop, literally nothing else. Thankfully he was a toddler.

I did see the menu for prisoners online somewhere, I'll search for it.

I think there's a difference though between having to survive in the short term or that being your life full stop.

I could survive for a while if say I lost my job for some reason and it took time to find another.

If that was how it was going to be for decades, then I probably would resort to shop lifting. Might make me sound bad to say that. But if I was that desperate I probably would see it as an option.

I was on benefits for 14 years as a single mum so I know all the frugal tricks. Am on a pretty good income now but I could cope pretty well if we needed to cut down. Essential travel costs are zero as I don't drive, and have a disability travel pass that covers all public transport in London. Not sure how low we could go for food - it's been a long time since I had to be frugal and prices have gone up. But we'd go meat free, eat potatoes and pasta. Stock up at the local food pantries which sell big bags of staples cheaply. Use water in my porridge instead of milk. I'd take my dc to children's centres every day as they have free snacks (we usually just go once a week). There's a daily free food van nearby run by Hare Krishnas so that would be our lunch. I could probably stop spending on any toiletries and cosmetics and be fine for a couple of years. Mooncup so no sanitary wear costs. Where we are in London never gets too cold, we could manage with no heating all year especially if we went out a lot to free places like libraries and museums during the day.

Don't let a prison menu mislead you, prison food is notorious for being poor and really low quality.

My two staples are egg fried rice and pasta bake. No breakfast, no lunch. Toast made from frozen bread if really hungry.

I always think though, it doesn't matter how little you can get by on for food. Food is such a small part of what it costs to live, so only looking at food is falsely reassuring in terms of how well we could survive. Rent, mortgage, childcare, utilities, council tax, insurance, these are where the money really goes, and we have little control over them. And if we aren't paying them directly, they are still being paid for, and are still part of the actual amount you need to survive on.

If that was how it was going to be for decades, then I probably would resort to shop lifting.

Oh me too, and pretty quickly.

The lowest I have lived on was £25 pw when I was doing my masters but my accommodation and energy bills were paid by working as a residential warden and my fees by a loan.

I was also vegetarian and I knew how to cook which made a big difference! Generally would go to an Indian supermarket for a big bag of lentils and rice. Big bag of pasta from the supermarket, tinned tomatoes and garlic salt with dried herbs.
Lunches used to be soup made with whatever cheap veg was available and breakfast was peanut butter on toast to keep me full (would freeze the bread so it didn't go off).
I used to go to the market at the end of the day and often grab a bag of veggies very cheaply (less then £2).
Home bargains for toothpaste and wash stuff I didn't wear makeup.

Prisoners are also pretty hungry, breakfast is a child sized portion of cereal. I eat more than that for breakfast. I also would shoplift.

I agree that food is a drop in the ocean and you can get absolutely knocked out by one thing breaking. And the credit bullshit directed at struggling people - renting a washing machine. The poorest i ever was working full time and in private (shit) rented. Getting a council house was winning the lottery.

Porridge
Big pots of soup
Vegetarian main courses - curries, stir fries etc
Casseroles with cheaper meat like sausages

It can be done. In the past when I've been skint I've gone weeks on homemade lentil soup and wholemeal bread.