In response to "you can eat cheaply" comments circulating on twitter at the moment, a little thread about living on sod all.

I have done this; in fact I have had to do it for long periods when I had very little freelance work.

1/

On today's prices, it is *just* possible for a single person to live on a "£10 fortnight" for food, but if you want to eat more than one meal a day, you are limited to the following:

Potatoes, lentils, rice, pasta, carrots, onions, cabbage, tinned tomatoes,

2/

frozen peas, tinned sweetcorn, bread (the economy sort), spread to put on it (again, the economy sort), baked beans, oats, milk.

This then leaves you with a couple of quid for protein. I chose cheese as I'm a veggie. I ditched eggs as I couldn't bear to buy battery.
3/

If you've got a few spices etc in the pantry, it makes things a bit less boring, but there's nothing left over for much else, maybe a jar of very cheap jam to have on your toast.

You can't bulk buy to get better prices as you don't have the cash in the first place.
4/

While you can get protein from the beans, lentils and cheese, it leaves you quite short of other nutrients. If you've only got to eat like this for a couple of months, it's not so bad. Longer and it gets problematic.

It's also boring - really bloody boring.
5/

Also, when you start to run out of things like the spices in the pantry, you often can't afford to replace them as guess what - you have no spare cash.

You also can't splurge more than your £10 as you also have to buy other necessities
6/

The non-food necessities are soap, loo roll, shampoo, deodorant, stuff to wash your clothes with, sanitary protection if you're a woman. You don't have to buy all of them every week, but you have to be able to buy them when you need them.
7/

You have to stick to the food budget whether you like it or not. We're lucky now as we have some brilliant food improvisers like @BootstrapCook - but you have to learn quickly how to cook from scratch.

8/

I was lucky in that I learned to cook at school and enjoy the challenge of making something from whatever I have to hand at the time. If you can't cook and fall on hard times financially, you're stuffed.

9/

The sad truth about all this is that I can understand why some people rely on cheap ready meals when they're broke, as often it simply isn't cheaper to make the same stuff at home. We can't always assume that they're lazy and ignorant.
10 - end.