Help make £18 last 10 days

[rainbowslate]

Please can you give me any ideas how to make £18 last 10 days. Family of 4, 2 adults, 2children.
Should have enough fuel to last, so just lunch boxes and evening meals really
Thank you in advance

Please speak to a food bank, don’t suffer in silence. Lots of people donate food every week so families don’t have to live on thin air.

Can you speak to the school and ask for the children to be put into school lunches until the end of term and pay afterwards (are you eligible for free school meals?)

If you need to stretch a food budget, dried beans, lentils and rice are a solid bet as nutritious but cheap.

Go to the primary school and ask if your DC can have school meals " on tick", they have a vested interest in the DCs well being, you won't be the first or the last. As others have said go to supermarkets/ markets at closing time and ( tip picked up on here) get that £18 out in cash so no unexpected DD can pinch the money. Then yes, oats, lentils, carrots, rice try to make stock from the peelings. Plain flour is less than £1 for 1.5kg do you bake, some scone recipes have v. little fat and no egg in then, they can be served with soup in place of bread. No doubt it will be tight good luck.

contact the school, tell them you are struggling and they may be able to help out or refer you to a foodbank

Is this a one off type situation ?

If so it is doable for emergency situations I can't really add on more then the other fantastic suggestions but bacm them. If it's likely to be reoccurring you need to ask for help of some kind

Also, don't overlook places like B&M Bargains. At the end of the day ours has 10p bread, nothing special, just standard sliced bread. They stack it up at the tills. Also their chilled cabinet often has 10p sandwiches. You can pop these in the sandwich toaster or under the grill for more of a meal. Sometimes you can get milk and eggs reduced at the end of the day too. In fact, I think it's nearly always possible to get reduced milk from a supermarket/convenience store if you are not too fussy whether it's whole milk, skimmed or semi-skimmed, and milk freezes well too.

I haven't read every single reply so not sure if this has been mentioned but if you have internet, I recommend using the free ChatGPT to put in a list of everything you've got, tell it your budget and ask it to meal plan for you for 10 days for two adults and two children based on £18 and provide you a costed shopping list (and from which shop(s)) of anything else you need to buy.

It's such a great resource if used creatively and cuts so much thinking work out. If it includes something you don't like or that isn't practical, just give it follow up instructions until it suits you.

Good luck!

Hi rainbowslate,

We can see that you're getting some good advice and tips from your fellow Mumsnetters here on your thread, but we just thought we'd post a link to our financial issues webguide on which we've compiled some useful links so that people experiencing difficulties can find all the relevant information in one place.

Go to a food bank.
Sell things.
One of the adults could look for temp work delivering takeaways.

Go to local fruit and vege shops and ask for a box of their disgarded or reduced fruits and vegetables.

No OP absolutely should not do this. She is feeding her family not livestock. Plenty of cheap fruit and veg available reduced at yellow sticker time.

Can the OP let us know how things are going.

For extras, cashback apps like Shopmium often have freebies (I got a free pack of oven chips today).

Actually, scrap this. I've just remembered that Shopmium don't pay out instantly anymore, so it's no good for you.

Yes, gousto have 65% off for new sign ups and if you choose the box for four people for 5 days dinners, and choose from the savers menu it costs around £8. That should cover you 10 days dinners and get some cheap bread and some spread for lunches.

I bet there’s a catch like the portions are tiny or don’t include all of the ingredients

Neither of those points apply but it's not especially cheap even at 65% off and once they've got your details they'll pester you to buy more boxes and if you're not really careful they'll just send them anyway and charge at full price.

This sounds like a foodbank situation for the OP and unless this is very much a one off, a full review of circumstances, income, benefits, debts, budgeting and priorities etc to see what changes can be made to increase financial security.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/

@TheSnugHare The catch is your first box is discounted, further boxes wouldn't be so cheap. The 50p reduction comes off after the discount which I would think is an error, but people on HUKD all had their orders honoured with no issues. We've had them before and for two adults we had leftovers, portion sizes are more than adequate.

@Bjorkdidit At 40p a portion I think it's very cheap when you have a budget of £18 for 2 weeks, beans on toast for two weeks would be slightly cheaper but no variety and not very healthy. I've never been pestered besides the odd leaflet through the post, and you can cancel direct debits and standing orders easily through your banking app, or paypal so you would never get charged unknowingly. It's just an idea, it is what I would do if I was in this situation.

This sounds a ridiculous plan, other posters have set out a reasonable haul of food that can be bought with the 18 quid, reasonably, its doable, no need to be signing OPs life away on silly schemes which by the time they are delivered the family are half way through their 10 days anyway.

My go to's when in same position
Pancakes ( flour, milk, eggs)sweet or savoury
Make batter and add cheap sausages for toad in the hole served with peas
Pasta, cooking bacon, and cheese mixed with carton of single cream/ crème Fraiche/ soft cheese( whatever cheapest at the time
Cheese and potato pie
Toast or value wertabix for breakfast
Cheese/ value ham/ peanut butter sandwiches for lunch
Frozen chips will go with the eggs and value beans
I think base meals around the carbs will get most use out of the proteins
It's short term so full is more important than healthy for a few days

there's a facebook group feed your family for £20 a week which has some great ideas in. you can sign up for weekly meal plan ideas here:
https://meal-plans.co.uk

but she also publishes emergency meal plans, priced up for various supermarkets (this one is from january so prices will have changed a bit):
fyf20quid.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Emergency-Meal-Plan-2024-Breakfast-Lunch-Dinner-compressed.pdf

As an aside, Nationwide are currently offering £175 for switching your current account to them. Might be worth considering?

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/current-accounts/

It's nice everyone giving advice but the OP hasn't been back since her initial posts last Tuesday

True. But we don't know how many others are reading this and getting some benefit.

In addition to @ChiffandBipper about Nationwide. I have a couple of accounts with them and because I had £100 in savings and a current account earlier this year they gave me £100.

I know when you are brassic £100 is a fortune but it can be worth moving money through a savings account.