It's STILL tough and not getting better - so how are we coping?

ceridwen

EstherH wrote: »

Charlies-aunt - they had big packs of Daz in Morrisons a couple of weeks ago. 60 washes for £6 (I think) Don't know if they still have that on offer. I got three so they should last a while.

How much does everyone spend on fruit a week? That seems to be my biggest spend. I can stretch out the meat but 5 a day is 5 a day (and I know that includes vegatables).

Difficult to give an exact answer in my case - it varies according to the time of year basically. I had loads of fruit around today for instance - and it came respectively as:
- some my mother had got on a "two for 1" so she gave me the other one
- some homegrown
- some foraged
- some bought at an incredibly cheap rate

so - loadsa fruit - but it probably cost me about 10p.

At other times of the year I'm aware that I've just spent about £10 on fruit for the last week. It very much depends...

jackieglasgow

EstherH do you not know anyone who would be willing to share the order with you nearby? My sisters and I have just placed an order together (after some "forceful persuasion" on my part ), to save paying so much delivery.

EstherH

ceridwen wrote: »

Difficult to give an exact answer in my case - it varies according to the time of year basically. I had loads of fruit around today for instance - and it came respectively as:
- some my mother had got on a "two for 1" so she gave me the other one
- some homegrown
- some foraged
- some bought at an incredibly cheap rate

so - loadsa fruit - but it probably cost me about 10p.

At other times of the year I'm aware that I've just spent about £10 on fruit for the last week. It very much depends...

Just written long post and pressed something and lost it - aaagh!

Our staples are apples, oranges and bananas of which we get through about three packs of each. Then grapes which I try not to pay more than £3 a kilo for but if hubby does shopping or comes with me, they go in the basket whatever price. I also like to get a couple of melons but try to get on offer or don't bother. In summer we eat a lot of strawberries. I also like peaches, necterines and plums but noone else does, so I only get these when on offer.
We have an apple and pear tree in garden but the apples are small and only good for cooking and the pears are hard, but then seem to suddenly go off, so we aren't very successful with them, although i would like to use more this year. Also got a lot of blackberries in garden and have been collecting these and putting in the freezer for crumbles etc.


My mum used to make egg and bacon pie in the 60's when I was little and she made it with Carnation Milk from a recipe in a promotional booklet from them. It was lovely. That was before we had ever heard of quich. I can't remember whether it had cheese in it.

EstherH

jackieglasgow wrote: »

EstherH do you not know anyone who would be willing to share the order with you nearby? My sisters and I have just placed an order together (after some "forceful persuasion" on my part ), to save paying so much delivery.

Not sure. Will have a think about who might not be sniffy at the thought of beyond best before dates. I showed my daughter after the first time I ordered thinking that we could put in a joint order, but she wasn't impressed and only wanted a couple of things so I ended up paying the delivery charge and then when it came and she asked how much she owed me said 'oh your alright, you can have them'. Thing was, I wouldn't have ordered anything at that point if i hadn't been showing her. Just got carried away. Definitely not my mum, which is surprising as she was brought up in the war and even when we were little was very much make do and mend. They didn't have best before dates then.

purpleheather2810

I've looked at approved foods before but never seen anything that I thought was any better value than somewhere like B+M to be honest...

EstherH

oops, loosing my head. When I lost the post I wrote about fruit, I had it in my head about the egg and bacon pie. But now i have realised that that was in answer to another thread i was looking at.

Gigervamp

EstherH wrote: »

Well, glad to see I'm not on my own. I started this stockpiling when this thread began and everybody was talking about how hard this winter was going to be both weather wise and financially with cut backs. I am also trying to be a lot more organised with meal planning and cooking from scratch.

That's the whole point of this thread. To enable people to be ahead of the game. If you've got some stocks, you're able to make meals for your family when everybody else is running around like a headless chicken.

Hardup_Hester

http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/hot-apple-and-chilli-jelly-recipe-6372
Recipe for Apple & chilli jelly here

jediteacher

For those of your after washing liquid or softener there is currently an excellent offer at Sainsburys. I found the info on the grabbit board and now have spend the grand sum of £20 and I have got 4x Fairy Non-bio liquid gel, 4x Ariel Actilift, 4x Fairy softener. Hopefully will be able to get a few more as I still have loads of coupons.

Here is the deal:

Sainsburys have Ariel and Fairy products on offer, for instance Fairy non bio gel normally £8, now half price. Same for the Ariel...

That in itself is a good deal I think at half price... but... for every £10 spent on the various products you receive a £5 voucher. This voucher actually comes in the form of two £2.50 vouchers.

One is for £2.50 off of any Ariel and the other for any Fairy.... So I went straight back round and picked up another 3 x Fairy Gel and 1 x Ariel Gel, bring the cost to £11 and you guessed it another two vouchers. You could carry this method on until a. you run out money b.they run out of stock!! Alternatively when you've brought enough... your last two purchases will be one of each at the cost of £1.50 each RRP £8 each.... Thats a massive saving

First you have to spend £10:

I got the fairy non biological box (80 washes for £10) this gave me a £2.50 voucher for fairy and a £2.50 for Ariel.

Next time I got:
1x Fairy gel - Reduced to £4 from £8
1x Ariel - Reduced to £4 from £8
1x Fairy conditioner - £2 (large one) Total: £10 but with vouchers £5.

There are other things you can get such as pampers, head and shoulders but I'm stockpiling the laundary stuff.

I hope this makes sense

EstherH

Gigervamp wrote: »

That's the whole point of this thread. To enable people to be ahead of the game. If you've got some stocks, you're able to make meals for your family when everybody else is running around like a headless chicken.

Think I'm getting a bit mixed up because I read this thread and start stockpiling and I read another and think I should be living out of the storecupboard to save money. Using up what I have so before I buy more. Lol.