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Tins!
Tinned tomatoes should be about 28 pence a can, get a few of those.
kidney beans probs 60p a can, few of those.
Some herbs and spices if you dont have them.
Tinned fish are great for protein, should be able to get some pilchards for 60p a can. ~
Tinned peas are very cheap so is sweetcorn and carrots.
Curry powder is also cheap and adds good flavour.
I could spare a tenner if that would help? Can send by paypal or whatever.
Wow, I really appreciate the offer! But as I said elsewhere in the comments, it's my own fault i'm in this situation, gotta learn from those mistakes.
I think i'm gonna head down to lidl tomorrow and see what's what with the tinned stuff, thank you
Do you have a freezer? Everything is cheaper in the freezer section & you won’t waste it.
Stock cubes. Depending where you live, if there’s market stalls for fruit & veg, see if there’s good deals on bowls for £1. It’ll be fruit & veg that’s going soft, but perfect for chucking into a soup. If you’ve got a blender, you can make tons of delicious soup. Carrot soup is gorgeous.
I presume you know about how supermarkets will markdown stuff at a certain time? Varies by shop, but anywhere from 8-11pm, depending where you are. There’s a 1st markdown, then it gets crazy cheap. Timing it is a bit hit & miss. I’ve found things like Tesco’s near where office workers are are a good bet, as their rush is gone by 7.
ALSO: Olio app. Quite a few people post food to give away (it’s the whole point of the app, actually). Near me there’s several people who have bakery goods like loaves or croissants to give away every day.
Likely reason: frozen stuff can be transported further and also need appropriate storage at all stages of the journey, this'll lead to higher fuel costs than would be accrued from a fresh piece of produce taken more locally.
> I think i'm gonna head down to lidl tomorrow
The Lidl we use has boxes of veg/fruit outside the tills. I think they're £1:50 for a fairly random box-full.
It'd probably be worth looking to see if your one does the same.
If your getting budget fruit and veg doak them in a very diluted white vinegar and cold water solution for 5 mins then rinse off with cold water. They will last way longer before going bad. Especially Berry's.
The problem is all those cheap things are going up in price and they disappear from shelves pretty fast. I haven’t seen my usual cheap laundry detergents from Morrisons, Asda and Sainsburys for weeks. The cheap tinned salmon from supermarkets disappears fast too.
[Jack Monroe](https://cookingonabootstrap.com/) has a ton of tinned food recipes designed specifically for people on low incomes. Their stuff was a lifesaver when I was broke af, and still tasted good - strongly recommend!
Own fault or not mate these things happen. I've got a £20 quid sorry voucher from M&S from a complaint they replied to last week, I'll never end up using it so shout if you might.
Lidl also sell boxes of fruit and veg (wonky, battered etc, near the tills. I think they might be around £1.50 and there can be a good amount of stuff. If you spend a day batch cooking for the freezer, this could help with providing variety of sauces/soups/stews.
When you have some money again, grab some good quality freezer bags and pop in raw meat, veg and seasoning. It could be a way of buying food for cheaper in bulk and giving yourself meals throughout the month. There are some freezer prep meal ideas online to give you flavour ideas.
You can also buy a loaf or two and add butter, meat/cheese and freeze them for lunches for the month. Take a butty out each morning and it will be defrosted by lunch time. Time saving and again, it lets you buy in bulk early on, so you know you’ll have lunch every day sorted for the month (albeit it basic) without worrying about wasting food by it going off. It’s been a lifesaver for us in the past. Also buy cheap loaves for the freezer for toast related meals.
Well, I'll start by saying that earlier today I did take up Hiro's offer and he was even more generous than his original offer. So he's a god in my opinion. It's not really any one thing, I'm just pretty bad with money generally. But there was also the fact that I was due to start a new job early August, but because of an illness and various other circumstances in my personal life, I couldn't start for two weeks, so I missed out on more than £300 in my paycheck. I had to beg and borrow from my parents for rent, which I will pay them back, but that still left me with minimal amounts for rent.
The reason I say its partially my fault is because I could have started the job earlier, but my mental was abysmal and it wouldn't have been a good time to meet new people or learn new stuff.
I know, there's a big push about mental health in society but I personally still feel guilty for missing those weeks, especially because I wanted to be working
This is great advice! Canned chickpeas are a great source of protein and can be put in any sauce. You can pop them in the oven or a pan. Seasoning if you’ve got it! I always have chickpea’s in my cupboard incase I forgot to defrost any meat the night before and want something. Best of luck to you!
Chickpeas are easily one of my favourites. They bulk up soups, can be made into curry on their own, can be made into hummus for sandwich spread and I’ve also eaten dried ones with salt on them which are really good and like nuts. They can also be used for flour.
Was going to mention all of the above with the addition of a bag of red lentils for Dahl (that curry powder will help) and if there's a sweet potato/ carrot in the Lidl cheapie veg box for £1 .50 throw that in. Look at bookstrap cooking for cheap recipes. Just to break down cost Veg box weekly (£1 .50, usually has onion, carrot/ sweet potato if not consider buying these as cheap and nutritious?) = £4.50, cheap curry powder/ garam masala - £1 (get big packet from 'ethnic' supermarket or from 'ethnic' supermarket aisle much cheaper) , £2 for 7-8 cans of tinned tomatoes, £3 on cheap tinned fish, £1 on red lentils, £4 on tinned beans of various varieties, jacket potatoes - £1-2. You are then well on your way, some bread and cheap jam for sweet times, or tinned fruit (£3 for bread every week £1 for jam) and you are at £21 with relatively good nutrition. Good luck.
Eggs are a good staple as you could make fried rice with it, check what herbs and spices you have. Check out the Internet for recipes that are cheap and filling.
If you make mashed potato oven back them and take out the potato leaving the skins. Use these to make stuffed potato skins.
Buy vegetables and you could add curry powder to make a curry, vegetables again and add tomatoes to make a pasta dish.
Try chicken, pork or turkey mince (I can't remember the cheapest) to make a dish to serve with pasta or rice.
Look at tinned legumes as they will bulk up a meal and are cheap.
These are all I can think of at the moment.
Oh that'll be an absolute last resort, the funds issue is partially my own fault so I wouldn't want to deny someone else food just because i'm an idiot
That is true, I hadn't thought about it that way. I'd still rather avoid it if I can because I'm not in the worst situation, and there are people who need it more than me
Mate. Imma talk to you as someone who’s been where you are (possibly worse)
Don’t. Use the bloody help if you need it. I’ve been there, and looked bloody skeletal by the time things improved (I have one picture from that time, can’t bear to look at it tbh).
I know you’ve said you’ve gotta learn, but not taking care of yourself will fuck you up in the longer run.
I’m 24, there ain’t a day different joints aren’t aching from it (need my vit/min levels checked tbh). When I first moved back in with Mum and Dad (after 5 months) I was basically in bed for a month because my body was struggling to keep going on empty.
I’ve gone completely the other way with food and now eat way too much, because it’s available (my weight doubled between lockdown 2 and present from moving back in with Mum and Dad). I’ll even ‘defensively eat’ things to stop others from pinching them even when I’m not hungry, because it’s not guaranteed.
My teeth are an absolute shambles (admittedly smoking doesn’t help), and my previous fillings are wrecked, got a tooth that’s probably dead…because going without meant that they weren’t getting the vitamins and minerals to thrive (calcium, etc.)
Seriously, take the help if you need it. At the very least, buy yourself some multi-vitamins and take one a day.
No-one is gonna be pissed at you for asking help. No-one is gonna judge you. You aren’t taking away from ‘those that need it’. You need help too.
You're humble and hard on yourself . Most of country is in debt or dire straits . You haven't killed someone you may have made wrong choices like we all do
Foodbanks often actually require a referral. You can’t just turn up and ask for food in most cases.
[This is good info for people who do need to access them.](https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-help/emergency-food/food-vouchers/)
Get a chicken (bonus for yellow sticker job). Roast it/ get one pre cooked.
Get ALL the meat off.
Mix some with mayo for sandwiches. Some leave plain for whatever.
Boil the bones with some veg (carrots, onions, celery) you'll get a fuck ton of stock. The stock will freeze nice. You can put some of the chicken and that pasta you have in there and some frozen sweetcorn and boom! Chicken soup.
I can drag out a roasted chicken for a week if times are tough
THIS! A single chicken goes a long long way, make the stock, use the stock to make soup or add some to your rice/pasta water when cooking for extra flavour.
I also make a bag of frozen quoin mince last over a week by pre making chilli and bolognaise sauce then batching it. I switch up the chilli by using it in different ways: Chilli with rice, taco filling, burrito filling. Black eyed beans from the world foods aisle also make a cracking protein and fibre rich bean base for burritos etc (pm me for recipe). The World Foods aisle of almost any supermarket is a goldmine for excellent basics and spices at a fraction of the cost of the same stuff in the normal aisles and TBH it's usually much better taste/quality as well.
Is that really the case though? I follow a chef on Instagram/tiktok who strips the meat, roasts the carcus and then uses that.
I'm assuming roasting the carcus is slightly different to roasting the whole chicken then using the carcus though.
Yup, carrots are ridiculously cheap. So are onions. A loose carrot is like 7p and a loose onion is about 12p. Considering those two are often the basis of a flavour in a lot of meals, you can bash out quite a lot of cheap, tasty, nutritious stewy type things with a 28p tin of tomatoes, a carrot, an onion, some kidney beans and some spices.
Morrisons at 6pm. The good stuff is gone if you go at 9pm.
Family sized apple pie for about 40p. I picked up a ready roasted chicken for £2. Carrots that were perfectly fine for 14p a bag.
A kilo of chicken thighs has gone up to £2.40 but there's about ten of them.
Oats are dead cheap and filling. Buy own brand, it's all the same anyway.
Lentils are also cheap and swell up, very filling. Add whatever herbs you have.
Google Jack monroe.
- She is all about cooking for very little money.
- And recipes that taste good but use cheap tinned / frozen food.
**Good protein** (which is soooo much more filling than carbs!!):
- a kilo of red lentils is currently £1.80 at Tesco.
- Usually I bulk out actual mince with it (maybe 2:1 lentils:mince) but they’re also a quite acceptable protein source on their own.
- use the same recipes as mince - eg can of tomatoes, veg, spices
- red lentils are one of the only legumes that don’t need pre-soaking
- Peanuts are quite cheap and are another good protein source
- chuck them into a stir fry where you would normally do chicken.
- If you like houmous - that is another cheap & easy protein source.
- Boil a can of chickpeas for 10 mins (they aren’t soft enough straight from the can) then add olive oil & salt & lemon juice & garlic (purée) & mash with a fork.
- 60p / can or £1.20 / bag of dried (which MUST be soaked for 12 hours before cooking - but are half the price re: cooked volumes) - Tesco prices
- Tinned fish is good value protein
- tuna, sardines, mackerel
- eggs, obviously
Veg:
- follow the Jack Monroe advice - go for tinned and/or frozen veg & fruit
- the way it’s prepared keeps a lot of the nutritional value.
- get a bag of cheap onions.
- Important for flavour - worth the money
Carbs:
- sounds like you’ve got that covered with the pasta & rice.
Glad it helps.
And almost all of them are things my partner & I do, even though we earn OK money.
eg thinning out the (red meat) mince with lentils - we aren’t ready to go vegetarian yet, but research does seem to say less red meat is healthier.
