Weezl's phase 1- recipe testing and frugalisation- come one, come all!

weezl74

hornetgirl wrote: »

I was in S.ainsbury's yesterday, and noticed the latest issue of their magazine had an article called something like "Frugal, Filling and Fast - Evening Meals On a Budget." Since it sounded remarkably like what's going on here, I had a look. The first recipe cost £2.45 per head. That's for one person, for one meal! I put it back down in disgust.
This really clarified for me what Weezl is aiming for with £100 per month. Any fool can do it for £2.45 per meal - and no doubt plenty will. But to make a big dent in the debt, you need to make big changes - by doing things very differently. The £100 is definitely the hook on which to hang this project.

Thank you Hornetgirl, that's very encouraging

It truly does show what we're doing here to be quite innovative.

I'm not sure that any of the ways I've expressed this numerically have really impacted people.

80p a day doesn't seem to strike the right note, the £100 a month doesn't quite impact how low this is either...

Does 'feed yourself for £292 a year!' hit it home any better?

I'm amazed when I talk to people how hard they find it to think what you'd probably have to lose to get it down to those numbers. I talked to my mum (who knows the figures) yesterday, about what she thought of the eggshell idea.

She said, oh yes dear it sounds interesting but I'd probably just get them to drink a v.large glass of milk a day. (I told her she'd have 9p left to provide any meals with and then I think she kinda got it a bit :rotfl:)

I guess on reflection I also feel a bit sad about that sainsburies book. A publishing house and a major supermarket have backed that writer financially to take that book to market.

And we are just a little bunch of willing volunteers who could do so much if we had more resources

Lesley_Gaye

weezl74 wrote: »

I was soooo surprised, I'd have thought previously that a non-saturated fat diet was the 'gold standard' was that what you thought too lesley?

more or less, yes. I didn't think we needed to ingest sat fat, just that we could have some without harming ourselves.

I was under the impression that we had to have some fat in our diet, not much, and that that fat should be mono or poly-unsaturated

This exercise is throwing up so much nutritional info that is new to me, it's quite scary really. I thought I knew what a healthy diet was!

Lesley_Gaye

queen_of_string wrote: »

me again :-)

I have been thinking about the Prochaska Diclemente circle of change. It's a change model which is often used in the motivational interviewing of addicts.

Their feeling is that about 20% of people interviewed were preparing to change ( smokers in this case, across 6 studies).

I am wondering if this is also true of people who have massive debt which is killing them?

I think it's an interesting way of looking at what proportion of people with toxic debt might be reachable by this type of plan. Some one on here will be able to turn 20% into a figure .

It also provides some pointers to aspects of the plan perhaps not yet mentioned eg support to change, maintenance planning and support in relapse ( eg buying a take away ).

http://www.courseweb.uottawa.ca/epi6181/images/TTM_review.pdf

What a great link. I have saved a copy for a proper read later. This is part of what I was trying to get across earlier, that people need help to change.

The people in precontemplation - will we ever be able to help them? I think this may be the majority of people in debt. My close relative for instance rang today talking about recent developments in benefits and wages, but is def in pre-contemplation and will not countenance any change in behaviour to change outgoings

Precontemplation
The person has no intention of changing the behavior, usually within the next
six months. This may be due to a lack of information, or to lack of confidence.
The person is typically unmotivated and will resist discussing or thinking about
making the change. They are not ready for traditional health promotion
interventions.

We could maybe contribute to moving the group in Contemplarion to the next group, where they actually start doing something constructive

Contemplation
The person expresses an intention to take action within six months. They are
aware of both benefits and costs of making the change, and this balance may
keep them in this phase for a long time: “chronic contemplation or behavioral
procrastination” (2, p100). They are not ready for an intervention that expects
immediate action.


And this group is the most exciting for us as they are ready to take action and be helped

Preparation
The person intends to take action in the immediate future (commonly defined
as 30 days). They typically have a plan of action (such as joining a fitness
class, etc.) and have taken some preparatory action (such as obtaining
information). They are ready for traditional action interventions.

And as you say Queen of String, there are later stages that could also be supported, tho goodness knows how at the moment, it is quite daunting.

Lesley_Gaye

weezl74 wrote: »

80p a day doesn't seem to strike the right note, the £100 a month doesn't quite impact how low this is either...

Does 'feed yourself for £292 a year!' hit it home any better?

I'm amazed when I talk to people how hard they find it to think what you'd probably have to lose to get it down to those numbers. I talked to my mum (who knows the figures) yesterday, about what she thought of the eggshell idea.

She said, oh yes dear it sounds interesting but I'd probably just get them to drink a v.large glass of milk a day. (I told her she'd have 9p left to provide any meals with and then I think she kinda got it a bit :rotfl:)

I guess on reflection I also feel a bit sad about that sainsburies book. A publishing house and a major supermarket have backed that writer financially to take that book to market.

