To ask you how to make £30 last

[tearsandtiaras]

I have £30 to last until Wednesday
Im ok for petrol for work
My DD needs £8-10 on Monday
I have £22 to make meals from tomorrow - Tuesday night and one packed lunch Wednesday

Please help. I have porridge, brown rice , eggs, and a little bit of pasta

Egg fried rice with an onion and a few mushrooms in or any random veg you can get on yellow sticker.
Supermarket value pizza (I know you can’t eat wheat, but it would be ok for your daughter and around 60p for an individual pizza).
Porridge for breakfast or toast for dd. Add a £1 pack of ham and a bag of apples / bunch of bananas / packet of basics biscuits and you have a packed lunch.
Ham, egg, and chips for tea, with baked beans is still one of your 5 a day.

Does dc have money? Pay her own way and you’ll pay her back Weds.

Just found some cheese too. I have no curry powder but spices

Ask on a local Facebook group where in your area helps with food and there'll be more than just food banks...honestly the food banks round here are used by everyone and they always have surplus and are begging you to take more. There's food shelves at a children's centre as well. İt all comes from the supermarkets so you aren't taking from someone more in need. There might be a pay what you can church cafe somewhere as well you could get a bag of food from for a few quid.

Tolerable not hearty.

Shopping list:
milk, potatoes, beans, bread, pasta sauce, frozen veg, cheese, tins of soup,

breakfast: porridge

Lunch: jacket potatoes, beans on toast

dinner: pasta bakes, soup and bread

use your eggs and rice to make egg fried rice and chuck in some of the frozen veg

Iceland where doing 10 items for £10. Not the healthiest but would be fine as a one off

https://www.iceland.co.uk/offers/frozen-offers/easy-teas

Then rest of budget for some veg and fruit bread and milk

İf you can get a bag of polenta, it's very filling with whatever you want to add into it.

I am not sure how you count so different number of breakfast/dinner and lunch?

Ok if you cannot eat wheet, but you can surelly eat rice?

Breakfast
Child: some porridge or cereals and milk
You: porridge

Lunch
Child: bread, tomatoes or cucumber and cheese or tuna
You: as above but with rice

Dinner
Potatoes with baked beans
Rice and lentil somsthing
___
Or buy a chicken, cook it for soup.
And then roast with vege and potatoes

You can solid eat:
Soup with rice
Chicken tortilla
Chicken and potatoes and mayo
Normal roast dinner
Chicken and vege stirfrys for lunch

Bread and Butter scheme?

Have a look around your house & see if there's anything you can sell to supplement your income. Old toys, books, household items etc. My neighbour sold her broken washing machine for £50, the guy bought it for parts.

I'd also join olio & see if there's a free community kitchen to stretch my fridge budget. See if you can pick up a remote admin job or a pub /restaurant/supermarket shift as a way to supplement your income in tue long term.

https://olioapp.com/en/

I’d buy,
Bag of potatoes,
(baked potato one night chips another night)
bread (breakfast toast, sandwiches and French toast)
tin tuna
tin beans
chicken
cheese
milk
pasta / pesto
lentils and a veg soup mix
mixed salad
bananas
apples

Tuna i quite expensive, I would always choose sardines or mackerel.

Most areas have loads of olio members unless you are in a tiny village you should find some things on there.

I have gone to collect an olio bag

@tearsandtiaras have you fished down the sides of sofas, checked all pockets in the wardrobe, all yours and dd's bags for spare change, etc?

I don't eat wheat either: bean stew with onions, tinned Tom's, courgettes, spices. Could a basics chicken do 4 dinners and 2/3 lunches. Make stock with the carcass, a carrot and an onion, add a chicken stock cube and bag of Carrots and you've a warming soup - bit of sweet potato and some spice would jazz it up.

For veg stick to greens, Carrots, onions which are cheap.

A punnet of plums is about £1.19 for about 8. Halve them, tbs of water, spoon of sugar and simmer for 6/7 mins. Nice with porridge or as desert with a carton of custard.

Packet of jelly made up with half a banana and some of the custard.

I love Too Good To Go, but it will be difficult for people with a restricted diet, especially no wheat. My local one often has an Aldi bag, which is amazingly good value and could easily feed two people for several days, if you didn't mind eating some odd combinations of things. But you would have to take your chances that not too much of it would be things you can't eat. The last one I got had 7 blocks of cheese in it, and a lot of veg and bread.

Sounds weird, but sometimes I make a pizza flavoured frittata by adding a couple of tomatoes, oregano, and grated cheese on top to go under the grill. You could add a couple of potatoes for the teenage appetite to bulk it up a bit. Or use them to make garlic wedges on the side. Any green bargain veg with it.

For Sunday I’d make a big pot of veggie chilli using kidney and another type of tinned bean (whatever is a good price, but something like cannellini). Have it with rice on Sunday, then leftovers on Monday with jacket potatoes. Put a small tin (or frozen) sweetcorn in with leftovers if you need to top it up a bit.

Tuesday night, sausage and mash with peas (or beans if you like them).

Make some jelly for afters, so you feel like you’re having a little treat.

Veggie chilli is an inexpensive meal. You can use carrots and onions in it and add some frozen peas with tinned tomatoes and some tinned beans such as kidney beans and butter beans. A batch will last for a few meals. You are likely to find a receipt that includes the spices you have in / ones you can substitute. You can have it with the rice you have and maybe pick up a few jacket potatoes to have with it on other days.

For a few days it doesn't matter if you don't get your five a day.

A big bag of wonky carrots is a cheap way to get some veg as are frozen peas.

A bag of cheap potatoes and some cheap brown rice, use them alternate days to give you the bulk and energy then you need just need to make them interesting. How you do that depends what you have in your store cupboard/freezer and what you like. Chicken thighs are cheap for protein, cheap cuts of meat are nice in a stew or casserole.

Eggs are filling for lunch and porridge for breakfast.

Too good to go is great but you don't know what you will get so no good for fussy eaters.

Do you need to pay for electric/gas from the £30 (i.e. are you on a prepayment meter)?

If so, some of the suggestions may be dearer than you'd think by the time you factor in cooking costs (e.g. Baked Potatoes with beans are cheap, filling, and tick some nutritional boxes, but require the oven on for an hour and a half). Whereas the co-op £4 for 3 frozen items that someone posted may be less nutritious than some of the other ideas, but it's cheap and will take less cooking.

On another note, if it's practical to do so, go round shops 1-2 hours before closing to get the reductions. I used to do a regular journey that led to me popping in to Aldi on the way home at about 9pm, there were always loads of reduced items, often dated the following day rather than the day I was in.

Snap 😂

Go through your cupboards & freezer. You might have stuff put away that you had forgotten about.
Potatoes & porridge are very cheap.
If DD is not keen on porridge then sugar, jam or honey will make it tasty (I know it's sugar but it will get you through until wed). Carrots & parsnips roasted in honey are sweet & tasty even for kids who don't like veg. (Assume you're okay for gas/electric)

Any reward card points, amazon voucher Xmas gifts etc? Free drink vouchers eg Costa/Nero - big hot chocolate with cream could be a lunch.

Ask around friends & family - alot of people chuck away cheese & chocolate as starting new year diets.

£22 for two days food from the supermarket is fine. get bread, milk, cheese, and whatever meals you want

What sort of meals do you usually cook?

minced beef, tin of tomatoes, onion and you can make a pasta bolognese

some chicken and wraps with peppers and onion and you can make fajitas