What to do about food when furlough ends...or tips for extreme food budgeting

What happens if the S**T hits the fan and suddenly you have a very limited income.  This was the worst case - won't really happen so don't think about it reality that is now looming on the horizon for lots of people thanks to COVID-19.  With the UK stopping furlough in October (or in the case of my employer the end of next week (gulp)) what kind of mindset will help with the food budgeting at least.
1) Start preparing as soon as you can, any money that you can save now will help form a buffer ready for any gap in employment.  If this means reviewing any debts such as overdrafts and credit cards then get rid of as much as you can now by paying off what you can and move any debts you can't pay to a lower interest option if possible.
2)Not all supermarkets/shops are equal - again obvious, shopping somewhere like Aldi or Lidl can save you money on what you normally buy; but not on everything as the lower cost comes with lower choice.  Remember to include the cost of travel to the shops as well, if it costs you more in bus fares than it is going to save I don't need to tell you it is a false economy.
A price book where you list the things that you commonly buy and compare prices will help you work out what to buy from where.  Working like this I alternate shopping at Tesco/Morrisons/Lidl and buy slightly different things from each shop with enough to last me until the next time I am in the supermarket where it is cheapest if it is something I use every week.  I update the price book if I see the overall total of my shop at that supermarket rise sharply or if a new brand is introduced which may be cheaper.
If you are lucky to have a local market or ethnic supermarket use those where possible to get the cheapest fruits and veggies and herbs and spices.  I also pop into my local Poundland, B and M, Iceland and Farmfoods if I am passing as they have random food items which may be cheaper than the normal supermarket - only if I am passing, not worth the travel expense of a specific journey and I have a separate budget for those kind of unexpected bargains.  Needless to say this will be different depending on where you live.
3)Buy cheaper/generic brands where possible.  Try the generic/budget brands and if you can't tell the difference or like them better you are onto a winner.  Don't assume that higher cost=better quality or taste.  One example of this is for our house is baked beans.  Heinz for when it is on toast or as a side dish for the kids, generic when I want to do something like throw them in a sausage casserole or chilli, savings can be up to 50p a tin.
4) Learn to cook.  Whilst ready meals are convenient they are also more expensive and filled with junk like high fat/salt and additives. Cooking is a skill and it has never been easier to learn skills than it is now thanks to the internet.
5) Shop your own cupboards 6) Meal Plan and 7) Use a shopping list.  These go together although I have to confess that 6 is hard for me to stick to.  Using up what you already have will reduce the food thrown away in the case of fresh food or other perishables.  Making a meal plan and resultant shopping list will reduce the amount of impulse buys you do.  It will also encourage you to use up all those jars of herbs and spices which you have only used a pinch of and then shoved back in the cupboard; gram for gram those little jars are the most expensive items in your shopping trolley so use them.
