£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 ☺️

Have you downloaded the olio app they have volunteers that collect food from supermarkets/food chains that is on its sell by date and then donate it to whoever can collect it normally in the evening or first thing in the morning. Worth having a look to see if there is someone local to you doing this.

Their is someone on toktok called costoflivingcrisistips Who does meals for like 40/50p that's worth looking at he did an aldi food shop for £5. I would advise thinks like pasta, potatoes, tinned food. Get the non branded items and raid the yellow sticker section.

There are various community kitchens near me which offer a free meal or churches and temples do this too. I also think you're definitely at the stage where using a food bank would be legitimate. This must be hard I'm so sorry you are experiencing this.

I'm sorry but some of the suggestions on here are crazy. Mashed cannelloni beans from scratch? They take hours to cook and I just can't imagine anything less appetising unless you've got loads of other bits to jazz them up.

In your shoes (and I have been) I would buy: wonky jacket potatoes, cheap baked beans, cheapest block of cheese, cheap bread, spread, cheap jam/cheap peanut butter, milk, teabags, cheap pasta and cheap sauce, reduced price end of shelf life fruit and veg and value porridge oats. You could also pick up 25% fat minced beef and sausages from Aldi at a low cost if you want to eat meat. Lentils etc are cheap enough to make things like soup and dal but not everyone's cup of tea and need loads of spices etc otherwise it's tasteless.

Have you considered seeking a Food Bank referral?

i make a lovely meal with mashed black eye beans.

Asda essentials for things like tinned tomatoes to make pasta sauce and beans to have beans on toast. Cheapest cheese you can get to add to them. Porridge as breakfast. Frozen veg especially peas and sweetcorn

That sounds really hard OP, I do hope that things look up for you very soon. The Jack Monroe recipes I've always found to be really good for cooking when you're watching the pennies. They certainly got me through hard times. FYF website is also pretty good.

My cheap/go to healthy recipes tend to be dhals and thick veggie soups. Also risottos (but veggie ones). But these can take a while to cook. We don't eat a lot of meat. When I became less skint, I would stock up on cheap basics: flour, porridge oats, lentils, dried pulses, dried pasta, dried herbs/spices...and buy in large catering tins of tomatoes, just so that I had stuff in for when the hard times hit again.

My local Lidl does a really cheap veg/fruit box for £1.50. The fruit/veg is a bit knackered but you can normally get quite a good variety in there. I'm not particularly fussy about fruit and veg varieties though - and I'm very lucky that I don't have to worry too much about how much energy I use for cooking - so this works well for us. If you have friends/family nearby, might it be worth asking them if they could pick one of these up for you? Do you have a slow cooker? And a freezer?

If you're by any chance in Liverpool I have several bags of cupboard food that I was going to put on Olio and I can drop off x

Do u have a lidl local to you? They sometimes have veg boxes for 1.50 in the mornings. I got one about 2 weeks ago and was able to make 2 big batches of soup and there was plenty of fruit as well. Its stuff which is slightly out of date or the packaging has been damaged.
A large bag of cheap oats to make porridge with water and add honey or jam to sweeten.

there is a fakebook group feed yourself for 50p a day it has loads of ideas and if to make a post they will be able to give you some really good tips.

The Morrisons near me had mis-shapen veg, that you could help yourself too. I know it wasn’t one of your local supermarkets, but if you could get some free veg, a bus fare might be worth it. Call them in advance to check though.

carrot and coconut dhal https://www.slimmingworld.co.uk/recipes/carrot-and-coconut-dhal

if you can double up the recipe as it will then use a whole tin of coconut milk (look in the world food isle or Aldi as cheapest. Carrots 50p a bag and an onion - use what spices you have, I never put chillis into this dish.

Thats 8 meals out of your 21 meals for the week for approximately £3 out of your £11. Id get porridge and cook with waters, add dried fruit again thats £3 for porridge and dried mixed fruit and 21 meals - sadly not very interesting but the second week you could buy some frozen fruit to add to the porridge for £2.50

https://fatgirlskinny.net/syn-free-vegetarian-chickpea-curry-slimming-world-recipe/. Chickpea curry - don't make the paste unless you have most of the spices - use a paste from the supermarket or buy a sauce and add 2x chickpeas and either spinach or a sweet potato or normal potato 4meals for approximately £4

I reckon on thats 33 meals for £11 leaves you with £11 for the following weeks for 14 meals

Sainsbury's do a bag of 20 frozen sausages for £1.60. Not the healthiest but you could do sausage and mash, sausage with a jacket potato, toad in the hole, a quick casserole with a tin of tomatoes and butter beans, sausage and tomatoes with pasta, sausage sandwiches, sausage hot pot etc.