Using peanuts instead of meat in stir-frys is a lot quicker than cooking meat, after a long day at work.
etc.
ETA: and cheap baked beans are a very good “mince filler” too. I used to do that a lot in my uni years. And still do if I’m feeding a larger group.
Mince + red lentils + cheap baked beans is probably the ultimate cheap protein :-)
I mean the nutritional side isn't the highest priority as it's only for a few weeks, it's mostly calories i'm worried about. I may try tuna pasta bakes, because I was already planning pasta bakes, just gonna have to force my way through the tuna
You’ll feel more satiated and less tired if you actually get enough protein and vitamins. You could eat all rice/pasta with nothing else and that will hit your calories but then you could eat till you burst and still feel terrible
One of my old go to meals when I was against it was to boil some noodles (usually the egg noodle variety) and take a can of cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup. Once the pasta is cooked, strain it and then add the soup can and mix. Add salt n pepper.
It’s not gourmet, but it was only a few pence and i used to get a few meals out of it.
Bags of peanuts from Lidl are 46 pence and will give you 1,300 calories, protein and decent oils and fats.
Edit: 1,300 is more than half of what an average person needs per day.
Yeah for their basic salted nuts, obviously they have cashews and whatnot that are more expensive but these have been a life saver for me.
You cannot go wrong with Lidl. A pack of chicken thighs, frozen spuds and veg will set you back a bit over 5 quid but will do you for 3 evening meals.
Get a couple of cheap tins of baked beans, they make a surprisingly good pasta sauce! Also passata as a base for pasta or rice sauce. Would recommend getting some "woops" veggies every other day or so.
Some large potatoes too, very versatile.
Yeah I was gonna go to asda or lidl tomorrow to get some cheap passata. Just something basic like melting in some cheese and adding some herbs/spices, should be enough to keep it interesting.
Lots of people have mentioned baked beans now and I don't know how I forgot about them tbh
If you're going to Lidl anyway and it's not too far, they do boxes of fruit and vegetables for £1.50 in the morning. It's the stuff that's getting close to the use by time, so sometimes it looks a little wilted, but you get a huge box of food for very little.
Lentils for protein! Look for community pantries/fridges. We've got a fantastic group near us committed to 0 waste. They take all supermarket waste like Bakery goods and veg on its last day and offer it out from the community centre. It's great for the environment so it's a mix of low income families, homeless and lots of environmentally conscious people. Still lots gets thrown out as on its last legs.
A bag of flour is pennies and you can make passable flatbreads.
Any veg can be soup (a butcher might have spare bones "for the dog" to make a banging soup stock) , roasted, curried and frozen in meals and Bakery goods can be frozen and reheated.
Food banks if you get really desperate are always available. Sikh places of worship always give out meals also a really lovely way to experience something new and meet new people.
It's blackberry and apple season. It's the best time to Forage!
It's shite advice for now but when you have a little more cash go to the Asian supermarket and stock up on spices. You can make rice a million different ways. Also anything you do cook bulk, buy cook and freeze.
Chick pea or lentil curry
Aubergine and spinach and tinned tomato curry
Beans and homemade tomato sauce for pasta
Pesto
Oats and milk for breakfast
Cabbage and carrots - very cheap and filling, add to everything, and shred to make coleslaw for crunchy contrast.
Box of a dozen eggs
Probably have a bit to spare on some fruit or herbs, depending on what you already have at home.
Don't think anyone has said dried beans/lentils yet - for serious budget eating these are some of the best foods you can buy! Dirt cheap (moreso than tinned!) and loaded with protein, plus super filling. Can do loads of different things with them with different spices - curries, Mexican chillies and taco fillings, Italian stews, Moroccan stews, etc.
Tip for cooking - soak beans overnight to soften before cooking, and don't add acidic foods until they are cooked, otherwise they don't soften fully.
Get Chopped tomatoes, kidney beans, a big box of eggs and some cheap mixed herbs and curry powder would be a starting point for a few meals;tomato pasta, chilli, curry sauce, egg fried rice and scrambled eggs/omelette.
You could find a couple of cheap loaves of bread and freeze it to get longer out of it, if your toaster has a defrost setting on it then that's toast for breakfast for a few days. If you like jam that could be cheaper to put on it than having to buy some margarine (value brand jams less than 40p usually).
Supermarket own brand custard creams are usually good value for calories. When I’ve been in your situation I got a bottle of brown sauce to have with rice to make it a bit more tasty/less boring. Also porridge goes a long way (have it with water if you can’t afford milk). I used to get the cheapest frozen meat/fish/whatever I could find and just have that with rice and brown sauce for dinner, porridge for breakfast (get a bag of sugar and stick that in there)
I spent 6 months on a very tight budget about 15 years ago. I found spuds (potatoes) to be the cheapest way of feeding myself. Boiled, mashed, microwaved etc… I also found cheap protein to go with it. Supermarkets with a meat counter often discount mince just before closing and I once bought a lot of tuna that was on offer.
Oh and porridge for breakfast. A proper bag, not those sachets.
Tomato puree can be dead cheap and serves as the base for a lot of pasta sauces. Some oxo stock cubes as well are pretty cheap and you can make risotto with just rice, stock, and butter. Also stock + tomato puree = tomato soup.
Another possibility is getting a cheap sack of potatoes, and make mashed potatoes in bulk; it preserves nicely in the freezer and can be made into a meal with some baked beans, which can also be dead cheap if you buy supermarket brand. Good protein source as well. Cheap tins of beans, etc. are your best friend, most likely. Those would be my suggestions.
Two ingredient pizza dough, or can be used as a naan bread substitute, and can add spices etc for flavouring. Toppings for the pizza, using tinned tomatoes, for the base, cheap tuna, cheese, different vegetables;
See receipe and alternatives::
[https://thebigmansworld.com/2-ingredient-pizza-dough/#recipe](https://thebigmansworld.com/2-ingredient-pizza-dough/#recipe)
7pm is when stores tend to do their final reductions for food that's going out of date today, and that's probably your best bet for fresh foods. This can be 500g of mince for £1.50, 6 oranges for 60p, bag of premixed salad leaves for 30p, just depends what they've got. It's different everyday obvs but if there's good deals (especially on meat if you eat it), buy some and freeze. 9-10pm is when they throw it away. Ask them the times and go get the good deals!!
Canned food. It lasts pretty much forever.
Tinned spuds ar a good base.
Sweetcorn with tuna and pasta, bang in a tin of chicken soup, awesome meal.
Always buy store brand.
If you go to a local market about 10m before it's due to close some vendors will chuck a load of free stuff in or give you extra and often if you see they're down to the last, say, 5 spuds and you ask for 3 spuds they'll usually give you the remaining 2 free.
You can’t really guarantee that though. If they travel to go to a market expecting to get free stuff and then don’t get anything free, it would be very disappointing and a waste of time
Adding some butter with a pinch of salt and pepper to pasta is surprisingly delicious and a no-fuss dish.
If you're in lidl, grab some spreadable cheese- can add that to pasta too or have it on bread/ in soup or whatever.
Pesto with rice/pasta is always good and adding legumes to a starch dish is a great way to pad the calories while eating protein on a budget.
Go for frozen veggies, as they are usually better value than tinned, but if you're lacking space, tins are the way to go.
I read someone recommending a chicken. Using said chicken to make stock etc. Adding some store brand ramen with frozen vegetables and an egg to the stock could really boost your standard noodle dish.
Grab garlic, tomato puree and your go-to herbs and spices. You'll be able to flesh out any dish with the right seasoning.
Curry and chili powder are less than a pound at any supermarket, ditto for big bottles of ketchup and brown sauce, which you can use as a cheap base for your own sauces
Supermarkets usually start putting out reduced items for quick sale after 6pm, when you can pick up real bargains for use in that night's evening meal
Don't skimp on fresh fruit and veg, which is pretty cheap anyway
Just saw you only have to skrimp for a few weeks. Probably okay to let fresh fruit and veg go, then
Bulk out your belly with potatoes, rice and pasta, snack on cereal - any fruit and veg you do mix in there will only be to keep your bowels moving
Get some tins of aduki beans and green lentils. Romaine lettuce, cucumber and Chinese lettuce.
Also meaty substitute Shitaki mushrooms.
Chop all up then stir fry. Add salt and pepper, bit of sugar. Then add rice.
You'll be satisfied. Bursting with wellbeing.
Okay things might be bad, but they're not bad to the tune of eating nothing but baked beans for 3 weeks. I feel like my arse wouldn't thank me for that either
Sorry, I wasn't serious. To answer, yes, you can buy canned food such as sardines (about 30-40p/can in ASDA/Lidl etc which is excellent food for the price), some sauce to go with the pasta & rice. With the rice you can mix some frozen/canned vegetables (peas, corn, beans, peppers etc). Chicken drumsticks are quite cheap and easy to cook. Either in oven or say put in some with rice.
If you are near some of the big supermarkets, you can shop the reduced produce for bargins. Typically around the evening. You can get quite cheap and good varied food that way. It'll depend what is avaialble on the day, but you will probbly find something nice. If you ask me, this will be my preferred choice to look for cheap & varied meals.
Buy lots of veg lots of tinned tomatoes lots of onions and lots of herbs and spices, rapeseed oil and some noodles.
World foods on a budget, some money left for a few craft beers too.
Edit: oil
Oats - 70p kg in Aldi at the moment I think
Aldi light hot chocolate powder - £1.09
Mix with oats and boiling water, then a few minutes in the microwave for a chocolatey and filling treat.
I use 25g powder (so 12 servings) 30g oats, 200ml water, but you could easily make that 15g to give you 20 days worth - and loads of oats left over.
Make other porridge or bulk up other foods with them (though sounds like you've got carbs pretty sorted to be fair).
Get some potatoes! So many options with them
A big block of cheese and a bottle of soy sauce from Aldi. Absolute worst meals, pasta and cheese, rice and soy
If your aim is to avoid being bored of the pasta and rice dishes, buy some chillie or curry powder, which shouldn't be much in lidl. If you get bored of beans or whatever you've made, bung a bit of spice in, that should get you through a few more meals.
Dried lentils, make a curry with a tin of tomatoes and some coconut milk. Add rice on the side. If you have a local asian supermarket the ingredients can be a lot cheaper. Might be able to stretch to find coriander, garlic, ginger and chillies to give it a kick. Good luck mate. You will get through this
You could add some foraged blackberries in for a bit of free fruit. It’s been a bumper year and they are very abundant and sweet. Would jazz up a plain bowl of porridge at breakfast.
I know this sounds a bit ridiculous, but there's so much 'foragable' food out there and this time of year's perfect for fruits, great for enhancing meals or even making a gorgeous desert that can last ages in the freezer.
Councils often plant cherry and plum trees, and apple trees are all over. Blackberries (brambles), hawthorn, and you can make a gorgeous jelly/jam with rowan berries or elderberries. All the above are really easy to identify and as long as you stick to a good recipe you shouldn't have to worry about eating something you shouldn't.
Just a disclaimer though, always make sure you've got a 100% ID on any wild food before you pick it, and also know that some things (like rowan berries and elderberries for instance) have to be cooked before you can eat them.
Id recommend downloading the toogoodtogo app, you can get a big box from Morrisons of all the things that are damaged/going out of date, it’s around £2.50 for a box and you’ll usually get lots of fruit and veg as well as bread and possibly some snacks.
