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

moo2moo

A friend had one of the Aldi style herb planters. It was disasterous. Plants in the top were always dry and died, those at the bottom were always wet and rotted.

For 10p you can buy a pack of assorted Woolworths herb seeds. Compost isn't expensive and you can always use plastic yoghurt pots instead of plant pots.

moneydribbler

Money saving Diva and Mrs Mcawber - thanks for the butter advice, I can see me freezing it in the very near future.

And condolences Mrs McA, as well. I'm glad to hear you got to spend that important time with your sister.


Free lunch here again today - I think we've had a Birthday every week for the last month very nummy and I'm full enough that I'll just need a wee tiny something for tea tonight.

I'm going to re-inventory my freezers again this weekend, cos I've kind of lost touch with my list (it's not far out, but it's not right, either) and do some proper meal planning for next week again, so expect some pleas for help once I work out what the UFOs are...

cw18

Thanks for the feedback -- just thought it would look nicer than plastic pots, and I might just be able to find space for a single thing liek Aldi's.

Will have to see how much space I can find and decide which I'm most likely to use -- bit of guesswork there as I rarely use anything except dried mixed herbs

Plum_Pie

When I'm out food shopping now, I often ask myself...

"What would Weezl do?"

frugalswan

Plum Pie, that would make an awesome avatar. I've been to the local market this morning on the lookout for bargains, and I know that I'm converting a few people around me with my budgeting ways. Hopefully, dad will take mum blackberrying this weekend, and if I'm lucky I'll get to go with them. It'll be nice to get some crumble-fodder in the freezer. And I'm popping over to my friend's tomorrow, so I might be able to get some rhubarb from their garden in exchange for some help elsewhere.

I need to reread this thread, I think, and give myself a bit of a mental kick. I've lost some of my frugalista drive and if I want to have enough money saved for the wedding (I've made SUCH a saving on the dress - my wedding dress before alterations will be £68 that I've been a bit lax on spending on the last couple of days and as I've been a bit down I've treated myself where I probably shouldn't have... ) I need to get myself back into frugal shape.

meanmarie

cw...I bought two of those 'Aldi' herb thingies last year...they look nice but would go along with yogurt cartons or small pots being more efficient at growing herbs...I still have the 'pot', but have not planted anything in it this year...think that its a design fault as DD4 bought a very expensive strawberry planter in the same design and it doesn't work well either...very frequent watering needed.

Marie

In_Search_Of_Me

Evening me lovelies...massive, massive hugs for you Mrs. M. How special that you could spend precious time with her and that she didnt linger or stay in pain for too long...my prayers are with you all as you adjust to life with such a huge gaping hole in it...while "better to have loved & lost" is true it is little solace in the moments where the pain of parting almost seems too much...
Decided to make a cake for friend/bosses birthday and flipping heck they are expensive...by the time you get all the little bits I recon its cost about 15!! Smells yummy though and she does an awful lot for others that its nice to do sommat for her! wickedly chocolately though!! Like others have been rubbish on the debt busting so will have to get back on track...Into hospital next week so will get some bits in and then get down to it when I'm recovered!

MRSMCAWBER

Evening all

Thanks for all the lovely thoughts about sis.. and NO Foxy_Tigger i didn't think you were being insensitive at all flower

Well I nipped back to the garden centre this morning.and picked up 4 more of those rose arches for my veggies next season.. i have 9 now but 2 of those i picked up today had bashed boxes and so they put them through at €1 each :money: ..... so €16 for 9 arches is pretty good going i think -im hoping it will increase the crops i get and help keep things out of the reach of the dreaded slugs... honestly they are HUGE... i have learnt though that when i take extra leaves off i drop them on the garden around the tubs... i have noticed that a lot of the slugs are quite happy to eat them rather than my plants :T well until i catch em and salt em
By the way i was pondering earlier.. i am growing quite a few varieties of tomato... and im planning on keeping some of the seeds from the fruits... if anyone would like me to do the same for them feel free to PM me .... i can do the same with chillies and peppers too ... well we may as well cut our costs hadn't we...

