Fire Fox's Debt-Free in 2009 Diary

Fire_Fox

Officially the World's Sexiest Can Opener 2009 has arrived, I would imagine in a limousine going by the price! And it is that lovely, I just cannot bring myself to have any regrets ... Don't seem to have been charged for it yet tho.

Spent £5 at college on a study guide. Tonight's meal is an MSE staple, turkey drumstick: not sure what to do with it tho?! Something with lemons as they are looking a bit old ...

Seem to have loads of veg and fresh herbs plus half a mini-bottle of red wine from making gravy, so plotting a rich tomato sauce for another day. Some meatballs left so they would go well with it, or it can be frozen. :cool:

Fire_Fox

Spent £20 in the pub last night! And Mr.Fire Fox will be collecting my prescription today, so another £7 gone.

My Tesco Clubcard vouchers have not arrived, apparently they still have my address wrong: I will now have to wait til May! :mad: Also rang Boots to order a new Advantage Card, and had confirmed that I have £10 in points in addition to the giftcard in my purse. :j

Fire_Fox

Supermarket run ... £105 including bus there and taxi home!! :eek:

Expensive item were
£6 on Terrys dark Chocolate Oranges (reduced to 75p each )
£6.70 on toothbrushes and toothpaste
£3.20 on three boxes of breakfast cereal
£2 on three tins of Ambrosia custard (offer)
£2 on two packs of onion bhajis
£2 on two frozen cheesecakes
£3 on two tubs of ice cream (got overcharged :mad:)
£2 on frozen blackberries
£2 on large bunch of red grapes
£5 on large pack of frozen jumbo prawns
£2.60 on Extra Special breaded haddock
£2 on Extra Special battered chicken (offer)
£2 on a pack of Porkinson sausages (offer)
£4 on pack of mutton
£5 on two packs of lean mince (offer)
£7 on two whole British chickens (offer)
£3.20 on two boxes of omega eggs
£2.20 on two cartons cottage cheese (offer)
£3.70 on two packs of healthy cheese.

Things just seemed so expensive as I was going round - but we did get a huge amount of fresh fruit (about three full bowls!), and a lot of protein foods as we'd virtually run out. Wasn't too bad at all on the junk food and didn't buy any alcohol! :j

Just trying to work out a meal plan and how to stretch things a bit now, think the mutton is going to be curry with chickpeas (tho Mr. Fire Fox doesn't like pulses! ). Might throw in the last of the turkey drumstick as it's not really edible alone. One of the packs of mince is going to be lasagne, so can take quite a bit of added veg. Tempted to make a start on some leek and potato soup as well ...

Fire_Fox

Mr. Fire Fox agreed last night that we can eat some vegetarian meals on a regular basis, since 40% of the Asda shop was protein foods. :eek: In fact he suggested a completely vegetarian week, which I don't think will be healthy as he only likes eggs as omelette and isn't fond of pulses!

I have been reading through some of the cheap meals threads on the Old Style board for inspiration. :T So far we have come up with homemade pizza (leftover tomato sauce in fridge), savoury bread and butter pudding, paella/ risotto, Spanish omelette (need to buy a frying pan!).

So far I have made the mutton, turkey and chickpea curry in the slow cooker, the leek and potato soup using leftover mash (flavoured with milk powder and powdered stock), and padded out one pack of mince with roughly equal parts of vegetables. :money:

Cinny91

Hey, I've been reading your thread (subscribed!) for about a week now, just want to say I think you're doing really well, specially on the Terrys Chocolate Orange front - 75p?! Dawn French would be happy!

As for the 'junk' food from your shopping - ice cream is well, cream, so thats dairy so has to be one of your food group essentials! And the terrys chocolate oranges look like oranges, smell and taste rather orangey so therefor have to be at least 99% fruit I'd say, rather healthy really. So that's them rationalised!

I can't blame you for buying that tin opener, might of cost a pretty penny but it'll last you a life time, homeware is something I can't say no to, and I still live with my parents!

Hope you have a nice week, good luck!

