£11 a week food shop

[Novynu]

Looking for very cheap meal ideas. I do eat meat but meat is probably out of budget.

I have around £11 per week for one persons food for the next 5 weeks.

So far I have spaghetti and sauce
Cous cous with a few vegetables thrown in
Batch cook salad to eat over few days lunch

TIA ☺️

As above porridge is also so cheap, filling and good for you.

Whats the price of barley at the moment. Because you could easily bulk out chickens stock cubes with that and lentils.

Also do you have a greengrocer near you, I never know if they are cheaper or not than supermarkets but a lot of them have gone these days

I've sent you a pm OP but I was also going to recommend OLIO you get tons of food on there and it's free and you can also put in what area you want so that way you should be able to narrow it down to areas you can get to without the need of a bus or car.

Would you like to talk through how you think that would work?

With details about employment checks/qualifications/requirements/travel etc?

Before I left work I used to do the feed yourself for £1 per day for either 7 or 14 days for charity with money you'd normally spend going to the charity. I bought porridge, brown loaf of bread and froze half for later in the week with a yellow sticker, wafer thin ham, 4 tins of baked beans, 4 jacket potatoes, bag of apples, cheap sausages and milk. I had. Porridge for breakfast every day, made with water. I made beans toastie, jacket with beans and wafer thin ham, or a sausage sandwich every day for dinner and had an apple and half a sandwich of the ham for lunch. It was hard. If I did a second week I substituted the ham for a pack of cheese slices, and bought pasta and tinned tomatoes instead of bread and sausages also a tin of garden peas I added a few with pasta and tomatoes.

My go to when I was down to nothing was milk, eggs and bread. There are places you can get all of those very cheaply where I live. Eggs are versatile - you can do eggs on toast, boiled, french toast etc

If you eat baked beans (I don't), also an option. I'd also get butter and use it sparingly.

Eggs and beans are a good protein source.

Veges, I used to have good grocers and pumpkin and potato from there were very cheap. Use frozen greens.

You won't get fancy food, but it's edible and filling.

Flour, rice and pasta are cheap here. If you can find a discounted mince you can mince with rice or pasta or make super easy dumplings with milk, flour and a little butter to go on top of the mince and that's filling, even more so if you mix in frozen or cheap veges like zucchini and carrots. You can bulk up mince with veges to make it go much further, which is why I would buy it if it was a bargain.

I think it's doable if you don't mind eating the same meals all week.

Bag of cheap porridge oats will last you a week - 70p/ kilo in tesco
Milk 1.25 2 pints (mixed with water)

Lunches - make soup -
Bag of red lentils 1.80/ kilo
Bag of frozen casserole veg 1.40/ kilo
Veg stock cubes 75p
Loaf of bread - 39p

Dinners -
Pasta - 56p/ kilo
Alternate with cream cheese and seasoning 83p
And passata and seasoning 45p

That all totals just £8.14 (ish- haven't got my calculator handy) at tesco and will be enough for 7 portions of each meal for the week. It's not exciting food and pretty carb heavy but it's doable and you won't starve.

With the leftovers you could improve the nutrition -buy a bag of frozen spinach to add to the soup and pasta, maybe some eggs for protein and vitamins or cheap sausages ? Baked potatoes or
beans ?
Good luck xx

I’d really try to get to a foodbank somehow OP as the prices of basics even are shocking me every time I go shopping - but you already know this. If you could get a big bag full, it might be worth the bus fare?

Breakfast: Porridge with milk and water (all water if you don’t mind the taste) and a banana which are usually reasonable if bought by weight on a market.

Lunch: Batch cooked soup with cheapest vegetables you can find and lentils for a bit of protein.

Dinner:

Rice fried with eggs for protein, peas, onion, sweetcorn - whatever you like.

Pasta and sauce

Pasta with a little bit of oil (preferably olive but any is fine if it’s a little bit) and seasoned well with salt and pepper is okay with some roasted/grilled sliced cherry tomatoes, chopped olives, broccoli - whatever you’ve got.

Jacket potato bought from a veg stall and cheapest beans you can find - I can’t tell the difference between most beans.

If I batch cook something like a chili con carne, while not as obviously cheap and pasta and a sauce, it can last days and is really filling if you can find a good deal on some mince or Quorn mince. Or even do a veg chili with peppers and beans. I’d keep it basic instead of using a complicated recipe. If you don’t have any spice though, instead of buying several CV which could add up, you could get those easy packs which I’ve seen in deals where you can buy a few to keep in your cupboard. I imagine this might be cheaper than getting separate spices.

Eggs of course.

sosmix ,red lentils, dried tvp mince, then frozen peppers, sweetcorn, or/& veg, curry powder or chilli powder, tins or tomatoes, beans & red kidney beans & pasta, and bread. you can make spag bol, sausages/burgers (use some onion too), chilli with rice (tvp mince, onion and veg), soups, perhaps fried rice with some veg.

@bellac11 not sure if you're aware, but your response to my suggestion read in a very condescending, could even be described as bitchy way.

It is possible to register with agencies for casual work, eligibility and employment checks are done at the agency level, they then send you for a day or 2 to whatever roles are available.

Right now, seasonal casual work does include exam invigilation. Another good option is poll clerk or vote counter which is one day or nights work, apply through local council sites. Poll clerk is approx £185 for the day, nighttime vote counter is around £12 an hour if I remember correctly.

