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

weezl74

johanne wrote: »

... and you can use them all up to 10 times each so 900 uses (0.038p per use... )

johanne! Hello and welcome! with those calculations you're definately in the right place :D
You and catnap sound like saints for [strike]putting up with that amount of fussiness[/strike] being so loving towards your OH's preferences!

I think Mr Weezl probably would like the idea of opening the fridge and taking out whatever he fancied, in fact he said so yesterday! The frustration I would have, I think would be that it's very hard to plan in order to avoid waste that way, and it feels so sad.

According to the dispatches documantary, the average household throws away £400 worth of food in a year. That's like binning a ten pound note every nine days! Seems so tragic.

rant over!

You sound like you are both finding really good creative ways round the waste issue though :T:T:T:T.

Cw18, I can't believe that saving you've made! You must be really thrilled? Keep up the hard work! Glad your oh is a bit more on board now

BOB, glad you're back in the land of the living!:jImpressive to keep on track even with the lurgy!

Told 2 real life friends yesterday about the trotters and pigs head. They were somewhat peturbed!

Phizzimum, your DD sounds very cute. Please tell her that 'the 50p lady sends a big hello '

kazwookie - welcome! Please pop in again

freyasmum, welcome back! hope you had a good break. That granita looked lovey. The glass made a free pudding look like an uber-expensive one! Fab :T:T.

moanymoany, have lots of fun with your slo-cooker , Have you seen the Old-style index that's just for Slo-cooker recipes

shaz, :hello:that's interesting about the lentils..... I wonder whether it's cos our local Asda is in an area where loads of Asian people live (lots of Polish people too!) So they deliberately stock these lovely things. Are you near any cities with a similar profile?

It wasn't me in cardiff bay Asda, gin, feel free to elbow the blighters out of the way next time!!!

Now then... I've been thinking about how it would be useful (and ceridwen has prompted my thoughts ) to be a bit more specific about what we eat, so people can see there's variety in our budget diet. So I'll just go get a little spreadsheet, and pop back with my thoughts on variety- the spice of life!

Love Weezl x

cw18

weezl74 wrote: »

Cw18, I can't believe that saving you've made! You must be really thrilled? Keep up the hard work!

I can't believe the saving either!! (especially as I hadn't been trying as hard this month, due to not wanting to send elder DS off to the front line feeling he's not been fed properly!)

And as an added bonus, I got on the bathroom scales this morning...... first time in a month, and I've lost 4 lb without trying

weezl74 wrote: »

Now then... I've been thinking about how it would be useful (and ceridwen has prompted my thoughts ) to be a bit more specific about what we eat, so people can see there's variety in our budget diet. So I'll just go get a little spreadsheet, and pop back with my thoughts on variety- the spice of life!

Love Weezl x

would love to see this..... was thinking only last night that I didn't remember seeing your daily 'stats' for a couple of days :rolleyes:

shaz_mum_of__2

weezl74 wrote: »

shaz, :hello:that's interesting about the lentils..... I wonder whether it's cos our local Asda is in an area where loads of Asian people live (lots of Polish people too!) So they deliberately stock these lovely things. Are you near any cities with a similar profile?


Love Weezl x

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

A few years ago where i live had a higher % of asian population hence lots of asian grocers

The polish /eastern european element is now higher than that :rotfl:

Dont get me wrong its a lovely melting pot and has many benefits ie shops which sell different goods you wouldn't get elsewhere in fact my friend has 4 polish guys living next door who are so quiet and do housework and cook and go outside to smoke......she was a amazed, I wasn't in fact the only problem was during some round to ask them to keep it down and he came back 4 hous later smelling of vodka and smoked sausage


Shazx

cw18

johanne wrote: »

Mine where cheaper due to buying them on special offer and splitting them with my mum But you can still get them on the qvc website - granted they seem pricing at £35.45 including postage but you get 90 bags for that.. 50 fruit/veg , 20 sliced meat and 20 cheese ones and you can use them all up to 10 times each so 900 uses (0.038p per use... )

I've looked at these in the past, but wasn't sure they'd work as well as they promise. Now I've heard from someone who's used them I may consider getting some (when finances allow) -- but I make it 3.9p/use which isn't nearly as good a value

weezl74

CW18, you asked for it lass!

Evening meals we have in freezer/fridge at the mo:

2 pieces chicken (morrisons price war,25p roasted,) with 100g sprouts 6p, gravy and mash 4p = 35p per meal

mince and onion pie, mushy peas and oven chips = 31p per meal

saag aloo with rice and/or chappatti 17p per meal

pea dopiaza with rice and/or chappatti 20p per meal

sour apple bhajee with rice and/or chappatti 13p per meal

pasta with pesto 36p per meal

or gnocchi 25p per meal

Spiced Lentils with sun dried tomato and rice, 24p per meal

4 bean salad and rice or potato wedges - 23p per meal

tomato dahl with rice - 16p per meal

lots of meals using the asda 4.5p sausage:eek:, we have 3 each = 13.5p, plus mash, or oven chips or in a casserole with honey and mustard in the gravy, and sprouts or broad beans... all 25-31p per meal

home made herby quiche with beans - 36p per meal

Corned beef hash, mash, 32p

Tomato Dahl and rice, 20p per meal per person

HM herb quiche with beans/peas 35p per person

Lentil and bacon casserole with rice 19p per person

Meat loaf with spicy tomato sauce and HM potato wedges, 55p per person

nettle bhajee with rice, 14p

There are more meals, but I've not worked out the costings!:rolleyes:

So we still have approx 20p left for the other 2 meals.

