50p a day til christmas, healthily?!-Weezl's next challenge (part 2)

nopot2pin

Confuzzled wrote: »

cut the bottom off a 1litre soda bottle, remove the cap and place inside your tyre upside down to act as a funnel. give most of the water to the funnel and a sprinkle on top

What a fab idea... thanks Confuzzled

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

OOh do we have a recipe for this??

Recipe for spiced apple and chamomile teabag wine as follows,:cool:.....
Actually, its not mine.
And here is the LINKY for any teabag wine...
Its one of the better wine making sites to be honest

jackieglasgow wrote: »

Hi everyone, catching up after a few days offline, I'm not caught up completely yet, but had to resond to this immediately as I'm sitting here teary eyed. What is it Christians strive for?? To be more Christ like? You've just shown exactly what you meant by your original comment. I won't say well done, as I'm sure you don't need my praise, but I felt compelled to respond to the humanity of your situation. Weezl, sorry to hijack your thread!

Jackie

Yes Jackie, I felt the same towards SunnyGirl...

Well done SunnyGirl, does seem a little "pfffft" iykwim...
But I am proud to know you ..... and even more besides.
I cant believe the shear unselflessness that your family has portrayed. I am truely humbled :o


Shaz if you go down the wine making route, I will be only too happy to assist with the difficult beginner times ...
Actually ...this goes for all


Confuzzled.... do you have beetroot pickle recipe ??

ceridwen

nopot2pin wrote: »

Yes Jackie, I felt the same towards SunnyGirl...

Well done SunnyGirl, does seem a little "pfffft" iykwim...
But I am proud to know you ..... and even more besides.
I cant believe the shear unselflessness that your family has portrayed. I am truely humbled :o

Tis true.....the world would be a better place if there was more people like Sunny Girl.:T

weezl74

Morning all!

Well what with ‘faith and chutney’ it’s all a bit WI here, think ‘jam and Jerusalem!’

Sunnygirl, what I really like about your story is that until now we didn’t know he wasn’t your DS1. Lots of people would have slipped that in I reckon. That’s when you’ve definitely done it right, that from the outside noone would know cos the love is the same IYSWIM? Thank you for telling us, I love how candid we get here!

Now then…. I have been having a few challenges running simultaneously here at Weezl towers…

Energy audit: 1st quarter of this year, average units per day used: 13.4 (£2.51 per day-ouch!)
2nd quarter of this year up til 1 week ago: 9.6 units per day

Results of one-week experiment to drastically reduce costs: 3.34 units per day! ( 62p per day ) Less than a quarter of our original spend.

I also intend to carefully use up the contents of the fridge and freezer before my hols (01/08) so that can be switched off throughout…

YAY! I’m so pleased J

Handwashing nappies experiment: Generally a success, tough with the wringing out, as susanC also found! But on my downstairs washing machine I have a 4 minute spin only setting, which only costs 2p and I can spin the whole drum’s worth IYSWIM. This has been really useful or I think the nappies would’ve taken forever to dry!

SusanC, I tried using a muslin as nappy like you said, I folded in thirds like a bambino mio inner, is that right? He seemed to soak it much quicker did you find that with Alice?

I have abandoned and switched off the second freezer. This has made batch cooking a bit trickier! I shall look more into the shelf life of jarring things at home and maybe keep jars of HM pasta sauce in the cupboard after sterilisation…

Iron experiment: Like a lot of post-partum women my iron levels are low. I’ve been trying to supplement this through diet, but this challenge hasn’t been going so well. I’m at less than half of my normal recommended daily amount when really I should be boosting it. So flushed with other successes, perhaps I should focus on that one!


A big welcome to newbies and the recently delurked, lovely to have you


Love weezl xxx

In_Search_Of_Me

jackieglasgow wrote: »

What is it Christians strive for?? To be more Christ like?
Jackie

Ultimately yes thats what I would strive for but I hope never in a sanctimonious, hypocrytical way...tbh like many who belong to a church I really struggle with people in church - no issue with god but people...
Without being heavy or preachy for me its about that fact that I believe that Jesus died for me, took on my sin so that I could have a relationship with God. When I stop to thik on this it never ceases to amaze me that someone could love me that much despite knowing all my flaws...my life in response is about trying to show Gods love to others but I recognise that I fail at times!! As I was teling a friend recently just because youre a Christian doesent make you perfect which possibly is an expectation that others have which isnt really achievable!!
Anyhooo am off to w*** via gp...flipping sinisitus back again...have a good day all...

