How did you “Eke out” back in the day when hard up?

Dumpster diving.

Well done for giving up smoking Cumbrianmale56.
I’ve never smoked, but I’ve watched others struggles and it’s not easy.

The biggest saving I ever made was to stop smoking. I used to wonder where a lot of my money went, and I realised when I stopped smoking, how much I could save. Also more or less cutting out going to the pub has been a big saver for me. I can buy three bottles of imported lager in Tesco for £6, three pints in a pub would cost £13.

Patsy70

I quite enjoy using up whatever I have left in the ‘fridge/freezer before the next shop, to make a tasty meal. It’s really not difficult if you have the basic ingredients with herbs, spices etc. and the cupboard essentials - pasta, rice.

This ^^

i think you also need the skill or experience or confidence to be able to do that.
not everyone is in that position.

Patsy70

I quite enjoy using up whatever I have left in the ‘fridge/freezer before the next shop, to make a tasty meal. It’s really not difficult if you have the basic ingredients with herbs, spices etc. and the cupboard essentials - pasta, rice.

Me too. I particularly enjoyed it during the beginning of the first lockdown, when supermarket shelves were often bare. I used up quite a few packets of this and that with ‘interesting’ use by dates!

I quite enjoy using up whatever I have left in the ‘fridge/freezer before the next shop, to make a tasty meal. It’s really not difficult if you have the basic ingredients with herbs, spices etc. and the cupboard essentials - pasta, rice.

What do you mean” back in the day”? I am still doing it!

I still eke out minced beef for any dish with red lentils and plenty of finely chopped veg, but it’s no longer down to skint-ness.

Sarahr Many many people are still managing not just in the situation you were in but in many other situations where there incomes are so small that they and their families are living in charity.

We had a lot of veggies, not so much meat. Also a lot of pasta. When we first arrived inAustralia, early 70s, we absolutely went nuts because first grade fillet steak was really cheap then and I could never afford it in England. Not the case now, sadly. We seem to be going back to the high cost of food , life is circular. Briefly, because of difficulties with the Chinese export market, we were flooded with local lobsters. 🦞 How good was that ? Only lasted a few months of course

My slow cooker seemed to large after the first one I had but it's fine.
I often cook enough for eating for one meal, freezing for two more

I havent advanced to a Ninja yet!

Thank you Calli. I do have a slow cooker. It is in packing case somewhere!! Unlabelled by the removal people! Where is it?

My Crockpot died a death, so I bought a new slow cooker last year. Made a BIG mistake. It is far too large. I am still totally unable to have a mental image of metric measurements. It is one of those blocks. I shall have to sell it. However, my (as yet unused Ninja) has a slow cooker incorporated, as well as a pressure cooker!! Really must get my act together!!

I've always loved cooking from first vesta meals, (so exotic and very much a treat), so at uni I always cooked for, usually, the lads who hadn't a clue and they shared the cost of my meal. When we moved out of school accommodation into our own house, went part-time just as interest rates absolutely soared in 1988, we ate everything with vast amounts of carrot grated into it 🤣. Mince is a gift for carrying flavours and spice. Make things really hot, you just need a little with a mountain of rice 🤗. Lentils ♥️ Having more money nowadays we appreciate a lot being comparatively flush and still couldn't countenance buying coffee to take out for £s haha but our dds are very different, it's part of their culture/lifestyle.

2016. Had sepsis, 6 weeks in hospital, then discharged home to a very cold house, loss of income as not able to work. I was lucky that a lovely kind lady, who I had only met once, cooked me enough meals for a fortnight. After that I shopped wisely, buying mark-downs, cooking several days meals in one go; lucky I don't mind shepherd's pie 4 days in a row... I didn't put lights on unless I really had to, wrapped up in extra layers and a blanket to keep warm. No TV, read books by the window to get the daylight. It was an interesting time, but I got through that bad patch.
Unfortunately, many people nowadays wouldn't be able to manage in the same situation.

MaggsMcG

Maybe we should show these to the young families of today. They are so sure we've never had any hardship. They don't believe us. I even remember my own Mum having to be careful. That would have been 50-60s. I was lucky as an only child we were a little bit better off than some of my friend families.

Nothing I've read here is any different to the families i know today.

