Live on £4000 for a year - Part 3

sophiesmum_2

Marru if you lived nearer i would take you up on the PAT dog offer I think it is a great scheme but none near here.You could come every Friday or Sunday around tea time;) When we first moved here we had our big house rabbit who was fed that much salad stuff by the oldies he was ginormous, he wasn't much into being handled though although he did come when you called him, and was litter trained.

Well I have been to town and spent £100 of my vouchers, got couple pairs work pants, pair casual pants, four t-shirts, two shirts for work and a pair of shoes for work. Most of stuff was in sales - winter stuff coming into shops now:eek: I also bought a couple of bits in pound shop including a pack of 2 enamel pie plates,spent £3. They have some interesting stuff in there like packs of silver survival blankets, and emergency candle sets,first aid, LED torches, little radios etc.I may make up a survival pack for emergencies could be very useful to have that sort of stuff stored together if you ever needed it.:p Sorry can't help it I have a brain that likes things to be organised
Went to boots and stocked up but didn't have to use points as found a pigsback boots voucher I hadn't used managed to also get some extra points too as I also had a double points voucher:D .Oh and i picked up some yoghurt covered cranberries and raspberries instead of chocs to take to cinema tonight, so spent £1.40 at health food shop too.
Then I met two of oldies in town and offered them a lift home which ended up being a good move as one had her blue badge with her and I didn't have to pay in car park:T :T .Total spend in town £4.40 actual money.:j
When I got back was met by one of my men oldies who has been fishing in lake district and had brought me back two lovely big trout, so will be having them for tea tonight :T think I will bake them in oven with mushrooms and almonds, then have with lots of veggies.:D

Off now to visit parents and clean house, see you later:D

Frugaldom

whitewing wrote: »

sophiesmum, Nyk and I can be an 'oldie-on-a-job-share'. We're old enough between us.

Whitewing! You are so much younger than I thought! Are your REALLY only 17? :rotfl: :rotfl: Of course not, I know we are both 30.

Sophiesmum, re the deodorant, might I suggest one of the natural rock salt ones? Mine cost around £5 including P&P, bought last December during Christmas shopping, and I am nowhere near halfway through it. They can last a year+. I can personally recommend them, even during the hottest days so far, this year, whilst toiling in the garden. A great saving over the year.

I've been on a frugal Christmas Shopping expedition! If anyone wants to checkout the Woolies clearout sale online, the code WWCLEAROUT (Ends midnight 22nd July) works fine, I used it last night (via cashback site and paid with a cashback credit card! :cool: ). Items are selling out fast but I was quite lucky. It's also FREE DELIVERY! :j :T

Back soon, DS is in the kitchen making crepes for everyone because there's no bread ready for sannies :rotfl: Wonder what fruit I can fit on them as part of the 5-a-day?

Brighton_belle

Thank you so much sofies mum! They are brilliant ideas:j . Will let you know how I get on (really fancy the wrap but need to get mince first)

Marru

My favourite food as child was this (but it is quite laborous):

Boil cabbage, boil rice, grate carrots and brown mince. Mix them all in a owen proof dish and pour in some stock and cook. Everything was precooked so just need to be long enough for the stock to get soaked in and the top to brown. I loved this served with red whortleberry picle/jam (?) so I assume that cranberries would go well with it.

Licious as my DD says.

Marru

PS Got shoes, walked dog, did shopping, have put some washing on and am pretty much finished.
PS 2 Oh I loved those cabbage rolls filled with mince as well...:p

Frugaldom

Bubble & Squeak (frugal style cutlets).

Boiled potatoes mashed and mixed with boiled chopped cabbage, seasoned to suit your taste and fried with onions. I like this with chopped bacon through it. If you make a batch of it then shape it into cutlets you can fry them in breadcrumbs and serve with more veggies or salad etc. The rest can safely be frozen and then bagged up for future meals.

(Can you tell that I'm now well into my veggie cutlets? :rotfl: )

Edited in: Perhaps it's the novelty of the orange breadcrumbs that's doing it! DGD was here all day yesterday and I had slices of turkey ham defrosted that had to be used up. I rolled them up with fresh picked salad leaves and served them with hm pineapple fritters done in breadcrumbs.

I still haven't baked today's bread - going to try Weezl's 'no need to knead' recipe, I just hope it works with dried packet yeast as this is all I can get. There are no supermarkets in my area that have bakeries offering free yeast

nevadagirl

Hello everyone!

Just popping in between listing things on eBay - I finally get a weekend where I have nothing to do but laze during the daytime and get caught up with friends in the evening and I can't help but try and make more money!

A friend called me from town to say that Debenhams had bagged up all their samples/gift with purchase sets and were selling them off at £2 for a lucky bag. So I raced into the city centre and picked up 3. Then I had a brainwave about something that might be selling well on eBay and selling out in stores in England. I was right and managed to nip to the shop where they sell this mystery item (PM me if you want to know what) and I've just made quite a bit selling them as a buy it now. The staff at the shop looked a bit bemused and I didn't explain - mwah ha ha ha - I may well be back tomorrow. I have never had anything sell within an hour of listing and it's a bit of a buzz.

