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

fantacee

magicmum wrote: »

Afternoon
On a lighter note I am looking for some ideas for home made breakfast bars, something nutritional that oh can take with him in the morning.
I have made some oatmeal bars but need some sort of variety.

My mum made these twice lately, second time substitued raisins with cranberried, they were delicious!

Energy Bars

Makes 30; ready in 30 mins (keep for ages)

1/2 cup Peanut Butter
1/4 cup Margarine
1 bag mini Marshmallows
2 1/2 cups Cheerios
1 1/2 cups Rice Krispies
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup peanuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Melt peanut butter, margarine and marshmallows by steaming glass bowl over pan of boiling water (or it should work in micro)

Put cereals, raisins and peanut in a large bowl, stir in the peanut butter mixture and mix together

Press into buttered 13" x 9" biscuit pan, cut into bars and cool

Enjoy!

stiltwalker

Hi all,

I'm new to the site and have been reading all your posts to catch up, finally got there so thought I'd post and introduce myself. I'm a SAHM of 1 DD - 18 months - with another on the way. Have always been frugal but lately having to get more so. We're lucky in that we don't have much in the way of debt but my OH doesn't earn a big wage and the housing costs where we are are high so there's not a lot in the kitty.
I was a cook before I had my DD so everything at home made from scratch and currently working on getting a good store cupboard of preserves ready for the winter, had a good forage yesterday and came home with bags of rosehips and elderberries for jellies, I've found all your posts on here really inspriational, giving me the encouragement to keep getting off my rear and doing stuff even though I'm tired and only just finished feeling sick!
I'm sorry so many of you are having such a hard time at the moment, my thoughts are with you and I am counting my blessings to have such a lovely family who support me and don't think I'm too mad when I hop off to pick something from a hedge!
Hope everyone has something good happen to them soon - you all deserve it.

lambanana

Ooh those energy bars sound really tasty! I love pretty much anything with peanut butter in.

mummysaver

Good afternoon all!

Well I can't say that our finances have drastically improved, but they haven't yet got any worse! Hopefully I'm not going to jinx anything by saying that everything is jogging along nicely at the mo - before anyone feels I'm getting smug, I have just had the most enormous gas bill in the world, seems they forgot to charge me for a delivery or something! Taken ages to get to the bottom of things, but seem to have done it at last, and have some savings put by which we can use to pay it, which is a huge relief, not entirely sure what we'd be doing for gas otherwise!

The freezers are fairly well stocked at the mo, had half a pig delivered last week, ds's friend raises them and we order them each time, so pork is the order of the day! Was in the co-op the other day and they had 4 can packs of toms reduced to 41p, so I bought lots, my friend asked why I didn't clear the shelves, but thought it only fair to leave some for others! Any recipes that call for pork and/or toms much appreciated!

Have made some jams, but still need to get on with some chutneys and pickles, and get stewing apples for the freezer. Like stiltwalker I can often be found rummaging in hedges or begging friends to let me at their fruit trees!

Was chatting with OH the other day, and he was moaning that my OS ways were slipping! This from the man who used to laugh at me for all my "funny ways"! I suspect that whilst some things went a little haywire over the hols, mealplans for instance as kids were all over the place, in and out at funny times, and away with friends and their dad too, that OH has simply got used to my OS, and it no longer registers as unusual so he doesn't notice it quite so much! I did ask what was different now, and all he could come up with was that I'd not made any rolls for a long time lol!

I love OS and I love the fact that it has kept us going when we could have easily sunk so many times, and I love the fact that we have this place and that everyone is so supportive. I hope that things pick up for everyone who is having a tough time right now xxx

Kitcaboodle

Hope you get things sorted so you're treated properly Kezlou!

--

DH hates those no-touch sanitizers too, he goes on rants about 'trying to make people scared so they'll buy stuff' when those ads and other similar germ-killing ones come on TV. I'm very much of the school of thought that thinks we're sanitizing ourselves into a generation of people allergic to everything as well. (I have occasional asthma myself but I put that down to going to school right next to a field where they crop sprayed during playtime...)

I'm currently very chuffed with my savings at Tesco today. DS's terry nappies are still on the horse and not dry after 4 days - so I'm having to use disposables. We should be fine once the heating goes on but need disposables for the meantime, or a de-humidifyer and they start around £50-£60 for the cheapest model, plus electricity so - for the few months a year when the nappies take a while to dry, I figure it's better to use disposables when I can't find a dry terry (will still be using the terry nappies as often as possible!)

Anyway, I had some vouchers from the baby & toddler club and, along with the baby event offers, I got £32 worth of nappies, swim-nappies and wipes for £16 and I still have another £1.50 voucher to use but couldn't carry any more nappies home by myself. I usually use cloth wipes but have a small freebie pack that I use for out & about. They were buy one get two free, so I got three packs (£2.49 and I had a £1 off voucher to reduce that further!) that will probably last me until DS is out of nappies!

I was even able to use a voucher that gave me 200 extra clubcard points if I spent over £15 in baby essentials! My only potentially foolish purchase was two packs of Little Swimmers which were discounted and I had a voucher for. I'd prefer to have a re-usable swim nappy for DS but, they came to £7 after the voucher and will probably last for the period that he fits that size & I'd need a bigger swim nappy after that anyway. Just need a swimsuit for me now!

I know that's not exactly old style (though it's for coping when my old-style stuff isn't available!) but it was such a good deal that I'm very happy!

