Help! £40 to feed family for the month

DianneB

daska wrote: »

celery essence - this is a great flavour enhancer - steep 1oz celery seeds in a quarter of a pint of cheap brandy for a couple of weeks, strain and bottle, a few drops rounds out flavour reall well.

Thanks Daska, I was just about to ask you what celery essence was, I still have some brandy in the cupboard from making the christmas mincemeat so I'm adding celery seeds to my shopping list!

daska

celery seeds aren't always easy to get hold of but I found them in Tesco in their own lable range of cooking ingredients (has a greyish label)

JillD_2

mbaz you are an inspiration! Quite literally!

I've skimmed this thread occasionally over the last few months, but this month things are really tight for us.
I have just given up work :eek: to be a SAHM.
Due to a previous tax credit frak up they have stopped our tax credits altogether.
Our "can we afford it" calculations took tax credits into account, if we'd known they were going to be stopped I would have put in for reduced hours or something. Very annoying , it was their mistake but we are paying for it. But thats another story. We are due to remortgage next month so that will help but for this month we are a bit stuffed.

I started to add a new "Non cupboard bit for 5 of us for a month - how much" thread and then remembered this thread.

Well thanks to you I had a really late last night trying to read it, then doing an inventory of the kitchen and meal plan accordingly. I am currently up to page 16 and its riveting!

I have meals planned for the month from the freezer/cupboards easily. I have just put the BM machine on to make some banana bread and have a jelly in the fridge for pudding. I am going to make crispy bars with the kids after school for lunch boxes.
I will only need to buy nappies, dairy and some fruit and thats about it. If I hadnt read this I would have gone and spent the usual £100 odd pounds this week alone on god knows what.

I am dying to tell hubby about how much money I am going to save us, but there's no point because
a) he hates anything budgety food wise, lentils etc so I am just going to feed him them and not even ask if its nice. He generally never says anything isnt nice, he just has a face like fizz and doesnt finish his food, he knows better than to criticise LOL
and
b) and he will just do what another poster said and ask why it used to cost more and expect miracles all the time!

Thank you so much for creating this thread and adding to it, and to everyone else's ideas, we will be able to pay the mortgage this month AND eat as well

Now I am going to finish reading and see what other gems I come across

thanks thanks and thanks :T:T:T

JillD_2

would also like to point out that I was reading the stuff way back on page 12 or so about gruel and Donna's rotten onion pie, I was in bed with laptop, hubby had turned out his light and was trying to sleep, but not doing very well cos I was giggling so much the bed was shaking, I was doing that thing where you try and be quiet but it just makes it worse. Poor bloke :rotfl:

EstherH

daska wrote: »

Sorry, yes, if I have some in the cupboard I add a bit of stock powder - I 'splash out' on Marigold bouillon cos I reckon, £/lb it's the best you can get (as we're mainly veggie I don't have a ready supply of hm chicken stock) - but sometimes just some celery essence (celery is great for rounding out flavour, it has that extra taste, umami?). Also, depending what's in the fridge/cupboard/windowsill maybe some lemon rind or orange juice, herbs or ginger, depends on the day...!And yes, I bamix the bejeezus out of it - I have problems with my hands so I leave the veg in large chunks rather than chopping it finely.

I don't tend to be heavy handed with salt, pepper or chilli as we have a toddler who has eaten with us since he started weaning (we went down the baby led weaning path rather than purees) so we season at the table, then everyone can have it to their own taste.

Another simple, filling soup is to sweat one head celery (this does have to be finely sliced to stop it being stringy) with one large onion, deglaze with a splash of white wine (or wine vinegar?) and then add liquid and a chopped celeriac, cook until softened and blend! You can get away without stock for this one, but, as above we season to taste!

Have any yoghourt you know you're not going to use up? Chop and fry a leek, mix a bit of stock powder into the yoghourt, and add it all to hot pasta - yum! The sweetness of the leek balances the yoghourt really well. Some toasted pine nuts or sesame seeds are good with this as well but obviously they bump up the cost.

Thanks for that, will try experimenting.

I think the pulse mixes are really good but haven't bought any for a while so expect they will have gone up quite a bit. As someone else commented, prices have just shot up so much in the last few months. They were saying on the news that food prices were coming down but I don't know where.

kal25

Just wanted to thank mbaz for such a great thread. Took me ages to get through it all. It has inspired me not to only look at what I am spending but to try and feed my kids more healthily.
I have started cutting my budget already by making hm bread and using skimmed milk powder to make milk( me & DH only use it in coffee) so we don't really tell any difference apart from not having to buy loads of milk.:D
I went to the butchers yesterday and spent £30ish but I now have enough chicken breast to last me for next 3 mnths:rotfl: .
Went the fruit & veg stall and brought loads for £6...but then this will save money not buying sweets/chocolate for kids and much healthier;) .
Thanks mbaz for a great thread :T :T :T

JillD_2

Since reading all thsi the other day I have visited the whoopsie section of our Asda's fruit/veg section. Most stuff is half price, i havent seen any mega bargains but I suppose thats the time of day factor ? I usually visit in the morning when the older 2 kids are at preschhol/school so i just have the baby.