In search of me -my mum has always made the family cakes and we always said it was soooo much more expensive than buying one... but she would never have got away with that..she makes the scrummiest lemon sponge ever and ther would have been mutiny if she has presented any of us with a shop cake :rotfl: ... she even made my huge wedding cake 3 tiers fruit and a huge lemon sponge nomnomnom

We are off tomorrow blackberrying ...hubby has NO clue that im planning on getting as many as are ready :shhh: ...have had my eye on a recipe i have for a grated blackberry cake/bake... I will post the recipe once i have test driven it
I have said to hubby that they will get put into jellies etc as i eat so much fruit its shamefull I have had to go onto bottled/tinned fruit in juice for some of it as i really can't resist fresh fruit -and even though its good for me - i know i don't NEED as much as i eat... its rare that im not in double figures for my 5 a day .... but when i can eat 2 punnets of nectarines in 1 sitting it soon adds up on the money front:eek:

I have plenty more tomatoes that i have taken off today and there will be more tomorrow so no doubt i will be roasting more off for the freezer... We are nipping to the NAFFI whilst we are in the area foraging... so i will be grabbing any whoopsies that i think can be made use of.. although im short of space at the moment ... im hoping to find room for some milk.. i usually get it whoopsed to 50c for 2 litres of full fat..it saves us a fortune :T

Like a lot of you have mentioned.. I find myself muttering " how much?" under my breath when shopping.. It helps with the weight loss too as i find myself thinking about how much money im eating -It has a much better effect on me than thinking about cals n fat :rotfl: ..

I have worked out that when hubby gets paid on the 25th i will have my usual €450 plus €50 hubby owes me ..and i reckon that i can get through next month on the €50 hubby owes me, plus €30 left in my current account (i don't keep much in there as its too easy to dib into it ) plus what i have left in my purse -which means all the €450 house keeping can go into my savings account :j . I have so much in the freezers that most of what i spend next month will be on stuff for the coming months.... Its so much easier and cheaper once you can get that little bit ahead

well enough rambling i had better get off
Keep up the great work everyone :T

loumac

MrsM - where in Germany are you based? I was an RAF baby and spent 10 years in Germany as a child.

MRSMCAWBER

Morning folks..

Hi loumac.... we are in Bielefeld .... Last time i was in Hohne.. I LOVE Germany and if we could afford it i would live out here when hubby finishes in the army..but there is NO chance of that :rolleyes:

Well we went Blackberrying ..not as many ready as i was hoping for -but we will be doing another trip next weekend -hopefully by then the masses of fruits that are on will be ready -fingers crossed;)
I did get enough though to try out that blackberry grater cake/bake thing i wanted to have a go at :T so that will be tomorrows task -whilst hubby is golfing.. I have to give hubby his dues.. he got right into it...hacking through the undergrowth with his golf club :rotfl:

Picked up a few more whoopsies that are now stashed in the freezer :T

• 7 lots of fresh sliced green beans, 30c each instead of €1.99 :eek:
• 2 packs sliced roast beef,
• 2 big tubs jersey cream ...
• Then 5 huge red peppers that im going to roast off with some of the extra tomatoes and chilli out of the garden -then i can freeze in several bags to add to pasta ...
• plus 2 punnets of nectarines
• and 500g black grapes that will soothe my fruit fetish for the weekend ...

so that wasn't bad for €9.50... saving €26.86 off the full price :eek: .... I still can't believe just how much some things are when at full price I mean €1.99 for enough green beans for 2 :eek: ... glad im planning on growing even more beans next season

I have a loaf of bread underway and i think thats as much as i need to do today.. the rest of today will be spent x stitching/knitting .. :T ..think i will also look through some of my books for some cheap tasty filling meals ready for autumn/winter
have a great day everyone...hope we are all off doing something nice:D