Frugal Living 2010 -The Cost of Living Challenge, INTRO

rozeepozee

I'm wondering, if we were assessed, how many of us on this thread would be diagnosed with mild to moderate obsessive compulsive disorder :rotfl:

cw18

rozeepozee wrote: »

I'm wondering, if we were assessed, how many of us on this thread would be diagnosed with mild to moderate obsessive compulsive disorder :rotfl:

Me for sure :rotfl:
(though I think I could be further down the line than mild to moderate!)

requests for spreadsheet all dealt with to here, and PM inbox cleared a little.....

about to get start getting organised for work (boo! hiss! - but it does at least pay the bills ), and do what prep work I can for tea....... so any further requests probably won't be dealt with until after 6pm (it's not that I'm ignoring anyone )

grandma247

ceridwen I found that the small slowcooker is a lot faster for some reason than the large. I tried rice pudding and burnt the first lot by cooking overnight. I have since found rice pudding will cook in four hours so I usually put it on after lunch for the tea time meal.
Also I have a file somewhere on home made beauty products and also a book on natural beauty if you would like some info let me know.

Fishcake_Random

Hey all,
It's lovely to see all the new names joining in with the challenge and also such a range of age ranges and types of people. Something for everyone surely lol.
FoR example; I don't wear make up in general, possibly at a special occasion but with 4 younger sisters it is something I can look into making as gifts etc.

Todays jobs are to blitz the flat ready for xmas2 tomorrow - OH's family comming down- and a wander into town for bargins. I'm really only after wrapping paper in the sales, I'm looking for a cheap non xmassy one for doing presents throughout the year. I'm pretty sure wilkos had lots of mettalic plain ones this year which should be quite suitable.
x x x x

juicygirl

Going to send you my email for the spreadsheet cw18. Not participating in this challenge directly cos I have a lot of outgoings this year, but going to try as close as poss from the sidelines.

Thank you!

ceridwen

rozeepozee wrote: »

On a similar vein, Asian supermarkets (proper large ones, not just little shops) are often fantastic value for things like rice, flour, spices, fresh herbs and fruit. Places with large Asian communities are often the best, Bolton has a great one which I go to whenever I visit my folks. Asians tend to have larger families (mine bucked the trend, I'm an only child) so food from Asian supermarkets always seems to be cheaper and you can buy it in bulk. You'll get ten times the amount you'd get in Tescos and the like, for loads less. For example, in my store cupboard I have 300g of coriander seeds for 79p, 400g of jeera (cumin) for £1.59. Tesco is selling 20g of coriander seeds for £1.63 and 35g of cumin for £1.64 :eek:. (How do they justify these prices - grrr!) You might need to ask for a translation at times as much of the food is imported and will have the Urdu word rather than the English!

Once you have a stockpile of low cost spices, curries are a really cheap meal to make and very healthy!

Right - I've just been having a scout-round of my Indian supermarket - looking for my almond oil and doing some price comparisons as well.

Didnt check out the coriander - but the price for 400grams of jeera/cumin is £2.69 in my local one (loads more than yours then rozee).

My almond oil cost me £2.35 for 300ml - cant recall the price I paid recently at a chemist for some to know how this compares.

Other prices I noted down:
2 kg chana dal = £3.69
2 kg green lentils = £3.39
100 gr of cumin/jeera = 89p
100 gr curry powder = 89p
400 grams ginger = £2.49
1kg aduki beans = £2.49

What I've come out with (besides my almond oil) is:
400 ml Renuka coconut milk = 68p
400 grams Tiger Tiger instant noodles = £1.10
300 ml rose water = £1.25
165ml ChaoKoh coconut milk = 45p
280gr Ashoka Palak Paneer & 280gr Ashoka Paneer Makhani = £1.49 (one was bogof)

So - how does that compare with Indian supermarkets in the rest of the country anyone? (I can certainly see that the spices seem to be WAY dearer than normal Indian shop levels:cool:). I suspect that our Indian supermarket charges much the same price levels as the other food shops round here.

Apart from that - I bought 12 silicone cupcake holders elsewhere for £2 - visions of using them as moulds for melted-down candle ends - to make myself some "fresh" candles from the stubs. Can anyone remember the basic how-to on doing this please?

ceridwen

grandma247 wrote: »

ceridwen I found that the small slowcooker is a lot faster for some reason than the large. I tried rice pudding and burnt the first lot by cooking overnight. I have since found rice pudding will cook in four hours so I usually put it on after lunch for the tea time meal.
Also I have a file somewhere on home made beauty products and also a book on natural beauty if you would like some info let me know.

Right-y-o = think that means its worth thinking "any time I want to shove something on low in the slowcooker overnight - try it out first on a 4 hour timeslot like breakfast time for lunchtime OR lunchtime for dinnertime".

lismarlilmia

lismarlilmia

LilacPixie

rozeepozee wrote: »

I'm wondering, if we were assessed, how many of us on this thread would be diagnosed with mild to moderate obsessive compulsive disorder :rotfl:

That would be me. I have a thing with numbers everything has to be costed out and portioned out equally. I am also a fanatical list maker.

rozeepozee

ceridwen wrote: »

Right - I've just been having a scout-round of my Indian supermarket - looking for my almond oil and doing some price comparisons as well.

Didnt check out the coriander - but the price for 400grams of jeera/cumin is £2.69 in my local one (loads more than yours then rozee).

My almond oil cost me £2.35 for 300ml - cant recall the price I paid recently at a chemist for some to know how this compares.

Other prices I noted down:
2 kg chana dal = £3.69
2 kg green lentils = £3.39
100 gr of cumin/jeera = 89p
100 gr curry powder = 89p
400 grams ginger = £2.49
1kg aduki beans = £2.49

What I've come out with (besides my almond oil) is:
400 ml Renuka coconut milk = 68p
400 grams Tiger Tiger instant noodles = £1.10
300 ml rose water = £1.25
165ml ChaoKoh coconut milk = 45p
280gr Ashoka Palak Paneer & 280gr Ashoka Paneer Makhani = £1.49 (one was bogof)

So - how does that compare with Indian supermarkets in the rest of the country anyone? (I can certainly see that the spices seem to be WAY dearer than normal Indian shop levels:cool:). I suspect that our Indian supermarket charges much the same price levels as the other food shops round here.

ceridwen, I'm going to my mum's at the weekend so I'll compare your prices to the one near her in Bolton. I think I may have mentioned our takeaway habit in my first post - we have a fantastic curry house near us (sheffield) and were spending about £15-20 a week there. Then I worked out how much that was a year :eek: and persuaded DP to start making curries!!! With the supercheap spices from the Asian supermarket and bulk bought chicken thighs (instead of the chicken breasts that most recipes ask for) our curry night began to cost a very reduced £3 or less!

The rice is also pretty cheap - if you eat lots of rise, it's definately the place to buy it - again, I'll check the price when we next go.

The funniest thing we've bought in the Asian supermarket is "C0ck Flavour" soup mix a.k.a. chicken noodle soup! Some things just get lost in translation! :rotfl: