To ask for serious cheap meals

[Givepeasachancee]

Bonus points if they can accommodate an autistic 4 year old with preference for bread and bland foods.

At the point where we are visiting the community fridge weekly, with credit cards maxed out and overdrafts at the limit.
Barely scraping change together for the community fridges £3.50 donation. But we are making do.

Waiting on carers allowance to start after losing my caring job as my client moved away.

So, sob story aside- cheap meal ideas please! Slow cooker ones always a winner ;)

Family of 5!

Baked beans on a slice of eggy bread. Chopped carrot/apple for some fresh vitamins. Spanish omelette, chickpea curry, bean chilli. Homemade soup with seasonal veg.

Dahl, vegetable curry, thick soups. Chapatis are just flour and water, super easy to make and tasty if you want a bread fix.

Baked beans and scrambled egg. Have that regularly. Quick to make and fills you up.

Jacket potatoes are lovely with loads of different fillings. Coleslaw. Cheese. Tuna mixed with mayo.

Pasta with tuna mayo and sweetcorn. Pasta anything to be honest. Bacon and cheese pasta bake, with chopped toms and fried onion.

Omelette, with little bits of hotdog cut up and fried in, topped with grated cheese.

Pasta, onion, tinned chopped tomatoes, garlic, oregano or any other dried herbs you like. Add a finely chopped carrot or other veg if you have it.
Same with bacon.
Pasta, butter/margarine, grated cheese.
Pasta, butter/olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, cheese.
Special fried rice: left over rice (make extra if you do a curry), onion, any veg cut up small (carrots, peppers, celery, mushrooms, broccoli...) , slice of ham/bacon/left over chicken cup up small, soy sauce.
Bean and chorizo casserole: onion, green pepper, garlic, celery if you have it, 100g chorizo cut up small, tinned chopped ttomatoes oregano, kidney beans and canneloni beans (or rinsed off cheap baked beans).

Make sure you buy full fat everything, milk, yog, etc. No low fat nonsense

Peanut butter on toast

Cheese on toast

Macaroni cheese

Everything bulked out with veg

Pack of mince, lots of veg, passata, mix with a big pack pasta. Cheese on top for last half hour. Serve with bread. Can do in slow cooker.

Snacks should be hard boiled eggs, cheese sandwiches etc.

If the oven is on, fill it. Jacket spuds, roast potatoes, a quick banana or jam sponge pudding, elrice pudding etc.

Can also do all of the above in a slow cooker.

Elrice??

Rice

😀😀🍻😅

Pasta sauce. One chopped onion, a couple of tins of tomatoes. Fry onions, add chopped tomatoes (perhaps also mash them down if don't like lumps), add some sugar (to taste), beef stock cube (dissolved in small amount of boiling water) or 1/4 teaspoon of chilli, salt, pepper, mixed herbs. Cook got 15 minutes. Add water if too thick. Stir in cooked pasta shapes and serve. Add cooked sausage cut into bite size chunks before the pasta if you can afford it but v tasty either way.

Baked potatoes + cheese, beans optional
potatoe homelette
fried rice with green peas and scrambled eggs
cottage pie
fish pie (use frozen fish, cook in water + fish cube)
porridge (super healthy)
pasta carbonara (any old pasta. Make the sauce:google white sauce/bechamel, super easy, just butter, a little flower and milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg if you like. fry some lardons and mix everything.) Very nice and bland without the lardons.
Lettuce salad with everything is quite cheap and super healthy. (wash the salad leaves) vinaigrette is: 3 tbsp olive oil, 1tbsp vinegar, salt pepper + anything you like; a little honey, mustard, shallots, herbs, etc. make in bulk in an old jam jar so you always have some ready, shake well before using.

Your 4yo might not be into the salad but I hope they like some of the above.
All the best OP.

Sorry forgot. Stronger cheddar is tastier so you don't need to use as much.

