Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

Winchelsea

Aaaahhh....I see!!

I have my own system, which is a pen and paper one. When I get a chance I'll have a look at the nity gritty and post a personal target on here.

I control my finances by stone age methods (well, not quite!) - but work with a system of daily envelopes , separate purses for housekeeping and EE (everything else) etc. I draw out cash as/when needed, and check all accounts on the 1st of the month to see what actual as opposed to theoretical money is there, if that makes sense.

I do have one credit card (for flexibility), but will only spend on it if I KNOW I can pay it off when the bill comes in.

Works for me!

apple_mint

Good morning everyone :wave:

Yoghurt maker is on and lamb shanks are in the slow cooker. I'm trying this recipe from BBC Good Food.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3535/braised-lamb-shanks-with-crushed-herb-potatoes

I'm cooking four and putting two shanks into the freezer for a meal later on. Making it with home-made wine so that is keeping the cost down. We'll have it with mash rather than crushed herb potatoes. Looking at the size of the lamb shanks I think I may be able to make this more economical and stretch it to three meals for us.

I've already updated my spreadsheets as I was awake early. OH is working today, and although I didn't have to get up I still do as I like to have a chat with him before he leaves for work. So now I have the day to myself to sort out meals for the week (and to read MSE ).

Not spent as much on food this week - £10.84 and I've put off the supermarket shop until early next week. I have however been spending online - an LED lantern and rechargeable batteries, plus a battery alarm clock. We've been having powercuts and this knocks out the radio alarm clock (no battery back up). We have one LED lantern, but found that it would be much easier to have two. I've also bought extra rechargeable batteries for the torches. All in all, these cost £65 :eek: but the increasing frequency of the power cuts has convinced me that we need to be better prepared. No council tax this month so I'm covering the cost with the money not spent on this. I'm hoping they last us many, many years.

tumptyteapot

cw18 wrote: »

use of which is optional, but the rows hopefully give you some idea of what most people are including in their budgets

annual budget divided by 12 and multiplied by the number of months we're into the year so far

as we're now in March, this is month 3. so column C will be equal to one quarter (3/12ths) of the annual budget.

if you're setting your budgets from March onwards (and ignoring the spends in Jan & Feb), then you'll need to make a minor modification to the formula in cell A1 in order to get column C to give you the correct figures - if you drop me a Private Message I'll give you the details

aha, so I should have put in annual budgets not monthly? I'll PM you, thank you!
Lisa

tumptyteapot

Well slow cooker porridge was a disaster, but the plan today is to take the train (£3) out and go geocaching with a picnic, all free!

never_too_old

tumptyteapot wrote: »

Well slow cooker porridge was a disaster, but the plan today is to take the train (£3) out and go geocaching with a picnic, all free!

What is geocaching?
have fun whatever it is:j

tumptyteapot

l.m.hart wrote: »

What is geocaching?
have fun whatever it is:j

http://www.geocaching.com/
free fun - as long as you have either a gps or a phone which has google maps :-)
You get clues to co-ordinates where a box of swapables will be hiding - typically small toys so it is great for 7 years olds like my son. Tiny geocaches are magnetic and just have a strip of paper so you can log your visit but bigger ones are usually sandwich boxes full of goodies - the last one we did was a dvd swap. They are all over the world and geocaching is a great way to find new places.

Puddleglum

We go geocaching too. The family are so involved that we have a chalk board with the scores of who finds caches in the living room. I am right at the bottom of the scoreboard having only found one and to be honest I only found it first because it was hidden in a car park and we were all trying to make it look as though we weren't doing anything suspicious! I was loitering in just the right place.:o

Live has been expensive for me this week in deepest zummerzet. I gave up pouring a litre and a half into the radiator of the car before every journey and took it to the garage. £277 later that is all fixed but the check engine light which has been on for most of the 3 years I have had it has come back on. No one has ever got to the bottom of this problem, maybe it just likes having its Christmas lights on all year.:xmastree:

Work is incredibly busy as we have one member of the team off long term sick with stress. Logically it is only a 25% increase in workload for each of the rest of us but it feels like more. On the bright side however there may be some overtime available so them darn Christmas lights may get turned off yet!_party_ Atm though we are all absolutely cream crackered by the start of the week and crawl home at the end.

I hope that everyone is ok and that people going through sticky patches are coping alright.

Best wishes P

Lesley_Gaye

sweet bean curry

175g dried beans, soaked and cooked, any type
25ml oil
1 onion, chopped
1 apple, chopped, no need to peel
175g mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp curry powder (or 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1tsp garam masala)
570ml bean stock or water
Salt to taste
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbslp chutney
50g sultanas
50g coconut cream

Saute the onion and mushrooms, add apple. Add curry powder or spices and sizzle for a bit.

Add the lemon juice, chutney, sultanas, beans and stock.

Simmer for 10-15 minutes, ensuring that there is enough liquid left to make enough sauce, or add more water

Add the coconut cream shortly before serving and just dissolve it through. Serve with 50g rice per person. Makes 6 portions. Freezes well

last time I checked the price, it worked out at 28p a portion. It's really filling, especially if you use the brown basmati rice rather than white. I really like the spicy creamy flavour, and sometimes have a tomato or 2 with it in the summer when we have tomatoes in the greenhouse. I have frozen this and it comes out well.

my brother, the coelaic, can have this, and so can my vegetarian sister (it is actually vegan), but my mushroom allergic DD has to have a mushroom free version

Lesley_Gaye

Spicy Lentil Soup

this recipe is from Rose Elliot's Vegetarian Express
serves 4

1 onion, chopped
tsp garlic
250g red lentils
1500ml water
1 carrot, chopped
1 stick celery, chopped
lemon juice to taste
1 tsp salt

Saute all the veg in a little oil until soft, add any spices and saute for a couple more minutes

add the lentils and water, simmer for 15-20 minutes until the lentils are soft. Whizz

this plain version is nice just as it is, but the version I prefer uses some of the optional spices
1 tblsp fresh ginger
1-2 tsps ground coriander
1-2 tsps ground cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric

you can use any combination of these, or of course, any other spices you fancy, or just one of them. The combination I usually go for is 1 tbslp fresh ginger and a whole tsp (not a half) of turmeric

if you get fresh ginger from a greengrocer or a market, it is much cheaper than a supermarket. You can then peel it and slice it and keep it in the freezer

I didn't have any celery last time I made this and it was fine. The next day, I tipped in some left over mashed swede and carrot and a few peas, and their cooking water, and added another handful of lentils and cooked it all up. That was tasty too. I don't usually add the lemon juice as I often don't have any

wrenlegs

Update: I managed to shave £10 off my supermarket bill this week - so £70 down to £60 which Im quite happy about. Am watching my weight (have a bit of a spare tyre effect going on) so it helped limit quantities