Fire_Fox

Thanks for your post, Cinny91, you made me giggle and made my (Mon)day that you'd subscribed! The tin opener is amazing, it just works beautifully and I keep leaving it out on the worktop to look at - how sad is that?! Terrys Chocolate Oranges are Mr. Fire Fox's favourite. He thinks he has four (and is so pleased he has not yet complained I didn't buy crisps or biscuits!) but there are actually another four lurking in the junk room.

I have decided to have a go at an inventory, starting with the baking cupboard:

Wholemeal spelt flour
Strong white flour
Wheatgerm (needs eating)
Fruit muesli
Nut muesli (needs eating)

White sugar
Demerara sugar
Splenda sweetener
Xylitol sweetener

Chopped mixed nuts (need eating)
Linseeds
Desiccated coconut
Raisins
Unsulphured dried apricots (need eating)
Lazy 'fresh' ginger

Strawberry jelly x 2
Apricot jam (needs eating)
Blackcurrant jam (needs eating)
Cocoa powder
Powdered milk

Vanilla essence
Baking powder (very out of date!)
Bicarbonate of soda (very out of date!)
Dried yeast

Lemons x 3 (need eating)
A pineapple
Unripe red pears.

I also have a surfeit of eggs, plus two cartons of cottage cheese with pineapple, but very little butter. If I am going to bake I'd like the recipe to be something quick and foolproof to motivate me. Also reasonably healthy, so not too heavy on the sugar, white flour or butter. I own two loaf tins, two square cake trays and a stick blender.

Cinny91

Hm, couldn't you make little jam tarts to use up your blackcurrant and Apricot jam? I think most recipes only use about 3tablespoons of sugar for the pastry bit too.
What kind of nuts do you have? if you have sliced almonds they might just work on top of the jam tarts (well, the apricot ones!) if you were to make them - using those up aswell!

My boyfriend complains if we go on car journeys and I don't include crisps in our food bags! Be a nice surprise for your OH to get the other chocolate oranges, might keep the high of chocolateness long enough not to notice the lack of other junk food at all.

I wouldn't worry about leaving the tin opener on the side. I make various excuses to leave my pretty baking things out on the kitchen sides, why should they be banished to the cupboard?!

Fire_Fox

Overdone things a bit with dinner!! One large chicken breast has been padded out with one small-ish onion and a red pepper, then coated with fajita spice, and will be finished with a squeeze of not-so-fresh lemon. The wraps I bought are not at all nice so we may have pittas or just not bother. I used the rest of the spice mix to coat three ancient potatoes AND a sweet potato, all cut into wedges is enough to feed the 5000! :rotfl:

Will be served on a bed of Romaine lettuce that went out of date on the 27th February :eek: but is miraculously fine ... some coleslaw that really wants eating, sour cream and possibly grated cheese. A real feast! Edited to add: it was as yummy as it looked and sounded!

Fire_Fox

Just had Thai-style fishcakes to use up odd portions of salmon and cod, with yet more lettuce, the last of the sweet chilli sauce and coconut rice. Also nipped to Tesco Metro for some butter for baking and couldn't resist some reduced price Value carrots. So a spend of less than £2 got us carrot cake for pudding, and enough for another few days (tho Mr. Fire Fox would demolish the lot if I let him! :rolleyes:). Used up all the Demerara sugar, half of the chopped nuts and most of the dried apricots: not sure what to do with the rest of the carrots, since I don't like their texture when cooked.

Fire_Fox

Been paid :j but not my overtime :mad:. Only got £1000 of my overdraft left which sounds loads, and I do get my student grant in the next couple of weeks. It's not enough tho, cos just had to write cheques for my ground rent (£150) and professional body registration (£25), then on the 1st £450 goes into various savings accounts. I also need to pay £500 into the new billing account, but may juggle money and get Mr. Fire Fox to pay this.

Just assembled a lasagne using half the mince mixture, but only put in two layers of pasta instead of three and made way too much white sauce, so not sure this is going to end well ....