Dahl has already been mentioned but it really is cheap and filling. You don’t need it spicy hot, more aromatic with the cumin and garlic. We love it. Soups, lots of soups, especially root veggie ones, again so filling. Pasta with cheese. There is a really good website where the lady follows a WW2 rations diet and there are some fab ideas for cheap meals.
Found it ! the1940sexperiment.com/tag/1940s-ration-diet/

Slow cooker? DH makes a sausage stew special, it's sausages with anything he can find, tinned tomatoes, tinned lentils, beans, etc. onions, sometimes a ready made curry sauce. I haven't tried it but everyone else loves it.

Cheese omelette!
I second the poster who says everything full fat, you won't get fat, but you'll get the essential nutrients.
rostie potatoes, topped with cheese.

Baked potatoes (bake all at once and reheat in the microwave or fry in a frying pan), plus butter, cheese, a cheap tub of sandwich filler etc

rice pudding
Porridge (soak overnight then zap in microwave) brown sugar, cinnamon,raisins, whatever

fried cheese samdwich
soup
eggy bread

Sausage Casserole, one sausage each bulked out with lots of veg and mashed potatoes

Mince, bulked out with carrots with mashed potatoes and serve mince on a slice of bread or make doughballs

Big cheap puddings - rice pudding or custard made with power and have with tinned fruit, jelly and fruit.

Soup with lots of lentils or rice or pasta and veg. Serve with bread. Make a huge pot and keep in fridge for the week.

Pasta cheese sauce

Cottage pie with half mince, half tinned lentils, carrots, peas, onions, stock/gravy granules and lots of mash on top.

Spag bol with half mince, half tinned lentils.

You can even do them with no meat. Make sure you simmer for long enough for the lentils to go really soft.

If you're putting the oven on anyway, make a quiche. Pastry is flour, butter/marg and water so dead cheap. 4-6 eggs plus cream or milk. Cheese and filling. Sliced onion cooked over a slow heat until soft and caramelised is lovely. Serve with a salad. Leek; bacon and tomatoes; mushroom and broccoli...lots of fillings to choose from.

Fried egg, homemade chips and beans/tinned plum tomatoes

some really good suggestions on here!

justslowcooker-recipes.com/slow-cooker-chocolate-self-saucing-pudding/

^

Never done this but it looks seriously delish. Might try it this week

cookingonabootstrap.com/

^

Girl called jack website too, very cheap meals on there

Try Jack monroes recipes: cookingonabootstrap.com

She started a blog after she lost her job and had to cook for her and her little boy.

Just seen previous comment haha

Smoked salmon trimmings (about £1.25 from Asda) mixed with Mayo and pasta, or stirred into fried rice (add an egg for more protein).

I was coming on to say cooking on a bootstrap! Some serious low cost meals.

Any form of meat is a bit of a treat here, I do big batches of lentil Bolognese in the slow cooker. Jack Munroe's bean chili with nachos is pretty cheap but feels like a treat.

Hope things get easier for you soon.

Jacket potatoes with fillings like beans coleslaw
anything on toast
banana bread if cheap to make and filling, buy reduced bananas or use very ripe bananas
again as others posters have said, rice or pasta to bulk meals out, egg, bacon, frozen veg

Grilled cheese sandwiches with soup.

I have a couple of sauce / soup basics that can be added to.

Chopped onion -fresh or frozen
Chopped tomatoes - fresh or tinned
garlic, one clove or paste or 1/2 a cube of frozen
teaspoon of dried oregano
salt and pepper

This is my basic 'Italian style' sauce you can add pasta, or chicken or break up some mozzarella or add rated cheese, tinned or soaked chickpeas or mince.

I have a basic Asian soup

1 veg stock cube
boiling water
crushed garlic, fresh, frozen or pure.
Crushed ginger, again fresh or frozen

You can pour this over rice, or add broccoli, chicken, chili, sweet corn.

A couple of spoons of cream cheese and a couple of spoonfulls of the water you cook pasta in makes a great creamy pasta sauce, you can add cheese, meat, veg, whatever you have to hand.

Beans on toast, add a bit of bacon if you have any.

Cheese on toast.

Also call your credit card companies and tell them you cannot afford to pay.