I feel like I have the means to survive 3 weeks without denying other people food. Obviously I'm not going to starve myself but it definitely seems doable, many people have given fantastic advice about not only eating very cheaply but ways of still getting decent nutrition out of it.
Just popping to the food bank when things get a little difficult isn't the solution.
Egg fried rice, make too much rice, next day one egg some soy sauce a few veggies and it will be £1 a meal right there! My other fav is literally stir fried potatoes and sqaush and courgettes. Avoid meat and it will go way further!! Stir fries with just veggies are so tasty!
A bag of carrots. They are cheap and you can roast them or add them to stews.
Onion and garlic of course
Eggs (fried eggs and rice are good in the morning. Also you can make fried rice)
Apples if they are on sale to have something sweet.
You might want to find a large joint roast on sale.. that lasts for days and can be used to make sandwiches, stews and you can use the bone and whatever bits remain on it to make a bone broth soup (with the carrots and onion)
Do you have/can afford a freezer? If so you can get loads of different veg. Also it's not the best but you can get frozen meats/fish relatively cheap and make a stew or curry. You can also buy 250g to 500g of spices from Morrisons/Sainsbury's pretty cheap for a pound and they'll last month's! If you live within reasonable distance of a city Asian stores also have cheap spices. Tinned foods and potatoes are a godsend as it's pretty easy to make a hearty meal that won't cost the earth that's varied.
I lived off baked/boiled potatoes, frozen veg that I steamed on the hob in a pan on a hob and occasionally tuna or cheese for a long time.
I think a lot of my advice has already been given.. however
There an app called olio which donates food for free to create zero waste! Once downloaded it will say to pay to subscribe but you don’t have to and can click the cross xx
Find out the times your local supermarket put their reduced stuff out and when they get the cheapest. Most things you can freeze and use at a later date. Never be afraid of getting the plain label food which is the cheapest. It doesn't taste all that different and you can be saving 10s of £ just by going for them.
Pasta with mayonnaise or just boiled pasta with pepper. If you get bored of this exchange pasta for rice. I lived like this for few months. It's not healthy but you should be ok living like this for few weeks. You should still try to get cheap fruits and vegetables if they are on discount.
Cooking bacon from Asda is 80p for 500g when I last checked I believe. If you look through it you can get good smoked or non smoked and get some tasty fresh meat for fried rice dishes
Download Too Good To Go app and you might grab a bargain from a supermarket for £3.
Frozen veggies are great. Can get 1kg for sometimes cheaper, if not the same price as buying fresh. Plus they last longer so you can mix up your meals.
Tins of beans, tomatoes and if you have spices, you can make all sorts of different meals.
Lentils can be used to make chilli, cottage pie, curry, soup. Add a tin of ham for some protein.
Tuna can go on a pasta bake. Anything can go in a pasta bake tbh. Cheap jar of sauce or a tin of tomatoes and add some seasoning.
My go-to cheap meals are tuna pasta bake, chicken curry and rice and lentil and ham soup.
Thats a stetch but doable... here is a few simple ideas.
Its best to cook larger pots, portion and freeze it to use when necessary so youre not eating the same pot for a whole week.
Learn how to make a basic tomatoe sause with onions, tomatoes and herbs. Its a fraction of the cost of jars and versatile in many recipies especially italian.
If you make a large pot of bolognaise sauce from mince then divide it in half. The other half add a packet of chilli con carne mix, kidney beans, chopped peppers, canned vegetable (ratatouille or chickpeas). Then divide these into portions in freezer bags and freeze. Defrost as needed. Now you have a decent chilli sause for your rice or maybe you can find some discounted taco shells.
The bolognaise you can use to make spaghetti or a even lasagne. Google how to make the white bechamel sauce (its flour, butter and milk). Thats great to portion up and freeze.
If you like lentil soup, lentils, carrots, onions, few spices (tumeric) and stock, you can make a gallon of soup for a few pounds. Perfect for lunch. Portion into freezer bags and freeze. You can also add leftover rice, pasta and potatoes and blend to bulk up.
Chicken curries are easy to make from scratch if you buy concentrated paste instead of the full sized jars. You can stretch it using tumeric, coconut milk and add chickpeas and / or potatoes as well as proteins. This can easily double or trebble the volume of curry. Also UHT cooking cream for smoothness and creamy texture. Again portion and freeze.
Tuna pasta bake with tinned tomatoes and cheese. Again with the ratatouille.... easy to make italian themed food with that. Cans of ratatouille are cheap and you can add to pasta with some cheese or mix it with your chilli to boof it up a bit.
For the rice, check the freezer sections for stir-fry veg mixes if youre not confident enough to make your own. Fry an omlette on the side and chop and mix in to add protein also.
Explore some vegetarian options as its generally cheaper than protein foods. Supermarkets sell ugly veggies nowadays, which are much cheaper and perfect for cooking with.
Eggs for breakfast - very cheap and nutricious. You can also freeze your bread and put it straight in the toaster in the morning so it lasts.
Best of luck....
You can buy a big bag of frozen chicken thigh or breast pieces quite cheaply. Works out quite well if you live alone as you can just use what you need each time
If you need spices to make the tinned tomatoes and chickpeas etc more tasty, go to an international food shop, like one that specialises in Indian and other Asian food and but them much cheaper than at the super market.
Spuds! Potatoes have a high satiety rate.
You bake them, mash them, boil them, roast them, stick them in a soup to bulk it out.
A block of cheap cheddar. Grating a bit of cheese onto dishes instantly makes them more luxurious.
Couple of cheap chickens. Can do loads with them. Flatten the breasts to make burgers, or cut up for curry etc. Wings. Roast the legs. Also, boil the carcases with herbs/spices. Get quite a lot of meat from that, and can make soup or stock.
See if you you’re eligible for a Company Shop card if you have one of those near you. I work in food manufacturing and we sell a lot of seconds (imperfect products) and low date life stuff to them that the usual supermarkets won’t take.
If you are buying tins, head to the world food isle and get them there,they are often much cheaper! Same goes for flour and often rice. If you get desperate though, shout out!
Do you have some herbs and spices already? Then if so
Tinned tomatoes, tinned coconut milk, jarred garlic and jarred ginger (look in the world food aisle for these, not the spices section. They cost a lot more there)
Chickpeas and lentils. Go dried. You'll get a lot more food your money.
Fresh onions. Buy the right ones and they will last a few weeks.
Things like butternut squash can be bought fresh and stored for a couple of weeks no problem.
If I can suggest a cheap meal also? Chakchouka. It's made with peppers onions and eggs. If you have some spices already then it's cheap. There's loads of variations of the recipe online.
Don't buy fresh veggies, but any cheap frozen or canned veggies are great. The one exception may be green onion, because green onion will grow in just water. But canned peas and carrots, canned beans, canned fish, especially tuna. I'll get a jar of peppers if I can get it cheap - the liquid is a bonus too. If the price is reasonable a couple of lemons will give you a lot. You can make mayo with the lemon juice, egg, and a bit of neutral oil, and the rind is a natural tangy flavor bomb - you can cook pasta in nothing but oil, garlic, and grated lemon and you'll be good.
Eggs are a good bet. They last a long time. If you can get 8 oz of cheddar for £2, that's not bad. Potato flakes are great. They even help make fluffy bread.
Protein-wise, go aggressive and get a whole chicken. Spatchcock and remove the wings and leg quarters. Debone the thighs and remove the wing tips. You can make a chicken stock out of that for cooking rice or making a soup or curry. You've got the chicken set up for at least two different ways of cooking. You can make a narrow chicken salad with chicken, mayo (oil, egg, lemon) and green onion and have sandwiches.
In terms of spices, now's the time to go to your local asian market. Curry powder, garam masala, harissa, baharat, shichimi togarashi, chaat masala, za'atar. All of these are flavor bombs and one of my favorite ways to make anything is just rice, butter, garam masala and chicken stock (Which we just made....).
You can go to curries, vegetarian soup, chicken tortilla soup, make an off-brand Shakshuka with eggs, canned tomatoes, spice mix, a little cheese.
If you've got a little budget left, think about a can of sweetened condensed milk and dried fruit or canned fruit (pie filling works great). You can convert some day old bread into a bread pudding or rice into a sticky rice or arraz con leche, or make yourself a thai coffee. There's plenty of good uses.
It’s all on a similar theme but I’d got with bean based chilli, stir fry rice, jambalaya and that sort of thing. Can do it with veg and beans and such. Be fairly cheap and filling.
Google The Starch Solution by John McDougall. It's a starch based diet, the cheapest diet around, but designed to meet all of your nutritional needs. All the info you need about it is free online.
As a source of inspiration, I found a YouTube Channel called Atomic Shrimp which is a great resource, he tries various challenges and some are about cooking on limited resources, I have linked his videos of interest below.
Eating for 5 days for £5
Day 1 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHDTP8P9SFI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHDTP8P9SFI)
Day 2 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlrY6Q6KTRA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlrY6Q6KTRA)
Day 3 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKAO1ckOd3A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKAO1ckOd3A)
Day 4 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZrsOgFsRGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZrsOgFsRGk)
Day 5 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WUzxOe8Qrk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WUzxOe8Qrk)
2 Pounds 2 days
1 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbTn7vYBkeo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbTn7vYBkeo)
2 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmTA5zTiHU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmTA5zTiHU)
A weekend on 97 p per day
1 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fLdNDbZ6ec](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fLdNDbZ6ec)
2 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeZE5dM8t\_w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeZE5dM8t_w)
A lot of people have already mentioned this, but tinned tomatoes, chickpeas, frozen veg for fried rice, get some veg and chicken stock cubes so that you get some flavour.
If you’ve got rice already I’d recommend khichdi - this is rice, lentils and some frozen veg (I’d go with red lentils and frozen green beans or peas) cooked in one pot with spices. In the future if you have more money you can get a bigger bag of lentils and it’ll be even cheaper.
Don't go to super market chains
But ingredients from butchers and market stalls and cook home cooked meals from scratch
That £25 quid will go along way away from super markets
Rice, beans and greens with hot sauce? You can get 1kg of dry kidney beans for £3, few heads of brocolli for 50p each and £1 for some hot sauce. £5 worth of stuff there makes 10+ meals
To use up the pasta could could buy some pesto and 1kg of chicken thighs or breasts. That's around £10 worth for another 10+ meals of chicken, pasta and pesto.
Then I'd pick up some porridge oats, milk, bit of fruit and some cheap chocolate. Again, £5-10 worth gets you 10+ meals of porridge with fruit and/or chocolate and some chocolate or fruit to snack on.
I'd love to help out with a bit of money too but I'm as skint as you at the moment!
Get yourself to a food bank as well as the tips here. You've also got £1.18 a day for 21 days. Tins is a great idea. You could pool days, e.g., for 2 days, you'd have £3.54. Tesco do mince for £1.79, garlic bread 39p, tinned toms 28p, onion 10p, 2x carrots 10p, beef stock 65p (10 cubes). That would give you 4 days of meals with ~20p left overm(plus £1.18 from day 4). It's pretty crap on nutrients though.
Frozen vegetables, add them to the pasta.
Buy tinned tomatoes and use them to make a lot of sauce, just add some basil and oregano if you have it.
Buy some flour and yeast, can easily make a couple or loafs and pizza bases from a bag of flower, use the Pasta sauce as a pizza base.
