Fiscal Fast – 7 days no spending (at all)

Frugalsod

amber03 wrote: »

I work in a supermarket and it is amazing how many people go shopping on a daily basis, always with the same excuse, " i only came in for a few things , now look how much I have got" and before they know it the have a trolley full. x

I try and limit my exposure to the insides of supermarkets. I need to venture in about once a week to get milk, but I will try and time it to coincide with my local stores additions to the YS bin. Then I can come out with a lot more food than I intended.

[Deleted User]

So far so good ,still only spent £12.94 since returning from my holidays .I am using my long-life milk at the moment to keep me from straying near to the shops.Last night was freezer roulette and I discovered that I had unearthed a decent slice of pork fillet so that was dipped in flour,egg and dried stuffing crumbe and cooked in the remoska along with a couple of new potatoes and some steamed cabbage and a couple of carrots ,delicious. I used up the last of my stewed apple from the fridge with some yoghurt. I made a jelly up with some crystals I found in the cupboard so it will form part of pudding tonight.I think I fancy a cheese salad tonight as its still quite warm and I have a couple of cooked new potato's left over from last night.I am streeeching the fresh fruit and veg until it squeaks this week.I have two oranges left and about a dozen or so grapes. Veg wise I have a quarter of a cabbage ,three carrots and some new spuds still in stock,plus lettuce,half a cucumber and about 8 large plum tomato's.I have veg and fruit in the freezer though.Mainly just trying to avoid temptation of the shops :):)
Onwards and upwards chums

GreyQueen

Classic ekeing there, jackie0.

I've spent nothing so far this month but will be buying a single lemon after work as am going to be using some fish bought and frozen in June to make fishcakes to frugalincornwall's recipe. I was thinking about fishcakes/ fishpie but was uncertain about a recipe as had never done this before and up that popped at just the right moment. Looks lush.

I shall shop on the market rather than the small supermarket so I'm less likely to be tempted into other purchases. It's all headology, isn't it?

It's amazing how habituated I was to shopping more frequently, and I am not, and never have been, a heavy consumer, but I was obviously shopping a lot more than I needed to be. The time and money savings are considerable, plus having less clutter around the place.

craigywv

Had a couple of nsd tonight dinner will be from freezer ,chicken bacon and mushroom pasta and garlic bread. Really really need to empty at least one freezer as they all starting to jam up when i closing the drawers so i on a mission now deffo no buying of food its lioke an ocd i have to stop its getting ridiculous if anything happenned to the electric i would lose the lot it has to be brought under control. So i not going near sm for near future. Good luck all xxx

GreyQueen

The purse, it opened, money escaped, waaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Actually it wasn't that bad, I went to the market for a lemon and the fresh parsley which is also in the recipe but which I was going to substitute with random dried herbs, looked so lush that I bought half-a-bunch so that and the lemon were 80p in total (this month's total spend to date).

Am cooking frugalincornwall's fishcakes from her blog, looking pretty impressive thus far, have turned £1 of YS fish into 10 good fishcakes, looking forward to eating them.

[Deleted User]

GreyQueen wrote: »

The purse, it opened, money escaped, waaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!


Am cooking frugalincornwall's fishcakes from her blog, looking pretty impressive thus far, have turned £1 of YS fish into 10 good fishcakes, looking forward to eating them.

well done on only spending a tiny amount,will you freeze any fishcakes or will they all be eaten ? I haven't had fishcakes in years my late Mum used to make the most delicious ones that melted in your mouth.Great way to 'extend' a bit of fish to go round.We had a wet fishmonger where we lived and the conversation would go as follows
Mum 'Good Morning Mr D***ins, whats the best value in this morning'
Mr D***ins 'Good Morning Mrs Be**n,how's the family ? is it for fishcakes, or for frying.
Mum 'Depends on the price and quality' fixing him with a sweet smile, shot through with steel
Mr D***ins ' In that case I reccomend this 'producing a fish so fresh it almost jumped out of his large red hands.
My late Mum would always treat the baker,grocer,fishmonger in fact anyone with unfailing politeness,but in return she expected and got men almost falling overthemselves to help her.She was a tiny little 5ft nothing Scot who could charm the birds off the trees with her smile, but God help you if she was upset or cross.Bless her, I wish I had inherited her ways ,although I do have my moments ,especially with rudeness in shops.
I must have a rummage in the bottom of my seemingly bottomless freezer I am sure there is some fish in there.Perhaps I can make a fish pie for tomorrow night and use up the rest of the cabbage and left over carrots for the veg.I'm off to find frugalincornwalls recipe,sound good:D
DD caught some sea bass while we were on holiday, and my son-in-law pan-fried them with some sliced chilli's and a butter sauce ,very naughy but nice :):)

GreyQueen

Hi jackie0, I ate 4 because they were lush and I was a piglet. Then I have put 2 aside in the fridge for tomorrow and individually wrapped the remaining 4 and frozen.

I was pleasantly surprised how far about 250g of cod 'bits' went and this would be an excellent way of ekeing fish around several tums, and will definately become a habit, if I can get fish at a reasonable price.

There's a real satisfaction in making something out of not-a-lot, isn't there? Life skills like cooking and homemaking are a bit easy to mock, not terribly glamourous but, by golly, if you lack them don't you bleed money hand-over-fist?

Haven't any particular spending plans for tomorrow. I have various things I have to do, and some things which I will try to squeeze in which are weather dependant, but I will hope to pick a few blackberries over the weekend to enliven some rather tired apples which need to be trimmed and the best bits can go into a pie.

nannygladys

Oh fishcakes - I love fishcakes and if I remember correctly I have some frozen fish pie mix in the freezer, so may have a go at making some over the weekend. Well another nsd for me so that's four in a row, but I get paid tomorrow and have dgd for the night and we are having pizza, fruit and jelly, her choice, but I only have to buy the pizza. I won't have a lot of time to make one unfortunately but at least it won't cost much, so really pleased with my mini fast.

I'm on holiday next week, so when I come back I will again join in with you as I still have plenty in the cupboards and freezer

Nannyg

[Deleted User]

Yay found some fish last night (think its cod ,anyway its white fish so I'll be making frugalincornwall fishcakes this morning) .Some to eat, and some to freeze I was going for a fish pie but decided I can tuck fishcakes into the freezer more easily than fish pie left overs :)As I seem to have an addiction at the moment for sweet chilli sauce a dollop of that will go into the mix and I have half a sweet pepper which is going to get diced up and added as well I do like spicy stuff.
I have rescued some stewing lamb from the freezer as well once defrosted I am going to make a lamb casserole in my slow cooker and throw in anything I think may be tasty. I brought home some rose wine from my holidays so a good slug of that may find its way into the casserole as well.Some rosemary and diced red onoins and a good long cook on low all day.What ever it tastes like it will make at least 4 portions which will be boxed up and returned to the freezer whan cold for 'instant dinners' when I am rushed.

GreyQueen

Well, the fishcakes went down very nicely on the second day, with some leftover cooked potatoes fried lightly as 'chips' and the remainder of the sweetcorn. Tasty and nutritious, with some stewed pears from the freezer for dessert.

Spent most of the day pottering around at home whilst waiting for paint to dry but did briefly go to the shops and spent a whole 50p on a cloth bag for a specific purpose. I could have made one not dissimilar, but made a quick cost/ benefit analysis and decided that my time was worth more than 25p an hour, so bought it. Money went to a good cause, anyway.

Keep on keeping on, my lovelies. GQ xx