Aibu to ask what you eat when you are broke?

[NCsobroke]

I don’t mean feed your family for £10, I mean dinners like baked potato and beans that cost a couple of quid. None of us are v picky and no dietary issues.

The kids mostly eat a v healthy balanced diet, lots of whole foods and tons of fruit and veg, maybe frozen pizza on a Saturday, don’t really have takeaways often etc. I hate the thought of them living off cheap freezer food not enough fruit snd veg.

Also needs to include lunches as we don’t qualify for FSM despite being on UC as husband works FT.

We are so broke. We usually receive universal credit which we live off as DH wages all go on bills and rent. We won’t receive any at all this month and can’t do anything about it.

2 adults, 2 children. £110 to last for the next 3 weeks (plus toiletries and cleaning stuff and petrol for DH 2 hour commute )

I used to batch cook a week's worth of meals and then microwave them to save energy.
In the oven: a pack of 4 chicken thighs, cooked in a covered dish until tender. I find one of those, when bulked out with other stuff, is sufficient for 2 adults and 2 children. (One for a stir fry with loads of cabbage and veg and noodles or rice. One to make chicken and veg soup, using some of the stock and loads of potatoes and carrots. One chopped up with a tiny bit of bacon, and loads of veg and mushrooms in white sauce to make a pie, topped with pastry or mash. One chopped up with a tiny bit of bacon, sweetcorn and tomato sauce with pasta.)
At the same time, I'd bake some potatoes, scoop out the middles, and mash with butter, cheese and a bit of onion. Ready to microwave later.

I'd also make some pasties and pies. Leek, cheese and potato. Apple and blackberry. Cheese and baked bean. Cauliflower cheese or bolognese if you have leftovers.

A bowl of sage and onion Stuffing and some roast potatoes (goes with the chicken pie).

Flapjacks can be quite cheap. And you can add any last dregs of dried fruit, seeds, chopped apple, nuts, if you have any. And they are great for lunch boxes.
Crumbles are cheap and cheerful, especially if you can get hold of some free apples.
At the end of the week there was leftover soup, made with the contents of the veg drawer, some stock, and carbs (potato/rice/macaroni/pearl barley.)

Basically, most of my meals were a small amounts of meat bulked out with loads of cheap veg, and with a big pile of cheap carbs.

These days I don't have to be quite so careful about the fuel, but we still eat economically.

Pastry Pizza. made with a roll of puff pastry, a jar of sauce and some grated cheese. Plus any toppings left over (ham, onion, tomato, tuna)
Homemade flatbreads with pizza topping (I use SR flour to make the flatbreads)
Potato soup. (Onion, potato, flour, stock, mixed herbs)
Courgette soup (as potato above but with courgettes too).
Veg soup.
Pea and mint soup (Bag of frozen peas, a potato, stock, spoonful of mint sauce/jelly) Blend until smooth.

doh ! baked beans not naked beans!
omelettes can go in a sandwich as lunch

Oh, and these days I give money to the food bank for exactly this reason. Because it's awful to be constantly worrying about how you are going to pay for food, and living on pasta with black pepper and ketchup sachets. Please use them.

And when the next election comes around, remember who cut benefits while paying billions to their public school cronies...

There are some great cheap recipes on here - given your budget is so tight I would be inclined to see how if you can get a food bank parcel too if you have one. Or your local church may offer short term meals (ours does to all families in need, not just elderly/church goers).

When weve been skint i buy a big packet of mince and split it into 3, it makes 6 meals by doing that if bulked out with frozen veg and tins of tomatoes.

Bolognese, cook and split in half, 1 night have with spaghetti another have as lasagne or with pasta.
Chilli con carne, cook and divide into 2, 1 night with rice another with jacket potato
Meatballs
Cottage pie

Eggs are great because you can make so much with them and theres nothing wrong with boiled eggs and soldiers for dinner.

As long as i have a big bag of pasta, eggs, bread, potatoes, tinned tomatoes and frozen veg i find i can feed us cheaply when needed.

Just to add OP- no reason to worry about beans on toast type meals. Cheapest bread, cheapest beans. Seek out cheap eggs for same on toast. It will not kill them, and to be honest they will probably enjoy it because my DC does when I am late home and this is tea. Loads of kids survived on this on the 1970s and look back fondly according to various threads.

When I was down to my last 30p I chose between 2 sardines from a fish counter or a jacket potato
Now it’s rice and frozen peas with whatever’s in the freezer.fish fingers or left over chicken (thighs are cheap).
Veg is usually on a weekly deal with a packet of 30p noodles.

Fritters:
Gram flour, grated veg, handfull frozen sweetcorn, soya milk or milk and water. Fry in a little rape seed oil.

Serve with cous cous with spices (cumin tumeric, ginger, garlic if you have them)

Cous cous bulks up well. Buy the big packs of plain and add your on spices or herbs.

There is an app called to good to go, you can get some good deals from supermarkets/Greggs etc.

I find morrisons usually have the best wonky veg selection
We have a local food pantry so definitely have a google and see what there is around you

Things on toast but you also need some things that feel like meals

Pasta with a bit of pesto and courgette or broccoli

Tuna pasta bake made with campbells soup

Lentil & cauliflower curry

Fish finger sandwiches

Homemade bulk Greek baked beans (in case like me you loathe standard baked beans:

• Packet of dried butter beans soaked overnight
• Simmer in salt water until until they’re soft.
• Tin of tomatoes chopped and cooked into sauce for 20 mins with onions, garlic, tomato paste, parsley, dill, salt and pepper, olive oil if you have otherwise ordinary oil will do.

Freezable.

Tbh OP I think it's unlikely you're going to have much left over after 3 weeks of petrol.