Lunches are sarnies ranging from 2p for the houmous/lentil pate ones, to 6p for liver pate or cheese and HM chutney (the cheese was a whoopsie!).

breakfasts are toast with marmalade 3p, or a poached egg 10p, or baked beans 10p, or muesli 7p

snacks and puds: shortbread, krispie cakes, choc cookies, jammy sponge etc etc, all ranging from 0.5p-6p per item.

Drinks, tea, posh coffee... sometimes HM squash/cordial...

Hope this is of use to someone! There are other things, but I haven't costed them all up just yet!:o

Love Weezl x

phizzimum

weezl74 wrote: »

Phizzimum, your DD sounds very cute. Please tell her that 'the 50p lady sends a big hello '

aw, thanks weezl, that'll mean a lot to her! I'll show her after school.

Just made 2 loaves of the no knead bread - I've left them to rise on a sunny windowsill. Unfortunately, I did my usual thing - started off by halving the recipe then forgot what I was doing. so I only used 750g flour but the full amount of yeast and salt...oops, so I won't hold it against you if the bread isn't great!

eselt

cw18 wrote: »

I'm sooooo relieved to hear I'm not the only one with a fussy DH..... it's only taken me 17 years to convince him it's OK to have chicken and fish in the same week and to have either/both 2 weeks on the trot.

I've actually gotten quite daring and started doing one or the other of them twice in one week - as well as serving the other one a different day that week and both the week before and the week after :rotfl:

He also used to object to mince based meals twice in a week -- but it's not uncommon for me to use mince two or three times a week now....... my next job is to start padding out less mince with some soya, but I'll have to be careful I'm not spotted doing this as previous attempts have ended with the whole meal in the bin :eek:

Think he's finally accepted it 'cos he knew we needed to cut back on the spends (I was on sick leave for 16 months and am now looking at (unrelated) compulsory redundancy, and he's unable to work for medical reasons), and he saw at least 90% of the meat/fish/poultry coming into the house with clearance stickers on them or on unmissable offers -- so he knew it was a case of what I could get cheap if he wanted 'flesh' on his plate every day, which to him is what signifies he's looking at his main meal

I would be so upset if after all this planning, careful shopping and homecooking the meal I cooked ended up in the bin ...I don't think most families realise just how much effort we put in to try and provide healthy, nutritious meals which don't break the bank, its a constant struggle as this thread demonstrates. I went on strike once:eek: , put the housekeeping cash in a pot in the kitchen and told them to get on with it,they lived on frozen pizzas and oven chips, then blew the lot on a takeaway- so by wednesday there was nothing to eat but HM pickles and we didn't even have any toilet roll...boy they were glad to see my shephards pie coming out of the oven later in the week, ate it without a squeak!!!!!

Weezl- I am once again in awe of your menus, meals and planning- am off to buy some lentils, bacon mishapes and sausages- reckon I can make the following out of these:
Lentil and bacon soup
Sausage and bacon casserole
Bacon and egg pies
Sausage and mash
Lentil pate
Sausage and lentil meat loaf (just made that up- still thinking about a recipe!)
Sausage rolls

I feel like a busy but productive day, and a bit of baking always cheers me up and everyone loves coming through the door with all the homecooking smells wafting around.

Oh, no samphire yesterday, and not one fish-but little one did well with the mussells-thats my first job today, getting rid of all the open ones then cleaning them (takes ages-any beard removing tips greatly appreciated)

Looking forward to everyones updates later in the day- cheers:T

newlywed

Well speaking of fussy OH's....

At the weekend I made jam sponges (used 50g stork + 150g flour) - this made 4 ramekins. But OH declared that it didn't look cooked (steamed so not brown on top) and it was a bit "doughy" but ate it all :rolleyes: The kids liked their nutella version though

I also made the readers digest quick wholemeal loaf (thanks whoever posted that). But OH tasted some of my toast and declared it tasted a bit "nutty" :rolleyes: It was quite dense but I haven't made bread before - but then again I usually have to buy the "finest" oatmeal loaf to keep him happy anyway It was all from stuff I had sat in the cupboard already so no huge waste (the wholemeal flour has sat there for about a year )

At least he likes my chicken leek cobbler - the sauce is made from marge, flour and HM stock and the chicken left over from roast - so quite frugal.

redsquirrel80

Morning all, really shouldn't have bought those cocktail sausages yesterday, even though they were cheap, kept just having the 'odd one' last night.. Cleared out the fridge yesterday and to my shame had to throw out half a tub of ricotta that I'd forgotten about and had gone off

Today's menu is...
Breakfast - branflakes, raisins, milk - 12p
Lunch - cold sausages (20p), pitta bread (6p), pickled cabbage and courgette salad (12p) - 38p
Tea - not sure, am thinking about either sardines or some sort of omelette or fried rice
Snacks - cereal bar (6p), savoury muffin (3p) - 9p

cw18

Weelz - thanks for the meals list. May be coming back to you for some recipes later

eselt - I'm never pleased to see meals being binned either. But the biggest problem I have at the moment is that hubby's taste buds keep changing (apparently quite common with chemo), so what he eats happily one week could end up in the bin the next Younger son has learned that it's not advisable to bin food if he wants feeding the next day though Have to say that vegetables don't get binned anyway -- the dalmatian thinks it's his birthday when he gets given them :rolleyes2 (I don't add salt when I cook, so it's safe to give them to him)