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?

I shop in Lidl or Aldi when I'm in Portugal. Plenty of cheap options in there ( just swerve The Aisle of Dreams! 😄)

I have half a pack of pasta, four eggs etc..it might be different in U.K. but where I am, this amount worries me tbf

and £30 equivalent though

I see there are others that agree, that this really is normal shopping budget. I still can't see the issue.

Potatoes. Bread/flour and baking powder (add salt and milk/yoghurt to make flatbreads/potato bread. Butter. Cheese. Milk. Tub of yoghurt (put a spoonful in a tub of milk, cover, let stand out overnight, then keep in the fridge for the 2nd half of the week). A whole chicken. A cabbage. Bag of frozen peas. Carrots. Packet of mince. Tinned tomatoes/tomato puree. Bag of red lentils. Bag of onions. Jam.

You've already got eggs and loads of flavourings.

That gives you breakfasts - breads, eggs, porridge, etc. Dinners - chicken x 2, jacket potatoes, potato curry, bolognese x 1, add chilli/cumin/etc for 2nd meal (also add 2 handfuls of red lentils and 1 of oats to bulk them out). Lunches - make stock with the bones, make onion soup with cheesy bread, lentil soup, egg sandwiches/egg on toast/scrambled egg, bubble with leftover mash, onion, cabbage, egg. Chips/wedges (make them cheesy for extra nutrition/calories. Another tin of tomatoes/tomato puree with onion, spices and then crack a couple of eggs in, dip flat breads.

It's enough to get by on for a week.

Cheap meals here (which you could also give your DH for lunch the next day if he has access to a microwave) include:

• Chilli - tinned tomatoes, Bell pepper, kidney beans, onion + store cupboard stuff. Beef mince (£1.50 in Tesco) or you can make it veggie if mince is much more expensive where you are. Serve with rice or pasta.
• Chicken, barley and vegetable stew - you could also make with potatoes instead of barley. Essentially chicken thighs, carrots, celery, onion, stock and various herbs.
• Pasta bake - bacon and tinned tomatoes is a tasty base for this and you can add whatever veggies you have left over.

Each of these would be good for 2 meals in our house (feeding 2 adults, one of whom eats a lot, and one small child).

Get a big block of cheese if not too pricey. Tasty to grate over things, filling for snacks and you and LO can have cheese sandwiches for lunch one day.

Sausages? Have sausages and oven chips one day and sausage casserole the next day?

Carrots - only 40p a bag here, you can make your own carrot sticks so great as a snack as well as with meals.

Eggs - cheap source of protein and, if you have flour and milk, you can make pancakes for breakfast one day and keep the rest for snacks.

If baked beans are expensive in Portugal because Portuguese people don't really eat them, could you do a home made version of bean stew with canned, bottled or dried beans or chick peas, tomatoes, peppers, onions, bit chorizo, bacon or similar, garlic if you have it, cooked slowly?

Cheap, filling and healthy, add bread to mop up the sauce.

Do the supermarkets do reductions just before closing time there?

I don't think some people on here realize how cheap food is in the UK compared to other countries! We really do have it so easy if you compare salaries to cost of food. Where I am right now, anyone would struggle to feed a family on £30. E.g. the suggestion of pita bread would be around £3 by itself, almost 10x the UK price!

Anyway, sorry OP I don't have many suggestions as I'm not familiar with Portuguese prices. I would suggest you look around the cheapest supermarket or market available to you and work some meals out around the items you can get there. Pasta is likely your best option for at least 1-2 meals. There are some good ideas that have been mentioned here too with food items that seem like they would be generally cheap and filling. Good luck!

A bag of flour, one of sugar, box of eggs ,some milk and a block of margarine can get you a lot of calories.

Pastry
Pancakes
Yorkshire pudding
Cakes
Biscuits
Omelettes
Topping for a fruit crumble

There are also recipes for basic breads that use all purpose flours.

