FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE 2010, part 2, April - June.

ChinaTea

Hope everyone is OK.

have been making the most of the lovely weather although the wind is so cold so need to wrap up warm, I'm still wearing my thermals!

Have planted loads of seeds all in the plastic greenhouse and they're doing really well. Have some salad leaves poking through as well as French beans and pots of marigolds. The Ald* fruit bushes and apple+plum trees are really racing away now. Need to buy some more compost this weekend, our local farmshop is selling 3x 70L for £10 and it's really nice stuff. Had the first couple of sticks of rhubarb at the weekend in a scrummy crumble, well worth the wait as these were planted last year so this is the first pick with plenty more to come.

Had a really productive frugal few days. Got some whoopsied cream and now have enough butter to last a fair while. Made the laundry gloop as well as the powder but think I will stick with the gloop smells really nice and fetched DGS white top that he had on while helping in the garden was really dirty with plenty of grass stains and it came up lovely so well impressed. Freezer sorted out and haven't bought any food for about 9 days now and still plenty for at least another 3 weeks. Biggest success though has been soda bread. Never made it before but so simple and from start to eating was 30 mins. Cheap as well as no yeast or fat and used the buttermilk from making butter really yummy still warm with HM butter and marmalade. Downside is that it doesn't keep well but great when I've run out of bread and need some quick also makes the best toast.

Going to make some toiletries tomorrow. Got a great book from the library, "Grandma's ways for modern days" that I've since bought it covers frugal cooking, gardening, cleaning stuff, keeping chickens and bees and it's my 'bible' at the moment.

Budget is looking good, to my surprise I'm well under the petrol budget although have been busy at home so not out so much and have been planning journey's better and not making special trips for 1 or 2 things. Good job really as the garden budget is just about used up but this should even out over the rest of the year. Grocery spends this month stand at 11.27 so far this month and should not have to spend much more till the end of the month.

Sex in the City has just started so off to watch it.

enjoyfinancialchallenges

NualaBuala thanks, op all over and I'm now home with very fetching oversized black multi sized shoes a bit like boxes actually with a lot of velcro on....the physio said the floral ones had already gone. Seriously though I am not getting around very easily on my Zimmer frame. Whoo hoo, no wheelies for me yet got to learn to walk first. My feet do not look their best I must say, the bits of wire sticking out of my toes make my stomach feel a bit wobbly possibly because I know they will have to come out next week :eek: :eek: Oh well at least I shall be able to get around in less pain when they have healed eventually. Must say I'm not looking forward to having the next op in 5 weeks time, I think I will get it delayed for a couple of weeks so I can get over this one properly first.

Re the salty soup, yes adding potatoes and cooking them in the soup is the way, then remove them and use for something else or throw them away as they should have absorbed all the salt out of the soup. Going back to bed now before my DB who is looking after me comes and shoos me back to bed, he is already upstairs asleep.

My budget is doing well and should last until my month end on the 9th, mind you I shan't be able to do any shopping for a while until I can walk so should save quite a bit, but I did stock up before I went into hospital.

Goodnight and hugs to anyone who wants/needs one.

PS any news from RoPo yet?

lynzpower

Hey another thing about the salty soup/ ham/gammon I found is to rinse the ham - or sit it for 5 mins and then rinse and keep rinsing it in cold running water in a colander

I have been doing ham with the nigella coke recipe when we have some stale pop laying around and it truly is yum. By contrast I roasted one in honey the other day and it was really really salty too, so I have chopped it into really small bits its gone in the freezer to add to pastas and pizzas.

Still awaiting my new identiy, I will come back & introduce myself when its all finally sorted :cool:

landregistrylass

Morning all. Glorious day and I am working from home, so no 100 mile round trip to the office. Hurrah! A good few NSD recently. DH lunch box getting filled from HM goodies and freezer is looking a little thinner, luckily. (Unlike me unfortunately). Having a breast screening today..........its actually very uncomfortable, but 5 mins discomfort is worth it when I think of the alternatives. Agree with all the potato in soup comments - found out the hard way!

mama67

Frugaldom wrote: »

Sunny and windy here, so washing is out on the line. The temperature has been dropping below zero through the night here, so it's often white with frost in the mornings and the ice was quite thick on the hens' water drinkers this morning.

Not much planned for the day other than trying to orgaise the freezer and making use-it-up meals. Slow cooked some 'Nile' mince last night and added a can of the App Foods kidney beans in chilli, just needs some extra tomatoes adding now, but that then poses the problem of having to find space for the cooked leftover sauce to go back into the freezer. It's a bit of a loop I've got myself stuck in here and I really need to get out of it or there'll be nowhere to store summer fruit when the time comes.