Emptynester

Weezl just a tiny thing that may help a little. I put a spoonful of molasses on my porridge most days. I know it's not for everyone but I like it and continue to use it even though I no longer have the excuse of needing to boost iron levels lol. HTH

Confuzzled

this morning is off to a frugal start already

the refrigerator dough we made yesterday was ready so we rolled out some small balls of dough then i cut up some small slices off these fruit&nut pastes i got off approved foods (they come in these odd little pyramid shaped packages) todays was fig and almond. i pushed a piece into each of the twelve balls of dough then rolled them back up again so the dough would have the fruit in the center

we also made some cheesy garlic bread sticks with some of the dough. i sprinkled each one with some seasoning i keep from ramen noodles (i never use as much as they give you so i save it up) and some garlic granules then some red leicester cheese on top

i have to say i'm quite pleased with the results, the fig and almond rolls are lovely and taste a bit like fig newtons (those fig cookies you get here i can't remember the generic british name, in the states everyone uses the brand name of fig newtons) the texture isn't the same obviously but the dough is slightly sweet so it's a fair substitution and i dare say probably less fattening.

the breadsticks are lovely as always mmmmmmm

i'm quite glad i tried ordering some of these fruit and nut pastes. first time i just tried one, pear and hazelnut. i admit i'm not a big pear fan but it was the only kind they had at the time and really i was just wanting to see if it would make a good baking component.

well it wasn't bad and i got to thinking, i can't always afford fresh fruit all the time, my daughter will easily snarf down 10+ servings of fruit a day if i let her so i thought, well i can't buy all my food from approved food because a lot of it is extras not staples BUT there are some dried fruit things on their now and those could be used to add fruit to her diet and also as fresh fruit replacement to last a few days til i can buy more.

so next time i ordered i stocked up on their selection of fruitabu (the dried apple slices and the cherries/raisins) as well as buying cases of these fruit and nut pastes.

the fruitabu costs me just 5p a package (20 for 1quid) and each package is the equivalent of about 1.5-2 apples and 1 serving of fruit for the cherry/raisins kind. the fruit and nut pastes are 12 75g pyramids for 96p. i didn't even need the entire 75g for todays dozen rolls, in fact next time i will use less than i did today.

so i'm quite glad i ventured this as it's a very economical way to make sure my daughter gets her fruit requirments without me feeling guilty if i can't always have a ton of fresh fruit on hand. it's been 2 days without fresh fruit this time around (rare occassion here) and she's not said a word about it , instead she's been happy snacking on the fruitabu and thinking of baking we could do using fruit to sweeten things, i'm so proud!

i think i'll wait til tomorrow to go to the store, we also need bread (i want to try peanut butter and fruit/nut paste sandwiches!) and i want to go around optimum clearance prices time. it's just nice to know that i have some options here, i mean we don't feel bad abotu not always having fresh veg and instead using tinned, frozen or even dried in the case of peas/lentils etc so i guess i can get over my 'i'm so poor' hangup if i don't always have a huge fruit bowl full of fruit. i think for me it's because i so rarely got fresh fruit at home as a kid, to me it's almost like being wealthy to have that bowl brimming over, but methinks the fact i have so much chutney in my fridge shows i don't need to buy as much as i have been!

another frugally thing i'm proud to announce is that today i am swapping an old white gold and emerald ring for a womans bike with both a panier fixing on the back and a basket on the front, just perfect! now i just need to get some kind freecycling soul to respond to my appeal for a childs bike and my daughter and i will have a new form of transportation and entertainment!

i hope everyone has a lovely frugal day!

Confuzzled

Emptynester wrote: »

Weezl just a tiny thing that may help a little. I put a spoonful of molasses on my porridge most days. I know it's not for everyone but I like it and continue to use it even though I no longer have the excuse of needing to boost iron levels lol. HTH

though not helpful for boosting iron levels, i can also suggest golden syrup used the same way for those, like me, who don't care for treacle (molasses)

i personally prefer thickly made porridge with butter on top (no milk poured on top thankyou very much) or a bit of cheese sprinkled on top and maybe even some garlic granules. i know it might sound a bit odd but bread made with oats and those ingredients is lovely so i tried it in my porridge and it's lovely!

if you're not sure just get a spoonful of porridge, added a pinch of cheese and try that, then you're not wasting anything

porridge is so versatile, healthy and cheap it's well worth experimenting with

Confuzzled

weezl74 wrote: »

Morning all!