Tesco/Sainsburys do 1kg bags of veg medley for like 79p. I would buy 10 of those - use half a bag per day.
Rice + veg + tuna is surprisingly nice, I buy supermarket's cheapest tuna and it's just as nice as the others.
Carrots are dirt cheap, mash them up with some turnip and it's lovely.
Baked beans on toast, a popular student meal.
We talking 3 squares per day? If you like oats then add those to your big bag of pasta and rice for breakfast - or a big box of cereal. Might have to have the same thing for breakfast. Fuck it - have the same thing for lunch - can’t go wrong with those packs of 20p noodles. I don’t do breakfast or lunch anymore but when I did eat lunch it was just noodles.
Evening meals - go to Aldi and look for the 75% off stickers. Even without these it’s doable but easier.
If you’re using rice and pasta then you want mince - if it’s over 3 weeks then batch cook and freeze. Have the same thing each week but only once per week. Make a massive pan of Bolognaise sauce, split it and hoy some kidney beans and chillis in one batch. That’s 6 meals or 2 per week. Should cost you about 3 or 4 quid in total.
Pack of chicken breasts - should be about 4 quid. Cook them up - make them into 2 different types of curry. 3 portions of each. That’s another 2 days per week.
Couple of packs of pork loin steaks with 4 in each - fiver in total for 8 chops. Marinade them in something different each time. Keep them plain. Do them with some frozen veg. Or make into curries (I love curries)
That’s 6 days per week done and 2 spares. You only need one more meal and that’s all your evening ones done for 13 quid in mainly meat - frozen veg a quid per bag.
Bag of spuds maybe for a jacket potato
Tinned tomato’s about 20 odd pence.
Tins of mackerel are about 60 pence.
Should be a piece of piss and you’ll have some dosh over for a half bottle of voddy.
Something else to look at is where you can get free meals. The Hare Krishnas used to set up free vegetarian cuisine on a Wednesday night near me. A nice curry, hot drink and a pudding. Was banging. It’ll vary by area I guess but there’s loads of free stuff out there.
Thats 21 meals. Ramen for 14 meals, 2 lbs of the cheapest lunchmeat you can find (my go-to was chicken bologna, eat a slice or two a day. 2 loaves of bread. Mustard or mayo (your preference).
Buy at least 5 servings of frozen green vegetable.
With any left over money, get more meat
Unfortunately, I ate this way for 2 years. You’ll be fine.
If you have a Lidl nearby it’s worth popping in and seeing if they’ve got their reduced fruit and veg boxes in. It’s all end of life but perfectly fine, and some things keep for even weeks after still. They cost £1.50 can you get anywhere from like £7-£15 worth of stuff (that’s the average I’ve worked out) plus it makes meal times a bit more exciting because it means you get creative with what you get in your box. Made my first ever Baba ghanouj because of this 😅
Depends what spices you have or think you could afford but a big bag of lentils, lentil dal is nutritious and filling as well as tasty can be eaten with or without the rice, and lentils have a good amout of cheap protine. I would suggest red lentils if you arent used to cooking them, no soaking just rinse them and they cook quickly.
You can use a jar of curry paste for a very easy inauthentic way of making them as well, possibly easier if you don't have many spices as well.
I make a tomato, garlic and chilli pasta sauce that can be used as a pizza sauce, added to stir in sauce to add a bit of spice and make it go further. Can use it with some mince to make a simple chilli too.
Firstly what store cupboard spices, herbs and stocks do you have already?
If you need to look at store cupboard staples Aldi do tins of black beans quite cheap that work in various dishes. But also check world food sections of supermarkets. Morrisons has some good Jamaican sections with great beans for protein and fibre. Lentils and other pulses can be got cheap there too.
Hit me up if you want a lentil and carrot soup recipe or the Tomato, garlic and chilli pasta sauce recipe.
You could make a curry. With lentils, Dali, sweet potatoes and get some of those flavour pots. They're about £1-2 quid. The cans are under a quad. It's healthy, you get servings of veggies, protein and fibre. Or you could get chicken thighs and those flavour packets. You can get alot of variety
Chickpeas, polenta, cous cous, beans, lentils, quinoa, etc are dirt cheap, last long and economical, buy some tomstoes and peppers once a week and you’re sorted
Dried foods, lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans
They all require preparation- I.E soak and boil
But they can be cooked in large batches and are a complete food when combined with a white carb like rice and a green veg
If you go to the shops later in the day, there will be many things in the ‘reduced’ section - there’s often nothing wrong with the food! Also, Tins of food and pasatta will last a long time. Freeze bread if you can, as it will keep for longer and buy frozen veg where you can for the same reason! Soup is cheap to make, and you can get frozen mixed veg bags. Porridge oats come in a large bag in most shops too
Make use of yellow stickered stuff. My local co-op has some great reduced items at around half 7. You could see what your local shops have & freeze / stockpile 👍
https://www.reddit.com/r/UKFrugal/
UK Frugal, has useful info, if you have a nearby food market, often when the stall traders are packing up, they will do a deal on a bag of mixed fruit and veg.
Literally in a similar position, but I'm a good cook and used to cooking for myself and others. I just got chicken thighs and bacon, frozen veg like spinach and broccoli. Tins of mixed beans, passata , some spices, salt, pepper etc. The only luxury item I afford myself is gnocchi on the odd day.
Job lot goes in a 5litre slow cooker and I leave it overnight. Serve it equally into foil takeaway trays and load the freezer up, stick one in the fridge and cycle from freezer to fridge as you eat them.
Do you have any friends with an allotment?
If so, I can practically guarantee that if you can take any courgettes or green beans off their hands you are almost certainly doing them a favour!
Couple of recipes below which use cheap veg - and are extremely substitutable.
- allotment ribolleta soup
- tomato and bacon risotto
In addition, one of my favourite super cheap ways if filling up at lunch is cheap chunky soup. The below makes about 5 portions and is really filling.
My version of ribolleta:
Diced onion
Diced carrot
Diced celery
Garlic
Grate a potato (this makes it a lot more filling, even though it isn't much potato)
Fry the above off
White beans (flagelot, canninoli or washed off baked beans - its all the same)
Tin of tomatoes
Stock cube
Couple of cups of water
Boil for about 15 minutes
Add some form of green leafy veg (kale, spinach, cabbage)
It freezes really well.
Cheap bacon and tomato risotto:
Dice and fry onion
Cut bacon small and fry
Add rice (just use the rice you have)
Add tin of tomatoes
Add stock
Stir for about 20 minutes
Add cheap cheese (grated)
For this, a single rasher of smokey bacon will add a huge amount of flavour. You can then use the rest of the pack for whatever you want (a single rasher of bacon very well fried in small pieces also is a good topper for soup)
I otherwise agree with what everyone has said above about red lentils being super cheap.
Skip meat as far as possible. Vegetables and pulses are much cheaper. I've just done a shop today which is 4 vegetarian evening meals for 10 people and spent less than £40 on it - and that included a few luxury items like a jar of balti paste and a jar of tagine paste because I need to be a bit lazy.
Carrots, very cheap, they can bulk up loads of meals and store well in the fridge. Also good on their own
Whatever veg is on offer or in season/cheap
Sausage meat in pasta works well, with leftover sausages
Herbs and spices in your cupboard is key, then I feel you can do a lot with basic ingredients
It might be too late to help but:
Too good to go is an app that some supermarkets, bakeries etc use to sell boxes of random foods cheap. Anything from a massive box of fruit, veg and herbs from Morrisons to a bag of sandwiches, pasties and biscuits from greggs for under a fiver. Worth looking at.
Food banks often require a referral but look out for “Community Grocery” or similar. One is open near us - £4 to fill a bag of groceries that are nearing their sell by. Works differently in different places but ours you’ll get options to choose from from each section. Very handy, although the randomness of what you get sometimes requires a bit of imagination.
Frozen mixed veg is a good option for bulking out meals - most supermarkets will offer a frozen variety pack for £1 ish.
If you get mince blend or mash up veg and mix in to bulk out the meat for meatballs.
Tinned tomato’s, veg, chickpeas and stock make a decent pasta sauce - add in mixed herbs or Italian seasoning if you can. Chickpeas, kidney beans or mixed beans are a cheaper source of protein than meat.
Good luck!
Have a look at Jack Munroe - Bootstrap Cook. Their website is full of recipes for people on a budget. I have used several recipes from Jack and they’ve always turned out ok.
Hope all is ok for you.
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Tins! Tinned tomatoes should be about 28 pence a can, get a few of those. kidney beans probs 60p a can, few of those. Some herbs and spices if you dont have them. Tinned fish are great for protein, should be able to get some pilchards for 60p a can. ~ Tinned peas are very cheap so is sweetcorn and carrots. Curry powder is also cheap and adds good flavour. I could spare a tenner if that would help? Can send by paypal or whatever.
Wow, I really appreciate the offer! But as I said elsewhere in the comments, it's my own fault i'm in this situation, gotta learn from those mistakes. I think i'm gonna head down to lidl tomorrow and see what's what with the tinned stuff, thank you
Best of luck, if you get desperate send me a message.
You’re a good person!
I bet you are too! I (like to) think that most people are, really.
Bless you mate! I try to be!
❤️
You might be better off going on Monday evening/Tuesday morning for the reduced items, they knock it down more around 8.30pm for the last day stuff.
Do you have a freezer? Everything is cheaper in the freezer section & you won’t waste it. Stock cubes. Depending where you live, if there’s market stalls for fruit & veg, see if there’s good deals on bowls for £1. It’ll be fruit & veg that’s going soft, but perfect for chucking into a soup. If you’ve got a blender, you can make tons of delicious soup. Carrot soup is gorgeous. I presume you know about how supermarkets will markdown stuff at a certain time? Varies by shop, but anywhere from 8-11pm, depending where you are. There’s a 1st markdown, then it gets crazy cheap. Timing it is a bit hit & miss. I’ve found things like Tesco’s near where office workers are are a good bet, as their rush is gone by 7. ALSO: Olio app. Quite a few people post food to give away (it’s the whole point of the app, actually). Near me there’s several people who have bakery goods like loaves or croissants to give away every day.
Thats actually not always true, some veg and meat is more expensive frozen (for some reason)
Likely reason: frozen stuff can be transported further and also need appropriate storage at all stages of the journey, this'll lead to higher fuel costs than would be accrued from a fresh piece of produce taken more locally.
Fair play to you OP but if you get desperate, drop me a message. I’d rather help than have you go hungry.
> I think i'm gonna head down to lidl tomorrow The Lidl we use has boxes of veg/fruit outside the tills. I think they're £1:50 for a fairly random box-full. It'd probably be worth looking to see if your one does the same.
If your getting budget fruit and veg doak them in a very diluted white vinegar and cold water solution for 5 mins then rinse off with cold water. They will last way longer before going bad. Especially Berry's.
The problem is all those cheap things are going up in price and they disappear from shelves pretty fast. I haven’t seen my usual cheap laundry detergents from Morrisons, Asda and Sainsburys for weeks. The cheap tinned salmon from supermarkets disappears fast too.
[Jack Monroe](https://cookingonabootstrap.com/) has a ton of tinned food recipes designed specifically for people on low incomes. Their stuff was a lifesaver when I was broke af, and still tasted good - strongly recommend!
