Can you meal plan for £15?

[Seaside3]

Hello! Recently I saw a lady on fb making food for 1 person, for a week, for £15. Naturally my competitive ass decided to see if I would be able to manage it. Hypothetically, as I actually cook for 4 people. And NO, I'm nkt saying anyone should live like this, but it is some people's reality.

Not gonna lie, it took more planning than necessary, and I'm not convinced by it. Ive tried really hard to buy stuff that will be filling and jtems that will last intonthe followung week to start a little pantry. What would you make? And what would you differently?

i used Tesco for pricing.

1kg oats 85
6 eggs£1
3 x tinned tomatoes £1.29
500g yogurt 55p
1 garlicbulb 60p
6 apples 99p
Uht milk 65p
2 tins beans 56p
Curry powder £1
800g Bread 55p
1 kg Rice 52p
Lentils £2.10
Chickpeas 41p
Carrots 69p
Butter £1.60
1 potato 27p
Stock cubes £1.10
3 onions 33p
Total £14.96

What i woukd make: I don't know the exact amounts I would use, I've been cooking for 4-6 people for 27 years! I'm also guessing fuel use needs to be minimal. I've attempted to keep it as nutrional as possible, but it is hard. And I'm not sure how people cope with tea or coffee?

Breakfast

Porridge with water and milk, add in grated apples. I'd make one big batch and then eat cold as the week went on.

Alternate breakfast/lunch/dinner ideas

Scrambled eggs on toast
Beans on toast
Tomatoes on toast

Dinner

I would make 1 big batch of dahl with an onion, garlic, lentils, half the potato, stock cube and curry powder. Add 1/2 tin of chick peas. Serve with rice and yogurt. An egg could be added for a different flavour.

Lunch
Carrot soup with onions, 1/2 potato, handul of oats, garlic, butter for frying. Make the whole bag into soup, should make about 6 portions?

1/2 tin of chickpeas, yogurt, curry powder as a basic chickpea filling for bread or with rice.

Okay, what would you do?

Bake beans on toast
oats and banana
homemade vegetable soup and make bread

Grating an apple in gives it some sweetness and bulks it out a little.

cheaper to grate carrot in for sweetness and add a touch of cinnamon, carrot cake oats

@NC543210 I reckon the ciggies would cost £15 these days.

@CarrieOakie currently my imaginary shop only has curry powder! But I am planning on trying overnight oats with carrots, dates, cinnamon and walnuts at some point.

Does taking free produce from friends with allotments count towards the budget? Everything we are eating at the moment is stuffed to the brim with courgettes!

@MotherOfLittleCrocodiles I can't see why not.
We have a community orchard and 2 no food waste schemes in my town, which would help.
Not much access to "too good to go", or Olio here, which would also help.

I used to as a student. In the early 90s! Food was relatively expensive, then.

These days, I'd end up living on rice spuds, lentils and veg and a bit of chicken or pork as there is so much that my digestive system violently objects to. TBH, that was the case to some extent back then but I simply avoided the cheapest bread (instant banging headache) and put up with the farts.

Can get mixed herbs in home bargains for 55p. 6 eggs in lidl for 99p (or 10 for £1.95 in sains). Actual butter is 99p in farmfoods. 2.5kgs value potatoes is £1.20.

Gone are the days you could get a 7.5kgs of potatoes as your free veg item for a monthly £50 spend in lidl

I'd use some uht milk and / or yoghurt to make overnight oats. I've picked enough blackberries and cooking apples (both free) to freeze for the year or make jam to go with it.

Lunches sandwiches or leftovers.

Dinners, Pan Heggarty - sliced potatoes/ carrots / onions plus stock (with cooking bacon - very good value for money), 'mince' dishes bulked out with onions, grated carrots, oats, pearl barley, red lentils etc. Add various tinned beans (3 for £1 in farmfoods). Jackets with Tuna. Tuna Pasta / Bake with veg. Tuna is 50 to 65pva tin. Can get a full size tin of pichards or mackerel in tom sauce for 99p to make pasta or fishcakes. I'd make flapjacks using oats & defrosted frozen bananas or the frozen free apples. Or Banana pancakes. I do a lot of this already. Gnocchi using mash & flour too is an option.

Porridge made with full fat milk

Egg mayo sandwich, lentil and veg soup

Massive batch Bolognese, skimpy on the meat, made into a huge pasta bake, served with a JP

Tinned peaches or the cheapest fruit available for dessert/snacks

This woman on the internet though, has she already got store cupboard basics like flour/curry powder? They usually have.

The one o she appeared to have use of mayo and ketchup from elsewhere, but needed onions and didn't raid her cupboards. (She had family om the background, I'm guessing they weren't part of the challenge).

