I'm thinking this (and everybody pile in, if I'm being way out of line and irresponsible here): once you decide that you are going to probably bugger up your future credit rating (and in the future this is actually something that is often fixable - you sort of build it up again), surely once a person has made that decision, shouldn't they max out as much as they can on their credit card / overdraft?
It would seem logical.
Here's my (twisted) reasoning:
If you're going to affect your credit rating by defaulting on, say, £750 (or agreeing to pay it back in installments), then why not affect it by doing the same with £1,500 / £2,000?
Surely the "points" you get knocked down by are the same?
I would imagine that the "points" you get knocked down by are the same if it's £1,000 or £3,000.
Perhaps somebody could put me right on this...
Bankfodder, Rebel11 CitizenB and thorntondog et al above have all come up with suggestions better than this anyway, so please don't take this advice!
Another thing I'd say in this situation is to buy food sensibly. For example, there was a terrible advert for KFC once that said, "I can feed the whole family for £9.99!", (Which brought to mind the Jack Dee quote: "What kind of family eats out of a bucket?") - and I remember thinking, "£9.99? I could feed a family for 4 days on £9.99!"
If you buy vegetables in a market they're much cheaper than the supermarket. And pasta goes a long way. If you buy cheese, buy strong cheddar. Stronger = use less.
Right. This may seem flippant, but it's not - here's a recipe.
Use a big saucepan like a cast-iron Le Creuset one (there are cheap versions around). If you haven't got one, just a big pan.
Get a tin of anchovies in oil. Fry a couple of onions and half a clove of garlic in the oil from the tin. Throw in some chopped dried herbs if you have them. Roughly chop up the anchovies, put them in. See, anchovies are packed with flavour. They don't really taste fishy once they've sort of melted into the onions and garlic. So you have these onions and garlic and anchovies that are packed with flavour.
Right.
Add two cheap tins of chopped tomatoes.
Swill some water into each tin to get all the tomato out, and add the water (a fifth of each tin) to the sauce.
Add some salt and pepper.
Cook for around 10 minutes.
Cook some spaghetti (cook it in water already boiled from the kettle). If the packet says 10 minutes, cook it for 9 1/2 minutes.
Strain the spaghetti with cold water (stops it cooking, washes off the starch)
Now get the cooked sauce, and put most of it in a bowl. Just leave enough in the pan for one serving.
Add just enough spaghetti to the sauce to serve one.
Heat it up a little, stirring.
Let the rest cool down in the bowls before refrigerating.
There ya go.
Much better, more grown-up than bottled ragu sauces, and actually cheaper:
Tomorrow, heat up just enough to feed you.
The next day, heat up just enough to feed you.
You can get the "basics" range in supermarkets for tinned tomatoes (chopped or plum tomatoes, makes no difference as you can roughly chop / mash the plum tomatoes in the pan).
Buy "basics" garlic, and buy a whole bunch of onions in the market or where ever.
Get some multivitamins while you're in the supermarket... ; )
Buy spaghetti (or penne etc.) in large 1 kilo / 2 kilo amounts.
The only expensive thing is the anchovies - they can cost around 80 / 90p. You can also add a tin of sardines too. Any old cheap red wine knocking around? Add half a glass of that. If you want, add more tomatoes - even a fresh, finely chopped one if you have it.
I lived in Italy, and this kind of thing is eaten over there all the time.
It's cheap, probably lasts three days in the fridge (so four servings) and if you have people over, it's quite a cool thing to cook. If you're feeling flush, grate some goddamn cheese into it before serving.
Good luck out there.