How can I spend £50pw on food?

[jugodenaranja]

not a begging thread! I’ve had over £100 worth of expenses not budgeted for and now literally can’t spend more than £50 per week on food for the rest of November. Toilet rolls and toiletries can be bought separate. It’s just me and DD so should be possible but usually spend £65-70 + extra for toiletries, I buy dog food separate as well. I could put it on a credit card but not sure I want to get into debt.

Use olio app for free food.
Be vegetarian.
Rice pasta lentils eggs
Pitta breads frozen
Baked potatoes
Seasonal veg soups
Beans

Shop in lidl

Sell some things /clutter from home on Facebook market place to get more cash eg bundles of too small clothes, toys, bundles of books, anything brand name

Cheap/hearty meals

Jacket spuds with cheese and beans
Spaghetti bolognaise
Egg on toast
Sausage sandwiches
Lentil Dahl
Chilli and rice
Egg fried rice
Soup and crusty bread
Toasties
Pasta bake

Anything you can bulk out with beans/carbs is a winner.

Porridge, crumpets and cereal for breakfasts.

Apples, bananas and biscuits for snacks

I saw a really nice slo cooker omelette

Eggs , salt , pepper, garlic granules , diced mixed peppers and cheese , on high for 3 hours, makes a fabulous fluffy omelette!

I'm trying it tomorrow. The poster on fb made it with 32 eggs , im going for a conservative 6!

Do you know anyone who uses Gousto? I have used a referral code for 70% off. So I got 5 meals for two people (10 meals) for £14.

It seems crazy because the subscription is expensive but as a one off it would work.

Just for two it's very doable - my tip is to bulk out meat eg we had lamb curry, lamb is expensive so I use half the amount and add chickpea's meaning it's around £1.50 a portion for curry, rice, yogurt and a bhaji. (Lidl prices). Cheaper are chicken things, 8 were £2.40 last week.

Veggie food can save you money too eg a bean chili is super cheap and make enough for 3 meals and freeze

We are spending circa £70 a week without budgeting for 3 though that doesn't include a meal out each week or dsd's junk she buys herself

I just did a shop, it came to £70 but included delivery cost (4.50) toilet rolls (11.85) and dog food (7.30), which I buy separately anyway.

We aim to spend £100 for 5 of us on food. 3 of whom are fucking massive sporty teens.
Protein is your friend.
Brown rice and dhal
Quinoa and chickpea and tomatoes and spices
Mince packet (3 meals pasta/jacket pots/Shepard's pie) - bumf out with carrots onion, spinach, garlic, and lentils and tins of tomatoes. Have with salad and broccoli or green beans
Tortilla and veg
Beans on toast with poached eggs
Porridge for breakfast with honey
Lentil/butternut squash/potato and leek soup (see what is cheap on stickers or that week's offer at Aldi) and also sandwiches, humous, pitta, salad with eggs/peppers/avocado/feta
Snacks biscuits, fruit in the discount bit, Aldi chocolate is nice.
That's is our usual shop. We do get wine but that is on top.

Are the unusually low weekly food budgets taking the cost of school meals into account?

We live frugally but don’t suffer. Three meals a day for three adults, no alcohol, yes meat, seasonal fruit and vegetables, home cooking and baking, unbranded products NEVER costs less than €150 a week.

If you're in Ireland, or many other 'Euro' countries, food is more expensive than the UK.

If you eat a lot of home cooked pulses and seasonal vegetables, buy the very cheap Asian branded spice packets, frozen garlic etc, little or no meat, basic free range eggs, make good use of the reduced counter/Olio, cheapest cleaning products carefully used not sloshed around and little/no snacks, juices etc, it's probably possible to spend the small amounts suggested here. Will require planning and mostly cooking from scratch, but not impossible.

I think meal prepping and batch cooking might help a lot. Jack Monroe has some great recipes. Using cupboard and pantry staples, buying wonky veg boxes, frozen veg, non-branded items from the grocery store will help when on a budget. Olio and Too Good To Go can also help.

Very easily done gir an adult abd child. 1kg of chicken Drumsticks is £2.50. 500g if mince is about the same. You need to cook from scratch. Obviously no chicken breast, fish fillets etc

Yesterday my husband made a shed load of pasta sauce and soup with one roasted pumpkin, onions, garlic, stock, black pepper and cheese (mascapone and parmesan). Our local community larder might have some of that.

We've frozen much of it as it made shed loads but it's beautiful and tasty. pumpkins are everywhere at the moment.

I've just had my dd to stay so I was cooking for 2 not one.

I got a Sainsbury's extra small chicken that I did in the slow cooker, I have loads left, enough to make a curry and a sandwich or two.

I used the carcass to make stock.

Toast is a good basis for a lot of simple meals, breakfast, lunch or dinner. Beans on toast (or a tine of sausage and beans) cheese on toast - grate the cheese it goes further, egg (poached scrambled or fried) or soft boiled with toast soldiers.

Toasties, you don't need a toastie maker you can spread butter or mayo on the outside of a sandwich and then fry on both sides.