8) Research - one of the things that is hardest is that extreme food budgeting can lead to eating the same day in and out.  I know I have been there and it can be soul destroying.  If you have access to the internet you have a wealth of free ideas from Facebook groups (Feed Your Family for £20 for example), forums (e.g. moneysavingexpert.com - the Old Style board has a monthly grocery thread and recipe archives), and websites (Jack Monroe's Cooking on a Bootstrap is a good starting point)- not to mention You Tube. A couple of caveats.  First just because a recipe is cheap to make in the US (and it is more often than not that these kind of sites are in the US) does not mean that it is cheap to make where ever you live in the world, double check, with a calculator (BTW in the UK prices can vary according to geography even within the same supermarket chain)...Second, just because a recipe is claimed to cost so many pounds and/or pence per serving does not mean that all you have to do is multiply the cost by the number of people you are serving and you can buy all the ingredients for that amount of money.  When recipes are costed it is per gram of the ingredients used, so yes that bean enchiladas recipe may be only £1.02 per serving but that is because they have assumed you are only using 5p of taco seasoning for the whole recipe - if you have to buy a new jar it doesn't only cost 5p does it!  To repeat point 5 above shop your own cupboards first.
9) Don't fall for the sales patter. Only buy the special offers if it is something that you will use, can use up before it expires, does not take the money from elsewhere in the food budget and/or is not a swap for something cheaper.  Knowing the special offers in that shop in advance is a useful thing - most shops have a website which will list the latest offers - you can then take these into account when you write your list.
10) Bigger is usually better value but not always.  If you are faced with the same product but in different sized packets work out the cost per 100 g to compare (calculator on my smart phone- always there...)Sometimes it is cheaper to buy the bigger family pack sometimes not (especially if there is a multibuy on a particular size of pack), bear in mind things like Best Before Dates as well - will you use the whole pack before it expires.  If you can get together with someone else to share buying things in bulk packs - when you divvy the cost between you it will be cheaper than the smaller packs but you won't have to live on it everyday for the next month.
11) Stocking up fund. For things with a long shelf life like tins and household cleaning stuff consider having a separate fund for stocking up as and when you see the bargains (I posted about this way back).  This safeguards the food budget but will allow you to take advantage of those multibuys when you can.
12) Use the equipment/space available.  If you have a freezer use it - batch cooking or splitting bulk packs and freezing will save you money overall (big outlay now, savings tomorrow); however it will take a while to recoup the cost of a new one so do not go out and buy one unless this was something you were already planning.  The same goes for grow-your-own if you have a garden or somewhere to stick a pot the initial cost of plants/seeds/compost and other equipment is immediate- you will have a wait to get the return in savings but if you are successful then it can be a way to help supplement your food budget.  If you have a blender/food processor then cheap meals like homemade soup are a good standby, but only if you do not need to recoup the cost in the first place.  If you have a pressure cooker or slow cooker, now is the time to use it to cut the cost of fuel.  If you are using the oven fill it - it costs the same fuel to cook one pie as it does to cook one for now one for the freezer.  Make extra buffer money by selling any kitchenalia that you do not use, we all have some!
13)Already mentioned in passing above but BUDGET.  Yes it is boring, and takes time, and, and, and, but if you know how much you have to spend each week you never get to the end of the month and find you only have 23p to feed all of you for the remainder of the week.  That is far more stressful and soul destroying than spending the time in the first place.  Don't forget to include drinks and snacks in any food budget and meal plan that you do - this can cost more than you think even just for orange juice and tea.
14)Remember that this is only temporary for most people and it will get better.  Cliched but a good mental attitude will make it all go smoother so look on this like a challenge you can win, not a burden you have to endure.