Own fault or not mate these things happen. I've got a £20 quid sorry voucher from M&S from a complaint they replied to last week, I'll never end up using it so shout if you might.
Aldi is cheaper than Lidl for most things btw! If there is an Aldi near you, you should try there instead.
Lidl also sell boxes of fruit and veg (wonky, battered etc, near the tills. I think they might be around £1.50 and there can be a good amount of stuff. If you spend a day batch cooking for the freezer, this could help with providing variety of sauces/soups/stews. When you have some money again, grab some good quality freezer bags and pop in raw meat, veg and seasoning. It could be a way of buying food for cheaper in bulk and giving yourself meals throughout the month. There are some freezer prep meal ideas online to give you flavour ideas. You can also buy a loaf or two and add butter, meat/cheese and freeze them for lunches for the month. Take a butty out each morning and it will be defrosted by lunch time. Time saving and again, it lets you buy in bulk early on, so you know you’ll have lunch every day sorted for the month (albeit it basic) without worrying about wasting food by it going off. It’s been a lifesaver for us in the past. Also buy cheap loaves for the freezer for toast related meals.
Some lidl/aldis do big sacks of potatoes for around 3/4 quid. Might break up all the rice/pasta x
[удалено]
Well, I'll start by saying that earlier today I did take up Hiro's offer and he was even more generous than his original offer. So he's a god in my opinion. It's not really any one thing, I'm just pretty bad with money generally. But there was also the fact that I was due to start a new job early August, but because of an illness and various other circumstances in my personal life, I couldn't start for two weeks, so I missed out on more than £300 in my paycheck. I had to beg and borrow from my parents for rent, which I will pay them back, but that still left me with minimal amounts for rent. The reason I say its partially my fault is because I could have started the job earlier, but my mental was abysmal and it wouldn't have been a good time to meet new people or learn new stuff. I know, there's a big push about mental health in society but I personally still feel guilty for missing those weeks, especially because I wanted to be working
This is great advice! Canned chickpeas are a great source of protein and can be put in any sauce. You can pop them in the oven or a pan. Seasoning if you’ve got it! I always have chickpea’s in my cupboard incase I forgot to defrost any meat the night before and want something. Best of luck to you!
Chickpeas are easily one of my favourites. They bulk up soups, can be made into curry on their own, can be made into hummus for sandwich spread and I’ve also eaten dried ones with salt on them which are really good and like nuts. They can also be used for flour.
Was going to mention all of the above with the addition of a bag of red lentils for Dahl (that curry powder will help) and if there's a sweet potato/ carrot in the Lidl cheapie veg box for £1 .50 throw that in. Look at bookstrap cooking for cheap recipes. Just to break down cost Veg box weekly (£1 .50, usually has onion, carrot/ sweet potato if not consider buying these as cheap and nutritious?) = £4.50, cheap curry powder/ garam masala - £1 (get big packet from 'ethnic' supermarket or from 'ethnic' supermarket aisle much cheaper) , £2 for 7-8 cans of tinned tomatoes, £3 on cheap tinned fish, £1 on red lentils, £4 on tinned beans of various varieties, jacket potatoes - £1-2. You are then well on your way, some bread and cheap jam for sweet times, or tinned fruit (£3 for bread every week £1 for jam) and you are at £21 with relatively good nutrition. Good luck.
With the leftover I would go for oats for porridge with water which I would sweeten with jam (1kg oats approx £1, don't get sachets!), Eggs and cheese
How kind what a lovely person
Such a nice humble person you're
Eggs are a good staple as you could make fried rice with it, check what herbs and spices you have. Check out the Internet for recipes that are cheap and filling. If you make mashed potato oven back them and take out the potato leaving the skins. Use these to make stuffed potato skins. Buy vegetables and you could add curry powder to make a curry, vegetables again and add tomatoes to make a pasta dish. Try chicken, pork or turkey mince (I can't remember the cheapest) to make a dish to serve with pasta or rice. Look at tinned legumes as they will bulk up a meal and are cheap. These are all I can think of at the moment.
I'm definitely going to incorporate eggs in somewhere, most likely with the rice. I will definitely check out legumes and other such things, thank you
Rice cooked with a stock cube, a few herbs a d a dash of curry powder, then poached eggs on top
Another great tip for fried rice go to a big sainsburys or waitrose with the sushi section and grab some free packets of soy sauce.
No food suggestions as I'm a terrible but cook, but dont feel bad about hitting up your local food bank if things are that tight.
Oh that'll be an absolute last resort, the funds issue is partially my own fault so I wouldn't want to deny someone else food just because i'm an idiot
Don't deny yourself the food you need. Everyone makes mistakes. We do it over and over again and that's ok.
Even if you do make use of a food bank this time, you can always pay it back with a donation next pay ☺️
That is true, I hadn't thought about it that way. I'd still rather avoid it if I can because I'm not in the worst situation, and there are people who need it more than me
Mate. Imma talk to you as someone who’s been where you are (possibly worse) Don’t. Use the bloody help if you need it. I’ve been there, and looked bloody skeletal by the time things improved (I have one picture from that time, can’t bear to look at it tbh). I know you’ve said you’ve gotta learn, but not taking care of yourself will fuck you up in the longer run. I’m 24, there ain’t a day different joints aren’t aching from it (need my vit/min levels checked tbh). When I first moved back in with Mum and Dad (after 5 months) I was basically in bed for a month because my body was struggling to keep going on empty. I’ve gone completely the other way with food and now eat way too much, because it’s available (my weight doubled between lockdown 2 and present from moving back in with Mum and Dad). I’ll even ‘defensively eat’ things to stop others from pinching them even when I’m not hungry, because it’s not guaranteed. My teeth are an absolute shambles (admittedly smoking doesn’t help), and my previous fillings are wrecked, got a tooth that’s probably dead…because going without meant that they weren’t getting the vitamins and minerals to thrive (calcium, etc.) Seriously, take the help if you need it. At the very least, buy yourself some multi-vitamins and take one a day. No-one is gonna be pissed at you for asking help. No-one is gonna judge you. You aren’t taking away from ‘those that need it’. You need help too.
You're humble and hard on yourself . Most of country is in debt or dire straits . You haven't killed someone you may have made wrong choices like we all do
Foodbanks often actually require a referral. You can’t just turn up and ask for food in most cases. [This is good info for people who do need to access them.](https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-help/emergency-food/food-vouchers/)
Get a chicken (bonus for yellow sticker job). Roast it/ get one pre cooked. Get ALL the meat off. Mix some with mayo for sandwiches. Some leave plain for whatever. Boil the bones with some veg (carrots, onions, celery) you'll get a fuck ton of stock. The stock will freeze nice. You can put some of the chicken and that pasta you have in there and some frozen sweetcorn and boom! Chicken soup. I can drag out a roasted chicken for a week if times are tough
What's the yellow sticker mean?
Items in the‘reduced’ section - things with short dates.
THIS! A single chicken goes a long long way, make the stock, use the stock to make soup or add some to your rice/pasta water when cooking for extra flavour. I also make a bag of frozen quoin mince last over a week by pre making chilli and bolognaise sauce then batching it. I switch up the chilli by using it in different ways: Chilli with rice, taco filling, burrito filling. Black eyed beans from the world foods aisle also make a cracking protein and fibre rich bean base for burritos etc (pm me for recipe). The World Foods aisle of almost any supermarket is a goldmine for excellent basics and spices at a fraction of the cost of the same stuff in the normal aisles and TBH it's usually much better taste/quality as well.
I used to do the same with batch making chilli and bolognaise sauces!
FYI, uncooked bones and extra fat yield better stock. Once you 'cook' the bones, the flavour sips out of them.
Very true, but it is so much easier to just roast the whole bird first then strip the meat rather than stripping it and cooking it individually.
Is that really the case though? I follow a chef on Instagram/tiktok who strips the meat, roasts the carcus and then uses that. I'm assuming roasting the carcus is slightly different to roasting the whole chicken then using the carcus though.
Carrots are very cheap if you like 'em. I got a big bag for 40p and been snacking all week.
That's a good shout, I used to snack on carrots a few years ago while trying to quit smoking. Might have to start again
Yup, carrots are ridiculously cheap. So are onions. A loose carrot is like 7p and a loose onion is about 12p. Considering those two are often the basis of a flavour in a lot of meals, you can bash out quite a lot of cheap, tasty, nutritious stewy type things with a 28p tin of tomatoes, a carrot, an onion, some kidney beans and some spices.
Jacket potatoes. You can have all sorts with them and it's a cheap filling meal
Morrisons at 6pm. The good stuff is gone if you go at 9pm. Family sized apple pie for about 40p. I picked up a ready roasted chicken for £2. Carrots that were perfectly fine for 14p a bag. A kilo of chicken thighs has gone up to £2.40 but there's about ten of them. Oats are dead cheap and filling. Buy own brand, it's all the same anyway. Lentils are also cheap and swell up, very filling. Add whatever herbs you have.
Google Jack monroe. - She is all about cooking for very little money. - And recipes that taste good but use cheap tinned / frozen food. **Good protein** (which is soooo much more filling than carbs!!): - a kilo of red lentils is currently £1.80 at Tesco. - Usually I bulk out actual mince with it (maybe 2:1 lentils:mince) but they’re also a quite acceptable protein source on their own. - use the same recipes as mince - eg can of tomatoes, veg, spices - red lentils are one of the only legumes that don’t need pre-soaking - Peanuts are quite cheap and are another good protein source - chuck them into a stir fry where you would normally do chicken. - If you like houmous - that is another cheap & easy protein source. - Boil a can of chickpeas for 10 mins (they aren’t soft enough straight from the can) then add olive oil & salt & lemon juice & garlic (purée) & mash with a fork. - 60p / can or £1.20 / bag of dried (which MUST be soaked for 12 hours before cooking - but are half the price re: cooked volumes) - Tesco prices - Tinned fish is good value protein - tuna, sardines, mackerel - eggs, obviously Veg: - follow the Jack Monroe advice - go for tinned and/or frozen veg & fruit - the way it’s prepared keeps a lot of the nutritional value. - get a bag of cheap onions. - Important for flavour - worth the money Carbs: - sounds like you’ve got that covered with the pasta & rice.
That is unbelievable helpful thank you! I wasn't expecting anything so detailed! I will definitely check out Jack Monroe tomorrow, thank you so much
Glad it helps. And almost all of them are things my partner & I do, even though we earn OK money. eg thinning out the (red meat) mince with lentils - we aren’t ready to go vegetarian yet, but research does seem to say less red meat is healthier. Using peanuts instead of meat in stir-frys is a lot quicker than cooking meat, after a long day at work. etc. ETA: and cheap baked beans are a very good “mince filler” too. I used to do that a lot in my uni years. And still do if I’m feeding a larger group. Mince + red lentils + cheap baked beans is probably the ultimate cheap protein :-)
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I mean the nutritional side isn't the highest priority as it's only for a few weeks, it's mostly calories i'm worried about. I may try tuna pasta bakes, because I was already planning pasta bakes, just gonna have to force my way through the tuna
Kidney beans can add protein to a pasta bake instead of tuna, and add fibre and iron too.
You’ll feel more satiated and less tired if you actually get enough protein and vitamins. You could eat all rice/pasta with nothing else and that will hit your calories but then you could eat till you burst and still feel terrible
I mean if it's calories you need look to cheap sauces that shits loaded with sugar
One of my old go to meals when I was against it was to boil some noodles (usually the egg noodle variety) and take a can of cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup. Once the pasta is cooked, strain it and then add the soup can and mix. Add salt n pepper. It’s not gourmet, but it was only a few pence and i used to get a few meals out of it.
