Memorygirls - Make Do and Mend

Memory_Girl

Hi All

I have an announcement.................

.................nope we haven't heard about the school yet:mad: Fingers crossed for later today thought.

The 1st £100 challenge has now officially shut - I had enough left for the milk today .................. but was down three nappies for DS2 .............. and DS1 is in his bed with a tummy bug. As much as I would have loved to have spin the challenge out until my birthday tomorrow - well Mum's you can imagine what was going around in my head - YUP!! 4am, DS2 gippy tummy and no nappies. I am Chicken - hear me cheep!!!

So I make it that my first £100 challenge lasted 40 days:T - an average of £2.50 per day for Me (41 and 364/365ths:rotfl:) DS - aged 9 and DS aged 2 and a squeak.

The thing is I've looked in my cupboards and I don't seem to have cleared much space - although the freezer is looking a little emptier and I no longer panic when I see space in my fridge.

So if we are gong to be entering an "Age of Austerity" - note to Cameron and Clegg "We are already living there - come on in the waters lovely":rotfl: I now declare the second £100 Challenge well and truly opened.

If I start in the morning - then add ten percent onto my target - then the date I hope to end on is 44 days later on Sat 24th July 2010.

DS1 stops school in the 30th of June, so will be on holiday for 24 days of the challenge - so I need to get creative about lunches, picnics and stuff. Hopefully (news today pending) I will be spending most of the days at the new school so I will need to factor in packed lunches for me and the kids on those days too.

To make a start, LIDL had 400g of braising steak reduced to £1.40. I am going to cook it down in the slow cooker, bulk it out with chopped onion, carrot, swede and potato and make a job lot of cornish pasties. A pasty with a heap of HM coleslaw and a baked potato is a pretty good tea for us I should think - and should make a little meat go a along way.

I'm also thinking I need to get more creative with my breadmaker - different styles of bread so that even if lunch is bread and something we don't get too bored. I'm thinking :

Pitta breads
Crispbreads
Crisprolls
Rye Bread
Pumpernickel
Ciabatta
Foccacia
Monkey Bread
Cornbread
Sourdough
Soda Bread
Oatbread
Linseed rusks

All of which I have the ingredients in stock for.

I was thinking I might be really short on pasta - but on further investigation I have 1.5 bags of pasta shapes, 2 pkts of spaghetti, 2 pkts of lasagne sheets and enough flour to make ravioli too. So our Italian food addiction can be satisfied.

Noodles and rice galore - so plenty thai and chinese and indian options.

New sack of potatoes - so soups, baked potatoes, potato salad, wedges, stovies, bubble cakes, gratins, gnocchi and rostis all can feature on the menu.

Do you get that food is quite important to us - :rotfl:

Let the fun and games commence

Memorygirl

PS Aim is to get the current account sitting with £500 of "slush fund" in it and transfer every other spare penny into the 1000 x £124 game.

cha97michelle

40 days is still pretty impressive. I am now near my £100 after doing my Mr T shop. Not sure exactly as i used some vouchers, but i think i am almost there, and that was only 10 days here. I did end up getting quite a lot of pulses though and fruit and veg. I also spotted a stocking filler each for the kids for the dreaded christmas, and bought my brothers girlfriend a birthday card. I also ended up spending £2 on the cbeebies magazine for DS1 as he was so brave during his pre-school booster yesterday. I got £2 back from my mum for something i picked up for her though, so i need to do the book balancing thing i think.

I aspire to make it last longer like yourself, and i am sure if i keep reading i might eventually be able to do it.

knitwit67

Well done MG, 40 days is amazing:T. I have spent £88.75 just on food already. It was part of the plan though. I did a first shop on line to Mr T so got the 1000 points. I love my points, used some this week to pay for tomato plants and potato plants for new potatoes in the winter. Will be using some more for friends birthday prezzie ( x stitch magazine subscription) and to take DH for an italian meal on his birthday. DH laughs at me for all my OS ways, but he did'nt laugh last month when they paid for my MOT, and the car he says needs replacing passed, another victory to me :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

recovering_spendaholic

MG - still loving this thread! Well done on the £100 challenge and good luck with the new one! After reading all of the posts on here I am seriously considering clearing out my under the stairs cupboard which is quite big and currently houses the hoover, a HUGE box of Bratz and other dolls, an old filing cabinet with junk in and about 50 hand and schoolbags - into a pantry so that I can stock up like you have done. ATM I don't have enough space to buy in bulk so I reckon half a day spent clearing and then a lick of paint,some shelving and a couple 9of those stickup lights would give me a good little pantry!

I also love the sound of all the different breads you make. My best friend bought herself a panasonic breadmaker at Christmas and has never used it - she says she will give it to me for my Birthday (in August) if I want but I am not sure. What kind of BM do you all have?