We are off out for tapas on Mr T tonight and I will pop back as soon as I can to update you on how I'm doing on the challenge so far. It has certainly showed me where we should be cutting back, but also that most of my spends and DDs end up being neutralised by my various part time activities - fantastic news.

Hope everyone else is having a lovely weekend - it's great not to have an essay due or a job application to fill in or a craft fair deadline to work to for once. :T

sophiesmum_2

Nyk - I keep thinking about trying those rock deodorants but never pluck up the courage. I use roll on anti perspirants, haven't used any aerosols for years of any kind. I am definately thinking about trying one of those but have always been sceptical that they would be okay as I can get really sticky especially when gardening and cooking . The deodorants are for me and DD, OH is very strange and never sweats at all:rolleyes: . Don't know if I will be able to get DD to try it though:D

Done all my jobs for today now, trout is cooking in oven as I type so have a little time to catch up on here, then off out at 6:30 to cinema. £6 for ticket but I will be taking my own goodies;) when i get back I may have a bottle of wine with OH from my bottle stash, I feel like really chilling out tonight:cheesy: .

Frugaldom

The notion that I may not be providing a scientifically balanced diet for all of us here has been playing on my mind (as you all know) and I need to get that balance right to fit in with 3 very different lifestyles. I have been studying the nutrition websites and making a list of what I SHOULD be including every week to ensure that everyone gets their 5-a-day part of the diet. I'm not sure it can be done on a frugal budget, though! The following is what I came up with just to feed 3 adults 5-a-day for a week, keeping in mind that everyone here loves bananas.

3 cartons of fresh orange juice
21 bananas
12 apples
1 cup raisins
480g carrots
480g onions
3 mixed peppers
1 tin sweetcorn
1 tin peas
3 tins baked beans
1 tin tomatoes
1 tin tomato puree
2 tins mixed fruit
Lettuce
3 large tomatoes
1/2 cucumber
1 cauliflower
200g frozen mixed vegetables
1 head of brocolli
160g mushrooms

On top of the above, I need meat, dairy, bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, flour, sugar and whatever other ingredients are required for baking, puddings and desserts. We use very little meat, it usually amounts to one medium chicken plus any combination of mince, pork or ham and white fish. I am the only person who eats tuna.

I have a store cupboard filled with enough washing up liquid, toiletries, tins and dry foodstuffs to last until year end (as per Sophiesmum's mini-challenge), so it's only the fresh produce I need to buy each week. For that, I had allocated £10. I am not sure it can be done! It's all very well if you have mainstream supermarkets nearby but we don't. For a start, where Mr A sells 1.5kg of bananas for 97p, ours cost £1.49 for a pack of 7 - that's £4.47 PER WEEK JUST ON BANANAS! :eek: How can it be done?

[skulks off to make the bread and cook a heap of cheap veggies to hide in a curry ]

whitewing

BB - when buying stardrops at Asda, you need to look down on the very bottom shelf! They don't make it easy for frugallers.

DdraigGoch

If I could find Stardrops around here, I'd buy them too!

Re the cabbage, firstly cut out a quarter of it and then take out the thick stalk and put on one side. Shred the remaining cabbage very finely and dump into v cold water, ignore for a while! Just before you want to eat it, melt about a tablespoon [for a family of 4, a teaspoon for just you] of butter in the bottom of a saucepan which has a well sealing lid, drain the cabbage well and then bung it in, put the lid on tightly and just let it simmer very gently for about 5 minutes, shaking now & then to ensure nothing sticks on the bottom or "fries" in the butter. Result? The tastiest vegetable you can get in under 10 minutes, in my book. Courtesy of my late and lamented dear Mother in Law who taught me to love cabbage. I too hated the stuff, had it boiled to death on a regular basis and my Mum never cooked it at home, so had no idea it was so gorgeous when you get it right. It can be a bit al dente [how I like it] or completely cooked through [how MiL did it] - lovely both ways


Oooops! I do sound a bit enthusiastic, don't I? Ah well, hopefully one more cabbage convert!

For the rest of the cabbage - either keep cooking it as above, or use it finely shredded in stir fries, make a coleslaw with it [can you tell I'm drooling now!], use the leaves to wrap mince/veg mix and steam or cook as above, iron them and wrap around an ache or a bruise [works wonders, don't understand why!], eat raw - finely chopped with finely sliced raw onion, drenched in vinegar - a particular favourite of one of my Aunts. I disliked it, but you can always try it with just a couple of slices of onion and a bit of cabbage - perhaps try mayonnaise/French Dressing/oil & balsamic. I take it you don't need inspiration for the satsumas!
Though an idea would be to make a Tarte Tatin with a mix of apples and segmeneted satsumas, with a little satsuma rind grated into both the pastry and the sugar!

I'll stop now - getting hungry!