Only £30 this week-what to buy?

[Maccapaccawentwee]

We had an emergency medical situation with Dd and had to call a doctor out for a home visit. She’s fine now but we’re down nearly €200. We’re in another country and I have the equivalent of £30 for food until Friday, what go buy 🤷🏻‍♀️How to budget food for that amount (we usually spend 80/90)
What are the best foods/meals?

You have a budget of £6 a day ( and food in the larder.)
That's pretty do-able.

You should be able to prepare a decent main meal for £4 with meat like mince or a chicken (with some left overs.)

Or pasta, or bean-based mains.

With enough left over from the daily allowance for some fruit, veg, bread, milk etc.

If your in portugal then you need to go to the shop and look at what is cheap for you to buy.

Make a large pot of soup for lunches and make bread/ rolls. Make a large pot of Bolognaise - use 1/2 quantity of meat you normally would and bulk out with pulses or porridge oats.

Examples of main meals

Spag bol
Chilli
Omelettes with jacket spuds or chips & salad
Chicken roast
Risotto using the stock from the carcass
Jacket spuds with tuna & salad / cheese
Pasta with homemade tom sauce/ cheese/ tuna

Stew or soup is cheap for dinner- dh can reheat for work.
When I was a student I lived off toast and porridge.
Egg fried rice is very cheap.
What are the basic recipes that the locals make in your area?? I'd start by buying the cheapest veg, meat and carbs available?

Don’t bother with meat this week, it’s expensive

Chicken thighs are really cheap, use the bones for stock and you can do a few things like chicken and rice soup and chicken curry.

Potatoes obviously! You can use them in potato cakes or bakes etc with just some bacon and cabbage.

Own brand cream of mushroom soup is useful as a pasta bake sauce with some cheese and loads of veg.

Good luck, 30£ is quite a good amount 😀

I'm not sure how much things cost in Portgual, but you mentioned pasta is cheap. You don't need to make 5 days' worth of varied, balanced food. You just need to make 5 days' worth of food.

Remember, your DH will have the highest calorie need (men have a higher muscle percentage), followed by you, followed by your DC. It starts with something bland and simple for your DC, followed by more seasoning for you and your DH and then a bigger portion/more protein for your DH. It can be the same meal every day if it has to be.

Look for what is cheap and can bulk out a dish. Also, consider what is filling. Ham might taste nice/add flavour, but it won't put a dent in an appetite. Chicken, lentils or any kind of meat/veggie sausages will help fill that hole more effectively. What is cheapest where you are?

Are there any cheap veggies at the moment? Buy them. You can put almost any vegetable into a pasta dish. They can go in just your and your DH's portions if they'll cause a meltdown with your DC.

Soup is surprisingly filling and makes ingredients go far but it's not necessarily calorific. You said your DH eats a lot - is he just greedy or does he do quite a physical job?

I would see which veg are cheap and make a big pot of soup (with spices I already have) - so probably a curried carrot-and-something soup, which DH and I would eat with cheap bread or jacket potatoes for lunches.

Kids are more tricky because they're picky but they would happily eat homemade pizza, pasta in all variants, etc.
So for kids: pasta and marinara sauce (cheapest possible tinned tomatoes with onion, garlic, spices, simmered forever) Mac & cheese, and if I can afford the big block of cheese some I'll save some marinara sauce for homemade pizza (if you have flour and yeast in the cupboard). I'd vary it with cheap sausages (cheapest are frozen here in the UK, usually) and mashed potatoes. I'd lean on veggie protein, chucking some lentils in the soup for the adults and making sure the children eat their frozen peas..... something like that.

Food is much cheaper here in the UK than in other places I've lived (especially Aldi/Lidl) - but I also find being deliberately veggie and making sure the kids drink their milk and eat their peas saves us a lot of money.

get margarine & milk & cheese & tuna & mince & carrots & white cabbage & mayonnaise & frozen peas & oil & fruit perhaps capsicum (use half at a time) tinned toms/tompuree ( if you have any more money & beans & a few fresh toms)
You have flour & eggs that can be: pancakes (serve with jam or honey or tinned fruit if you have in cupboard), omelettes, egg mayonnaise (sandwiches) which is why you need margarine, cheese sandwiches (buy sliced bread rather than fancy rolls) you can make quiche (for lunches) make coleslaw from cabbage & carrots to serve
with You can make rice dish with onions peas (& eggs if you have
enough) You can make pizza (served with yep! coleslaw) fried eggy bread! Jacket pots with either cheese or beans (& coleslaw) do you have pickle in cupboard this can be used on cheese sandwiches

Thanks all for all these great suggestions...didn’t think of potato curry!

@BackforGood
Agree with this

Pancakes are easy, cheap, and delicious. You already have most of the ingredients. You can find a decent recipe here: www.delscookingtwist.com/easy-fluffy-american-pancakes/ No need for syrup or berries. Just serve with a bit of butter and some cinnamon, if you have spices.