Book Review: Feed Your Family For £20 A Week.

Not my usual type of post but since this book based on the popular Facebook group came up for under a pound in my recommendations from Amazon UK I bought the Kindle version out of curiosity.   Before I get into what may seem like a rant I first want to say that overall the book is very good and has plenty of good ideas and recipes and was well worth the 99p I paid for it.  Even full price it is still worth the money simply for the mindset it shows you if you are having trouble with your food budget. The book also came out of a Facebook group of the same name which I will be heading for next.
However, what is not apparent from the description on the website is that the £20 a week is the average cost of an eight week meal plan and shopping list.  All the old advise is there - use oats for breakfast and eggs are a good source of protein etc but the cost is so low mainly because of the use of value packs (presumably) which are then less money per 100g.  I personally do not know how you get the fresh ingredients like fruit and vegetables listed in the shopping list to last 8 weeks either so I would end up having to top these up which would cost more I guess, and of course seasonality comes into play in the case of the cost of fruit and veg (unless you rely on frozen).
The other bug bear that I have is that the author does not give where she bought these things.  Certainly where I live it would be impossible to get some of the items for the prices that the author has (eggs spring to mind).  One little known fact is that the cost of food throughout the UK will vary even if you use the same supermarket chain.  If you are short of money then the cost of actually getting to the cheapest source can be prohibitive and you could be faced with the more expensive (local) convenience store. Lidl or Aldi may be a great way to save up to one third of your shopping (from personal experience of Lidl at least) but if it has to include £10 for a taxi to get there then it may not be worth it.
The book also includes a list of items expected in your storecupboard.  Although these are not included in the shopping list they are in the recipes so if you want to follow the meal plan allow extra money for these if you do not have them already.  You only need to have to throw in a couple of jars of herbs and spices and a litre of vegetable oil and suddenly the overall total has jumped by a fiver even though the nutritional value of your shopping has not increased by much.
The authors assumption is also that you have the large lump sum of £160 to begin with - personal circumstances may mean that you get your income monthly or weekly or even in dribs and drabs rather than a regular amount and do not have a large sum to fall back on, making one giant shop impossible; this can impact on the size of packs of food that you can buy and will drive up the average cost per week if you still wanted to follow the meal plan as is (just shopping more often).  The only other way to drastically drive down the cost in those circumstances would be to minimise the variation in meals within each week so that some of the ingredients were bought week one but some waited until the next week and so on.  Not having done the exercise I am not sure if this is possible.  This is the classic way of extreme food budgeting and means that the variety of meals (which are overall good within the book itself) gets lost.
It now sounds like I am slamming the book and the author but I am not.  It is a very good start, has a lot of good ideas for meals and does not rely solely on coupons, multibuys and other money off offers which are often recommended but in effect mean that you would be eating pre processed food all the time. Cooking from scratch and even growing your own herbs are recommended.  But, and it is a big but,  do not expect it to be a blueprint that you can follow wherever you live and you automatically will only spend £20 a week for four people.  When you are at the sharp end of food budgeting personal circumstances make it impossible to do a one-size-fits-all solution so the author is completely forgiven!  There are 100 recipes to follow which can used as a starting point, and often suggestions for variations are included in the recipes itself which again is good.  Some of these will be dirt cheap, some more expensive in terms of ingredients so the meal plan is a clever way of suggesting that you get a range of these.  The book should be used as beginning of the journey and is excellent for those who have never had to worry about this kind of thing before - but perhaps a better title would be "Feed YOUR family FROM £20 a week" or "How I feed MY family for £20 a week" instead...

Halfway there - an update

In 2012 I started this blog with the grandiose idea of saving £70K in 10 years. ( see this first post ). Time has moved on as it is wont to do and although the blog posts have ground to a halt the saving hasn't.  
I now know that not just one but all three of my children are on the autistic spectrum and will require additional support for the rest of their lives, both financial and practical.  With my eldest 16 this year it also means that time is running ever shorter.
The crazy Brexit UK that we now live in means that prices are rising faster than ever.
I now have a part time job with a small wage so have been looking forward to getting a mortgage and making the "landlord" dream a reality in the near future.

So how have I done half way through my challenge?  (drum roll please...)
savings to date: £47,387.46

At this point I went to see a mortgage advisor and was pleasantly surprised to learn that I can still get a 25 year buy-to-let mortgage (even though I turned 50 this year) and that I already have enough for a minimum deposit for the kind of property that I have been dreaming about.  Next step (before signing myself up to £100K of debt, gulp) is to see an accountant so that the kids can get the maximum benefit longterm.
Hopefully have an update soon.

How to turn £20 into hundreds - week 3

Money in stocking up fund carried over from week 2 = £11
payback from dish washer tablets for week 3= £5.88
payback from catfood for week 3= £9.24

total in stocking up fund for start of week 3 = \£26.12

On offer this week
six pack of heinz baked beans now £3
Normal price per tin 68p = £4.08 for 6 tins
(I would normally use 1 tin of these a week so not a huge saving individually but since I bought 3 packs total saving eventually = £1.08 * 3 = £3.24)
Weekly payback 68p

Surf washing tablets £3 for 18 washes = 17p per wash
Normal price = 21p per wash
Since I do 2 washes a day weekly payback = 14 *21p = £2.94
Number of packs bought =3

Cat food still on special offer so bought 2 boxes of 12 sachets = £5

Money left in stocking up fund at end of week 3 = £26.12 -£9 ( for beans) - £9 (washing tablets) - £5 (catfood) = £3.12

Used 1 tin of beans from stash so 68p paid back = £3.80
Used washing tablets so £2.94 paid back = £6.20 to be carried over to week 4


Value of stock in stash:
17 tins beans = £11.56
40 Washing tablets= £8.40
44 Cat food pouches = £14.52
114 Dish washer tablets = £47.88
Total value = £82.36

Tutorials - Gift Boxes and bags for my craft stall

Emergency packaging for my smaller items when  have run out of the more professional stuff

First up - a gift box with lid from any square of paper

Then a gift bag from any square of paper

Thinking of using paper printed with my etsy shop address...