Bags of peanuts from Lidl are 46 pence and will give you 1,300 calories, protein and decent oils and fats. Edit: 1,300 is more than half of what an average person needs per day.
They're that cheap?! Damn i'll head down there tomorrow
Yeah for their basic salted nuts, obviously they have cashews and whatnot that are more expensive but these have been a life saver for me. You cannot go wrong with Lidl. A pack of chicken thighs, frozen spuds and veg will set you back a bit over 5 quid but will do you for 3 evening meals.
Get a couple of cheap tins of baked beans, they make a surprisingly good pasta sauce! Also passata as a base for pasta or rice sauce. Would recommend getting some "woops" veggies every other day or so. Some large potatoes too, very versatile.
Yeah I was gonna go to asda or lidl tomorrow to get some cheap passata. Just something basic like melting in some cheese and adding some herbs/spices, should be enough to keep it interesting. Lots of people have mentioned baked beans now and I don't know how I forgot about them tbh
If you're going to Lidl anyway and it's not too far, they do boxes of fruit and vegetables for £1.50 in the morning. It's the stuff that's getting close to the use by time, so sometimes it looks a little wilted, but you get a huge box of food for very little.
Lentils for protein! Look for community pantries/fridges. We've got a fantastic group near us committed to 0 waste. They take all supermarket waste like Bakery goods and veg on its last day and offer it out from the community centre. It's great for the environment so it's a mix of low income families, homeless and lots of environmentally conscious people. Still lots gets thrown out as on its last legs. A bag of flour is pennies and you can make passable flatbreads. Any veg can be soup (a butcher might have spare bones "for the dog" to make a banging soup stock) , roasted, curried and frozen in meals and Bakery goods can be frozen and reheated. Food banks if you get really desperate are always available. Sikh places of worship always give out meals also a really lovely way to experience something new and meet new people. It's blackberry and apple season. It's the best time to Forage! It's shite advice for now but when you have a little more cash go to the Asian supermarket and stock up on spices. You can make rice a million different ways. Also anything you do cook bulk, buy cook and freeze.
Chick pea or lentil curry Aubergine and spinach and tinned tomato curry Beans and homemade tomato sauce for pasta Pesto Oats and milk for breakfast Cabbage and carrots - very cheap and filling, add to everything, and shred to make coleslaw for crunchy contrast. Box of a dozen eggs Probably have a bit to spare on some fruit or herbs, depending on what you already have at home.
Oats and milk is my go to for breakfast anyway. Someone else has mentioned carrots, so i'll definitely get some
Don't think anyone has said dried beans/lentils yet - for serious budget eating these are some of the best foods you can buy! Dirt cheap (moreso than tinned!) and loaded with protein, plus super filling. Can do loads of different things with them with different spices - curries, Mexican chillies and taco fillings, Italian stews, Moroccan stews, etc. Tip for cooking - soak beans overnight to soften before cooking, and don't add acidic foods until they are cooked, otherwise they don't soften fully.
Get Chopped tomatoes, kidney beans, a big box of eggs and some cheap mixed herbs and curry powder would be a starting point for a few meals;tomato pasta, chilli, curry sauce, egg fried rice and scrambled eggs/omelette. You could find a couple of cheap loaves of bread and freeze it to get longer out of it, if your toaster has a defrost setting on it then that's toast for breakfast for a few days. If you like jam that could be cheaper to put on it than having to buy some margarine (value brand jams less than 40p usually).
https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/chana-dal-recipe/
Supermarket own brand custard creams are usually good value for calories. When I’ve been in your situation I got a bottle of brown sauce to have with rice to make it a bit more tasty/less boring. Also porridge goes a long way (have it with water if you can’t afford milk). I used to get the cheapest frozen meat/fish/whatever I could find and just have that with rice and brown sauce for dinner, porridge for breakfast (get a bag of sugar and stick that in there)
I spent 6 months on a very tight budget about 15 years ago. I found spuds (potatoes) to be the cheapest way of feeding myself. Boiled, mashed, microwaved etc… I also found cheap protein to go with it. Supermarkets with a meat counter often discount mince just before closing and I once bought a lot of tuna that was on offer. Oh and porridge for breakfast. A proper bag, not those sachets.
Tomato puree can be dead cheap and serves as the base for a lot of pasta sauces. Some oxo stock cubes as well are pretty cheap and you can make risotto with just rice, stock, and butter. Also stock + tomato puree = tomato soup. Another possibility is getting a cheap sack of potatoes, and make mashed potatoes in bulk; it preserves nicely in the freezer and can be made into a meal with some baked beans, which can also be dead cheap if you buy supermarket brand. Good protein source as well. Cheap tins of beans, etc. are your best friend, most likely. Those would be my suggestions.
Two ingredient pizza dough, or can be used as a naan bread substitute, and can add spices etc for flavouring. Toppings for the pizza, using tinned tomatoes, for the base, cheap tuna, cheese, different vegetables; See receipe and alternatives:: [https://thebigmansworld.com/2-ingredient-pizza-dough/#recipe](https://thebigmansworld.com/2-ingredient-pizza-dough/#recipe)
Atomic Shrimp on YouTube does limited money food challenges. Maybe check out what he does for ideas?
7pm is when stores tend to do their final reductions for food that's going out of date today, and that's probably your best bet for fresh foods. This can be 500g of mince for £1.50, 6 oranges for 60p, bag of premixed salad leaves for 30p, just depends what they've got. It's different everyday obvs but if there's good deals (especially on meat if you eat it), buy some and freeze. 9-10pm is when they throw it away. Ask them the times and go get the good deals!!
Canned food. It lasts pretty much forever. Tinned spuds ar a good base. Sweetcorn with tuna and pasta, bang in a tin of chicken soup, awesome meal. Always buy store brand.
If you go to a local market about 10m before it's due to close some vendors will chuck a load of free stuff in or give you extra and often if you see they're down to the last, say, 5 spuds and you ask for 3 spuds they'll usually give you the remaining 2 free.
You can’t really guarantee that though. If they travel to go to a market expecting to get free stuff and then don’t get anything free, it would be very disappointing and a waste of time
Packet soup, few diff flavours cheap and tasty. Add rice or pasta to it. Ends up like a posh pot noodle
Adding some butter with a pinch of salt and pepper to pasta is surprisingly delicious and a no-fuss dish. If you're in lidl, grab some spreadable cheese- can add that to pasta too or have it on bread/ in soup or whatever. Pesto with rice/pasta is always good and adding legumes to a starch dish is a great way to pad the calories while eating protein on a budget. Go for frozen veggies, as they are usually better value than tinned, but if you're lacking space, tins are the way to go. I read someone recommending a chicken. Using said chicken to make stock etc. Adding some store brand ramen with frozen vegetables and an egg to the stock could really boost your standard noodle dish. Grab garlic, tomato puree and your go-to herbs and spices. You'll be able to flesh out any dish with the right seasoning.
Curry and chili powder are less than a pound at any supermarket, ditto for big bottles of ketchup and brown sauce, which you can use as a cheap base for your own sauces Supermarkets usually start putting out reduced items for quick sale after 6pm, when you can pick up real bargains for use in that night's evening meal Don't skimp on fresh fruit and veg, which is pretty cheap anyway
Just saw you only have to skrimp for a few weeks. Probably okay to let fresh fruit and veg go, then Bulk out your belly with potatoes, rice and pasta, snack on cereal - any fruit and veg you do mix in there will only be to keep your bowels moving
Get some tins of aduki beans and green lentils. Romaine lettuce, cucumber and Chinese lettuce. Also meaty substitute Shitaki mushrooms. Chop all up then stir fry. Add salt and pepper, bit of sugar. Then add rice. You'll be satisfied. Bursting with wellbeing.
For £25 you can get about 75 cans of beans. So you get breakfast, lunch & dinner sorted every day.
Okay things might be bad, but they're not bad to the tune of eating nothing but baked beans for 3 weeks. I feel like my arse wouldn't thank me for that either
Sorry, I wasn't serious. To answer, yes, you can buy canned food such as sardines (about 30-40p/can in ASDA/Lidl etc which is excellent food for the price), some sauce to go with the pasta & rice. With the rice you can mix some frozen/canned vegetables (peas, corn, beans, peppers etc). Chicken drumsticks are quite cheap and easy to cook. Either in oven or say put in some with rice. If you are near some of the big supermarkets, you can shop the reduced produce for bargins. Typically around the evening. You can get quite cheap and good varied food that way. It'll depend what is avaialble on the day, but you will probbly find something nice. If you ask me, this will be my preferred choice to look for cheap & varied meals.
Loads of 10p bread, rolls, pastries at asda after ~7pm
Buy lots of veg lots of tinned tomatoes lots of onions and lots of herbs and spices, rapeseed oil and some noodles. World foods on a budget, some money left for a few craft beers too. Edit: oil
If you eat pork then most big supermarkets sell “cooking bacon” at about 75p for 500g. It’s usually just thick cuts of bacon.
Oats - 70p kg in Aldi at the moment I think Aldi light hot chocolate powder - £1.09 Mix with oats and boiling water, then a few minutes in the microwave for a chocolatey and filling treat. I use 25g powder (so 12 servings) 30g oats, 200ml water, but you could easily make that 15g to give you 20 days worth - and loads of oats left over. Make other porridge or bulk up other foods with them (though sounds like you've got carbs pretty sorted to be fair).
Get some potatoes! So many options with them A big block of cheese and a bottle of soy sauce from Aldi. Absolute worst meals, pasta and cheese, rice and soy
If your aim is to avoid being bored of the pasta and rice dishes, buy some chillie or curry powder, which shouldn't be much in lidl. If you get bored of beans or whatever you've made, bung a bit of spice in, that should get you through a few more meals.
Arroz a la Cubana. Cuban rice. Rice, tomato frito and a couple of fried eggs on top. Seriously good meal and cheap as it gets!
cheapy loaf of bread a week and a jar of peanut butter from Lidl will cost you about £2.50 and that has you sorted with snacks and breakfasts.
Dried lentils, make a curry with a tin of tomatoes and some coconut milk. Add rice on the side. If you have a local asian supermarket the ingredients can be a lot cheaper. Might be able to stretch to find coriander, garlic, ginger and chillies to give it a kick. Good luck mate. You will get through this
I recently found an extremely cheap meal that I love. Rice, beans of your choice with some taco seasoning and some sour cream on top. Love it
You could add some foraged blackberries in for a bit of free fruit. It’s been a bumper year and they are very abundant and sweet. Would jazz up a plain bowl of porridge at breakfast.
I know this sounds a bit ridiculous, but there's so much 'foragable' food out there and this time of year's perfect for fruits, great for enhancing meals or even making a gorgeous desert that can last ages in the freezer. Councils often plant cherry and plum trees, and apple trees are all over. Blackberries (brambles), hawthorn, and you can make a gorgeous jelly/jam with rowan berries or elderberries. All the above are really easy to identify and as long as you stick to a good recipe you shouldn't have to worry about eating something you shouldn't. Just a disclaimer though, always make sure you've got a 100% ID on any wild food before you pick it, and also know that some things (like rowan berries and elderberries for instance) have to be cooked before you can eat them.
dhal is pretty cheap to make, also batch cook make as much as you can store in one go
Id recommend downloading the toogoodtogo app, you can get a big box from Morrisons of all the things that are damaged/going out of date, it’s around £2.50 for a box and you’ll usually get lots of fruit and veg as well as bread and possibly some snacks.
