to wonder what the fuck to do now? (Immediate financial problem)

[Margaritte]

We are on a very tight budget for the next couple of months. We know this, and have got advice from StepChange & I posted a thread on here for recipe /shopping advice.

However, today our card declined trying to pay for £22 or so worth of shopping. We were not expecting that, and now I am very worried and starting to panic

We have some food in for dinners. No packed lunch food though, for ds1 & 2 and dh. We have no milk (well, enough for a bottle tonight for dd) and are down to 3 nappies.

Payday isn't until end of next week, so have to do something until then.

Have you checked the points on Nectar / Clubcard? You can use them to pay for shopping too

seastargirl
Have you a boots advantage card with points on?

Oh and Tesco clubcard vouchers are in the post now - if you haven't had yours yet, you can log onto your account & access them that way.

What do you have in your cupboards in terms of food. There are lots of people on here who can turn a bit of flour some herbs and half a pack of lard etc into something (in fact with a bit of flour and some lard you make tortillas)

Free graze box
www.graze.com/p/D1FGH6P/

More lunch ideas: flavoured cous cous with some frozen peas and chopped up roast chicken. Buy some marked down chicken portions, roast in oven and chop up. Put some herbs mixed with tomato purée on before cooking to give a little flavour.

Buy a marked down loaf and freeze it, defrost a couple of slices at a time when required on top of the toaster or under the grill. Tinned sardines can also be mashed down and spread on bread, or mix with mash and frozen veg then fry to make cheap fish cakes.

It's car boot season. I recall once a cash flow crisis and spending my Saturday pulling together stuff for a car boot the next day. But there's usually an initial site charge. I did make a profit of £64. Kept us fed.

Just get basics in m and s. Bread, milk etc are not overpriced there. Packed lunch can be a basic sandwich, yoghurt and fruit. Or are the Ds young enough that they get free school lunch ?

What size nappies do you need OP?

facebook local selling page.

where in the country are you OP?

Spanish omelette - onion, potatoes, eggs.

And you add stuff from the fridge like peppers/meats etc.

Where in the country roughly are you Op? I have a stock of nappies in a few sizes if it will help and you're not to far? I'm in West Sussex.

Saturday evening is a good time to get marked down food in the supermarkets. Do you have any toys/clothing/books/dvd's your kids have grown out of? In my experience these go fast on local facebook selling pages, especially peppa pig, thomas stuff etc. You can specify they must be collected asap to stop people messing you around. Those selling pages often have free nappies on too as people have odd ones left when their child goes up a size, just try posting a request and see what happens.

Where are you OP? If close you never know who can help?

(I also have chickens and more eggs than I know what to do with!)

Yes I was about to start a post asking what to do with four dozen eggs. If you're near me you're welcome to some.

With your M&S card, go there a couple of hours before they close and you should get some really good bargains - usually a quarter of the normal price.

• Check out car boots for tomorrow, lots happen on Sundays too. Do the kids have toys they don't play with, any clothes or stuff in the attic? People also ask on Freecycle for stuff to sell at car boots too.

• Local gumtree or freecycle for nappies, lots of people have part packs unused. Or look on MySupermarket to compare nappy prices at supermarkets, or maybe someone on here could let you know what Lidl/Aldi charge if you have one near you.

• Go through your cupboards and see what food you've got already and plan shopping around that. Pasta bakes can be pretty cheap to make even with jars and you can put pretty much anything in there (sausages, chicken, veg, tuna or just pasta and the sauce).

• I'm not sure how to access FoodBanks but google for some local numbers and start calling on Monday.

• I wonder if you can talk to the school about a payment plan for school lunches for the next week. If you could spread the cost, might this help rather than panic now about buy pack lunch stuff for the whole of next week? Our school is really good when people ask.

• Can your bank give you a small overdraft? Not ideal but even £50 would help you get through the week.

Can DH and DS walk to work/school? I'd be looking at that to make a saving in the short term.

Food wise, you may need to get inventive so the first thing I would do is a complete inventory of the kitchen cupboards and freezer to see what I could reasonably make without needing extra ingredients.

Aldi nappies are 1.50 for size 1/2, and I think £2-3 for other sizes.

Ocado take the money as soon as delivery is made.