living off £17 a week and NOT dying?

Worked out that i will have £17 a week in my first two terms because of the way my loan comes in (last term i have £97 which is annoying)Dont have any saved up and parents arent rich enough to help me out hardly at all. Obviously have applied for jobs and waiting to hear back on that but for now i have just £17.So basically, how do i do this without dying and maybe still have money for booze??? seriously freaking out right now.

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Reply 1

shawn_o1

walk to your nearest sainsbury's, their "basics" range can easily fill you up on that money per week

Reply 2

Zeeiqbal

Live off noodles for some time till you get a job

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Reply 3

IYGB

Original post by beeconcerned

No money for booze
You will not die but you will lose some serious weight

Reply 4

Tsrsarahhhh

First of all with £17 a week you don't have the money to waste on alcohol! I think all supermarkets have a 'basics' range which is really cheap. you can pick some things up for as low as 17p. It probably wont taste the best quality but at least its something. Buy the essentials like rice, pasta, tinned tomatoes, bread, etc from the basics range and then spend the rest on fruits and veggies. Don't waste your money on ready meals. Another tip is to stock up on potatoes! You can buy microwave potatoes cheaply or just buy a massive bag of potatoes and a potato peeler. You can cook them in so many different ways, they're filling and they don't go off quickly. You can watch youtube videos on people who have done the £1 a day challenge and see how they survived. Its doable, you just need to be smart with your money.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 5

The_JoKeR

Just buy cheap groceries. £17 shouldn't be that bad

Reply 6

anonymouspie227

yep thats possible-
before leaving for uni make sure your parents buy you like rice and pasta and tinned tomato and porridge in bulk.
then you can buy frozen vegetables, and milk and fresh veg for cheap until those bases run out

Reply 7

jlp97

To be honest that is going to be really hard to live on so it's good you have applied for some jobs!

Aldi and Lidl have really cheap and good food so if you can shop there, but it will still be tight and there won't be room for many (if any) luxuries and fun social stuff

Have you looked into getting a student bank account with an overdraft? I recommend Santander, 1.5k overdraft and free railcard :smile:

It has saved my life in my first year at uni!

Reply 8

GoingToBurst

Breakfast

A 1.5kg bag of oats costs £1.50 in sainsburys. That is enough for 50 breakfasts (at 30g of oats each). I used to always use almond milk in my oats, but I ran out recently and was too lazy to go to the shop so I just used water and discovered it tastes exactly the same, so don't bother with milk for your oats. A 340g jar of honey in sainsburys is £1.40. Honey never goes off, mix a spoon of honey in with your oats to sweeten them and then top with a banana (usually around 16-18p each depending on where you go). The jar of honey will probably last you 3 weeks-a month depending on how much of it you use. That means that for roughly 7 weeks worth of breakfasts, you only spend around £12.80. That's just a little over £1.80 per week for 7 meals.

Lunch
Prepare your lunch and take it to uni with you rather than buying lunch on campus. Some of my favourite make ahead lunches are leftover stir fry (surprisingly delicious cold the next day), mexican rice and tomatoey tuna pasta. All of these are really cheap to make, I can send you recipes and price breakdowns for these if you want? Sandwiches are also quick and pretty cheap. A good tip for buying bread is to freeze it in sandwich bags, 2 slices per bag. This means that you don't have to eat a whole loaf of bread yourself within the space of a couple of days, and the leftovers won't go off.

Dinner

The lunch meals can obviously be used for dinner too, but I also like to make a big batch of soup so that I can just heat it up and have a hot meal as soon as I'm home from a long day, without having to actually cook. Carrot & sweet potato soup costs around 42p per portion to make and keeps in the fridge for about 3 days or can be frozen. Baked potatoes are good options too, with whatever toppings you like. I'm also a sucker for chicken/fish and vegetables. Really easy to make and really cheap.
I have loads of cheap recipes because I tried to see how much I could save on food whilst still eating relatively healthily a couple of years ago. Obviously I don't always eat simple, cheap recipes, but it's always good to have a list of cheap recipes you can fall back on when you want to save a bit of extra money.

One tip is to get your parents to help you stock up on long-lasting essentials before you go. If your kitchen is short on space, I recommend buying a box you can keep in your room to keep dried herbs/spices in. Get salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, basil, coriander and garlic puree and you're pretty much good to go for adding flavour to your food without costing an arm and a leg. Asda sell herbs and spices for around 70p each, rather than buying the branded ones for almost £2.

Reply 9

Akbar2k7

I spent 4 months living on 8 quid a week as a challenge, its far easier than you think. Just try and keep an eye on protein content its the most expensive nutrient.

Reply 10

Peppercrunch

I won't have any money for the first week I'm there...

Luckily, I have the bank of mum and dad to fall back on.

Reply 11

Helloworld_95

Just get a student account and use your overdraft, your budget averages out to £44pw which is manageable although it would still be recommended to get a part time job.

Reply 12

Pheoa101

can your parents not even give u a fiver a week? that might go a long way

Reply 13

JustGeorgeJ

Original post by beeconcerned

Hello

I can imagine it's a bit of a shock to the system going from £97 a week to £17 - I had a similar situation where I went from £80 to £30 - obviously isn't as serious as your situation but I can understand how you have to adjust your life style.

I'd suggest shopping around - there is a website called 'MySupermarket' and you can compare prices of loads of different shops so that should help you.
Plan in advance and shop cheap!

Best of luck! :biggrin:

Reply 14

exitopp

£17 a week - are you paying rent with that as well? do u live alone / with your parents?

but if ur spending £17 only on food yes you can survive.

99p deals
£1 deals at tesco
sainsburys basics
street food
ethnic stores

Reply 15

Pato1

Lol you better get a job asap

Reply 16

maggt

Ok I know a lot of people replied and said it'll be really hard but I don't think it will be.

Depends where you are I think, I imagine if you're in central london it'll be tough, anywhere else and I think you'll be ok.

Just graduated and had a habit of spending majority of my loan instalments on holidays/laptop/driving lesson/pointless crap but mostly holidays, and I'd have less than £20 per week for most of my uni duration haha. It's honestly not too bad! If you go Iceland/Aldi you can do a weekly shop for about £10 easy! If you go halves with someone on a bottle of booze (e.g. tesco value, you're a student, there's no shame in that anymore) that'll be like £5 each. DRINK LOADS BEFORE YOU GO OUT. So you have food, half a bottle of vodka and still some change left for entry.

Don't worry about it, part of being a student is worrying about money. Just be glad it's only for a little while and then you'll have more money :smile:

Reply 17

Convex

I can live off £5 a week confortable.

As long as you have a source of water (tap), 2kg of rice (£3), and sauce (£2), then you're fine. You can't even eat that much rice anyway.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 18

beautifulbigmacs

Look online for the following food companies:

Approved Food
Best Before It's Gone

you can get loads from them on a tight budget (even with delivery costs factored in). It's mostly cupboard foods but for fresh food the reduced sections of supermarkets can cover that :smile:

Wishing you well.*

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 19

Kozmo

Original post by Convex

I can live off £5 a week confortable.

As long as you have a source of water (tap), 2kg of rice (£3), and sauce (£2), then you're fine. You can't even eat that much rice anyway.