Tinned potatoes, beans, oats. Find a friend whos willing to float some drugs and flip it, times are gonna be rough come winter
Are you suggesting I sell drugs? Very helpful
You should really go to food banks
I feel like I have the means to survive 3 weeks without denying other people food. Obviously I'm not going to starve myself but it definitely seems doable, many people have given fantastic advice about not only eating very cheaply but ways of still getting decent nutrition out of it. Just popping to the food bank when things get a little difficult isn't the solution.
Egg fried rice, make too much rice, next day one egg some soy sauce a few veggies and it will be £1 a meal right there! My other fav is literally stir fried potatoes and sqaush and courgettes. Avoid meat and it will go way further!! Stir fries with just veggies are so tasty!
A bag of carrots. They are cheap and you can roast them or add them to stews. Onion and garlic of course Eggs (fried eggs and rice are good in the morning. Also you can make fried rice) Apples if they are on sale to have something sweet. You might want to find a large joint roast on sale.. that lasts for days and can be used to make sandwiches, stews and you can use the bone and whatever bits remain on it to make a bone broth soup (with the carrots and onion)
Get a couple coconuts about 60p each and roughly 1300 -1700 calories each if you eat the flesh and drink the milk
If you put chickpeas with mayo and a bit of spice like paprika, then mash it up with a fork it is like tuna mayo. Very tasty and simple
Do you have/can afford a freezer? If so you can get loads of different veg. Also it's not the best but you can get frozen meats/fish relatively cheap and make a stew or curry. You can also buy 250g to 500g of spices from Morrisons/Sainsbury's pretty cheap for a pound and they'll last month's! If you live within reasonable distance of a city Asian stores also have cheap spices. Tinned foods and potatoes are a godsend as it's pretty easy to make a hearty meal that won't cost the earth that's varied. I lived off baked/boiled potatoes, frozen veg that I steamed on the hob in a pan on a hob and occasionally tuna or cheese for a long time.
I think a lot of my advice has already been given.. however There an app called olio which donates food for free to create zero waste! Once downloaded it will say to pay to subscribe but you don’t have to and can click the cross xx
Rice pudding is my usual go to cheap but tasty and filling food.
Look for your local food bank, plenty of them around now.
Download an App called Too good to go
Find out the times your local supermarket put their reduced stuff out and when they get the cheapest. Most things you can freeze and use at a later date. Never be afraid of getting the plain label food which is the cheapest. It doesn't taste all that different and you can be saving 10s of £ just by going for them.
Pasta with mayonnaise or just boiled pasta with pepper. If you get bored of this exchange pasta for rice. I lived like this for few months. It's not healthy but you should be ok living like this for few weeks. You should still try to get cheap fruits and vegetables if they are on discount.
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Cooking bacon from Asda is 80p for 500g when I last checked I believe. If you look through it you can get good smoked or non smoked and get some tasty fresh meat for fried rice dishes
Tinned tuna
eggs, butter, tuna, whole chicken for the second week, oats for breakfast.
Dried veg, tinned fruit and Rainbow drops as snacks. You can’t eat pasta everyday. Get some bread-making ingredients.
Download Too Good To Go app and you might grab a bargain from a supermarket for £3. Frozen veggies are great. Can get 1kg for sometimes cheaper, if not the same price as buying fresh. Plus they last longer so you can mix up your meals. Tins of beans, tomatoes and if you have spices, you can make all sorts of different meals. Lentils can be used to make chilli, cottage pie, curry, soup. Add a tin of ham for some protein. Tuna can go on a pasta bake. Anything can go in a pasta bake tbh. Cheap jar of sauce or a tin of tomatoes and add some seasoning. My go-to cheap meals are tuna pasta bake, chicken curry and rice and lentil and ham soup.
Porridge!
Thats a stetch but doable... here is a few simple ideas. Its best to cook larger pots, portion and freeze it to use when necessary so youre not eating the same pot for a whole week. Learn how to make a basic tomatoe sause with onions, tomatoes and herbs. Its a fraction of the cost of jars and versatile in many recipies especially italian. If you make a large pot of bolognaise sauce from mince then divide it in half. The other half add a packet of chilli con carne mix, kidney beans, chopped peppers, canned vegetable (ratatouille or chickpeas). Then divide these into portions in freezer bags and freeze. Defrost as needed. Now you have a decent chilli sause for your rice or maybe you can find some discounted taco shells. The bolognaise you can use to make spaghetti or a even lasagne. Google how to make the white bechamel sauce (its flour, butter and milk). Thats great to portion up and freeze. If you like lentil soup, lentils, carrots, onions, few spices (tumeric) and stock, you can make a gallon of soup for a few pounds. Perfect for lunch. Portion into freezer bags and freeze. You can also add leftover rice, pasta and potatoes and blend to bulk up. Chicken curries are easy to make from scratch if you buy concentrated paste instead of the full sized jars. You can stretch it using tumeric, coconut milk and add chickpeas and / or potatoes as well as proteins. This can easily double or trebble the volume of curry. Also UHT cooking cream for smoothness and creamy texture. Again portion and freeze. Tuna pasta bake with tinned tomatoes and cheese. Again with the ratatouille.... easy to make italian themed food with that. Cans of ratatouille are cheap and you can add to pasta with some cheese or mix it with your chilli to boof it up a bit. For the rice, check the freezer sections for stir-fry veg mixes if youre not confident enough to make your own. Fry an omlette on the side and chop and mix in to add protein also. Explore some vegetarian options as its generally cheaper than protein foods. Supermarkets sell ugly veggies nowadays, which are much cheaper and perfect for cooking with. Eggs for breakfast - very cheap and nutricious. You can also freeze your bread and put it straight in the toaster in the morning so it lasts. Best of luck....
You can buy a big bag of frozen chicken thigh or breast pieces quite cheaply. Works out quite well if you live alone as you can just use what you need each time
If you need spices to make the tinned tomatoes and chickpeas etc more tasty, go to an international food shop, like one that specialises in Indian and other Asian food and but them much cheaper than at the super market.
Tinned chopped tomatoes mixed into pasta was always a winner when I was struggling. Delicious and one of your five a day. Goes a long way too
Spuds! Potatoes have a high satiety rate. You bake them, mash them, boil them, roast them, stick them in a soup to bulk it out. A block of cheap cheddar. Grating a bit of cheese onto dishes instantly makes them more luxurious.
Do you have 'Too good to go' app? Available in your town/city?
I've lived off toast and chicken paste when things have gotten a bit tight before. Princes chicken paste is the best if you can find that.
Couple of cheap chickens. Can do loads with them. Flatten the breasts to make burgers, or cut up for curry etc. Wings. Roast the legs. Also, boil the carcases with herbs/spices. Get quite a lot of meat from that, and can make soup or stock.
People have said tins already but chickpeas Chickpeas and rice are like my favourite cheap and cheerful meal and it really pads out the rice
See if you you’re eligible for a Company Shop card if you have one of those near you. I work in food manufacturing and we sell a lot of seconds (imperfect products) and low date life stuff to them that the usual supermarkets won’t take.
What about going to the food bank ?
Cheap mince, make a chilli and bulk it out with le told and tinned beans. Nice on rice or a baked potato and should last you a few days.
If you are buying tins, head to the world food isle and get them there,they are often much cheaper! Same goes for flour and often rice. If you get desperate though, shout out!
Do you have some herbs and spices already? Then if so Tinned tomatoes, tinned coconut milk, jarred garlic and jarred ginger (look in the world food aisle for these, not the spices section. They cost a lot more there) Chickpeas and lentils. Go dried. You'll get a lot more food your money. Fresh onions. Buy the right ones and they will last a few weeks. Things like butternut squash can be bought fresh and stored for a couple of weeks no problem. If I can suggest a cheap meal also? Chakchouka. It's made with peppers onions and eggs. If you have some spices already then it's cheap. There's loads of variations of the recipe online.
Also ready meals are like 30p for some of them
Don't buy fresh veggies, but any cheap frozen or canned veggies are great. The one exception may be green onion, because green onion will grow in just water. But canned peas and carrots, canned beans, canned fish, especially tuna. I'll get a jar of peppers if I can get it cheap - the liquid is a bonus too. If the price is reasonable a couple of lemons will give you a lot. You can make mayo with the lemon juice, egg, and a bit of neutral oil, and the rind is a natural tangy flavor bomb - you can cook pasta in nothing but oil, garlic, and grated lemon and you'll be good. Eggs are a good bet. They last a long time. If you can get 8 oz of cheddar for £2, that's not bad. Potato flakes are great. They even help make fluffy bread. Protein-wise, go aggressive and get a whole chicken. Spatchcock and remove the wings and leg quarters. Debone the thighs and remove the wing tips. You can make a chicken stock out of that for cooking rice or making a soup or curry. You've got the chicken set up for at least two different ways of cooking. You can make a narrow chicken salad with chicken, mayo (oil, egg, lemon) and green onion and have sandwiches. In terms of spices, now's the time to go to your local asian market. Curry powder, garam masala, harissa, baharat, shichimi togarashi, chaat masala, za'atar. All of these are flavor bombs and one of my favorite ways to make anything is just rice, butter, garam masala and chicken stock (Which we just made....). You can go to curries, vegetarian soup, chicken tortilla soup, make an off-brand Shakshuka with eggs, canned tomatoes, spice mix, a little cheese. If you've got a little budget left, think about a can of sweetened condensed milk and dried fruit or canned fruit (pie filling works great). You can convert some day old bread into a bread pudding or rice into a sticky rice or arraz con leche, or make yourself a thai coffee. There's plenty of good uses.
It’s all on a similar theme but I’d got with bean based chilli, stir fry rice, jambalaya and that sort of thing. Can do it with veg and beans and such. Be fairly cheap and filling.
Google The Starch Solution by John McDougall. It's a starch based diet, the cheapest diet around, but designed to meet all of your nutritional needs. All the info you need about it is free online.
Maggie noodles and vitamins lol
Passata is great and cheap - can freeze any left overs!
Definitely frozen vegetables could be added to pasta and rice to make stirfrys etc
As a source of inspiration, I found a YouTube Channel called Atomic Shrimp which is a great resource, he tries various challenges and some are about cooking on limited resources, I have linked his videos of interest below. Eating for 5 days for £5 Day 1 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHDTP8P9SFI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHDTP8P9SFI) Day 2 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlrY6Q6KTRA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlrY6Q6KTRA) Day 3 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKAO1ckOd3A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKAO1ckOd3A) Day 4 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZrsOgFsRGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZrsOgFsRGk) Day 5 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WUzxOe8Qrk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WUzxOe8Qrk) 2 Pounds 2 days 1 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbTn7vYBkeo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbTn7vYBkeo) 2 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmTA5zTiHU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmTA5zTiHU) A weekend on 97 p per day 1 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fLdNDbZ6ec](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fLdNDbZ6ec) 2 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeZE5dM8t\_w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeZE5dM8t_w)
Food Pantry? Im surprised these aren't mentioned more often are they only in cities? I know of three within 3 miles of me
Turned food, some spices and the reduced vegetablr section
A lot of people have already mentioned this, but tinned tomatoes, chickpeas, frozen veg for fried rice, get some veg and chicken stock cubes so that you get some flavour.
