50p a day til Christmas - healthily?! Weezl's next challenge...

moanymoany

loumac wrote: »

Hello all

Thank you so much for all your inspiration and ideas. We are off to New Zealand at Christmas and I think by re-looking at our shopping bills could make a hige difference to our spending money!

Thanks again. Back to page 11 and will try and check in more regularly.

This is the central message from 'The Tightwad Gazette' - by being super frugal you free up money for the things you really want to spend money on.

Yesterday I went our for a day with my daughter - my treat. It was lovely to have lunch out and to look round the local stately home and not have to think about scrimping.

Enjoy your holiday in NZ. Lovely place.

naturally_2

Forgot to say, Weezl please, PLEASE do contact the beeb or itv or whoever it was and let them know about your challenge - all you'd need was a quick note and a link to here and your blog. It would be a bit of a wake-up call for them!

carriebradshaw, I stropped about the price of lentils recently, too. My local greengrocers is much cheaper than tesco, 2 x 500g bags for £1 rather than 89p for 1 x 500g bag at Mr T. Have you got a chinese or ethnic type shop or supermarket within reach? Would be worth going there to stock up on lentils, rice and herbs if you use enough of them.

munchki

Good Morning everyone! Just had a quick catch up of everything I have been missing the past few days.

I have a quick question if I may. I have some plums here that I want to turn into jam, however I only have jam sugar and refuse to go out and buy any other kind if at all possible as I have 3 bags of the jam sugar. Anyone know if this will work ok

Thank you
Kath xx

2cats1kid

Should be fine. Plums don't need any more pectin, I don't think, so you might get quite a firm set, but I prefer that personally anyway.

MRSMCAWBER

Afternoon all

Well im such a happy bunny..after all the tales of blackberrying on here... i was grumping to hubby that his golf course (cut out of a wood) has NO blackberries to be seen :mad: .... hubby admitted that in all the years he had been in Germany he had never noticed any.... well -blow me down if hubby doesn't screech to a halt and start reversing... he spotted some :j .. he then sat in the car shaking is head at me as i leapt out and bounded through the veggitation like a puppy -to check them out :rotfl: -*note to self*-next time don't do it in 3/4 trousers and sandals -as i also found lots of the now famous "nettles" well they found me :eek: .... so Satuday we are off back -dressed for the occasion to collect what i can.. then just like buses-we turned into the NAFFI carpark and there were more :j -just not ready yet -so hopefully i will get some in a few weeks too :dance: .... Now i feel like part of the "in crowd" :rotfl:
Anyway in the NAFFI i picked up

• 2 kilo baby bananas
• 4x 1lb soya marge (suitable for baking)
• 1lb organic butter
• 3 blocks leicester cheese
• 6 x 500g extra mature cheddar

all for € 18.50 -about £15 -saving €51.34 :j ... the cheddar alone should be approx €8 each :eek: ...i allready have 12 blocks of cheddar (got when on half price promotion)... but hubby loves his cheese -and now we have enough cheeses, butter and spread to last past xmas :j
I find that the more time i spend reading this thread the more obsessed im getting with saving those pennies...so thankyou one and all :T

munchki

2cats1kid wrote: »

Should be fine. Plums don't need any more pectin, I don't think, so you might get quite a firm set, but I prefer that personally anyway.

Thank you very much for that. I thought it would probably be ok, but had never tried it with jam sugar so wanted to know if anyone had thoughts.

I wonder if I maybe just cook it a bit less if that will maybe give me a slightly softer set. think I shall have to experiment later today.

Thank you ever so much once again!!:j

moneydribbler

Just a flyby today - I've been reading but soooo busy right now .

MrsMcawber, I keep seeing you talking about freezing butter, how does that work out? do you just stick it in the freezer and then defrost in the fridge?

weezl74

carriebradshaw wrote: »

hi weezl, :wave:

I know just what you mean about those cookery programmes they make me so mad I can't watch them,they haven't a clue about costing things like that because they don't have to! Why don't they realise that storecupboard ingredients don't just magically appear,you still have to pay for them :rolleyes: So unrealistic for the rest of us that do.

anyway I think you should up your daily budget bit really to at least 60p each,things have gone up so much these past few months especially daily basics like milk and nobody wants you two to starve.

I started doing my shopping list up using Tesco site as a guide last night and was gobsmacked at price of lentils,6 weeks a 2kg bag was £2.18 now it's listed as £3.47,that's a big hike up isn't it?

Hi everyone, and hi Carrie,

That is a scary increase! Wish I'd stockpiled lentils now.... D'oh!

You might find these help if you use a lot of lentils, at asda you pay £6.67, the one you looked at in Tesco was equivalent to £8.67 for the same weight of lentils. This price has also increased recently, but still a better buy! Have you got an asda near you?



Ceridwen, lol, nope, never quite masterd the art of moderation myself. Wish there'd been lessons on it at school! I hope noone particularly loves woodchip, but I am very glad to be seeing the back of it!:T:T

MrsMacawber, hiya nice to 'see' you again. Hope your time in the Uk was all you needed/wanted it to be under the circumstances. A virtual hug for you m'dear! Erm, and if you do end up letting me and ceridwen [STRIKE]bully[/STRIKE] persuade you into a bit of blogging, i'd love it to contain more thoughts about how you organise your veg planting- very inspiring stuff! Or if that feels too techno, what about a thread called 'MrsMacawbers kitchen garden diary, a planner wit tips and recipes' or sommat?!

I'd be queueing up for a look-see!

love to you all.

Weezl x

P.s ISOM, you've gone a bit quiet! You ok me lovely? Or just having lots of fun in that there 'real life'?! x

carriebradshaw

naturally wrote: »

carriebradshaw, I stropped about the price of lentils recently, too. My local greengrocers is much cheaper than tesco, 2 x 500g bags for £1 rather than 89p for 1 x 500g bag at Mr T. Have you got a chinese or ethnic type shop or supermarket within reach? Would be worth going there to stock up on lentils, rice and herbs if you use enough of them.

no nothing like that near me sadly

weezl there's no asda for over hundred miles either

I can swap some of the lentils I use for split peas in soups etc as they're cheaper atm 68p for 500g compared to lentils which are 99p 500g so that will help a bit, but even so they used to be 44p for same size :eek:

anyone know how much they are in lidl?

Money_saving_Diva_2

moneydribbler wrote: »

Just a flyby today - I've been reading but soooo busy right now .

MrsMcawber, I keep seeing you talking about freezing butter, how does that work out? do you just stick it in the freezer and then defrost in the fridge?

I know I am not MrsM, but I too freeze butter and yes, it goes in as it is and I defost out in the kitchen usually, and I can't tell any difference in taste of texture. Hope that helps.

Anyway, I wanted to say that years ago I was following Weightwatchers (back when it was protein and carbs and fat they counted, not points). I bought a recipe book from them and in most of the recipes for spaghetti bolognaise or cottage pie etc, they always added grated carrots and grated celery to bulk out the meat. We still do this to this day and you cannot taste the extra veg at all!

Nice to 'read' Weezl is OK, and yes every time I watch the daily cooks challenge I laugh at the chefs comments - yesterday the guest they had on (Brian Blessed) said you couldn't even make breakfast for the £1 budget they had! How little they know!!

Diva. x