@Kote
I don't think some people on here realize how cheap food is in the UK compared to other countries! We really do have it so easy if you compare salaries to cost of food. Where I am right now, anyone would struggle to feed a family on £30. E.g. the suggestion of pita bread would be around £3 by itself, almost 10x the UK price!

Exactly. Food in the UK is extremely cheap compared to other Western European countries and especially to the US and Canada. Getting a bag of potatoes at Lidl for 60p or a bag of carrots for 20p just doesn’t happen in other places. People on here complain about prices rising over the last year but they’re still insanely low compared to countries in the same income brackets.

Go for stews/casseroles
...dishes where anything/ everything goes in & no nutrition lost. And it'll last for 2 days. One box cereal, 1/2 loaves of bread & some sandwich fillers. You'll be fine. A toddler doesn't eat much & you & DH will just have to tighten your belts for the week... but it's only 4 days...I'd be more worried about any other emergency & how to pay for that than food for £30..

@Kote. You're right. I remember being on secondment in a US city for a couple of months when I was pregnant. Fresh fruit, fresh milk and vegetables were soooo expensive and it was very hard to buy just one of something. So whereas here I would have wandered into Tesco metro and bought a banana (25p), an apple (30p) and a pint of milk (around 60p), those things would cost around 3x in the States. And good meat was very pricey.

@Bluenightowl

How many people? Make double spag bol. Half and freeze one portion. x 2 dinners Do the same with chicken curry x 2 dinners. Chicken - roast and eat. Use remainder for chicken fried rice x 2 dinners.

Eggs for lunch at home.
Pasta salad for lunch at school.

Milk, eggs, butter, flour, porridge, bananas, apples, pasta, rice, frozen peas.

Good to see the everlasting Mumsnet chicken is alive and well in this thread. Haven’t seen it in a while and I’ve missed it.

I used to live in Germany and found it cheaper there than the UK. But Germany is the home of Aldi and Lidl I guess

Is fresh or frozen veg available & cheap? Can you do a big frittata one day with left overs for lunch, big veg curry so you can have it for lunch next day, veg biryaani with boiled eggs on top for protein, big couscous salad with whatever leftovers you have (eggs, tuna, olives, salad etc)

@Bluenightowl

Egg in toast for breakfast, cut a circle out of the middle and fry the bread then crack the egg in.

I’ve never heard of this.. Why would you fry bread? That sounds unnecessarily unhealthy and a lot more hassle than just having poached eggs on toast?

You've never heard of fried bread? What planet are you on?

E.g. the suggestion of pita bread would be around £3 by itself, almost 10x the UK price!

300g of flour and 300g of Greek yoghurt makes at least 6 flatbreads/pizza base/wraps in a matter of minutes though.

If you can cook there are lots of ways to be creative with 30quid. And if you can't cook there's always the internet. There are millions of sites showing how to feed families for pennies (or euros in this case).

People keep suggesting UK staples and prices, that won’t help the OP.

I second Aldi and Lidl or, if you have them close by, a Carrefour or Auchan/Alcampo? Do those exist where you are? I’m from Spain and know for a fact there’s quiet a few along the border as they’re very common in Spain, but maybe they’re not so common on the coast... If you’re inland I’d suggest you cross the border and do a shop in Spain, but with Covid that’s probably not possible.

How much do baguettes cost in your local padaria? In Spain you could buy enough for a week for 2-3€, and I’d give your husband half of one of those super long baguettes for lunch each day, the other half you can all share for breakfast/dinner with soups, etc. Fill it with lots of cheap stuff, cheese, eggs, tomato, canned tuna, potato omelette if you can buy a big sack of potatoes?

Do you have a local weekly market, or small fruit and veg shops? Get lots of veg and fruit from them. Make soups and stir frys. Chickpeas are great - you can also make chickpea salad for lunch. With tomato and cucumber, it’s lush.