And we are just a little bunch of willing volunteers who could do so much if we had more resources

Yes, I think you are right Weezl, people just aren't registering what has to go, or just how much money would be saved.

£292 a year does have a lot of impact, even more than £25 for a month

I have subscriptions to food magazines and I am getting tired of seeing dishes flagged as economical with such high amounts per head - 'just' £3.50 a head. It makes feed your family for a fiver sound cheap, and maybe people really do think it is cheap. How can we break through that mind set?

Off for coffee with the girls now, and my daughter is coming up later with DGD, so see you guys later this pm

FrankieM

I'm aware that at the moment we have cordials and fizzy drinks in the house, available as and when. I'm guessing that when I do the meal plan for a month those things won't be available?
It's really simple things you take for granted...as a family we are used to being able to eat and drink whenever we want..whether we are really hungry or not.
It's going to be a real eye-opener for us.

weezl74

FrankieM wrote: »

I'm aware that at the moment we have cordials and fizzy drinks in the house, available as and when. I'm guessing that when I do the meal plan for a month those things won't be available?
It's really simple things you take for granted...as a family we are used to being able to eat and drink whenever we want..whether we are really hungry or not.
It's going to be a real eye-opener for us.

I've been desperately hanging onto the idea of a bag of SP lemons that can be turned into a squash, but a lot of that will depend on thigs like what the consensus is on the 5 a day of exactly 80g each of exactly 5 different veggies everyday IYSWIM? If I knew people were comfortable with 400g (5 x the 80g) but split as maybe 70g caluflower and 90g tomatoes ie meeting the same vitamin load, then I feel we can achieve the squash. Does that make any sense?

It's just that people have been hammered on MSE threads before for not getting the exact 5 a day in the exact NHS way into children before, and I don't want that to be the reason we lose shirley.

Allegra

weezl74 wrote: »

:rotfl:I may have taken this plan far too far, but I was just rather cross at the idea of the dog :mad:. How dare they feed the dog rather than Jenny and Jason! The dog has to go!

Oh Weezl, you hard woman, you ! Poor old defenceless Fido, man's best friend, and doubtless far more grateful for all that's done for him than the JJs ! Besides, Fido depends on B&S fully - the kids can earn their keep. I hear that a big spender from Poland is looking for someone to clear out his basement - that will take care of their upkeep from now til pension time, no doubt :cool:

I'm gueassing that the average Bob and shirley won't mind, but I know from various threads on old-style that the 5 a day is often a sudden target for people who want to find a nutritional issue with a meal planner that someone posts. It was sadly quite prevalent on Mark's thread, and I've seen it crop up quite a bit

Some people will always find a bone to gnaw on, Weezl. For what it's worth, I am guessing that you are probably right, and that they will not mind. Furthermore, I am also guessing that it is not at all unlikely that this will still be a fair bit more than they were used to

poohbear59

weezl74 wrote: »

I've been desperately hanging onto the idea of a bag of SP lemons that can be turned into a squash, but a lot of that will depend on thigs like what the consensus is on the 5 a day of exactly 80g each of exactly 5 different veggies everyday IYSWIM? If I knew people were comfortable with 400g (5 x the 80g) but split as maybe 70g caluflower and 90g tomatoes ie meeting the same vitamin load, then I feel we can achieve the squash. Does that make any sense?

It's just that people have been hammered on MSE threads before for not getting the exact 5 a day in the exact NHS way into children before, and I don't want that to be the reason we lose shirley.

I really can't see why anyone would have a problem with spreading the 400g of fruit and vegetables in unequal amounts during the day. Most people in real life don't measure the exact amount they are giving to their children daily.

The majority will do something like a fruit in the morning, a fruit as a snack, two veg with dinner and one or two with lunch (which they may or may not actually eat). Roughly 5 fruit and veg!

Your plan with exact amounts spread over a day is much more likely to be succesful in getting the 5 into a childs diet.

And if you can get the lemons loads more vit c, yummy!

I hope you found my frugal suet roll recipe in your pm.

aless02

weezl - you informed that 40g was your DH's usual allowance for the nut butter .

also carrot cake question: I've made the new eggless one with orange-y drizzle. Do I drizzle the whole lot on the cake now and it'll just soak in and we can eat it for the coming days/weeks? Or do I have to add the topping to pieces right before eating? (b/c the 2nd method is a PITA and makes me wonder how I will store the separate components plus send pieces with DH to work)...???? Storage is a problem with these cake things...how do other people do it?? seems very uneconomical to individually cling film each piece for the freezer

weezl74

poohbear59 wrote: »

I hope you found my frugal suet roll recipe in your pm.

I did thanks PB It's great

I'm debating between an oven bakes and a steamed version at the mo....

Although obviously Shirley can tweak as desired! Steaming creates a larger pudding, and therefore the feeling of a more substantial dinner IYSWIM?

Did anyone need supper last night?

Also I wanted to ask, if you didn't mind posting it, what your normal food budget is per person? It's just that you already seem to do so many of these things already!