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 )

Does your husband get sick pay?
Could he get signed off for another two weeks with “lingering covid symptoms”?

I know it’s unethical but if you’re desperate and it’s a choice between you all eating and getting to work…

Supermodels and toast @LookMoreCloselier are they not quite expensive?

Noodles and peas with whatever from freezer are popular here. Yellow stickers stuff. Worth joining Olio. I used to do it and you could get lucky with loads of nice freezable food.

Too good to go bags. Have a look at the app - they're brilliant.

Big tray bakes are good because it's low on energy spend in that everything cooks together in one go.

Chicken thighs on leeks - look for the Nigella recipe
Chicken thighs with potatoes and chorizo

Loads of roasted veg, for the last 10 min add breadcrumbs (make your own to keep it cheap) and a can of chickpeas

Rice, asian style mince (cook with soy, garlic and ginger), brocolli, fried egg on top is big in this house!!

Hi OP,
Do you think you might be entitled to this payment? It says it is for people that have tested positive and not just track and trace.

www.gov.uk/test-and-trace-support-payment

A kilo of frozen mince is £4 at Tesco and could be used to make bolonaise say 4 times (or batch cook and freeze tubs of it).

Non brand cereal can be very cheap just for now.

omlettes/scrambled egg on toast/fried egg butties/ home made pancakes

You mention you have a toddler. Do you have any of their old stuff to sell - cot/ monitor/ pram/ highchair whatever. £20 from this could buy a lot at the supermarket and save money for fuel. Obviously when covid isolation is over.

Omelettes, filled with a little cheese, ham, tomato etc.
Things on toast, eggs, beans, even banana. Anybody still hungry can have more toast and jam.
Home made chips with sausage, eggs etc.
I make and freeze bolognaise and then add an extra tin of tomatoes to make it go further.
Bacon hotpot. That’s what my fathers mining family used to have.
Pasta or potato bake.
Chunky vegetable soup, with pudding and custard to follow. When my Scots friend was little and they were hard up, they had that.
Yellow stickered stuff is your friend, if you have a freezer or can use it straight away.
If you live near a market, try going at the end of their day when they mark down fruit and veg to get rid of it. My sister used to get her fruit for jam this way.
Local farm shops are not the cheapest but ours does the best and largest sausages inexpensively. They freeze and reduce them in price too. Some farm shops or butchers will do offers on meat or sausage.
When serving meals, everyone gets a helping, then freeze leftovers for another day. If anyone still hungry, toast and jam.

@emmathedilemma

Supermodels and toast *@LookMoreCloselier* are they not quite expensive?

Tesco do a happy food co noodles for 12p a pack. I budget 1 pack per person. Stir a whisked egg through at the end, splash of soy and some veg it's really nice.

I'd batch make a shed load of chilli or curry.
Pasta and tomato based sauce
Beans on toast

Wow thank you so much for all the suggestions. Some of them sound great with or without being skint.

It’s a very new job so we’re not sure of exact fuel costs in his car and WFH not an option.

DH just managed to sell a gaming console for £100 on market place so am hoping that covers petrol. Currently mooching around the house for what else we can sell!

I don’t want to use a food bank as we do have a (very, very) small amount of savings we can use but that’s absolute rainy day desperation fund and once it’s gone we have nothing to fall back on whatsoever. I would prefer to borrow and pay back than rinse the last of savings.

Toad in the hole is a good one. Sausages, make your own yorkies, instant gravy and some frozen peas.

Lebanese lemon lentil soup with or without Swiss chard.
The trick is to add lashings of freshly squeezed lemon at the end.
I simply cook up green lentils, add veggie or chicken stock, salt too if you wish, a clove or two of garlic, Swiss chard, and croutons at the end (you can make your own... with olive oil and zaatar reinventingnadine.blogspot.com/2015/03/zaatar-infused-croutons.html).
You can add potato and carrot to the soup too, if you wish. That makes it into a nice, hearty stew.
omelettes with grated cheese, slices of tinned black olive, fresh coriander, a dash of cumin.
Veggie korma (buy a jar!) with tinned chick peas, carrots, cauliflower, green peas, and whatever else you might like to chuck in. Rice or cous cous (when you're skint, you can break all the rules! Cous cous and korma is perfectly fine!)
Pasta, dolmio, and grated cheese melted in!

