Live on £4000 for a year - Part 3

Brighton_belle

Janey51 wrote: »

BB please give feedback on the Remoska as I am dithering. The money I get for some of DH's tools will more than cover the cost but it's a big outlay if it's going to end up snuggled next to the Foreman grill in the recesses of my kitchen cupboard.

Will do Janey - just to warn you (and add to the pressure) the price goes up £10 from the 1 Sept. In fact it has already gone up, but they will honor the 'old' price if you phone and tell them you are ordering from the summer catelogue 'out of the kitchen' valid unitl 31st August(which I was anyway as I'm on their mailing list). There is a remoska forum which may help if you want to find out more in the short term

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=13631435&posted=1#post13631435

My biggest dither has been whether to order the standard or grand. The standard is only 8.25 " diametre (3 "deep) which seemed small to me for any bulk cooking for two, but of course does use less watts (470 vs 650).
Plumbed for the grand in the end after reading others comments on this dilemma on that forum. I think we have big appetites and I like to bulk cook when possible.
I'll certainly let you know how I get on. I am quite confident I will use this a lot. I don't like my oven at all and this will be much cheaper. But as you say, you've still got to find the money in the first place.

Nyk, I am relieved to hear things aren't quite as bad chez frugal as I had come to believe:D .
Had a brilliant day so far. 2 cakes cooked and in freezer for weekend do. Kitchen blizted and sanitized before return of lodgers from hols tomorrow;washing done; evening meal prepped; peppers (50,000) all roasted and in freezer. Relived from new non dither status now remoska decision taken. Just need to clean bathroom and clutter clear from our bedsit - the creep of colonising carp .

bails

Ooh BB, living the remoska dream! :rotfl:Now I'm sorely tempted to scoot over to that thread and see if I can justify one for myself in the name of saving energy I cook on gas, would this really save me money? I'm almost sold just on the jacket potato front, perhaps I should find out what else I can do with it or they'll be mighty expensive baked potatoes
Thanks for the explanantion Whitewing, it was lovely and very helpful. OH still has the I do/I don't believe in marriage quandry, so until that is resolved there definitely won't be any wedding bells here soon, if at all.
£67.05 still sounds amazing to me Nyk, I can't seem to get a handle on reducing mine significantly, despite having lots of food in :rolleyes: I guess this month has seen unexpected extras due to 'workmen' and those odd bits get a few more odd bits added to them. I'll get there eventually. Any ideas for elderberries anyone?
Janey, I have visions of the mole and squirrel with frozen expressions of shock on their faces...:rotfl:

sophiesmum_2

Whitewing - lovely post, you sound really happy with life at the moment:grinheart

Nyk - the storecupboard challenge is going really well, we are having at least five a day each day and making use of the stuff from the garden as much as possible. This weekend I have spent £7.00 on 5 dozen eggs, mushrooms, onions, and some bananas, which leaves me with £50.02 in my contingency fund. Sometime over the next few days I will be batch cooking quiches, and custard tarts for the freezer, and freezing some beaten eggs for cooking.
Eating with oldies twice a week is stretching stocks lots, plus I do not have the issues of fussy eaters that you have. I have now run out of pure OJ but still have some other fruit juices and tomato juices to use up so will not be replacing the OJ just yet.

Last night I cooked 6lbs of tomatoes, 6 onions and 4 of mums HG courgettes , added garlic puree,paprika, basil,and three packs of dried soya mince from stores to make a big batch of pasta sauce. Separated some and added HG chilli that I dried last year, and two tins SP kidney beans to make 10 portions of chilli mince which OH takes to work with our HG (jacket)potatoes.
Have also been cooking and freezing the runner beans in bags containing enough for one meal for us all.
Have just picked my first handful of chillies from greenhouse, peppers are not ready yet, but more cucumbers also nearly ready,and carrots. Going to leave leeks longer yet.

I have been making notes of the weights of produce I have had from my crops so I can assess what is worth growing again next year, the basket cherry toms are winners so far with 18.5lbs yield so far to date:j (12 plants in 6 baskets)Greenhouse toms - moneymaker ,gardeners delight, and Ailsa Craig have yielded 17lbs of toms from 9 plants and still have three left not yet picked:D , Runner beans still going strong and have had almost 7lbs of beans so far from 20 plants in 5 pots.Salad leaves have been cropping indoors all summer,radishes also quick growing in troughs, Strawberries have had about 6lbs of strawberries, probably more as many never made it to scales:o Courgettes have not done well, probably won't bother next year. Potatoes in buckets are yielding around 4-5lb per bucket:D and there are two growing out of compost bin too:rotfl: onions,beetroots,leeks,carrots are slow growing:rolleyes: Rhubarb has produced around 7lbs so far from 4 crowns, Gooseberries around 2lbs, blackcurrants only about 1 lb , rogue blackberry bush has produced around 4lbs so far, and baby apple tree about 3lbs.
All produce has been used to bulk out stores and be made into edibles;) Now have jams, chutneys, sauces galore in pantry, and crumbles, pies,sauces, veggies,stacked in freezers:T