A few years ago when I was on a lower salary I would sign up for an agency and take a weeks work, I'd take a weeks annual leave from my normal job so I'd essentially be paid twice for the same hours. I'd obviously be taxed on the temp work but I'd still end up better off than if I hadn't worked.

Tesco might be cheaper for frozen veg, they are in my area. Look for anything on the yellow sticker offers. If they have bread options on offer buy that and freeze so it lasts for the week.

Potatoes, either jacket spuds or sautéed with some vegetables.

Beans, whichever is the cheapest option, on toast for either breakfast or lunch. Oats to fill out a veg soup, or pasta sauce, or use for porridge. Full fat options like milk or yoghurt- whichever is cheapest. Milk for drinks or natural yoghurt for snacks with a bit of jam stirred in, and fruit if there’s any on offer.

As others have said, food bank, community fridge, a church or temple will help even if it’s just a meal when you arrive.

Depending where you are try the app Too Good To Go. Where I lived until recently it was mostly Greggs and Cafe Nero.

Eggs cost a fucking fortune these days 😅

Breakfast - jam and whatever whoopsied bakery stuff you can get your hands on. Should be able to keep this down to £1 per week.

With the remaining tenner I'd buy:

8 Wraps 80p or whoopsied if poss
4 x baking potatoes 67p
Penne 500g - 28p
20 Frozen sausages - £1.60
Pasta sauce 47p
Onions - 30p
Beans - 50p
Grated mature cheese 250g £1.99
10 fish fingers - 75p

That leaves you £3 to spend on reduced yellow sticker items. From the above you can make 4 portions of pasta bake, 2 jackets with cheese and beans, sausage and mash, fishfingers and mash.

The wraps can be spread with some of the pasta sauce, cheese and onion to make a quesadilla or homemade pizza. They can have cold sausage in or cheese for lunches. Use the £3 to get whoopsied sandwich fillers and pies or microwave meals start at 75p in Tesco.

This. You mention bad credit. You shouldn't be skimping on food to pay unsecured debts, you pay your debts after you've paid your living cost including a reasonable amount for food and essential travel.

If you're in this position you need advice on the overall picture, you don't need to be living on cold beans (literally ) to keep up with debt repayments.

Have a look at moneysavingexpert.com budgeting and debt help and follow the signposts to what help you need.

Have you contacted your local church/religious organisation (you do not have to be a member), they maybe able to help or may know of services that you may not know of. I am not Uk based but what about contacting the local Salvation Army. They may be able to arrange for food parcels to be dropped to you etc. Also look at contacting organisations like Lions Club etc who maybe able to help.

In 1995 it totally could be done. I was a student then and vegetarian and £10 was my weekly food budget. Largely pasta and jacket potato based. With food price increases since then it will be much more challenging, but perhaps not impossible if you have some store cupboard ingredients and can bulk cook some batch meals. Jamie Oliver is doing a sign up budget meal recipe thing and Jack Monroe's tin can cook will give you some inspiration.

Cookingonabookstrap.com has loads of recipes for situations such as these. I particularly recommend the peach and chickpea curry, add other veg if you can find some reduced and it will last ages.

Not the most nutritious food in the world but the Aldi version pasta n sauce packets are quite acceptable and only 39p. You can chuck a few frozen peas or sweetcorn in it if you have.

I used to buy the frozen admiral's pies when I was skint for under a pound.

Use soups etc for nutritional value and have some things that are filling.

The Aldi mixed pack of bourbons, custard creams etc (come in a four) are dead cheap and would cover snacks for several weeks.

If you eat meat something like a gammon joint or a small whole chicken (Aldi sell by weight so you can get one for under £3) would get you a fair few meals and you could freeze some portions for the week after.

Breakfast something like a pack of imitation wheetabix would last you weeks

It's tricky when you are limited with what you have access to as you'll need to spread out buying a bag of pasta, rice etc over the different weeks.

I know you said you had onion, salt, pepper, oil.

But do you have any herbs and spices. They can make the simplest ingredients sing. Such as making a Dahl.

Do you have a Lidl or Aldi within walking distance?

I've lived on very low food budgets so may be able to suggest some recipes.

In terms of vitamins/ nutrition etc probably not long term but short term it's doable although not a nice situation. I mean, you can technically stay alive off a few bags of rice although not recommending this to OP.

Worth thinking about whether you can spend £3 of the £55 on some low cost multivits tho OP and not have to worry so much about nutrition.

I'm presuming this is a short term thing

in case anyone missed it - OP has said she has TESCO and SAINSBURY locally

the Bootstrap linked above is excellent

Have a look on the Feed Your Family for around £20 Facebook page or website

they have an emergency meal plan that’s about £10 a week - includes all the shopping lists and where to get it cheapest

Watch "The Quaint Housewife" on YouTube - she has an 'emergency budget' series of videos, with a $10 a week budget.
She suggests, for instance:

• Bran flakes and a banana x7
• Pinto beans and spring onion in a tortilla x7
• Spaghetti and red sauce x7

So all you're buying for 7 days is:
-box bran flakes
-milk

• bananas

-pinto beans

• spring onions
• tortillas
• spaghetti
• red sauce