Pasta will last you 2-3 dinners with some spaghetti sauce. For a can of crushed tomatoes and an onion, you can make sauce enough for several nights: goodcheapeats.com/everyday-marinara-sauce/

Lentils should be dirt cheap. Saute half an onion, a carrot, and one stick of celery (you can freeze what you don't use; if you don't have access to this, use whatever you can of that mix); add one cup of dried lentils to 3 cups liquid. If you have a tiny bit of bacon, you can mix that in--one rasher will give it huge flavor. If you don't have stock on hand, then use water and add salt. Bay leaf if you have it. Cook for 15-20 minutes, then to taste. Whole thing costs about £2, when you portion out the ingredients.

Oats
Chopped tomatoes
Onions
Potatoes/carrots/any cheap root veg
Apples
Milk
Eggs
Pasta
Tinned beans/chickpeas
Cheap pack of mince (whatever meat is cheapest) and stretch it
Cheap white fish from freezer section

@Maccapaccawentwee

No meters etc, all electricity etc paid, it’s literally just food for 4.5 days for two adults and one toddler, no dietary requirements. I have lots of flour, eggs, onions, spaghetti, some rice, all spices 🤔

I also don’t understand, £30 is plenty to feed two adults and a toddler for 4.5 days, even if you didn’t already have staples. I would do that easily even if I were not on a budget.

Download the Too Good to Go App , not sure which city you are in but if you are in Faro for example there are loads of places you can pick up a bag of food cheaply
Not all cities have them but it's an idea to see if it's available
Its a superb app and can be used all over Europe and the UK

You have flour, eggs, onions, spaghetti, some rice,

Day 1:
B - Scrambled egg on toast
L - jacket potatoes and salad
D - spaghetti with sauce or pesto

Day 2
B - pancakes using flour and eggs
L - baguettes with tuna or cheese
D - chicken cooked on bed of onions with herbs/ spices from cupboard and rice

Day 3
B - toast or eggy bread
L - salad with chicken from night before
D - sausage bake - sausage, onions, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes all in a pan and baked for 30-40 minutes

Day 4
B - porridge
L - left over sausages hot or cold in baguettes or cheese baguettes
D - left over sausages turned into toad in the hole or pasta bake

Shopping list meals
Bread
Potatoes
Lettuce
Tomato
Cucumber
Pesto or pasta sauce
Milk
Tuna
Cheese
Baguettes (part baked)
Whole chicken
Peppers
Sausages - enough for 2 meals
Oats

Shopping list snacks
Fruit
Crisps
Cereal bars

PS: Pancakes for dinner are delicious and kind of festive. If you can get cheap bacon, then you can have pancakes and bacon, plus use the bacon for flavor in both the lentils and the pasta, plus make a bacon sandwich for your husband's lunch. Or, skip the meat entirely.

Hope Friday comes soon for you OP. That amount will stretch well in Lidl, also check out here for ideas for recipes: cookingonabootstrap.com/

Whole chicken £1.69 a kilo (So about £2 for a small chicken), £2.58 for 24 eggs and £2.49 a kilo for mackerel/sardines at Continente. A loaf of bread is about £1.50 (read euros for £, I don't have the symbol). Sausages and meatballs are cheap options too.

Bag of potatoes, crate of eggs, block of cheese, baked beans?, mince, tins of sardines, tins of beans and lentils, milk, porridge, milk, bread, rice, pasta, carrots, bananas, apples, ham,mixed veg, lettuce, cucumber, chips, chicken drumsticks

Chilli and rice
Spaghetti bolognese
Jacket potatoes with cheese and baked beans
Chicken and chips
Sand wiches
Etc etc

Very doable for 1 week

@Bluenightowl yes not very good for you but tastes delicious and sometimes we need a treat! Still 10x better than cereal I would have thought

Chickpea chilli
thebloodsugardiet.com/recipes/chickpea-chilli/

I'd buy a pack of 750g of pok and beef mix. Usually around £4. I make a meatloaf and have half of that with veg. The next day I chop the remainder up and add it to a pan with tinned tom, herbs and onion. Use half of that to top pasta, use the other half in wraps the next day. So that is 3 evening meals for less than £6.

Buy a whole chicken for £5 and cook it, then pull it apart for the meat. Make chicken and noodle soup for lunches, chicken jambalya (use normal rice and peas and sweetcorn with cajun spice mix) and remaining wraps from meatloaf meal with remaining chicken and peppers for fajitas.

Cereal and toast for breakfast and maybe make another soup. If you need treats you can make american pancakes with 1egg, 100g flour and 50g sugar plus 60mml milk.

Pasta baked, macaroni cheese - I’ve just made with 5 year old and that is a really cheap meal! That would do a lunch as well with leftovers, maybe?

Eggs - Eggy bread for lunch, baked eggs, jacket potatoes with a filling.

We meal plan and this week decided to have a super cheap one (no wipes or nappies to buy this week!). As another OP suggested, went through our cupboards and pulled together a really decent menu. I had a minimum spend of £40 for home delivery and I had I put stuff in the basket to reach this!