Lots of good suggestions already but some favourites here
Egg fried rice, add any frozen veg you have or like, spices and a splash of soy sauce. Cheap and filling
Home made pizza is not as difficult as you'd think. Plain flour, yeast and water (jamie oliver has a good recipe) you can use pasata or make your own sauce in the blender with tinned tomatos. Any cheap mozerella will do. You can add some veg on top if you want it to be healthier
Pasta bakes with whatever meat or veggies on offer that week

Do you live near a supermarket op?
Asda reduce their bakery bread around 5 pm everyday so you could pick up a loaf for 10p, a pack of buns for 10p. I'm sure most supermarkets must do something similar.

Pack of pre rolled puff pastry (£1) covered in a tube of tomato paste (50p) and whatever toppings happen to be kicking around in the kitchen at the time. Baked it and it should serve 3-4 people depending on how much people eat!

You can make a massive and cheap soup using
2 big carrots
onion or leek
sweet potato
red lentils

Cook with a stock cube, whizz in the blender of leave some chunky bits of veg in.

Add some grated cheese on top and it's a meal in itself with some bread.

Whole chickens are much better value than portions.
Have it
1 roast with veg
2 use the leftovers in fried rice or pasta bake
3 make stock with the carcass and use that to make risotto or soup

Tesco do 'cooking bacon' for about 80p. It's all the bits which didn't slice nicely- sometimes thick and chunky bits, sometimes thin scraggy bits. You get quite a big pack.

But chopped up and fried with an onion, then add rice & stock & any bits of veg from the bottom of the fridge (old carrots/tomatoes/frozen veg) it's a yummy risotto type dish!

Hi OP - Just in case you missed it as you posted just after me

www.gov.uk/test-and-trace-support-payment

It says it's not just for track and trace but also people that have tested positive.

Seasonal fresh veg - carrots, potatoes, onions, brocollil.
Lentils and pulses are definitely your friend - use them to bulk out soups, stews, mince dishes.
Aldi for basics like pasta and rice (less than 50p a bag).
Tinned fruit from the budget ranges is cheaper than soft fruit such as grapes / fresh berries for the kids.
Hot dog sausages in rolls or chopped up in pasta sauce.
Curry with chick peas instead of meat.
Tinned peas and sweetcorn.
Corned beef hash.
beans, beans and more beans!

Fish cakes made with a tin of sardines (40pish) or tuna, are cheap.

Smoked mackerel is relatively cheap and as it's a strong flavour you don't need much of it. This recipe is good, you can adapt to cook your own rice, use a couple of handfuls of frozen peas instead of green beans and omit the tomatoes.
www.gousto.co.uk/cookbook/fish-recipes/smoked-mackerel-kedgeree

I'm vegetarian anyway, but when I have REALLY been on the bones of my arse, vegan - actual vegetables, rather than processed stuff - all the way. I once fed myself for about a fiver a week.

Soup and curries are lifesavers, especially if you have a wee bit in your pantry, such as garam mandala, chilli powder, mixed herbs etc.

If you're fortunate enough to live near a market, you can pick up lots of slightly tired but perfectly edible fruit and veg towards the end of the day (supermarkets are a bit more expensive, but yellow stickers FTW).

Ethnic shops or supermarkets to buy rice and grains in bulk.

Flavour tip: if you can afford it and have a Waitrose or kosher shop nearby (I think you can also buy it on Amazon), buy a big tub of Osem powdered chicken stock - accidentally vegetarian and MUCH nicer and more cost-effective than most stock cubes for making soup, risotto etc.

Some of these meals are - relatively- cheap, but not when you have NO MONEY ie buy a fish pie mix...that's nearly a fiver on its own!

Go through what you have and plan meals around that incorporating -
Value pasta (37p a bag) (One of our favourites is pea and bacon pasta - fry bacon scraps from chopped up cooking bacon pack, stir in a tub of value cream cheese. Cook the pasta and throw in frozen peas towards the end. Loosen the sauce with some of the cooking water then drain pasta/peas and mix with sauce. It's so comforting and filling.)
Lentils are your friend for protein and fibre.
Bulk out meals with grated carrot.

Cut down on cleaning products for an experiment - use half dose of washing powder, leave out fabric conditioner. (Unless you're the kind of person who likes their clothes to tickle strangers' noses as you walk by, I guarantee you won't notice the difference!)
A spray bottle with mostly water, a squirt of washing up liquid and a squeeze of vinegar will do all your cleaning jobs for pennies.

I think in your position as well as economising, I'd reach out to family if poss and also food bank. There's sadly heaps of us in the same boat...

www.facebook.com/groups/155365141797826

This is a good group. Food Surviving on 50p a day.

Garam mandala? Garam masala, obvs.