Oops have gone on a bit Sorry but just so chuffed with veggies this year:j

taka

bails wrote: »

Janey, I have visions of the mole and squirrel with frozen expressions of shock on their faces...:rotfl:

Frozen literally by the sounds of it :eek: :rotfl: Do you have an entire zoo in your freezer Janey?? :rolleyes: Makes my misc veg /bread etc seem very boring :rotfl:

taka

Wow sophiesmum... thats a lot of veg!! Well done!

Frugaldom

Sophiesmum, Wow! What a saving with the veggies & fruit! I estimated that each potato yielded at least a kilo of new potatoes, so we should have enough here to last until the end of the year, especially if I keep making fishcakes, croquettes and cutlets then freezing them. Apples will be the next best thing but I'll really need to have a peeling/chopping/stewing blitz to get them all frozen as there are hundreds of them. There's a possibility that the beetroot is gtowing as it should but the brocolli, carrots and cauliflower have all been a waste of space for one reason or another! (Mainly pests in the garden, from snails to cats.) Tomatoes not ripening but going to try wrapping them and storing in a container to see if it helps. Big Jim has plenty of peppers on him, but not nearly ready. The other pepper plants are just beginning to flower, as are most of the cherry tomoatoes! How slow are they?! Must update frugal webpages soon but there just hasn't been anything to write about. A~part from leeks, these are doing well.

Can I just chop and freeze leeks straight into bags?

System

bails wrote: »

Is JumbleBee still out there?

:hello: I am still bobbing about!

i've not been on as much as I have sore-arm-itus & 'jordanitus' - I have been going on other internet forums cos I have a rare type of tumour on my finger - virtually always benign, but 50:50 that it will be a bad type that keeps on growing back over and over, which would suck also it is atypical but my doctor won't tell me in what way it is atypical, as i would 'just worry myself looking stuff up on the internet'!

i like to call it 'jordanitus' cos my GP kept sending me away saying it was nothing/that he couldn't even feel a lump, but I kept on going back in cos i was worried cos jordan once had a rare type of cancer on her finger!

i am having an operation to remove it next wed, so might not be on for a while as i will be a one-armed bandit. I was talking online to someone who had had the same thing, she said the worst thing about the operation was that for a few weeks after you cant pull your knickers up after you have been to the toilet!

i 'practiced' this the other day, and i can confirm that yes, it is ridiculously difficult! (i challenge you all to pull your knickers up with only your non-dominant hand next time you go for a wee, you will see what i mean!) :rotfl:

anyhoo, rant over!

nyk i am very impressed at the free bathroom! I was excited just to find a toilet roll stand next to the bins!

and Janey - whats with the squirrel? I know a terrible story, one of my workmates used to live with a girl with a pet rat, then when it died she put it in the freezer!!! and then moved out and left it there!!! and my workmate forgot it was there and moved out too, then had to go back a few weeks later to pick up mail and the freezer had got defrosted.... but he just left it for the new tennants to find :eek:

Frugaldom

Jumble-Bee, I hope everything works out OK with the op and that you aren't in too much discomfort from it! Re the one-armed bandit scenario - have you considered a nice heavy skirt and forget the undies for a while? If it's good enough for a Scottish wedding ... :rotfl: Just don't get involved in any 21 bum salutes and gauge the weight of the cloth by the wind strength. (Of the weather variety!!) :eek:

PS: The above is not meant as a derogatory comment against the Scots - I am a frugal Scot, I'm being serious with my suggestions.

bails

Sorry Jumblebee I was reading thinking you were joking in some way until I realised it was actually serious :eek: Hope it goes ok and you don't have the growy back type. [I can also vouch for the pulling your knicks up with one hand is tricky story:D]
Great work on the fruit and veg Sophiesmum, good to know what you and Nyk think is worth growing and what isn't. I'm already looking forward to better yields next year, although my stuff is so far behind it'll probably be 2009 before it's ready :rotfl:

System

:eek: i think i will just take 10 minutes each time i go to the otilet, rather than risk being a one-armed flasher!