Nasi Goreng is a way to use up left overs. Also stir fries.

If you make some veg to go with one of your meals then add a cheese sauce to it for another meal.

I make an 'asian stock', basically boiling water with a cube of frozen garlic and a cube of frozen ginger but you can use fresh or cupboard dried versions.

Add other spices, veg and left over meat, add a bit of soy sauce and some rice on the side.

are chicken drumsticks really a good budget idea? have often wondered. so much of that apparently cheap per kilo price is surely bone? And won't they need to go in an oven? chicken breasts can be chopped into small bits and stir fried.

Mexican food is super cheap. I cook with a lot of pinto and black beans and do lots of burritos and rice bowls. You don't feel deprived or like you're missing meat. There's a lady on YouTube called Sopherina who does lots of super budget cooking.

They are less than half the price of breast or thigh fillets. Chicken thighs are cheap too with only one bone. May not be economical to oven cook for only an adult and child though.

How many toilet rolls is that ? Do you need that many in a week?
Also is there a way you can go to the shop and save the delivery charge ?

I assume the toilet rolls were bulk buying for a few months? I would have just got enough to see us through November and used the remainder for food if money is tight.

It's done now though.

Google seems to suggest that chicken drumsticks and thighs are 70-75% edible, so may be an economical option depending on the cost of cooking. They would cook in a stew in a slow cooker for cheap.

Don't touch anything by Jack Monroe.
Avoid it at ALL COSTS

99% of her recipes are very poor nutritionally speaking and coat WAY more than she says they do because she breaks things down into tiny amounts and lists that as the cost.
Using 30p of a product that's actually going to cost you £5 to buy is not being frugal, it's fishing the numbers to look frugal.

Plus, she's an abhorrent animal abusing lying scammer who no one should support... Ever.

Much better options are available, Monroe is for middle class well off people that want to pretend to be poor for a week for fun, because that's what she actually is.

Everyone else has shared great tips, particularly on the chicken & mince. only thing to add is buy a couple of toastie bags, you can pick up them up in Poundland, Asda probably any grocery shop. You can then make good, filling & nutritious toasted sandwiches for lunch for very little cost.

Our favourites would be :-

Hummus/ham/roasted peppers - large jar from Asda/Home Bargains for less than £2 and lasts a long time or tomatoes if you don’t like peppers

Chicken (leftover from roasted chicken) & cheese

Ham/Cheese/tomatoe

Just put in the toaster, done in minutes and no mess.

You could add filling soup to make a main meal.

Final tip is to download Gander app, shows up to date reductions from nearest food shops.

Good luck xx

and coat WAY more than she says they do because she breaks things down into tiny amounts and lists that as the cost.
Using 30p of a product that's actually going to cost you £5 to buy is not being frugal, it's fishing the numbers to look frugal.

Well I'd say that was normal living.
If a recipe calls for some cheese, I use some cheese from the block I have bought, and still have the rest of the block to use later for sandwiches or in another recipe. I haven't used £4.50 worth of cheese, I've used 45p worth of cheese.
Ditto virtually everything from salt or herbs or spices, to packets of pasta or tins of beans.

Yes, that's how normal people operate @UsingChangeofName but on here it seems like we have to assume that no-one has so much as salt in their store cupboard, let alone a £1 pack of chili powder and any sort of kitchen equipment or appliance is unobtainably aspirational to anyone who might want to spend a bit less on their grocery shopping.

Her whole existence is based on having £20 to last, or whatever sum she's touting this month.

Her recipes, as you've just described, call for 45p of cheese out of £4.50 block.

So lets say she writes an omelette and beans recipe.
2 Eggs (50p)
Cheese (30p)
Toast (17p)
1/2 tin of unrinsed beans (14p)

Total: £1.11

Only if you're down to you last £1.50, you can't make that now can you?
Eggs £1.50
Cheese £3.00
Toast / bread from loaf 60p
Unrinsed beans 28p

Actual total: £5.28p

She admits in the book rhatbgot pulled for being dangerous that her "feed a family for £20" nonsense doesn't include what she already has.
Made up some nonsense name for checking what you've got before you go shopping and called it the 'quarterhack'

If you've fallen for her nonsense and bought into her lies, great, go well, you ust really hate cats and other animals.

But don't suggest anyone with a limited budget follow her recipes because they're nonsense and living on rinsed spaghetti hoops is not possible.

She also knows so little about the equipment in a kitchen she suggested adding water into a Ninja which is so dangerous that Ninja themselves have had to correct her and say, no, don't do that.

She has no experience in a professional kitchen
No training as a chef or a cook.
She has no idea about nutrition and rarely if ever lists calorific content of the awful 'recipe' she spunks out.

Some one with £20 left and fuck all in the cupboard isn't going to be helped by telling them to check their cupboards and buy a few top up bits to make a recipe that is barely edible...

And that's before you look at the cooking times she suggests on some of these cost effective recipes.. £2.50 for ingredients, £3.50 to cook it till it's beige..

Google:
"slopalong" for more info on Jack's Food.

Anyone promoting her and thinking she's good in anyway doesn't deserve consideration.