1kg of pasta should do you all at least three meals. A bag of cheap grated cheese and two jars of sauce will be enough to go with 1kg of pasta. That’s all easily under 5€, and feeds you all for three nights in a row.

Ok I am assuming you have tea, coffee and dried herbs in cupboard.

Jacket potatoes X 6, big block of cheese, baked beans, bread x2, mince, tinned tomatoes, red lentils, passatta, tomato puree, pasta, ham, milk, veg, porridge oats, spread, apples X 2 bags, fresh tomatoes.

Breakfast everyday porridge oats made with water and add a little milk or toast and spread.

Lunches You can make pancakes twice with 4 eggs roll up with ham, + apple
Jackets with baked beans + apple
Cheese and tomato toasties + apple

Snack ham sandwich, slice of toast, porridge

Dinner
Spagetti Bolognese with mince, onions, lentils, passatta, chopped up veg to bulk it out, herbs and pasta two meals
Oven baked cheesy pasta bake with breadcrumb topping and Veg two meals. Make with a roux ( butter, flour, milk, salt, pepper) add cheese and 1/2 teaspoon of dried mustard. Cook lots of pasta put in large oven bowl, pour over roux sauce and top with grated breadcrumbs.

Easier to make 2 big meals and stretch them to 2 meals than make 4 different meals.

Always good to keep a few tins stashed away for weeks when not much money to spend, tuna, corned beef, tomatoes, pesto.

Food is def more expensive out of the uk.
Ie I bought carrots today - 500g €2.50. Oats 500g €2.99. Eggs -49cents each. These are local basics, not fancy imports.

The only way is to go shopping locally and see what’s seasonal and what’s on offer tbh. But I would be thinking in my head of generally sticking to vegetarian, and if needed for the next few days you and dh each simple pastas/ vegetable rice/ toasties/ fruit, and give the toddler the extra protein if needed.

@TalktotheFoot I think they meant why bother cutting a hole in it when you could just put the egg on top of the bread which would be much less faff!

This is how I live, and in a country where food is a lot more expensive.

I keep staples of oats, brown rice and wholemeal pasta, spices, frozen vegetables (green beans, peas and spinach), frozen berries, and buy 3 types of meat each week, usually two chicken and beef mince. Also fresh produce- bananas, apples, choy sum, carrots, capsicum and lettuce,
Cans- tomatoes and soup, cannellini beans and black beans, tuna
Wraps and ciabatta rolls.

Breakfast = oats and berries,
Dinner = risotto, tuna pasta, vegetarian quesadillas, that chicken curry, chicken ramen, Chinese fried rice, and tortilla.

Lunches are leftovers or filled rolls, carrot, apple or soup.

And yes to the difference in prices. Greek yoghurt is still expensive compared to the UK.

In the UK I easily fed myself for £25-30 a week. I’m currently in Germany and my weekly shop is €40, I don’t drink alcohol and I’m vegetarian. That’s at Lidl, and with discounts and shopping from the reduced aisle.

Jacket potatoes
Fruit/veg
Cheese for sandwiches and pasta/potatoes
Baked beans
Porridge oats for breakfasts
Milk/milk substitute
Mince or vegetarian substitute
Chopped tomatoes or value pasta sauce jar
UHT fruit juice
Loaf of bread

Pasta, Bananas, fresh loose veg (carrots, Celery, Peppers etc) to bulk up a stew or bolognaise, meat for aforementioned meal. Bread, milk, stuff to make soup?

Lentil bolognaise.

Good to see the everlasting Mumsnet chicken is alive and well in this thread. Haven’t seen it in a while and I’ve missed it.

That is funny but if in response to my post, I don’t think getting two days dinner from a roast chicken for two adults and a baby is farfetched? It would be more amazing if two adults and a baby were able to eat an entire chicken in one sitting without having enough left over to add to egg fried rice?

I’m not a cook myself and I don’t enjoy it so have never made stock or soup.