Living below the line

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  • emmello
    emmello Posts: 2 Member
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    I've registered for this too. I was thinking of rice, trying to buy cheap veggies at the end of the day and making bread and soup. Porridge oats would be good too and frozen berries are quite often on sale. The problem is that you have to buy in bulk to get things cheaper but I'm assuming that you can just calculate the amount you have used in the five days. It's a tough one though.
  • Vailara
    Vailara Posts: 2,454 Member
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    I thought about doing this, but prices have gone up so much in the last few years that I couldn't face it! It would have been dead easy a few years ago when tins of beans were 6p, bread 17p, noodles 5p, etc. (it wasn't that long ago, honestly!). If I was doing it, I suppose I'd look out for cheap pulses as they can go quite far, so things like dried lentils and beans. You can still sometimes get tinned kidney beans quite cheaply. However, they're not very nice without some sort of flavouring/condiments (I don't know if you're allowed to use salt, pepper, etc. without including the whole packet in the budget). I'd also buy some cheap eggs (usually only buy free range) e.g. Tesco value at £1.34 for 15. Tesco do 50 value frozen sausage rolls for 88p (probably unpleasant and unhealthy but at least you wouldn't need to buy seasoning). Instant noodles are still quite cheap, but I think that spaghetti works out cheaper and you can use it instead of noodles (e.g. break it up to use in soups, cook it and stirfry it with something like cabbage, etc.).

    To be honest, I'd probably forget about cooking and buy cheap sliced bread (47p) and live off toast with eggs (£1.34) or peanut butter (62p)! The rest would go mainly on milk and teabags, I'm afraid!
    It is shocking how much prices have gone up. My shopping comes to an outstanding amount compared to what it was 5 years ago and I'm sure the one small toddler extra doesn't amount for all the extra expense!
    Sausages are out as I'm veggie, but that is probably what I'd have bought if I wasn't. Spaghetti does work out cheaper, but my reasoning for noodles was that they already have seasoning :) I'm now trying to decide if more food or less flavour is better.

    Good point about the seasoning in the noodles - would be handy for soups, etc. I just thought of salted peanuts as well. The value ones are quite cheap, they're ready salted (so some seasoning at least!) and you could use them in cooking (e.g. spaghetti/onion/peanut stirfry).

    Food is so expensive now, isn't it? When I've been through lean periods in the past I bought a lot of cheap oats (for porridge and flapjacks) and tinned sardines, but those aren't cheap any more!

    Edit: I checked the site and you're allowed to use salt, pepper, herbs and spices by working out the cost per gram. That makes a big difference! But other things have to count as the whole packet/tin.
  • paramedicsarah
    paramedicsarah Posts: 49
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    I'm taking part a little later in the month. I do shifts as a paramedic do needed to do it when I'm not working.y plan is to keep it pretty boring & plain - I spent 3 months in Borneo doing voluntary work & ate a lot of rice! They're my chosen charity. So it'll be porridge for brekkie, rice for lunch & probably something with noodles for dinner. Straight spaghetti comes quite cheap too. The recipe book online is very helpful - marrowfat peas as a soup = 15p! Never been one for beans but going to give them a go. I'm not planning eggs as my principle on free range would be compromised by buying the really cheap ones. I'm going to buy a bag of value flour (45p for 1.5kg) & make chapatis from the recipe book for snacks. The only meat I'm planning us going to be value sausages at 8p each - meatballs for the spaghetti?! Giving up tea (as ambulance staff this is probably the biggest challenge!) so won't need milk either.

    Good luck folks!!

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