To be honest I was so distracted by the awful food, and the lack of food, that she was eating, I didn't really look into why or what her rules were.

All great ideas, but when yoi try to spend £15 for all your weekly meals it's surprising how fast it goes. Especially if you imagine starting from scratch, and not necessarily having the means to schlep around different shops.

I have done any pricing (yet) but I would definitely buy a bag of flour as pps suggest, and dried yeast

Pizza base
Pancakes
Yorkshire puds
Toad in the hole
Roti
Crumble topping
etc

I would buy

Cheese - for pizza, baked potatoes, pasta - butter, garlic and cheese
More onions and garlic, and ginger
Frozen veg - I always have peas, cauliflower, sometimes spinach
Frozen fruit - mixed
Chilli powder/flakes (or fresh), cumin, smoked paprika

You are doing a great job @Seaside3 !

I’d but some pasta for a start. I’d skip breakfast (cold oatmeal sound disgusting). Lunch would be homemade soup - a couple butternut squashes and onions, cream with stock and spices would make enough for six bowls. Dinner pasta with XYZ (tinned tuna etc, or pasta and whatever.
But I wouldn’t be getting enough high nutrient dense food or enough calories or protein with that menu so don’t think it’s very sustainable.

That list would work as some of the prices are a bit over - eg a kilo of rice in Tesco is 52p and 500g of penne is 41p (spaghetti is 28p) beans are 28p. So you'd have enough to buy some tea bags or a jar of coffee (82p or £1.15).

I only know because Tesco has a campaign with Trussell Trust at the moment and have stands in their bigger stores with bags of items that the local foodbank need and most of the bags I have been filling have pasta or rice in or milk and tea or coffee. Plea to anyone who can afford it to look out for one of these stands and add a bag to your shopping. (And if you don't have that much spare change but could afford a 52p bag of rice or a 65p carton of UHT milk that would be very gratefully received as Tesco give match funding to Trussell which is calculated on the weight of donations made by customers and they are heavy items.....)

For anyone who fancies meal planning from it our current parcels for a single person aim to provide the following:

a mixture of seasonal fresh fruit and veg
2 eggs
tin soup
tin of beans
tin of tomatoes
tin of veg
tin of meat
2 tins of fish
tin of pulses
jar of pasta or curry sauce
tin of fruit
tea or coffee
sleeve of weetabix - ie half a box
carton UHT milk
pack of biscuits
500g rice
1kg pasta.

Plus some essentials like a bar of soap, 2 laundry tabs, a small decanted amount of washing up liquid and a loo roll. Funding cuts mean we are about to drop the tin of meat as it is the most expensive item and also the eggs.

It gets easier once you have a whole load of herbs, spices and stock cubes in, because you don't then have to buy new jars & pots every week, you can use what you already have.

@mondaytosunday overnight oats are very popular, and cold porridge is surprisingly nice. Plus filling and good for you. You could easily .ake it every day, my plan was to cook.as much as possible at once as not everyone can afford to cook every day.

I played around with the idea of flour, but decided that if I were in such a dire situation, the flour could be bought in the 2nd week. It's a sort of 'pick a carb' situation i guess, I went with rice and bread as dahl was the cheapest main ingredient could think of and bread works for all meals.

True. We were once gifted a spice tower and I have to say, it's was a brilliant gift. About 20 herbs and spices all in a spinning tower. Ugly as way of presenting them, but so, so useful to a cash strapped mother of 4.

It's a great Christmas/birthday gift for anyone who is already thinking along those lines.

@Seaside3 Im confused by your initial prices list - 6 eggs from Tesco is a minimum of £1.80

Ah...... have just seen that barn eggs are £1 for 6 but as my dd, sitting next to me atm said "have some standards!" Even on a tiny budget barn eggs are a no imho. ie on your budget Id rather go without eggs...... or find an extra 80p somehow! (eg I would skip the garlic so that would save 60p)

That seems like nothing. Are people meant to live off that for a week? 2 eggs?? Oof.

Thanks for the reminder to donate - do you know if you can do it via tesco online?

Okay, bit of a weird one, but if anyone is budget shopping, we popped into m & s today to pick up a nice lunch and spotted they ar3 selling jars of beans for 55p. Naturally i bought lots, and when I got home compared them to tins I bought in lidl last week. There are actually more beans in the m & s ones than the lidl ones. Plus they made me feel fancy!

That is very kind OP - having said which I know you are from your other thread.....

Not sure that you can donate online via Tesco but all food banks are very very grateful for cold hard cash as it means they can buy what they really need (and they can usually negotiate good deals). You can find your nearest here https://foodbanks.co.uk/

I do buy free range. But I also recognise that some people just do not have any spare money. It's not for me to judge.

Thanks for sharing the link. X