Energy audit: 1st quarter of this year, average units per day used: 13.4 (£2.51 per day-ouch!)
2nd quarter of this year up til 1 week ago: 9.6 units per day

Results of one-week experiment to drastically reduce costs: 3.34 units per day! ( 62p per day ) Less than a quarter of our original spend.

kudos to you for reducing your energy useage so drastically and so quickly too!

for the last 5 years i've lived in places where we either paid only a small portion of the electricity or none at all so when i moved back to the uk and had to take ALL of it on myself i've become somewhat militant about switching things off at the wall, really thinking about energy useage etc (and i'm drooling over the remoska's, especially because of how little energy they use!)

at the place we lived in the netherlands they had this odd setup (common there in flats it seems) of JUST having a cooktop, no oven. instead we had one of those combo micro/oven units. at first it was a real chore using it but i got the hang of it (picking up more dutch certainly helped that along ) and became quite accustomed to cooking without the need for the hob or oven

when i returned i scraped up the money to buy a forman grill again (oh how i missed my big one i had to leave behind ) and a slowcooker. using those and the microwave i rarely have to turn the cooker on at all, maybe every other day if that often and not more than 30 minutes at a go even then, usually only 10minutes unless i'm baking like this morning.

not using the cooker much and not leaving anything on standby has drastically reduced my energy usage. to give you an idea, when i switched things over to my name for the electricty i told them i was a low end user. so they sent me my first bill, estimated *rolls eyes* and it was still 100 units too high even though i'd told them i didn't use much.

however, now that i'm home educating my daughter and doing some work from home on my computer i'm not able to keep it down quite as much as i'd like too but it's good to know i'm not the only one counting the pennies there and really making an effort

we actually got a fancy phone that came with my bt broadband package (ohhhh how i wish i'd had access to more information before i left the netherlands, there is no way i'd have gone with them it's sooo expensive compared to these new deals and i'm locked into a contract!) anyway, i switch everything off at the wall when i shut my computer down, that includes everything on the power switch including the unit that connects my broadband. yes it takes a few minutes to get going but so does my computer so i didn't want to pay to keep that going all the time, and i don't use the phone at all that came with it because that would be drawing MORE power and i already have a landline that doesn't use electricity so why should i bother?

my printer is unplugged too, i don't print things often and i can't get it to actually shut off totally it goes into 'low energy standby' mode...erm low energy, how about NO ENERGY! yes it does mean i have to crawl under my desk to plug it in to use it but as mentioned it gets used infrequently, maybe once every few weeks for a few minutes so no point using that.

all my appliances get switched off at the wall, just in case. these days who knows what's drawing what power and it's a good habit anyway methinks.

one thing i've been curious about though, does flushing your toilet require any energy? the reason i ask is because my step dad used to tell me not to flush the toilet when the electricity went out for whatever reason, something about damaging the pump... i always thought he was a bit crazy lol however, if it DOES use energy then i guess i could go with the 'if it's yellow, let it mellow if it's brown flush it down' motto. can anyone shed any light on this subject ? cheers

Confuzzled

nopot2pin wrote: »

Confuzzled.... do you have beetroot pickle recipe ??

no i don't but i reckon i'd chop the beetroot into small pieces, add onions (red if i had them) maybe some carrot and definitly garlic to it... i'd probably do it more of a chutney, as that's dead easy... or i might google it lol

i actually prefer the sweetened pickled beetroot so i'd probably just put something together myself to make sure it was sweet, i simply can't stand the vinegary variety. i am open to suggestions for recipes though

and i'm happy to share a vague idea of any 'recipes' i make but please don't try to get me to nail it down to specifics, i don't cook like that. in fact i normally only use a recipe as a basic guideline, i tend to cook on the fly and make a lot of substitutions or additons... i actually cringe when people beg me for a recipe, how in the world do you write down something like that style of cooking? :eek::rotfl:

Confuzzled

nopot2pin wrote: »

What a fab idea... thanks Confuzzled

you're quite welcome!

oh i had a look at that site with the teabag wine and the thought occured to me how lovely it would be to try that with the twinnings chai tea bags mmmmmm i'll have to give it a go, thanks for sharing that!