We have £65 to last 2 weeks - what do I do?

[ladybirdladybirdflyawayhome]

I have £65 in cash & 59p in the bank & no more coming in for another 2 weeks!!

I'm stuck on how to feed 2 adults & 3 children.

I have spoken to the school so the children will have free school dinners for a little while.

I've looked in the cupboards, freezer & fridge & I have lots of carrots, potatoes, sausages, eggs burgers but not much else!!!!!

It's all so depressing, after buying school shoes & uniforms & a few extra bills popping up the money has all gone for this month & I honestly don't know how to stretch it to make it last.

If the kids are getting a full meal at lunchtime then you only need to do something like toasties, beans on toast or scrambled egg for tea.
Write down everything you have and start planning it in to meals. See how far that goes.
Jacket potatoes are filling and cheap.

Casseroles with lots of potatoes & carrotts and only a couple of sausages each for you and dh.

But yes you need to menu plan and fill up on cheap nutritous stuff like beans and lentils.

Write a list of what you actually have in the cupboards & fridge, and I'm sure lots of clever MNers will be able to help you put together some ultra-cheap meals!

It's roughly 14 breakfasts & 14 dinners - do you and your DH need lunches too? Do you both work or can you eat slightly odd leftover combinations at home during the day with no one to judge?

How much of it can you spend on food ?
What are your nearest places to buy food - can you get to a supermarket ?
Its perfectly doable IMO but agree you need to menu plan

Oh and check with your bank that there are no Direct Debits or anything coming out of your account in the next 2 weeks to avoid getting hit with fines.

Can you make cakes? You need four eggs, 8 oz of margerine/sugar and self raising flour plus a few spoonfuls of jam to make a victoria sponge. Delia does a good recipe for ginger biscuits - 4 oz self raising, 1 tsp of ground ginger, 1 tsp bicarb, 1 1/2 oz sugar, 2 oz margerine and 2 tablespoons of golden syrup. Rub the marge into the dry ingredients then bring together with the syrup, make into slightly flattened balls a and bake at 190 for BOUT 10 MINUTES - give a good distance apart for the balls as they do spread. I find you need to use greaseproof paper on the baking sheet though as otherwise they stick and that's hopeless! Keep an eye on them as they can get a bit crunchy - still yummy though

1st question: do you have a freezer? buy some cheap bread and milk and freeze so you know that;'s covered. Buy a BIG box on own brand cereal, (or better - porridge, if your children will eat it) make sure everyone eats breakfast.

Can you make soup? Carrots, onions and lentils make lovely filling satisfying soup.

Also Yorkshire puddings - flour, and egg, milk - cheap, very filling and can be filled with sausages and gravy.

spanish omelette - eggs, potato, onion, frozen peas.

shopping list should include: pasta, tinned toms, bread, eggs, milk, potatos, creal, lentils, cheese.

Pasta - serve with chopped up sausage (can use less than serving 'whole' and a tomato sauce made with smartptice tinned toms.

You can do this. Are you stay at home or working? Take home made soup for packed lunch with some bread. And some fruit. Big bag of apples are in season so pretty cheap.

Market veg is usually better and cheaper than supermarkets but check the prices first (you can look online) to make sure.

pick blackberries - get a load this weekend and make a couple of crumbles to freeze.
You can also use them in buns - 4 oz sr flour, 4 ozs sugar, 4 oz marge, 2 eggs. Mix together, pour into bun cases (or make one round cake in a lined tin) Press fresh blackberries into the top of the mix. Bake 15 mins. These will last for up to a week in a sealed tin.

Buy a large bag of value oats and scrumpy some apples to stew as a porridge topping. That's breakfast sorted.
Get a large tin of powdered milk if you really can't do without milk.
Buy a big bag of rice and lentils.
Make soup with cheap end of day supermarket veg.
Cheap tinned fish flavours a lot of rice very well.
Value flour and suet for dumplings/pastry/pancakes and crumble for any scrumpied apples or wild blackberries.
Have you got any allotments near you where you could offer to do some digging or weeding for some veg?
Or swap the sausages and burgers for money to buy dried beans?

menu planning is a good idea, there are lots of helpful websites with recipes, i dont have much money either so i tend to use these a lot, as well as selling items on ebay. Good luck im sure you will be ok xxx

Does anybody you know have a staff shop on site? We have one in our hospital and you can get some things there for a great price. I got four tins of tuna yesterday for 2.69 instead for £4 plus in the supermarket. You could ask them to get you x if they see it?

I will post a list of what is in the cupboard & fridge/freezer.

We had toad in the hole last night & I have made a batch of biscuits for the girls.

I'm doing shepherds pie tonight although do need to go & buy mince - I don't have a car as we had to sell it last year & the only supermarket that is walkable is Asda, we don't have a market here but my husband came home with a massive sack of potatoes & carrots from a veg van he passed the other day.

It's just me & our toddler here during the day & I am going to make her some soup (I have little rolls in the freezer)

Got a big bag of pennies that I am going to take to the bank today so hopefully an extra £5 there & I have put some baby toys & clothes up for sale on another forum to try & raise some more.

If you cook some carrots in with the mince you can make a small amount go further (apologies if that was already your plan)

Homemade pizza also very cheap - flour, water, yeast if you have it but can be made without (check online for recipes), tinned or pureed tomatoes, cheap ready grated mozzarella from asda (usually cheaper per kilo than block cheese, but you can just grate whatever you have), then to liven it up a few sprinkles of whatever herbs, olives, ham etc you have in the fridge or cupboard.