Thats_Me_3

No touch hand soap.......OMG, when I first saw the advert I thought it was a joke! Talk about terrifying your customers to buy your wares! In case anyone on here thinks it is a good idea, just a couple of observations - YOU ARE WASHING YOUR HANDS!! YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TOUCH THE PUMP WITH CLEAN HANDS!! HAVE YOU DISINFECTED YOUR BRAIN ALONG WITH YOUR HANDS!! Breathe, breathe and relax.......... For goodness sake don't get me started on Febreze Flash!!

maryb

mummysaver wrote: »

The freezers are fairly well stocked at the mo, had half a pig delivered last week, ds's friend raises them and we order them each time, so pork is the order of the day! Was in the co-op the other day and they had 4 can packs of toms reduced to 41p, so I bought lots, my friend asked why I didn't clear the shelves, but thought it only fair to leave some for others! Any recipes that call for pork and/or toms much appreciated!

Mummysaver I quite often do a Rosemary Conley recipe - Pork and Aubergine bake. Despite being low calories, it's delish, and aubergines are cheap at this time of year, or you could use courgettes.

You cut the aubergines into rounds, sprinkle them with salt and leave them for about 20 minutes, then rinse them and pat dry with paper towel.

Alternatively just slice them and don't bother!! (I have seen something to the effect that modern varieties are not bitter and I have to say I've never noticed much difference).

Then you spread the aubergine slices on a baking tray and spritz them with oil if you've got one of those spray pumps or brush them with oil if you haven't/don't care about calories. Bake them in a medium to high oven for about 10 minutes until going golden turning halfway through.

While they are in the oven, you basically make a bol sauce with tomatoes and pork mince. Then layer the sauce and the aubergine slices into an ovenproof dish, almost as if you are making a lasagne, sprinkle with grated cheese and put back in the oven until the cheese is golden and bubbling

Yum

maryb

I always used to think that supermarket prices were pretty comparable and there was no point doing a price book a la Tightwad Gazette. Besides it's a lot of work. However I've found an easy way of doing it using My Supermarket. When it says to print your shopping list go for the option which allows you to split your list . When it comes up cancel the print and just look on screen to see what is cheaper. It's very quick to do this for each supermarket in turn. I found that it actually makes quite a difference and I end up buying about 1/3 Tesco, 1/3 Sainsbury's and 1/3 Lidl. I'm lucky in that I can hit them all in a 2 mile circuit so I don't waste the savings in extra petrol.

This has made me very aware of prices so I really noticed it this week when I realised how many prices have suddenly shot up. I know people have been talking about price rises all over the summer but there seem to have been a large number of increases all in the last week. I would say that at least half the stuff I bought this week has gone up bar the seasonal stuff although there were quite a lot of special offers/BOGOFs to disguise the fact. And we are talking 10- 15% increases on most items. The cheapest price rise was from 93p to 99p which is still nearly 6.5%

And this at a time when people are getting negative net after tax real interest (actually it's negative before tax but that's just adding insult to injury). I'm old enough to remember the 1970s and it's feeling uncomfortably like that. I remember older people who retired on what were reasonable pensions becoming poor after they didn't keep pace with inflation and I feel a chill wind at the prospect of our own retirement, especially as occupational pension increases are only going to be linked to CPI, which seems to be calculated by leaving out all the things you actually spend money on like heating and eating

flowertotmum

KIDCAT..massive hugs for you..
KEZLOU.. nice one babe..you wait til he apologizes first..
Annie..have a lovely day..
Mummysaver..hi..just out of curiosity how much was your pig?
Thatsme..:rotfl:wonder who thought of the idea in the first place..
Had a great day..got my shopping for £35 including nappies:)..so my cupboards and freezer are well and truly stocked up..went to my dd's for lunch and a playdate..pinched some roses out of her garden while i was there:Dbeautiful and smell lovely...on way home i spotted some rowan trees with the branches hanging down loaded with berries..picked a load for decoration..makes my room look very autumnal????...also spotted lots of blackberries hanging over a hedge and rosehips galore..feeling brave i went and knocked and asked if i could possibly pick some in exchange for a few jars of jam..got swore at and told to fluffing well keep my hands off:o..i slunk home feeling very stupid it made me a bit angry as they are going to waste and overhanging on the public footpath...so i won't be doing that again:(..got home to find a chicken running around the garden:eek:..had to catch her and put her back in the pen..bloody chicken..she's always getting out..the others don't bother its just her..she'll be for the pot if she carries on:D(not joking)...going to do my knitting in a mo:rotfl::rotfl:its a joke looking at it..but at least i'm trying...take care all of you...
sara

Fruball

flowertotmum wrote: »

also spotted lots of blackberries hanging over a hedge and rosehips galore..feeling brave i went and knocked and asked if i could possibly pick some in exchange for a few jars of jam..got swore at and told to fluffing well keep my hands off:o..i slunk home feeling very stupid it made me a bit angry as they are going to waste and overhanging on the public footpath...so i won't be doing that again:(..

OMG how rude :eek: Don't let it put you off, most people wouldn't mind I am sure.

We used to have someone who came every year and helped themselves to our mushrooms in our old front garden. They asked the first time, and then kept coming back year after year... Hope the people who moved into that house didn't mind!!! :rotfl:

I have spotted some really juicy looking rosehips near the kids school... I am fairly certain its council land... Can i just take them? I was going to take a tub with me tomorrow to collect them

What do you do with rosehips? I was thinking a syrup to ward off colds and sore throats... No idea how to make it tho... off to google it

Found this... Hugh FW's recipe - http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/chefs/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/rosehip_syrup_p_1.html so easy! Not so easy round here is to find 1kg of hips! But its equal hips>sugar so will just reduce accordingly