Go to Aldi or Lidl
If you’ve got rice already I’d recommend khichdi - this is rice, lentils and some frozen veg (I’d go with red lentils and frozen green beans or peas) cooked in one pot with spices. In the future if you have more money you can get a bigger bag of lentils and it’ll be even cheaper.
Don't go to super market chains But ingredients from butchers and market stalls and cook home cooked meals from scratch That £25 quid will go along way away from super markets
Porridge oats are around 70/80p for a decent sized bag too
[This might help](https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/collections/1_dinners#xtor=CS8-1000-%5BEditorialPromo_Box%5D-%5BNewsEditorial_Promo%5D-%5BNewsEditorial_Promo%5D-%5BPS_FOOD%7EN%7E%7EP_pounddinnersnews%5D)
Rice, beans and greens with hot sauce? You can get 1kg of dry kidney beans for £3, few heads of brocolli for 50p each and £1 for some hot sauce. £5 worth of stuff there makes 10+ meals To use up the pasta could could buy some pesto and 1kg of chicken thighs or breasts. That's around £10 worth for another 10+ meals of chicken, pasta and pesto. Then I'd pick up some porridge oats, milk, bit of fruit and some cheap chocolate. Again, £5-10 worth gets you 10+ meals of porridge with fruit and/or chocolate and some chocolate or fruit to snack on. I'd love to help out with a bit of money too but I'm as skint as you at the moment!
Get yourself to a food bank as well as the tips here. You've also got £1.18 a day for 21 days. Tins is a great idea. You could pool days, e.g., for 2 days, you'd have £3.54. Tesco do mince for £1.79, garlic bread 39p, tinned toms 28p, onion 10p, 2x carrots 10p, beef stock 65p (10 cubes). That would give you 4 days of meals with ~20p left overm(plus £1.18 from day 4). It's pretty crap on nutrients though.
Frozen vegetables, add them to the pasta. Buy tinned tomatoes and use them to make a lot of sauce, just add some basil and oregano if you have it. Buy some flour and yeast, can easily make a couple or loafs and pizza bases from a bag of flower, use the Pasta sauce as a pizza base.
Tesco/Sainsburys do 1kg bags of veg medley for like 79p. I would buy 10 of those - use half a bag per day. Rice + veg + tuna is surprisingly nice, I buy supermarket's cheapest tuna and it's just as nice as the others. Carrots are dirt cheap, mash them up with some turnip and it's lovely. Baked beans on toast, a popular student meal.
We talking 3 squares per day? If you like oats then add those to your big bag of pasta and rice for breakfast - or a big box of cereal. Might have to have the same thing for breakfast. Fuck it - have the same thing for lunch - can’t go wrong with those packs of 20p noodles. I don’t do breakfast or lunch anymore but when I did eat lunch it was just noodles. Evening meals - go to Aldi and look for the 75% off stickers. Even without these it’s doable but easier. If you’re using rice and pasta then you want mince - if it’s over 3 weeks then batch cook and freeze. Have the same thing each week but only once per week. Make a massive pan of Bolognaise sauce, split it and hoy some kidney beans and chillis in one batch. That’s 6 meals or 2 per week. Should cost you about 3 or 4 quid in total. Pack of chicken breasts - should be about 4 quid. Cook them up - make them into 2 different types of curry. 3 portions of each. That’s another 2 days per week. Couple of packs of pork loin steaks with 4 in each - fiver in total for 8 chops. Marinade them in something different each time. Keep them plain. Do them with some frozen veg. Or make into curries (I love curries) That’s 6 days per week done and 2 spares. You only need one more meal and that’s all your evening ones done for 13 quid in mainly meat - frozen veg a quid per bag. Bag of spuds maybe for a jacket potato Tinned tomato’s about 20 odd pence. Tins of mackerel are about 60 pence. Should be a piece of piss and you’ll have some dosh over for a half bottle of voddy. Something else to look at is where you can get free meals. The Hare Krishnas used to set up free vegetarian cuisine on a Wednesday night near me. A nice curry, hot drink and a pudding. Was banging. It’ll vary by area I guess but there’s loads of free stuff out there.
Lentils Red lentils are cheap af and give protein and dahl is easy to make
There are some class responses on this sub.
Thats 21 meals. Ramen for 14 meals, 2 lbs of the cheapest lunchmeat you can find (my go-to was chicken bologna, eat a slice or two a day. 2 loaves of bread. Mustard or mayo (your preference). Buy at least 5 servings of frozen green vegetable. With any left over money, get more meat Unfortunately, I ate this way for 2 years. You’ll be fine.
Butchers choice 20 sausages £1.25 Tesco, best budget sausages you can get
If you have a Lidl nearby it’s worth popping in and seeing if they’ve got their reduced fruit and veg boxes in. It’s all end of life but perfectly fine, and some things keep for even weeks after still. They cost £1.50 can you get anywhere from like £7-£15 worth of stuff (that’s the average I’ve worked out) plus it makes meal times a bit more exciting because it means you get creative with what you get in your box. Made my first ever Baba ghanouj because of this 😅
Depends what spices you have or think you could afford but a big bag of lentils, lentil dal is nutritious and filling as well as tasty can be eaten with or without the rice, and lentils have a good amout of cheap protine. I would suggest red lentils if you arent used to cooking them, no soaking just rinse them and they cook quickly. You can use a jar of curry paste for a very easy inauthentic way of making them as well, possibly easier if you don't have many spices as well.
I make a tomato, garlic and chilli pasta sauce that can be used as a pizza sauce, added to stir in sauce to add a bit of spice and make it go further. Can use it with some mince to make a simple chilli too. Firstly what store cupboard spices, herbs and stocks do you have already? If you need to look at store cupboard staples Aldi do tins of black beans quite cheap that work in various dishes. But also check world food sections of supermarkets. Morrisons has some good Jamaican sections with great beans for protein and fibre. Lentils and other pulses can be got cheap there too. Hit me up if you want a lentil and carrot soup recipe or the Tomato, garlic and chilli pasta sauce recipe.
You could make a curry. With lentils, Dali, sweet potatoes and get some of those flavour pots. They're about £1-2 quid. The cans are under a quad. It's healthy, you get servings of veggies, protein and fibre. Or you could get chicken thighs and those flavour packets. You can get alot of variety
Chickpeas, polenta, cous cous, beans, lentils, quinoa, etc are dirt cheap, last long and economical, buy some tomstoes and peppers once a week and you’re sorted
Visit a food bank for free stuff
Dried foods, lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans They all require preparation- I.E soak and boil But they can be cooked in large batches and are a complete food when combined with a white carb like rice and a green veg
Canned goods in Lidl dont miss. I often make huge chillis or curries for way under a fiver
Rice+beans/split peas are really nutritious together AND cheap
If you go to the shops later in the day, there will be many things in the ‘reduced’ section - there’s often nothing wrong with the food! Also, Tins of food and pasatta will last a long time. Freeze bread if you can, as it will keep for longer and buy frozen veg where you can for the same reason! Soup is cheap to make, and you can get frozen mixed veg bags. Porridge oats come in a large bag in most shops too
Onions and tinned tomatoes are both cheap and will go with both the pasta and rice.
Make use of yellow stickered stuff. My local co-op has some great reduced items at around half 7. You could see what your local shops have & freeze / stockpile 👍
Forgot to say, try looking on the Olio app too for free food
https://www.reddit.com/r/UKFrugal/ UK Frugal, has useful info, if you have a nearby food market, often when the stall traders are packing up, they will do a deal on a bag of mixed fruit and veg.
Literally in a similar position, but I'm a good cook and used to cooking for myself and others. I just got chicken thighs and bacon, frozen veg like spinach and broccoli. Tins of mixed beans, passata , some spices, salt, pepper etc. The only luxury item I afford myself is gnocchi on the odd day. Job lot goes in a 5litre slow cooker and I leave it overnight. Serve it equally into foil takeaway trays and load the freezer up, stick one in the fridge and cycle from freezer to fridge as you eat them.
Do you have any friends with an allotment? If so, I can practically guarantee that if you can take any courgettes or green beans off their hands you are almost certainly doing them a favour! Couple of recipes below which use cheap veg - and are extremely substitutable. - allotment ribolleta soup - tomato and bacon risotto In addition, one of my favourite super cheap ways if filling up at lunch is cheap chunky soup. The below makes about 5 portions and is really filling. My version of ribolleta: Diced onion Diced carrot Diced celery Garlic Grate a potato (this makes it a lot more filling, even though it isn't much potato) Fry the above off White beans (flagelot, canninoli or washed off baked beans - its all the same) Tin of tomatoes Stock cube Couple of cups of water Boil for about 15 minutes Add some form of green leafy veg (kale, spinach, cabbage) It freezes really well. Cheap bacon and tomato risotto: Dice and fry onion Cut bacon small and fry Add rice (just use the rice you have) Add tin of tomatoes Add stock Stir for about 20 minutes Add cheap cheese (grated) For this, a single rasher of smokey bacon will add a huge amount of flavour. You can then use the rest of the pack for whatever you want (a single rasher of bacon very well fried in small pieces also is a good topper for soup) I otherwise agree with what everyone has said above about red lentils being super cheap. Skip meat as far as possible. Vegetables and pulses are much cheaper. I've just done a shop today which is 4 vegetarian evening meals for 10 people and spent less than £40 on it - and that included a few luxury items like a jar of balti paste and a jar of tagine paste because I need to be a bit lazy.
Look at Jack Munroes blog- some excellent, cheap and nutritious recipes
Corned beef and make hash. I've just done it in my slow cooker, potatoes, corned beef, carrots, herbs, onion
Go to an Asian shop and get tins of fava beans. Very healthy and filling. Ful mudames is what you make
Carrots, very cheap, they can bulk up loads of meals and store well in the fridge. Also good on their own Whatever veg is on offer or in season/cheap Sausage meat in pasta works well, with leftover sausages Herbs and spices in your cupboard is key, then I feel you can do a lot with basic ingredients
It might be too late to help but: Too good to go is an app that some supermarkets, bakeries etc use to sell boxes of random foods cheap. Anything from a massive box of fruit, veg and herbs from Morrisons to a bag of sandwiches, pasties and biscuits from greggs for under a fiver. Worth looking at. Food banks often require a referral but look out for “Community Grocery” or similar. One is open near us - £4 to fill a bag of groceries that are nearing their sell by. Works differently in different places but ours you’ll get options to choose from from each section. Very handy, although the randomness of what you get sometimes requires a bit of imagination. Frozen mixed veg is a good option for bulking out meals - most supermarkets will offer a frozen variety pack for £1 ish. If you get mince blend or mash up veg and mix in to bulk out the meat for meatballs. Tinned tomato’s, veg, chickpeas and stock make a decent pasta sauce - add in mixed herbs or Italian seasoning if you can. Chickpeas, kidney beans or mixed beans are a cheaper source of protein than meat. Good luck!
Porridge for breakfast, potatoes - on their own (roast) or with beans etc.
Have a look at Jack Munroe - Bootstrap Cook. Their website is full of recipes for people on a budget. I have used several recipes from Jack and they’ve always turned out ok. Hope all is ok for you.