They, and I, have done exactly the same over the years.

We have my DHs first married pay packet. £8 a week. Even so, with a baby who came quite quickly, we managed. Andwewere very happy.

Maybe we should show these to the young families of today. They are so sure we've never had any hardship. They don't believe us. I even remember my own Mum having to be careful. That would have been 50-60s. I was lucky as an only child we were a little bit better off than some of my friend families.

We used to eat all the cheaper things. My Mum used to have us to dinner a couple of times a week. We had no car and no telephone. We were very lucky that we lived in a tied house. Tied to my husbands work. So rent was super low.

Harmonypuss

I can't go back 50,60 or even 70 years, but when I married in the late 80s, we had a high cost mortgage and sadly very low wages. I would add baked beans and chopped tinned tomatoes to minced beef to stretch it further, making 1lb (or today's 500g) of mince stretch to 4 (sometimes 5) meals (8-10 servings).
I still do this today but now as in a tin of chickpeas too, which can stretch that same 500g of mince to 10/12 servings, the majority of which get frozen for use at some later date.

And all that time you were actually making it healthier Harmonypuss.

£100 per month to feed and clothe and provide cleaning materials etc for a family of 4 in 1986 meant that I wore blinkers in the supermarket, simply avoiding any aisles which contained unnecessary items like chocolate biscuits, sweet cereals or fizzy drinks. I baked and cooked everything from scratch. The children wore clothes given to them and charity shop items. I knit for them and also for my daughter’s dolls, which had been mine. It was hard at the time, because all around me other families lived easier lives financially; however, looking back those days seem like good times!

We married in 1965. Heys and was newly graduated and joined the RAF. We had to buy him some decent clothes. It was fortunate that I had managed to save some money while living at home (and paying my keep) to pay for these items. We lived in rented accommodation not much better than rural slums. Cooking was on a baby belling with a pressure cooker bought from a club at two shillings a week. Rent was seven pounds each week and electricity was bought from the landlord. I am sure he set the rate himself.
Because DH was under 25 we had to manage on a single man’s pay. Food was mainly shin of beef stew or breast of lamb stew. Later brisket (delicious cooked in the pressure cooker).
We were forty before buying our first house. Trying to save the deposit while paying increasing amounts of rent for married quarters.
Eldest son bought me a modern electric pressure cooker a few years ago because he said he remembers most of our food coming from a pressure cooker. It didn’t last long as the digital lights stopped working.
Life is much easier these days but I still cook cheap cuts of meat.

Greyduster

One thing I used to cook when things were tight that I learned from my mother were slow cooked beef short ribs which were as cheap as chips. Cooked in a covered casserole with vegetables they were delicious. I still cook them but they are for high days and holidays. You need to take out a second mortgage to buy them now since they were popularised by certain celebrity chefs.

Love that we still use ‘cheap as chips’ when they are a bit of a luxury now. The local chippy charges £5 a portion where my daughter lives (midlands), ours charge £4. Takeaway fish and chips for us and one grandchild was £42 recently. I digress, our real treat when first married was chips and curry sauce from the local takeaway in the 70s. It cost 36p for both of us, two portions of chips at 8p each and two pots of curry sauce for 10p each. We couldn’t afford it every week mind. We were saving for our deposit like crazy and to reach our goal by the time the house was available (new build) I had £2 a week for food shopping, not a penny more. We ate quite well though, having a chicken that made three days’ meals plus soup. Roast dinner with the two breasts, cold with jacket spuds the next day, then my mother in law showed me how to scrape the carcass and make delicious chicken rissoles with the leftover mash and onion. Macaroni cheese was a weekly meal, I think cheese was reasonable. Ate a lot of tinned peas. I really thought we’d made it when we could have frozen garden peas. Happy days.

I can.remember dividing out the sticks of spaghetti into probably 4, for 4 days and then 4 pairs of eyes looking at me expectantly and having to say there isn't any more. A period that didn't last long, fortunately.

Yes when first married,still do! Buy a whole chicken...roast dinnerMade a fab meal with left over chicken 1 tin Campbells mushroom soup, sliced onions, sweetcorn, 1/2 tin of pineapple mixed chicken in and served wth white boiled rice. Bones got boiled for stock to make soup. Like wise with mince or stew all eeked out!