Oh it is depressing. I feel for you.

But I also think that with your cupboard contents and some extra basics, you will be totally fine.

Porridge for breakfast. Porridge is under rated and is your friend. You could use half milk/half water - or the powdered as above, After all the ready made stuff is in powdered and that's ok.
Now, the way to do this is to soak it overnight, in the pan. One cup of oats for 2 cups of fluid. Your gang I'd do 3 cups of oats and see how it goes.
In the morning you turn your gas on, stir for about 3 mins, and the porridge is done. Super quick and filling for the adults and children.
Stick some sugar, jam, or the apples asRogerandPatricia say. You might have golden syrup lurking, mash a banana into it. Put drinkng choc or coccoa in the milk for chocolate porridge. Mix in the jam for strawberry porridge. Kids will love all that. Melt some marshmallows in for gloopy sweety porridge......look on it as a macflurry

On the veg front, a bag of frozen peas and some frozen sweetcorn will serve you well. Sling some in pasta, big blob cheap mayo and a tin of tuna and you have jacket potato filling. Some black pepper will cheer it up.

If you aim to eat veggie for 5 nights I almost promise you the money will last easily.

Go for root veg. Roast parsnips, sweet potato, squash, all these are filing and give yo a large lump of nosh for the money. You can turn them into mash too.

3 tins of toms, chopped onion, glug of oil = pasta sauce. Use whatever herbs you have to hand, or none if there are none to hand.

drinks - buy own brand carton of litre of orange juice, and water it down. Tastes ok, bit like squash but nicer, and I can get 2 litres for 58p.

HIt is crappy though. The only thing you can do is look on it as a challenge, a 'lets prove we can do this' and maybe even keep going or do it agan in a little while. Save the money you save for a treat for the family

Someone on ehre once suggested adding lentil to things like mince/shepherds pie/bolognaise etc. it helps bulk out the mince. Also ther eare some quite good and cheap recipes ont eh mumsnet recipe section.

Ask on freecycle for surplus veg or go and suck up to any local allotment owners.

(I always say this on these threads)

There are usually times that the prices are marked down, around an hour before the supermarket shuts. You can get some real bargains, so aim to shop around then. A lot of the food will go out of date, but can be frozen.

wish you live near me, I have loads of apples at the minute...and spuds

My mum fed us on a really cheap diet so I know loads of tips .

Probably not what youd want to feed your dc all the time but tasty stuff.

Corned beef mash with a crispy cheese topping,tin of corned beef chopped up and mashed with some mash (could add peas) then a heap of grated cheese on top - cooked in the oven and served with beans is lovely.

sausage and mash with veg (cheap sausages or frozen sausages)

value mince made into balls and rolled up with pasta sauce

vegetable curry

vegetable sweet and sour

Tuna pasta

stew made with mince meat and dumplings

tinned hotdogs on cheap rolls cut in half

bacon offcuts (cooking bacon) chopped up and cooked with liver in butter is delicious

asda have lots of offers on chicken fingers/fishfingers/chicken things etc etc all these are fab children meals and you can spice em up for adults.

eggs/beans/spaghetti on toast are all quick easy teas.

My eldest ds will sometimes pass up a fully cooked beef dinner for waffles beans and fried eggs.

its more than £5 per day and you can do it.

buy cheap washing powder for a couple of weeks and washing up liquid and it will be ok.

OHH another tip with littlies is to put their snacks (crisps) etc in a dish ....it looks more and they cant see the value packaging .

pasta bake jars are currently 71p in asda. 1 jar and a bag of basics pasta will do all of you for a meal ... you can have the same thing for a few nights if needed to eek it out

So many tips
I will spend time this evening writing it all down, the fridge/freezer & cupboard list is quite long so that's promising although I will need washing powder & nappies.

The pennies added another £10 so minus what I spent on mince, chicken, self raising flower I now have £70 to last 2 weeks & then the child benifit money will hit my account & we will be ok again.

Thanks for all your lovely help,

Sausage casserole with lots of onions, a couple of tins of the cheapest tomatoes and bulked out with the cheapest lentils/beans you can find is a great winter warmer - six sausages should serve the five of you depending on the age of the kids. Carrot and potato mash is probably the cheapest carb to serve it with, but it's also good with rice if you've got that in stock.
Lea & Perrins and a spoon of mustard (Dijon for preference) are the secret ingredients if you have them in the cupboard.

In a Which? trial the Aldi washing powder scored something like 1% less than the big names, and better than a lot of them! Their nappies are meant to be fabby too.

If you buy a bag of soda crystals for 90p [from Asda] and use half a scoop of that, with 1/4 of the washing powder - you're clothes will be totally clean. Marvellous stuff.

£5 a day, plus a decent stocked larder is really fine. I think we spend that or less as part of normal life in all honesty. We certainly don't spend more than £200 a month on groceries, I've checked the bills. We are healthy and even manage to be overweight , but my kids are small and have appetites like birds. I think the trick is to not assume everyday is a meat day [and why would it be] or that everymeal has to be a huge affair. I bet you sort of enjoy it in a way.

Do check the bank though - no direct debits or daft quarterly magazine or pet insurance or somesuch.