This week is strict portion control week, lost about a kilo last week and hope to do same this week. It's very difficult when there's so much food about the place! I still have rice, tuna mayonnaise, chilli mince, pate, homemade soft cheese and some frozen yoghurt all needing used up, so meals in this frugal household are small, regular and very err... varied.

I used some of those kidney beans yesterday in the chilli I made in the slow cooker, gave a different but nice addition which dh liked as I don't usually add in kidney beans as he and DS1 don't seem to like them.

Myself and Dh had this in bowls with some hm bread on the side, the boys had plain jacket potatoes, as we were eating fairly late due to DS1 having been refereeing an U12 cup final at Grimsby Towns home ground.
DS1 was also awarded the junior football league referee of the year, for that league.

landregistrylass

Mama67 - "DS1 was also awarded the junior football league referee of the year, for that league". Congrats due there.

NualaBuala

Hi frunchkins :wave:

Good to see you MissPoppins, hopefully things are going ok for you and if not, at least now you can feel free to moan about it here!

Thanks for the poultry-feeding info Frugaldom. I can imagine that keeping them isn't cheap when you've feed to buy but worth every penny I'm sure!

I was thinking of you today EFC - they had a bit about bunion surgery on The One Show show today. I thought the black shoe thing the lady had on was really good actually! Hope you get "back on your feet" soon and are well and truly recovered before they have a go at the other foot!

Landregistrylass, hope the breast screening went ok.

I think I spoke too soon last time about not spending. I haven't bought any non-consumables but have spent a lot of money on junk food. A takeaway, crisps and chocolate. And I treated myself to a €4 lunch (a nice healthy one) out today as I felt lousy after my Dr's appointment and didn't want to rush home. I'm cutting myself a bit of slack as I've been feeling bad this week but this is a bad habit I want to beat. I have moved money around to make the books balance but seeing how much I've spent this year on junk is shocking. Anyway, I am sticking with it and hope to put my frugal hat back on tomorrow.

I've been reading up on green/frugal living and came across the idea of a homemade solar oven. I'm going to look into it a bit more and see what I could cook in it. I'm also wondering if I could rig up some kind of wood burning oven in the garden as I've loads of sticks/small branches that I need to dispose of. They are quite dry now so would burn well. I'm not sure that I'll be living here next winter so I'm not inclined to save them on the offchance.

Hope you're all doing ok. Hugs all around to anyone who'd like one.

lynzpower

Oh Nuala

Please please can you build a wood fired pizza oven in your garden! I wanna see how its done!

I obviously cant build one on my roof terrace lol but really really want to see how easy it is to do. they were making one on kids tv the other day but I missed most of it (weep)

Did you ever see the River cottage where Hugh made a smoker out of an old oil barrell. I have got to do that one day ( when I have a garden)

Sorry if this confuses anyone

top_drawer_2

hi,

Thanks for the potatoes suggestion but it wasnt hugely sucessful, how many do you suggest I need to use? I just used one medium sized spud cut up into quarters and added it. I'm not sure whether I reduced the saltly taste slightly or not cos all I could taste was salt and more salt........ ;(( really not good as they will all have to be thrown away unless I can come up with a solution - I cant afford to throw food away!

Jen

enjoyfinancialchallenges

I saw the op. on bunions tonight also NualaBuala but hers seemed to be a simple micro surgery where as mine involved both feet and big toe on left foot fixed permanently with wire, right big toe bunion shaved off and smaller toes on both feet loosened underneath as they had become sort of claw like and now have wires sticking out of them at the ends...very attractive really. :rotfl:
The black shoes I described to you last night were the same though. I dont really think having one op at a time would have been beneficial it would just have taken twice as long to completely heal. Anyway my next op. does not involve my feet but my undercarriage. :eek: Ive had it done before but needs doing once again.
If you watched 'Embarassing bodies' last week you would have seen a woman who had the same as I'm having, not nice but essensial at the moment, 'Nuf said on that subject.

Still awaiting news of the RoBo twins also sending hugs and good wishes to all who need them.

top_drawer Sorry dont have a clue how many potatoes to use but I remembered it was lots !!!! for next time though I seem to remember my Mum soaking a gammon overnight and changing the water often so that may prevent it re-occuring, I'm a vegetarian so I haven't a clue how to cook the soup you did. Have you checked on the Good H**********g website you will find the answers to most cooking disaster problems there? Trouble is with adding potatoes and cooking it more if you reduce the liquid content its sure to taste saltier as it becomes more concentrated. Mmmh!