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 )

Sorry haven't RTFT so might already be mentioned but I'd focus on vegetarian batch cooking so curry, dal, chilli etc. If you can afford a bit of meat try cheaper things like chicken thigh instead of fillet, use the higher fat mince but drain it, etc. Fill everything out with pulses, lentils, beans etc. Buy rice in bulk, maybe make your own bread? Naan is fairly easy and some recipes don't even use yeast.

Anything that fills us up the most, and can make leftovers for lunches etc.

Lots of lentils, tinned chickpeas, if I do something with meat I'll fill it out with as many cheap veggies as possible. Sometimes I'll add in kidney beans for extra protein/bulk.
Beans are always in the cupboard for a quick fix.

I'll make oats for my daughters breakfasts, when it gets boring you can jazz it up by grating an apple in and sprinkling cinnamon or those frozen Berry mixes from Aldi are super easy to sprinkle in too.

There is also NO shame in going to your local food bank if things get really tight towards the end.

That is a really stressful situation OP.
I've been there it is horrible, the stress outweighs hunger.

Ask for a loan if you are running out of essentials don't be embarrassed.
Your partner was sick not slacking.

You'll probably need a food bank if there is a charity one near you.

Thriftyleslie is your friend!

Make your own pastry, short crust or flaky - make pasties with baked beans, root veggies, left over curry, left over chilli or stew - it makes left over chilli/ curry go along way. The kids can have mini pasties cold in their lunch boxes. Make your own sausage rolls to make sausages go further. - egg custard tarts, there are still apples on trees - make pies or turnovers and freeze them.

Veggie burgers made with 2x tins kidney beans, grated carrot and cumin. Mash it all together and make into patties. Pan fry in a little oil.

Egg fried rice with carrot and onion- cook rice first or keep from previous day in fridge. Chop carrot and onion small, fry in big pan or wok in oil until softish, break 1 egg per person into cup and beat a bit, cook in pan for 10 seconds or so stirring, add rice to pan and combine.

Bananas for pudding. If you have a market nearby, ours will do a bag of bananas for a pound. Put any spare into the freezer as they are, you can eat them once they defrost a bit.

Invite yourselves to in in-laws for a huge roast dinner at least once a week and be reasonably frank that things are tight. At the very least they should give you all the leftovers. If they don't, ask them for the bones for soup before you go, that should get them producing something.

beans on toast? egg on toast?

big bag of frozen mixed veggies (£1) bag of frozen chicken thighs (£3) and rice

all in a frying pan, mixed in with some soy sauce or any spices you have - chicken fried rice. that will do 3/4 meals too

Hope you're ok - do you have any charities around you that supply food parcels, we have two in my area, you just message them and they will deliver you a food box?

We have a community fridge in a local church. Give or take food no questions asked. Email your local vicar and ask if there is anything locally.

I keep all fresh vegetable peels and scraps (not mouldy or manky bits) till I havd a potful, then boil it up as stock. Fry an onion, add chopped potato, any other veg including leftovers, add the stock and boil it up for a cheap and very nourishing soup. Add a tsp of Marmite to deepen the flavour unless anyone hates it.

Many good suggestions here. Veg boxes can be useful if kids aren’t too fussy. I’ve just had a leaflet for Oddbox, which has had good reviews and includes good but odd-shaped fruit and veg that supermarkets don't want.
Oddbox.co.uk

Best of luck, OP. These are shitty times for so many people.

Soup and bread. Egg and chips. Cheese grilled in milk with bread. Tuna pasta

Google emergency diet an amazing mner called boffinmum (I think) did it

Lentils! We have both of these regularly.

Lentil lasagne - although I make a white sauce instead of using cottage cheese (50g butter, 50g flour, 500ml long life milk)
www.healthylittlefoodies.com/red-lentil-lasagne/

Jack Monroe's Dal Makani
www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/dal_makhani_30779

Pasta also gets eaten lots. either with salmon, brocolli and grated cheese, or with a bolognese sauce, or tomato sauce, or pesto and chopped cherry tomatoes, with grated cheese on top.

If you buy the more fatty minced beef it's easy enough to drain some of the extra fat off once you've browned it, I pad it out with chopped mushrooms and grated or chopped carrot.

A few years back a mumsnetter did a budget week of recipes, I'll see if I can find the thread - carb heavy, but filling and low cost.

Hi as there too for 6 months. The things I shipped for if u have a freezer were.
Frozen mixed veg, canned tomatoes. Value pasta, small minced beef stretched out. Potatoes, carrots, wholemeal bread, value cheese, lettuce, cucumber, frozen fish, look at Internet for cheap food recipes to make in bulk and freeze x

I make a tomato sauce to go with pasta when I’m running a bit low on money. It’s lovely and can also be frozen to use another day.

Garlic,
Tinned tomatoes.
Double cream. (Don’t go mental with it)
Parmesan (optional)
Italian herbs or herbs de province.

You can add anything else you want to it. I don’t do measurements, I just test it to see if I need to add anything else. But it’s so lovely.

Jacket potatoes, beans and egg or sausage
Bubble and squeak with a fried egg or a bit of leftover meat or ham.
Rice with mixed frozen veg, soy sauce to flavour and egg/chicken/whatever you have
Spaghetti on toast with a bit of cheese grated on top
Pasta, cheese and tomatoes
Curried yellow split pea soup/stew
Pasta, cheese and broccoli/peas
Tinned tomato soup with cheese toasties.
Baked bean curry with rice

My advice is to buy the cheapest supermarket brand you can. They all still have basic/value brands but they've been rebranded.

Many variations on mince stretched with lentils and veg, tomatoes and something flour/egg/water based.

Eg. Lasagna, spaghetti bolognese, toad in the hole, shepherds pie, home-made pizza.

Breakfast is toast or porridge. Lunch is ham sandwiches.

I once had 12 quid to see me through 2 weeks (as a single person thank goodness) and made it on home made pizza and porridge.

Breakfast this time of year porridge with blackberries or stewed apple.
Lunch - sardines on toast (40p a tin + 2 slices of bread) and fruit
Supper - chicken thighs baked with carrots onions and potatoes
or Tesco cheap cooking bacon used to make a bacon & tomato pasta sauce
Or Mushroom risotto with cheap Parmesan

£2.50 per day is doable and needn't be boring.

Check out "olio" and "too good to go" for some good deals. I find our local convenience store is usually really good. £3.29 for a huge bag of food, often high priced items like fancy meats and veggies, too)
See if you can find community fridges near you, also.

Porridge with applesauce (ideally homemade, with apples from "wild" trees), and a sprinkle of cinnamon is a good, healthy, cheap breakfast.

Lunches, cup soups (a lot nicer than they used to be!) with cheap bread is a good option.

Anything lentil based (Dahl, bolognese, shepardess pie etc) is usually super cheap, too.

A good way to extra high class protein into a cheap meal is to put a handful of red lentils in with whole grain rice and cook them together - you don't know they are there. Have with vegetable curry or fish.

Should have said re. lentils cooked with rice - only add salt at the end as it makes them go hard if cooked with salt.

Lentil curry
Spag bol made with lentils and veg
Jacket potato with tuna/cheese/beans
If you have time to go foraging with the kids then chestnuts are in season, which are lovely roasted, and a good source of protein.
This website is great for ideas cookingonabootstrap.com/

Kielbasa and cubes potatoes with carrots,green beans sprinkled with diced garlic and Cajun seasoning baked on tray in oven for 20 minutes at 425 F
Spaghetti and pasta sauce with mushrooms and onions
Veggie stew with carrots,potatoes,celery, onion and tomato purée
Egg omelets with cheese and sausage
Soup and sandwiches
Chicken pot pie with canned chicken,cream,onions,veggies baked in a pie crust
Red beans and rice
Creamed spinach (frozen spinach) snd sausage

Me and my mum lived off 4 slices of bread. A potato. And a can of beans. And a bag of rice. For 7 days.

Wr had a few meals of pure rice. With soy sauce on.

I’d do rice and pasta dishes. Rice with veg and egg. Risotto dishes. Sausages. Pasta and tomato sauces. Things like that go a long way.

Frozen peas are another cheap way of adding protein to many meals. A portion has about 5 grams so will boost your protein intake.