I have £15 help!

[Mummasbigsmiles]

Ok so I have £15 to spend on our grocery shop this week. Me and my daughter (5)... looking for cheap products , meal ideas. Thanks 🙏🏼

Wish I could remember the thread to link for you where a really helpful poster did a shopping list and meal plans for someone I. Your position.

What do you already have in - eg any pasta etc?

What do you have in and can you get to an Aldi or similar?
Get some of the special buys fruit and veg. This week includes little jersey spuds at 49p a bag i think. Get some pasta and either buy a sauce or passata. Can you buy a chicken? Chicken and potatoes, chicken and veggie pasta and maybe chicken rolls and salad? Jacket spuds? Do you have anything in the cupboards or freezer you can use? Do you also need toiletries ?
There are lots of bargain shopping lists and budget meal planning ideas on mn. And meal plan and make a list.

Not the most exciting but lidl dried pasta, tinned tomatoes, peppers, rice, block of cheese. Do you have spices and stock cubes?

Farmfoods do 5 bags for frozen veg for £4

If you've got rice you can grate a boiled egg in and add veg in, add any meat or whatever else you want. My toddler loves this.

Very simple Mediterranean/middle eastern dish you can google 'Mujadarrah' is one I crave-just rice and brown lentils cooked with fried onion on top. I eat with raw cucumber, tomato and onion, some hummus. Arabs often add spices to it. I try to have this regularly.

You can make tasty pita pockets adding grilled cheese, roasted veg or salad.

Vegetable curry?

Big bag of potatoes/pasta, tinned tomatoes, cabbage to bulk stuff out.

Pancakes with lemon and sugar

Roast chicken, carrots and peas, potatoes, Yorkshire pudding
Have just one slice chicken and shred the rest into a Tupperware pot.

Rice with leftover vegetables and chicken, adding some spices if you have any.

Spaghetti with tomato sauce and shredded chicken

Jacket potatoes with cheese and beans

Dice carrots, celery and onions and fry. Add chicken stock and peas and tiny pasta. Minestrone ish.

Jack Munro posted this earlier, I think it’s a good place to start. Don’t spend if you don’t have to.
When I was a student I used to make a big lot of pasta sauce and buy a big bag of pasta and having it several nights (alternative nights ) and add something different each time. It’s a cheap way of filling a week up.

Is there a local food bank near you?
Xxxx

www.trusselltrust.org/get-help/find-a-foodbank/
Is a good place to start. But also google your town food banks too xx

Get to aldi!
Pizza 89p
A chicken £2.09
Pasta 30p
Passata 35p
Value bread 36p
Porridge 75p
Block of cheese £1.80
Uht milk x4 £1.02
Butter £1.40
Apples 88p
Jersey spuds 49p
Fish fingers £1.29
Frozen peas 80p
Carrots 45p
Bag of peppers £1.09
Frozen chips 80p

With that I'd have toast and butter or porridge (half milk half water) for breakfast. Cheese on toast/cheese sandwich or fish finger sandwiches with chopped carrot or pepper or an apple for the child. For dinner fish fingers, spuds, peas and carrots, pasta in cheese sauce (cook peas with pasta). Roast the chicken have as roast chicken, potatos and veg, then as pasta sauce with peppers, grated carrot and passata - stretch it over 2 nights. Further pasta with cheese sauce. Pizza and chips or fish fingers and chips.

That should scrape just under £15 with enough food and enough fruit and veg for DD at least (some for you!). Stock up on staples next time you're able. I highly recommend tins of emergency beans and tomatos, frozen sausages, pasta and rice.

Great advice @Herja

Frozen veg is cheaper too and just as good

Whoopsies come out at around tea time if you can make it to the shops then

Pasta and sauce is your friend - so cheap and can be nutritious with added veg. No need for meat even!

Look for bread in the whoopsie aisle - can be so cheap - freeze in 2 slice portions

Good luck and love to you

Ive been in Tesco’s website to do this, but it comes to £15.58 and doesn’t really leave anything for snacks. But maybe shopping in Aldi will make some of it cheaper so you can get a bunch of bananas, bag of apples or some fromage frais. Or I will PayPal you an extra £5!

15 eggs - £1.25
800g wholemeal bread - £0.55
1kg onions - £0.75
1kg carrots - £0.44
500g of red lentils - £1.15
Butternut squash - £0.90
10 Veg stock cubes - £0.50
Whole chicken - £3.25
Cooking bacon - £0.57
500g mince - £1.49
1kg rice - £0.45
500g spaghetti - £0.20
Bag of Potatoes - £1.14
Bolognese sauce - £0.75
Frozen peas - £0.69
6 pints of milk - £1.50

Breakfast everyday - 1 scrambled egg each on toast

Lunches - 3 days have butternut squash soup using the squash and an onion and 2 stock cubes. For 4 days have lentil soup using the lentils, an onion, 2 carrots, 2/3 stock cubes.

