Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

Allegra

auditbabe wrote: »

I used to be fairly good at minutes and am prepared to give it if that helps :j

Weezl says no minutes, but it's useful to know you have the skill You might end up being drafted when you least expect it :rotfl:

SusanC_2

Sian_the_Green wrote: »

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/family/2010/07/the-14400-minimum-cost-of-living?utm_source=forum&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_campaign=box

I find it interesting that this research sets the bar this high but when you look at what is seen as 'minimum' standards it makes a little more sense. Having a holiday and access to social activities is not, to me, a minimum standard. You could blow this lot out of the water Weezl with your frugality or show people who don't have an income at this level how they can reduce one of their major expenditures to avoid debt

:eek: My OH earns less than the single person figure that for three of us and I think we have apretty good standard of living.

The minimum standard includes essentials, such as food and housing, plus items and services that enable them to participate in society, such as transport, social activities and one week's holiday in the UK each year.

We have all of those easily.

taka

Sian_the_Green wrote: »

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/family/2010/07/the-14400-minimum-cost-of-living?utm_source=forum&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_campaign=box

I find it interesting that this research sets the bar this high but when you look at what is seen as 'minimum' standards it makes a little more sense. Having a holiday and access to social activities is not, to me, a minimum standard. You could blow this lot out of the water Weezl with your frugality or show people who don't have an income at this level how they can reduce one of their major expenditures to avoid debt

I had a look at that too... My yearly budget comes in several £1000s less than this number (and includes holidays etc) and I think I live very well on this... If I go to here and adjust it to cope with my mortgage / council tax / bills etc I apparently "should" need £15,319 per year, (after tax).

The breakdown is eye-opening too... £44.34 a week for food and £42.16 a week for "Social and cultural activites" (which doesn't include alcohol - another £4.69 a week) ! :eek: That is £4741.88 a year in total just for me on those 3 things! :eek: Ermmmmm that is quite a lot!

artybear

Hey everyone I'm back-bad things have happened again today :(but I am not going to dwell.

Instead I will tell you all how I can fish now!!!!

I wrote down all (the very random) items in my store cupboard and made actual meals with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :T:T:T:T:T:T

Its cuz i can make risottos etc....now thanks to you lot. So I did my 'big' shop for the week and it came to £12 and this included a pizza and a sneaky bottle of wine which was £3.49!!!!!! How cool is that???:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

Thats for a week of breakfasts/lunches and dinners and I even bought WW bread!!!!:cool:

I know you all do this all the time but I am so pleased and just wanted to say thank you. I'm having a hard time at the mo and its so nice to know that I have cfr as a safety blanket so I can eat healthily and cheaply.:o:p

Re:skype I love chatting on it and will chat away to you all until you block me but I do think we should make everyone aware that its ok to join......but I think they were anyway (I hope)


Hope everyone is ok (weezl and fergie esp)xxxxxxxxxxxx

Allegra

I bring in an average of £6k a year for a 20 hour week In case anyone needed to feel a bit better about their income

Arty, that is so ruddy good - I love hearing about people who learnt to fish

I am stuffed Remember when I did Shirl's step-by-step batch cooking day then tested it out ? Well, as I was cooking for Shirl rather than my own family, I made wayyyy to much of everything. This was intentional, not just for Shirl's veracity reasons, but also for research purposes - I wanted to see how long spreads would actually keep if they do not get eaten.

Well, it's been good 8 weeks, and nothing went mouldy That's good enough for me, so over the last couple of days I set about using up whatever was left in order to check on further variations - so nut butter went into the bread dought to produce gorgeous nutty and seedy bread; apple curd was used instead of fat in Victoria sponge recipe (equal volume) to produce a rather different moist, tangy apple sponge, which is delicious slathered with the last of the last summer's foraged plum jam

And tangy bean pate was used alongside houmus in a big batch of calzone (pate or houmus + tomato sauce made with 25p passata + a small grating of cheddar), as well as a little something extra to add to tonight's tarka dal. We also had radishes, peas and peppers from the garden, and strawberries (from the garden), blackberries (the very last of last year's crop from the freezer) and clotted cream (sent by mother-in-common-law from her hols).

So yeah, I'm pretty stuffed

artybear

Yup Allegra, I am officially a fisherman

All your food sounds yummy....making me hungry

weezl74

I remembered one thing off the skype chat that was businessy

on monday twink did some more nutrition research and we discussed together + lesley how it seems increasingly important to be able to refer to our sources for the nutrition info on the site.

It was decided that a good approach was for me to email the BBC good food magazine website and ask the data source they use for the info about the recipes.

Yesterday I got an autoresponse, and today I had this email:

Hi xxxxx,

Thanks for your e-mail. We actually hire an in-house qualified nutritionist to work out our data and she uses the most popular nutritional computer analysis programme to do so. I hope this answers your question but please let me know if you have any further queries.

Many thanks,

Lily

HowlinWolf

it would have helped if she told you what the most popular nutritional analysis programme was

weezl74

HowlinWolf wrote: »

it would have helped if she told you what the most popular nutritional analysis programme was

true! but hey.

my thinking was that as long as we attempt to match if possible the response standard as set by the BBC then we have been duly diligent.

Perhaps me buying the software that avocet likes is a good idea.

But we can say we have analysed our planners using a purpose-built piece of software, which references data from USDA and Mccance and widdowson.

If Lily's message is the gold standard, I don't feel we need to go a good deal further than that

I think what I mean howlin is that I'm actually cheered by the response!

HowlinWolf

I think what I mean howlin is that I'm actually cheered by the response! [/FONT][/QUOTE]

Glad to hear it. I think we do very well at ensuring our info is right, especially for non-nutritionists