Need some budgeting advice..

[ComfortFoodCafe]

This month I had a very large unexpected bill (car needed fixing!) which has left us in a bit of a mess.
I have 17 days till payday and only £200 left for a family of 4, with 4 cats. 😩
I have all the usual staples in my cupboards like pasta, rice, sauces etc but Im low on meat, cat food, cat litter, packed lunches (cant put the kids on school dinners for two weeks as one is diabetic and the school dont have the carbs! & the other is autistic and only eats certain foods.)

I honestly dont know what Im supposed to do! Ive never been in this situation, i always carefully budget & usually have money left over by payday not this time. no family to ask to help us out either!

Is your son type one diabetic? If so, are you claiming DLA? You might be entitled to this.

yes we claim dla but it literally goes on all his diabetic supplies he needs. Costs a canny bit as nhs have stop supplying hypo treatments. Also things like CGM patches etc arent cheap :(

Thanks all, i went through all my cupboards etc and planned out meals and wrote what I needed. Think I was panicking as its half term at the end of the month and I wont be able to afford days outs with the kids but feeding them comes first!
Got a few bags of frozen veg to bulk meals out, and managed to find some sauces so I can vary out different chicken dinners. Got eggs too, so will be a lot of omlettes alongside. Roll on 15 days. 😮‍💨

Go without meat - I did that for budgetary reasons and created really nice veggie dishes. See if there is a community pantry near you (your local council might be able to advise on this), they're like a food bank but open to everyone to reduce food waste. I use these to get short-dated food for free.

I would happily (im one of those annoying people who would live off jacket potatoes & beans on toast ) but dh thinks we need meat for every dinner even in a omlette! Besides protein is good for diabetic ds.

Also make some hearty, filling soup. Stock cubes are handy for this.

Ah, I'm not sure if it would work but my DD has ARFID and the only protein she will have is eggs

bloody cars are a nightmare! Sorry it’s hit you this hard.

you can use Chatgbt and put all your ingredients in cupboard freezer and it’ll plan and give you recipes to save the boredom.

do you have an air fryer? We’ve been having chicken breasts chopped into strips and spray with oil and a massive tub of fajita seasoning from b&m which I think was £1.25 is delicious you’d get loads of meals out of the size it is.