Dinner 1 - roast chicken with potato, carrots and peas.
Dinner 2 - chicken with spaghetti and half the Bolognese sauce
Dinner 3 - chicken with rice and peas (stir fry if you have soy sauce)
Dinner 4 - spaghetti Bolognese with half the sauce and half the mince
Dinner 5 - mine and potatoes with carrots and peas
Dinner 6 - rice slowly cooked in stock with cooking bacon and peas (like a risotto)
Dinner 7 - cooking bacon with spaghetti and peas.

I’m sorry I can’t get it under £15 and there’s no snacks, but if you’ve got stock cubes and frozen peas, then you can get bananas or apples instead.
I will keep trying!

I'm very certain on the aldi prices btw. I spend far too much time in there and I vost my shopping list to the penny before I go.

Do you have any cards such as a Boots card with points on it? You could use them for snacks, milk or a sandwich.

You can't just walk into a food bank, you would need to be referred by a HV or GP first. Though some churches have food boxes schemes that needs no referral, so worth checking locally.

If you can shop in the evening when items have been reduced at the supermarket that might help you money go further, but you will have limited choice.

List and post here what food you have in your house and you will get lots of help and ideas to see you through.

Link to a previous thread where someone had £10

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food_and_recipes/1754552-If-you-had-a-ten-pound-

Link to another with meal plans.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3222187-To-ask-what-you-make-for-dinners

With your budget I'd start with eggs and bread, you have a number of options for egg on toast, eggy bread, dippy egg for breakfast or lunch.

Then if you add cheese you have cheese omelettes and cheese on toast.

Go to asda
whole chicken 2.82
20 sausages 99
willow butter 80
asda long life milk x 2 1.17
6 eggs 70
bread 55
jam 28
6 little yogurts 40
porridge oats 75
rice 45
x2 pasta n sauce tomato flavour 40
x2 pasta n sauce cheese brocolli 44
pasta penne 32
x2 tomato soup 58p
x2 spag loops 26
x2 beans 46
cheddar slices 1.09
ham 60
frozen chips 99
caramel wafer bars 40
sweet and sour jar 34
curry jar 30
spag bol jar 42

That comes upto 15.58 with plenty of meal ideas but yes it is very lacking in veg but will keep you full. Alot of it is the smart price range I have had most on there and all taste great.

I would check any store cards or vouchers that could boost your £15.
What do you already have at home? Do you have any spices, tins, dried food that can give you a starting point for recipe ideas? If you know anyone who grows their own veg they may well have surplus that they are happy to give away.

I'd buy a frozen pizza, a small gammon joint, eggs, potatoes, tinned tomatoes, pasta, bread, lentils, porage, milk and veg(onions peppers) and salad with whatever's leftover. Probably a cheap pack of biscuits. I'd go to Aldi

I'd boil the gammon and do

Ham salad and potatoes/chips
Ham egg and chips
Carbonara style pasta
Frttata with leftover veg, potatoes, ham
A vast pot of soup with the ham stock, tomatoes, lentils, veg
pizza

Porage and milk for breakfast, soup and bread, eggs, ham, salad for lunch.

This has come out at £15.35 from tesco

1x Yeo Valley Organic Half Fat Crème Fraîche (200g) £1.00
1x Tesco Semi Skimmed Milk 4 Pints (2.27L) £1.09
1x Tesco Everyday Value Mozzarella (125g) 47p

1x Tesco Healthy Living Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce (420g) 32p
1x Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup (295g) £1.00
2x Tesco Everyday Value Passata (500g) 70p

2x Tesco Brown Onions (Approx 210g) 31.5p
1x Tesco Finest Jacket Potatoes (4) £1.50
1x Tesco Tenderstem & Mixed Vegetables (160g) £1.50
1x Tesco Plain Flour (500g) 45p
Frozen
1x Tesco Thick Pork Sausages (20 per pack - 900g) £3.00
1x Birds Eye Field Fresh Garden Peas & Supersweet Sweetcorn (690g) £2.00 Buy any 2 FOR £3.00
1x Tesco Willow Farms Chicken Mini Fillets (365g) £2.00

Lunches x 7

beans on toast
Egg sandwich or egg on toast
Cheese and bacon on omlette
veg curry with rice (if you have spices if not just veg in passata)
pancakes with mushrooms and bacon
sausage and mash
baked potato with a scoop of creme fresh

Dinners
1/2 the chicken breast in a pan with can of soup and 2/3 of the creme freche , serve with veg and rice

pasta with meatballs (defrost 4 of the sausages, skin and mix with onion) passata and pasta

toad in the hole

chicken stir fry with noodles and fresh veg - use the other half of the chicken

bacon and egg muffin (whisk eggs, add chopped bacon) put in a muffin tins and bake for 15 mins

Veg and rice

sausage and chips

mushroom risotto