How to turn £20 into hundreds .... weeks 2

Start of week 2 (week beginning 25th August)

Money in stocking up fund this morning is £11.76 (2 x £5.88 from the dish washer tablets)

One offer yesterday at Tescos we found the smaller trays of cat food pouches were cheaper than the bigger trays for once!

Normally cat food would be £12.99 for 40 = 33p per sachet.  Whiskas have recently reduced the overall price but also the overall number of sachets.  Looks like a better deal in your basket until you do the maths...

On offer this week though (and until the 9/9) packs of 12 sachets are £5 for 2.  This means if I buy 4 packs then the overall cost is £10 for 48 = 21p per sachet  When the offer ends at Tescos I have seen an identical offer at B and M if this is longer term then I should be able to do this again.

Now for the maths;
I use   2 x 7 x 2 sachets a week for my 2 cats = 28 sachets
28 sachets x 33p per sachet = £9.24 per week under the normal supermarket price

Stocking up fund at start of week 2= £11.76 - £10 (for 4 boxes of 12 pouches) = £1.76

Adding in the new weekly cat food pay back = £1.76 + £9.24 = £11 at end of week 2

Value of stock for end of week 2 = £6.60 (cat food) + 53.76 (dish washer tabs)= £60.36

Turning £20 into hundreds - week 1 The Stocking Up fund

With my birthday looming at the end of this week it is as always a chance to reflect on the last year. With far too many birthdays under my belt to still be on the losing side when it comes to finances I have been encouraged to start looking again at an idea that fell by the wayside about 2 years ago as it was too much of a faf at the time. The stocking up fund.

Called "The stocking up fund" in our house it was an idea I originally came across on moneysavingexpert.com as the third purse system by a poster called mothership.  The idea is that you have your normal grocery budget (first purse), this buys your normal weekly/monthly stuff for your family.  You then have a fund available for buying "extras", this can be stuff you buy on special offer or as a bigger than usual pack; this is your second purse.  As you buy stuff from your second purse you build up your own stockpile.  As you use stuff from the stockpile you pay your second purse back the price you would pay normally in the supermarket out of your first purse.  Net result is that your first purse (your budget) is not any different to how it would be if you hadn't stocked up in the first place; but the stocking up fund gets replenished to allow you to get more "stock" when you see it on special offer.  So where does the "third purse" come in? The amount of money in the second purse should increase week by week and if you set yourself a limit to how much money that purse should hold then when you go over that threshold that money goes into a third purse; this money is for you to spend on a treat, or in my case stuff for the kids.

So much for the theory now for the practise...

This week (mon 18th to sun 24th august) I started with a stocking up fund of £20.  This was in the form of money off vouchers for my local supermarket and normally I would put these aside until Christmas to buy extra food for the holiday, so over the course of about 4 months that £20 would have made me £20!  I think this system (if I can stick to it!) will net me much more than £20 by Christmas.  Having scanned the websites of the big supermarkets for offers on stuff I would normally buy anyway I discovered that Tescos is offering 78 Finish dishwasher tablets for £10 - half the normal price.  So I blew the whole of the fund and bought 2 boxes.  Normally if I couldn't get dishwasher tabs on offer (and I needed them) I would have to buy the smallest pack possible and this works out at 42p/tablet.  I use the dishwasher once or (when OH is actually here) twice a day, so I am going to assume that I use 14 tablets a week, that's £5.88 on dishwasher tablets if I was going to pay the most expensive price.  By transferring this amount from my grocery budget each week my grocery budget would not be changed at all (apart from the fact it smooths out the peaks and troughs because of course I do not need to buy a whole pack each week), but it will begin to replenish the stocking up fund.  So here's the summary for this week

Stocking up fund £5.88
Stock - 71 days worth of dishwasher tabs (£59.64 worth!)