Do you have any access to credit? Like a credit card?
Get a referral to a food bank and then post what ingredients you've got so mn can help you work with what you've got.

Watching this thread for some ideas.

For cheap dessert you can't go wrong with crumble. Eating apples or baking apples, whichever you prefer and is cheapest. Baking apples disintegrate more so I like eating apples but think they are more expensive by weight.

Do you know anyone with an apple tree? Usually they are desperate to get rid of some of the glut of apples they have to anyone that will take them. I was practically handing them out to strangers on the street when I had a little tree in my old garden, there was no way I'd have been able to use them all!

Throw a pinch of cinnamon in with the apples and I think it makes it tastier.

Sorry, similar to the apples, do you know anyone that keeps chickens?

They might have loads of extra eggs going free or for sale a bit cheaper than in the shop maybe?

A lot of people seemed to start keeping chickens in their gardens over lockdown.

Just to iterate what others are saying. I donate every month direct debit to my local food bank, I hope people in need like you are accessing. There's no shame. Any of us could be in this position at any time.

I haven't read the entire thread.

But do you live near an Asian grocery store?

The cost of fresh produce and and pantry goods are usually a lot lower there.

You can buy cases of tinned tomatoes, chickpeas etc, and huge bags of rice and flour.

And I echo the other posters who have said that rice, lentils and pulses go a long way.

Don't be sad that you already do this stuff - it's much better for you financial and for the environment overall than buying and throwing food away. Plus there's nothing wrong with adding more veg to meals, it's healthier.

When DH and I were struggling massively (out outgoings exceeded our incomings for a long time), our food was a mix of these:

Porridge or (own brand) weetabix for breakfast as it's filling.

Homemade soup with roll (can bulk out with lentils and cheap veg)

Veggie chilli & rice

Pasta bake - whatever veg you fancy / have, cook with garlic / chilli's, add passata and veg stock. Blend, mix with water if needed, pour over pasta. Bake. Add cheese. Bake more - so tasty!

Cauliflower curry

Omelette

Jacket potato with beans & cheese / coleslaw & sweetcorn.

Even now we're out of the woods we still use the recipes as they were tasty and as I said, there's nothing wrong with planning, not wasting and adding veg to meals.

My work colleague does this thing called Olio. It's a food sharing app. The people on it volunteer to vibe distributors and they get stuff delivered from local supermarkets cafes ect. Then she has people from around her area come and get it if they need it. She packs up boxes of stuff has loads of fresh bread to freeze fruit ect. You could sign up and see if there is someone in your area.

Me and dh had our income dropped by 20% each last year for a few months so had to go through months of ridiculously cheap food.

We would put a spreadsheet together for each month and plan every days meal and stick to it this meant we knew we wouldn't be left without over the period we needed to cut back. This is ok when it's temporary which it sounds like it is for you.

We found hearty food co in Tesco the cheapest for things like pasta.
500g penne pasta at 29p + 440g pasta jar sauce at 39p = 68p, we would literally all eat that a few times in the week and can give cold for lunch. Frozen veg in Tesco very cheap.
Hearty food pizza was 300g for 67p again shove it in for a few days.
Basically everything hearty foods in Tescos saved us
Bread bread and more bread with butter is cheap. Cheese can also be cheap so good for lunches, also ask your dc to bring them snacks where possible they often will and also don't be afraid to push your dc for tea elsewhere, again saves money and needs must.

Jacket potatoes are very cheap loose. I'd eat mine with butter alone the. Give dc cheese or beans.
Soup can be put into a thermal flask for lunch if you are allowed to do that, again can be cheap.
Good luck with it all.

OP, if you're a reasonable cook, a veg book from ODDbox is a good option. Super healthy and you get loads for your money. They do fruit as well.

You get 50% off with the code FARMFRESH at the moment and the boxes are MASSIVE

Make a bolognese, then instead of using it all in one meal with spaghetti you split the bolognese into 3 portions, freeze two to use another day, then stir one portion through some cheap penne (tesco do penne for about 27p a pack) - this way you get three whole dinners out of one lot of bolognese split three ways.

Also scones

Can make cobbler topping for a cheap casserole base

I take a deep breath and hope that fills me and pretend I don't hear the children's constant demand for snacks

On a serious note, I'm lucky enough that the freezer is usually jam packed and the cupboards are well stocked. However, we've had our fair share of months where there isn't money for the usual favourites.

I also make the journey to our local booths every night for reductions - it's expensive in time but they have fantastic discounts, however I appreciate that is not always feesable.

Meat tends to go out the window these weeks.

I usually go for stodge as it feels quite decadent compared to our usual meals.
Frozen Pizza with Garlic Bread/Chips.
Sausages, Mash and Gravy - heavy on the mash.
'Fried Rice' which is rice, soy sauce, frozen veg and a bit of veg and sesame oil with seasoning. Perhaps some spring rolls and hoisin over the top.
I always have some kind of toast night - beans on toast/cheese on toast/melts etc.
Jacket potatoes.
Veggie mince into spag bol.
Cheese and pasta as well - so mac and cheese/carbonara.
Then more Pasta - Pesto Pasta. Tomato Pasta. 'Minestrone soup' Pasta, stock and veg with beans.
Halloumi skewers too - I get grilling cheese for a quid and two blocks serve the whole family well.
For puddings we use mug cakes - milk, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and flour - don't even need an egg.
Also to quote my Nana I bring out the Scot in me - every meal is served with bread to bulk it out.

fyf20quid.co.uk/ - this is a great website for 'real food' I remember looking on Jack Monroe once and it was like make your own pesto with a bag of lettuce. I would have spent more on using electricity and odds and ends to make the fucking thing than it would have been to buy a jar of pesto - then no one would have eaten it.