I would just buy instant noodles I use to eat them a lot when I had no money

Pasta, feta cheese (one packet divided into 5 portions), sprinkling from a tub of dried herbs (about £1 ish, lasts forever), pepper and oil.

Family pack of cheddar, tomatoes and pickle, bread. You can manage without butter if you toast the bread and melt the cheese after you've made the sandwich by putting it in the microwave for 40secs.

Can of soup into a bowl, half a tin of veg thrown in, microwave and add a couple slices toast to dip in.

Porridge with banana.

Toast and jam.

Bran flakes are more filling than other flaked cereal and cheap if you buy unbranded, add sugar and milk. You'll use less milk if you have it warm, microwave half cup for 1min then pour over the bran flakes.

Microwave jacket potato with butter and beans or tuna and cheese. Buy the family packs of cheddar and multipacks of tuna (and use half tin per potato, it keeps refrigerated until next day) to keep it affordable.

Rice, teaspoon of mixed spice (packets from the World Foods aisle in the supermarket give better value for money, approx £2-3 and lasts forever) tin of fish (preferably in oil or tomato sauce for flavour), half tin of veg. Cook rice, mix together and warm through on half power in the microwave for a few minutes.

Tin of sardines on toast. Buy the ones in oil and you can manage without butter.

Half tin of tinned fruit with cheapest vanilla ice cream for a treat.

Plain rice mixed with a desert spoon of jam and a couple teaspoons sugar for a snack/dessert.

It can be done if you buy the supermarket value ranges.

At Asda you can get

Dry pasta 41p
Beans 27p
Cheese slices 65p
Tin of tuna 55p
10 fish cakes £1.89
8 chicken burgers £1.50
Dry spaghetti 28p
Ready meals 90p
Jam 40p
1kg rice 48p
Tinned stuff around 30-40p
Pasta/curry sauce jar 45p
Bread 39p
15 eggs £1.99
Pizza 75p
Potatoes £1.25

I would look online at what is available and work out a shopping list for things that you can make several meals out of

For examples the burgers and fish cakes would make a good few meals if you can get a bag of chips and a bag of frozen veg

Are you anywhere near a Home Bargains or B and M or old style fruit and veg market as they're often a cheap option for food.

With that amount I'd look at potatoes, rice, cheap pasta, cheap tinned tomatoes (if you can add a bit of sugar they make a great sauce for pasta or pizza), flour for pizza base, bread buns etc, eggs and cheese and maybe long life milk, use for pancake, scrambled eggs etc. The last two are decent protein substitutes for meat but if you do need meat then ham, bacon, pate, sausages, whatever is on offer. And soups are great too, before we were given our soup maker I just used to cook it on the hob and use a vegetable masher.

Find out when your Tesco and Sainsbury's do their reductions and look for yellow stickers, check out their cheap ranges too. Our Sainsbury's doesn't separate out their reductions, they're in with the rest of the food in that category.

Also have a look at the old style recipes/cooking board on money saving matters website, they have some brilliant ideas. So sorry you're in this position, life is so tough for so many people right now.

breakfast
Sainsburys cheapest loaf with jam for breakfast as jam is cheaper than butter Loaf =39p x1
jam=39p x1

lunch
sainsburys Ko -Lee instant chicken noodles
noodles 23p x7

so far that’s £2.39 for 7lunches and breakfast

evening meal x2
sainsburys spaghetti 1kg 56p

sainsburys basic pasta sauce 50p

evening meal x2
tahira Chicken Grills Peri Peri 90p (4 in pack, 2 for each meal)
stamford chips 1.5kg £1.56

evening meal
bassic pizza 99p

evening meal x2

Pork sausage (8 in pack 4 for each meal)£1.20
use with the chips above

total £8.10 with what’s left you can buy fruit/veg or milk and tea bags.

OK I can't bear reading this.

OP please pm me your PayPal detail if you have an account. I didn't put anything into the food bank trolly this month so let me send you a shops worth.

Please don't do this, the thread will likely be deleted.

You can never be certain if things are genuine. Advise, or if local to OP and can help in person to see they are genuine, but don't send cash to strangers on the internet.

I know it's what we all are itching to do, but we just don't know how legitimate anybody is.

This is a brilliant message, detailed and precise.

How are you managing for loo rolls, tampons, shampoo etc?

MN give warnings but they’re not going to shut the thread down if someone wants to take a punt at their own risk. We’re all adults here.

I give cash to beggars sometimes - I can’t be sure they’re genuine, that’s ok. I can’t be sure when I give money to charity it will go anywhere but the salaries of charity workers.

Noooodles

£11 a week is not enough to feed yourself a week. Do you not have family you can ask to help or go on your local councils website they have places for emergency food.
Don't be embarrassed to ask for help.

Sal