I did manage to get 8 tins of beans for free on Thursday. But not by a method I'd advocate. I'd put them under the buggy and then forgot to get them out at the checkout, just empited the basket hanging off the buggy handles :eek::eek::eek:
I didnt notice until I was collapsing the buggy to get it back in the car. And by that point it was too late for me to go back in as I had to pick up DD1 from preschool.
I felt terrible!!!!!

DH says he fels too guilty to eat them, I argued that to take them back the next day when I had time would just confuse them and cause a fuss and a queue. So I kept them. Is that wrong ?

My other purchases were:
SP parsnips, 4 massive ones, 50p (was £1)
SP mangetout 59p (was £1.18)
Big bag SP Family Stir Fry 98p
2 x SP chicken supernoodles 20p (we are veggie but I bought them for the noodles not the sauce)
SP Bolognaise sauce 36p
Block fresh yeast 0p FREE :T

Grand total £2.63
(which if you include the 8 tins beans was bargaintastic :rotfl:)

We havent tried the bolognaise sauce yet, but I wanted to have it in to try it.
I divided the stir fry mix (its cabbagem beansprouts and carrot) in two and frozen it.
Although next tgime I wont split it as handfuls come out easily enough.

Have had a coupke if really easy really yummy lunches:
Cook the noodles as per instructions, I left out sauce mix as we are veggie.
Throw in handful stir fry mix and handful frozen peas towards end of cooking time.
Add in a dollop of soy sauce and dollop chilli sauce. Chilli flakes might do instead.
Cook for a couple mins longer
Eat!

It was a superspeedy meal, cooked in under 10 minutes, lovely and filling, and healthy with the veg. I had it for lunch, if I was having it for tea I'd probably cook a quorn fillet in the microwave (2 mins) and chop that and mix in too, and maybe add more veg.
Hope that helps someone.

reb

JillD wrote: »

I did manage to get 8 tins of beans for free on Thursday. But not by a method I'd advocate. I'd put them under the buggy and then forgot to get them out at the checkout, just empited the basket hanging off the buggy handles :eek::eek::eek:
I didnt notice until I was collapsing the buggy to get it back in the car. And by that point it was too late for me to go back in as I had to pick up DD1 from preschool.
I felt terrible!!!!!

DH says he fels too guilty to eat them, I argued that to take them back the next day when I had time would just confuse them and cause a fuss and a queue. So I kept them. Is that wrong ?

.

I once accidentally took something like that. When I took it back to pay they gave it to me and thanked me for my honesty. It took a lot for me to do it even though I always try to be honest. They probably thought I was mental, and some say I am, but I felt better afterwards.

I remember once on the market they gave me the wrong change. I tried to tell the lady, she gave me a lecture about how she didn't get money wrong........ so I said so you don't want the extra £10 back then? It gave everyone around us including her a hubby a good laugh. We agreed to split the money.

JillD_2

Hi reb
I completely agree, I would never deliberately steal something. Just to claim back my moral stature........

I do usually go back if I can do so immediately, on this occaasion I couldn't as I had to rush of the preschool then get home for babys lunch and sleep then do the school run then kids swimming. Or something. The following two days I had no time either due to child related incidents one of which involved a 4 hour visit to A&E!!!! (she is fine now)
I have also in the past handed in money that I found on the floor in shops before rather than pocket it. The staff thought I was insane.

Similarly to you, one time a Tesco delivery dropped off twice the amount of beer and wine we ordered, I told the driver and said could he take it back. He said no, it was more hassle than it was worth, so like you we split it :rotfl:
The very first time we placed a Tesco order, when it arrived they hadnt charged us for something, so we called their online delivery number to let them know, They said it had never happened before :rotfl: ie noone had ever been honest enough to phone more like.

As I said I wouldnt advocate it as a method of saving money, i told the story for anecdotal value only. The "is that wrong?" question that I posed was meant tobe rhetorical. I like to think of myself as an ethical person with reasonably high morals but as I pointed out to DH, Walmart arent likley to collapse over £2. I'm sure over the years I have walked out without things I have paid for, that then get lost in the bagging area, more times than this, and I dont see Asda working out which customer bought the packet of chocolate buttons and contacting me .......:rotfl:

Am I forgiven ??:rolleyes: i dont think I want to eat them any more .....

rosieben

JillD wrote: »

....
Am I forgiven ??:rolleyes: i dont think I want to eat them any more .....

maybe you can donate them to the next school harvest festival It was a genuine mistake so you're quite right not to beat yourself up about it.;)