To think I could live on �20 - 25 per week?

[confusion77]

Is it realistic? If it were just me and the cat. The cat food costs 2.75 per fortnight for tins and 11 per month for biscuits approx. I could get cheaper biscuits for him i guess.

This would be for all food and stuff like shampoo shower gel, washing up liquid etc.

Not face creams make up or wine....

I work full time and get on well with colleagues. I do have an aldi. I have a social hobby which costs me (horse) but which i have budgeted for.

I have a builder for a dad. :-) He would love to do more but because of how things are rarely gets to.

I would anticipate needing to be frugal for a year or so until my mortgage can be changed. Still on first time buyer fixed rate.

DS (11) and I are veggie and spend £40-60 a week on all food and household stuff, and it's a bit of a grind long-term, thh. We also have a cat.

Could you stretch to £35 per week? It would make things easier.

I think if you already have a well stocked pantry it could be done if necessary but you would need the time to shop around to find bargains and offers and definitely to make use of whatever is reduced - in most shops things greatly reduce in price a couple of hours before closing and in the last half an hour or so the prices of anything left often go down to pennies. The fruit and veg will often still last a good week or so past the sell-by date and most things that won't last beyond a day or two past sell-by can be frozen.

If you are planning to ask him to leave perhaps start stocking up on toiletries, cat food and dried larder items now? The more you have to begin with the easier it will be.

Good luck in making your decision and working out how it will work.

I find living alone hard, financially. Like you, I LOVE my house and it's a bloody great feeling having your own place and being in complete control. But the money side is tough. I earn well but am paying of past debts (nobody to blame but me) so have very little free money. I waste too much on alcohol (4 bottles of wine a week, I know, I know) but there we go.
If you honestly feel you need to get out of your marriage, you probably should do it. There's always a way of making situations work. Would you be entitled to any benefits at all?

Do 5:2 if you need to lose weight and cut food costs

Sorry about your marriage.

Nope not a penny. As i said i work full time and don't earn badly for this area. But the mortgage is quite high for now, I really hope it will drop when my fixed term expires.

I also have some debts due to husband jacking his job in and me using credit card and lian. My name - idiot. I honestly think my parents would pay off the lian and the credit card is interest free for 18 more months.

I would really miss the wine.

Thanks primal i might switch it to 2:5 though for greater benefit.

I could cancel my gym subscription and use the money for wine i guess.

Yes, on 20-25 quid a week for household shopping, you should be able to do it easily. Might take a tiny bit more effort but it can be done because I'm doing it on less than that. Your pusscat might be costing you too much. My boy Stanley only eats biscuits and his food bill is a pound a week.

The real challenge, as mentioned, is what you do if an appliance breaks down or needs to be replaced or some other unforeseen expense crops up if you don't have funds set aside. As I discovered not long ago.

I think Cremeeggthief's suggestion of £35 per week is much more realistic. I guess it depends what you eat though: DP and I spend around £70 per week on food - but we eat a lot of fruit and veg (which aren't nearly as cheap as they should be, but that's another argument) and we cook a lot, often quite complex stuff. We get through a hell of a lot of herbs and spices, for example. If you eat simpler stuff, it's probably a lot easier.

Depends how much you exercise too: we both exercise a lot, and DP is a little obsessed with putting on muscle, so we end up eating more than we perhaps otherwise would, and spending quite a lot of 'protein foods' like nuts and chicken for DP. All the exercise also means more frequent showering and washing of hair, so the cost of toiletries goes up too.

I managed on about £15-18 a week as a student (groceries and toiletries but not union food etc). That was about 10-14 years ago. I'm a pretty good cook and veggie, which probably helped. I spend an awful lot more than that now unfortunately.

Any scope for growing own veggies? Herbs etc? knows nothing about gardening

I did 20 per week about eight years ago, and it wasn't too bad...I are fairly well and think I could do it for less.

If possible, bulk buy and batch cook.

Lots of pasta, cheap sauces, soups made from reduced vegetables (I once made seven portions of parsnip soup of 50p which I put away and froze).

Packet sauces are cheap and not too bad.

I believe a boy called jack has some good, low cost recipes.

Two meals a week at parents a possibility?

Cleaning stuff - lemon and vinegar is a good substitute for some stuff.

Just to add, me and DP spend about £50 per week on food, and are not on an economy drive - this excludes the Friday/Saturday night takeaway, so only six nights, but as you are eating at your parents one night, it will only be six nights.

I can cook well, and one of my gripes about being half of a couple is that I have to cook something different daily. On my own i often ate the same meal 2 - 4 nights in a row!

Also if i did the payday shop i could batch cook and freeze so i didn't have to eat the same thing over and over.

What does your cat eat bitter? Mine is getting on and husband feed ls him too much meat. I think i could probably make 6 tins last more than a fortnight. He has iams biscuits on special offer at 11 for a big bag.

Oh, and the idea of getting a decent stock-cupboard together before he goes, if he's earning is a very good idea. There's no end of things you can do with lentils and if you can shop in your local asian market and buy in bulk it's almost free.

I'm not a meat-eater so it's not a hardship to not be able to afford it but it might be for you.

It's amazing how few cleaning-products you really need. If you can't clean it with washing-up liquid then you probably can with a bit of bleach. Pound shops are very good for cleaning products and toiletries. Aldi and Lidl's are extremely good quality and also cheap. Ditto laundry products but then I make my own laundry soap so don't buy any now.

Whole chicken (free range) £6 in Aldi I think - dinners and lunches
Mince 250g £2ish - 2 dinners/lunches. 3 if made into chilli or spag bol (refer to mahoosive thread a few weeks ago ...)
2 x salmon fillets £5

That should be enough proteiny stuff for dinners. Or something like that.

Eggs £1.50
Bag of salad leaves £1 (or grow some)

I could grow stuff, i have a garden. Not sure how good i'd be at it!! Also neighbour grows stuff and is forever giving me tomatos, leeks, runner beans etc. He could teach me!

Hang on, it might be a girl called jack....

Yup

Www.agirlcalledjack.com

You can make meals go further by adding beans and pulses, too.

We can double a slag Bol with them.

Get a couple of budget cook books, this one is very good.
www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Called-Jack-delicious-recipes/dp/0718178947
DD lived well on £25 a week for food as a student; stock up your spices, herbs and sauces before you start.

Xpost Clash!

bitter i have made my own hand soap before, cold process. I made 3 batches, gave a liad as presents and didn't buy soap for about 2 yrs! How do you do laundry soap? I guess its pretty good to use?
I live in bumpkin land so no asian store sadly.

I am not fussed about meat. Rarely ate it when single. Bought lentils recently to experiment with. Cheap!

I think you could do it if you had access to cheap shops, time to plan and cook from scratch and a freezer - essential for snaffling cheap deals and offers and freezing for later, also for batch cooking. That wouldn't include much meat though and I'd assume you can take and heat food up at work - I think a thick soup or left over pasta heated up is 10 x more satisfying than a sandwich, for example.

but - and it's a big but - there is no slack in there for wine, treats and things going wrong, eg appliances breaking down, and it isn't any fun. But i think no Less fun than an unhappy marriage...

"What does your cat eat bitter?"

He's been on dried food since he was a kitten (when he was someone else's pet. I rehomed him a few years ago). Turned his nose up at tinned, pouches, raw meat and tinned fish, so I'm not being cruel or denying him stuff because I can't afford it.

He's on Lidl's "Opticat" complete @ 2 quid or so for 750 grammes which lasts him a fortnight. He was on their cheaper dried food at a quid a kilo but I treated him to the more expensive one and the little bugger wouldn't switch back. Rod for my own back etcetera

Thats the principle I'm working on Wilson.

If you're on water rates asking to be changed to a metered supply is likely to be cheaper for you. There'll be an online calculator somewhere...