Hope there is some news about the school today!

maryb

Jane if you are offered a Panasonic breadmaker bite her hand off!! They are the best!!

OH thought it would be another of my gadgets (He's actually the one with the expensive toys that get used for one job then left lying around until I put them away). But I've used it almost every day and at laest two of friends and family have bought one after seeing it.

Fingers crossed for the school Memory Girl We are all checking back regularly so don't keep us waiting once you know!!!!

Memory_Girl

knitwit67 wrote: »

DH laughs at me for all my OS ways, but he did'nt laugh last month when they paid for my MOT, and the car he says needs replacing passed, another victory to me :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!! Gotta love your lady M Knitwit. Brilliant news on the car too.

Memorygirl

Memory_Girl

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

MG - still loving this thread! Well done on the £100 challenge and good luck with the new one! After reading all of the posts on here I am seriously considering clearing out my under the stairs cupboard which is quite big into a pantry so that I can stock up like you have done. ATM I don't have enough space to buy in bulk so I reckon half a day spent clearing and then a lick of paint,some shelving and a couple 9of those stickup lights would give me a good little pantry!

I also love the sound of all the different breads you make. My best friend bought herself a panasonic breadmaker at Christmas and has never used it - she says she will give it to me for my Birthday (in August) if I want but I am not sure. What kind of BM do you all have?!

My Pantry is one of the best "brainwaves" I ever had. Apart from the fact it completely justifies in my head mega shops at Indian and Chinese Supermarkets as well as Blue Line Tesco Stuff, think of as an investment like this ...............no seriously, bear with me.

Interest rates are static = pants return on your savings, right? Inflation is soaring ahead, meaning if you can stockpile a little then you are saving the % that inflation is running at. I don't know about you - but even 2% inflation over the year on a £2K household bill is still a couple of weeks groceries for me.

In fact if I didn't getthe Healthy Start Vouchers I would have UHT milk in stock for the kids instead of fresh and would never have to be ina shop apart from fruit and veg.

I also have a "treats" shelf in my pantry, where I've got a Xmas pudding for Christmas, cranberry jelly and some posh jams and pickles. MAkes me feel all cosy just looking at it.

:p:p
Let me say this quietly - PHONE YOUR FRIEND NOW AND ACCEPT THE PANNY - they are the bee's knees, the Rolls Royce of Bread Makers and you want that little pal residing in your kitchen. What a brilliant Friend.

Me - Ive only got a Tescos BM (cos my dad splattered my Panny into a hundred bits "helping" in the kitchen) But it still does the job,although I usually use it to mix up th dough,then I form it by hand into what we want and bake in my little halogen oven.

Wouldn't be without one now of course.

Memorygirl

cha97michelle

Morning.

I agree about the BM. I used to use mine all the time. I got out the habit when i was pregnant as the smell of the yeast really made me queasy and with DS2 my sickness lasted more than half the pregnancy so it was hard to do anything. Now i only seem to use it occasionally but that is because i got a great big bag of cheap professional bread mix to make 13 loaves or 100 breadbuns for £2. I only got one to try but wish i had bought more. Mines a Morphy Richards and my only problem is the paddle comes off in the loaf, and once the bread went mouldy so i ended up binning it with the paddle. Luckily i remembered fairly sharply and recovered it but i have heard others say they had to buy replacement paddles. :rotfl:

I sat and worked out last night i had hit my £100 that i had set myself, but i started on 30/05, and my first overspend will be today. That is 13 days so not too bad really for me for my 1st look into it. I could go on for more days by just using all the food in the house, but the cheap food place sent me an email. They have 1kg bags of frozen salmon for 99p this week, so i can't possibly not get that as it would be criminal. I will try to spend less than a tenner, but i 'need' some coffee, and the kids are going too so they may spot something but i will try not too.

No news about the school yet then?

Firewalker

Good morning MG. Last night I summarised my thoughts about what I call 'financial health' on my tread and one thing that came out was that reducing expenditure is probably most efficient by reducing our variable expenditure (this includes food, drink etc.). This can be done up to a point without loss of quality - by changing organisation and practices (your Pantry idea fits here).

Question for you and all ingenious people on your tread: how much can be saves (as a proportion) before affecting quality? And what practices and organisation are most effective?

If you think I am 'butting in' or 'high-jacking' you could ignore the question. But I am curious?

Firewalker

ClootiesMum

No news yet?

By the way - well impressed @ the £100 challenge. I'm trying to think up a suitable similar challenge for myself (one that DH will buy in to) so you have def got me thinking.

And am working my way through The Secret - the jury's out at the moment but probably because I don't see why my negative thoughts caused Dad to get killed & Mum to commit suicide - that would send me completely over the edge.

Will report back later though