Aibu to think I can live on less then 15 pound a week?

[Mosseywossey]

I have just worked out my budget and I only have about 25 pound a week spare. Ideally I want to put 10 pound of it away in case of emergencies and treats.
I am allergic to chemicals so need to cook most of my meals from fresh, but can I realistically live on spending 15 pound on food a week?
And if people have any cheap recipes idea or meal plans let me know. 😋

If it's to feed only you then this really is a time for the MN Magic Chicken blows horn. £3-£6 (latter if Aldi free range) and you would get four meals out of it....

Aaah, X post! Yes, Approved Foods are fab!

Forget about meat though. Meat is too expensive on this kind of budget.

Porridge is 75p / kg so that's at least a week. £2 on milk, then it's vegetables and, cheese and cheese from Aldi. Bung chorizo in a lot of stuff.

Theres a Facebook group called feed yourself for £1 a day. 1000s of members so lots of variety

I don't think meat is too expensive for this. I spend about £40 a week for me, DH and the two DCs.

Sulfur dioxide is in wines and dried fruit. Sorbitol is in chewing gum and no added sugar foods and drinks. Potassium sorbate is usually in cheese, dried fruit and cakes.

Dietitians are not qualified to diagnose allergies or intolerances. You certainly don't need to cook from scratch.

Misses point of thread completely

Soup! Lots and lots of soup.
We buy the wonky boxes from Asda that have the not so pretty looking veg in and turn them into a soup, covers at least a few meals!

Cooking bacon is a good bet. Cheap and can be used for soup, bacon and onion roly-poly, quiche, carbonara sauce etc. You won't be able to afford any ethics, I'm afraid - no free range eggs; you'll have to buy the "concentration camp" ones.

Lentils, rice and pasta plus tinned tomatoes for sauces, soups etc. are filling and healthy.

Supermarket "own brand" sausages e.g. Sainsbury's basics, can be used make meatballs andsauwage meat patties as well as fried or put in a toad in the hole.

Batter is your friend - pancakes, yorkshire puddings etc - filling and delicious.

Cook in quantity whenever you can - freeze the excess to have a quick meal later. This goes for rice etc as well - It's as cheap to cook four portions of rice as one, and freeze in single portion bags for use with curry, stir fry and risotto..

Chilli can be made without meat, as can curry and many pasta sauces. The BBC Good Food website has loads of brilliant recipes. Baked potatoes are delicious and nourishing with leftover pasta sauce, cheese, curry or just a bit of butter/non-dairy spread.

Your greatest enemy will be boredom - if you can learn to use these cheap ingredients in a variety of ways to keep yourself from getting jaded it will help you massively.

Tinned fruit can be quite cheap (pineapple, peaches especially) and will give a lift to many savoury dishes as well as cakes and desserts.

Sloes you can make jelly/jam with but I'm not sure it's worth it - you would have to buy sugar. Unless you take orders from people for a jar and sell it for a premium price!

Look out for apple trees too - free apples, or stewed apple and blackberry frozen in small portions (yoghurt pots if there's enough room in the freezer). Make a crumble topping or eat on porridge.

LargeBucket it is more expensive to cater for 1, than to cater for 4 per head.

1 tin of tuna could last 2 main meals

• tuna jacket potato and tuna pasta

1 pack of bacon could last 3 meals
macaroni cheese and bacon bits (learn how to make a roux sauce)
bacon pasta
eggs and bacon fry up

1 chicken breast - 2 meals / pack sausages - 2 meals
half in pasta
half in a casserole

tin of beans - half for the fry up above
half with jacket potatoes with some cheese

pack of eggs
omelettes/savoury or sweet pancakes/eggs on toast

porridge or cornflakes or toast for breakfast

Running a freezer costs money. Be careful you take into account all costs.

Thank you so much!
Have another question. I live in the middle of nowhere so have to get the bulkier things delivered, as delivery is cheaper then the bus there and back.
What supermarket is better? I'm really annoyed Aldi don't deliver, but think I can get there every month the stock up on there massive bags of spices 😍

I use mySupermarket. You can do your shopping there, then see which supermarket works out cheapest.

You need about 50 grams of protein per day. The cheapest option is probably pulses but it could get rather boring. You can get it enough protein from a veggie or vegan diet but if you're not averse to eating meat, it's easier to balance your diet if you do. I think quorn is about the same price as meat.

Coming back to the rice pudding, a half can portion (200g) gives you 6.4 grams of protein. So not really a cost effective option of getting your protein or a significant amount of vit D. It's just milk, rice and sugar at an inflated price. Far more cost effective to drink fresh milk every day to increase your vit D, calcium and protein.

Lucky my house is all bills include so electric and gas is not a problem.
Crab apples any good, there is a row of those trees at the back of me.
Split cooking sound like it's the place to go but I might have to do week by week as I won't have enough room.

It's possible, I did it for a while, but it's a bloody boring diet! I found it hard to get enough protein too, looking back I hardly are meat. I ate lots of rice couscous, pasta, frozen vegetables, courgettes, celery, porridge oats, pizza dough made from scratch, pasta with a tomato puree based sauce....Lidl, Morrison's and those market stalls that sell bowls of fruit and veg for a pound each were where I shopped. It was alright, but I was glad to get the better paying job after 11 months of £40 a month for everything after rent and bills.

I go to Waitrose after 7pm and get the marked down free range meat from their fresh food counter.

One pack of sausages with lentils, root vegetables and a tin of tomatoes to make a casserole plus one roast chicken and vegetables would do you the week. Use the chicken carcass and fat to make soup (more lentils and vegetables plus chorizo) and porridge for breakfast. Slow cookers are good when you're on a budget but if you don't have one already I don't suppose now's a good time to get one.

Can I just back up the OPs frustration, an accurate food and symptoms diary especially with a state registered dietician's input is a perfectly sensible way of identifying the triggers for allergic reactions. Allergy testing is often not necessary or funded. I have been told by Allergy UK that it is probably not worth my while pursuing it.

Pulses have lots of protein.Most people have far too much protein.
Look at Indian cooking and traditional English cooking for poor people. There are lots and lots of recipes out there. And if bills are included, you can cook things for ages without worrying about that cost.
Lots of traditional cuts of meat are incredibly cheap from a butchers. They are tasty, but need cooked for a long time.

The job situation is dire ATM, I've applied for about 100 jobs and got interviews for two but the hours they said I would have to work didn't work with my studies.
So it looks like I'll be on boring food for the future, but hopefully I can jazz it up with spices and herbs and maybe a bit of pieces I can get bargains on.

If you're struggling to feed yourself on £15 a week, I think putting £10 away each week for "emergencies and treats" is too much out of your £25 budget.

Safetocross!!! Thank you❤️

The job situation is dire ATM, I've applied for about 100 jobs and got interviews for two but the hours they said I would have to work didn't work with my studies.
re you studying at university? IF you speaak to the student union, often there care quite a jobs in the SU that fit around studies quite well, like working in the bar at the union etc