Fiscal Fast – 7 days no spending (at all)

boultdj

I realy must join in again, I'v been losing the plot, what with everyday job and mandatory training, self employment job at night and landing myself an unexpected gift of traing by being in the right place at the right time [ old nieghbour use to tell me 'refuse nowt, only blows] so even though it's left me feel like a headless chicken at times, I'm going for it, so the aim is to not go 'big'shopping till next saturday, but I will to feed the car tomorrow on the way back home after work, and it should just be milk on wensday, unless I can talk OH into having long life in his coffee:D.............and we moved into a new house 3 weeks ago, so I'm decorating in all the spare time I'v got:rotfl:

[Deleted User]

Day 15 and we are HALFWAY through the month :):) no shopping bought since Day 12 and lots of bits to eat in store I had a good sort out of my cupboards today and made a big vat of soup for next weeks lunches and tomorrow I shall be baking up a storm I think, as my C/Heating has packed up, so baking will warm the kitchen up plus fill my cake and biscuit tins up.

Plumber did arrive this afternoon but can't get the part until Monday.I'm hoping the bill won't be too huge.

I'm putting a 2 pint rice pudding on the Slow Cooker last thing tonight as it will cook overnight ,plus take the chill off the air in the kitchen.I have a big tin of evaporated milk that will make up to one and three quarter pints with water so I'll top that up to two pints with fresh milk and chuck it in the cooker with some cinnamon and nutmeg and caster sugar and voila! puddings for several days next week. A pudding after dinner or soup before helps to streeetch the meal out and fill you up.Its what my late Mum did and I have always done myself.

Hope you are all warm and dry as its been a dreadfully wet day today
Take care all and hang on to your pennies
P.S. Well done craigywv on snaffling your Christmas bargains

GreyQueen

Well, here we are at the halfway point of November and I have spent £12.88 of the £20 I have set aside for the grocery budget. Feeling pretty good about that, and have plenty to eat in all categories.

Will probably need some more eggs before the end of the month, but not too much more than that.

How's everyone else doing?

Frugalsod

I have not attempted a fiscal fast but I am actually doing quite well. My debit card has barely been impacted since the 1st. My credit card has been used but below what I am paying each month so the balance is still coming down. My loan is near its end and so once that is cleared I will be increasing my repayments to my credit card so that will be cleared by the end of next year without much effort.

GreyQueen

Morning all.

Got a bit lucky at yellow sticker time on my way home yesterday evening, but have socked some useful things into the freezer, so not at all unhappy about having spent a chunk of the remaining £20 grocery money.

Will really have to pull the horns in now until end of month, though, if I want to make that budget stick. Fortunately I have h.g. veggies on the allotment ripe for the plucking, which is a help; leeks, carrots, beetroot, parsnips and turnips, plus previously-harvested potatoes and onions (both red and white) and two kinds of beans and blackcurrants in the mini-freezer.

There, just writing that lot down makes me feel blessed.

[Deleted User]

day 21 and only £26.70 spent so far this month.I am going shopping tomorrow morning and should get enough to see me through until the end of the month.I am hoping to only spend around £15.00 or less if I can, I only at the moment have to buy fresh milk,fruit & veg and a few odds and ends..My avocado I eventually had with salad and I opened a small tin of salmon from the fridge and had half piled up on the avocado, very yummy, and the rest for a salmon salad the following day.Tonight I had bangers and mash and cabbage the bangers were a couple of 'Old Spot' from the freezer that I had bought in Dobbies deli awhile ago and were delicious.

JackieO xx

GreyQueen

Nice going, jackie0.

Day 22 here at £2.22 left from the orginal £20-for-the-month budget. Yesterday, I lucked-out and got a 350g block of mature cheddar for 80p and not even on YS.

It was the happy confluence of a £2.00 special offer on that make (anchor) with a £1.20 off clubcard voucher for that brand. Voucher can be used twice and is valid until January but the reduced cheese is only on offer for a few more days.

I shall nip in this afternoon and blow another 80p on cheese and freeze it. My Tosspots is a Metro, and they have daily deliveries. They also have a very annoying habit of 'forgetting' to restock items which are heavily reduced on sale for the last several days of the offer period.

I've noticed this several times and, since they have computerised stock control, and daily deliveries, I can only assume it's a deliberate policy.

Other than that, I'm good for most things. Will make some bread later today, all ingredients on the premises already.

craigywv

hello folks, your all doing great! I too get cheese gq when on offer and freeze it, I grate it first and buy the strongest I can find so use less. today I sinned ..................m and s with mum, im blaming her anyway, got ys pigs in blankets i.39p that's it lol still using freezers up. so having a very exotic pigs in blankets, tin of spaghetti hoops and 2 toasted treacle farls toasted for tea. bit of a mish mash but it will be lovely! putting real butter on the farls because im worthit! treacle farls are just soda farls with added treacle they a lovely brown colour and gorgeous, they seem to be a thing I have only seen over here in Belfast. in sc have 2 ys lamb shanks bought quite a while ago foraged from one of the freezers, have chopped 3 carrots and the ever present onion and added 2 oxos so will do mash, turnip and roasties for lunch tomorrow think y puds as well. son made a mixture jelly he decided to cut up 3 different flavours b.currant ,lemon and strawberry ! now have a quart of black looking gloop sitting in fridge in a container,better be nice. I have decided from now till exactly 3 weeks away I am not buying ANY food only milk and fruit and veg so I did a menu plan and if all goes to plan I shall have 1 completely empty freezer for hitting into December so can defrost and clean it.yeah and the road to heaven is paved with good intentions................I can live in hope. have a good weekend all and keep those purses shut xxxxx

GreyQueen

Well, I have parted with another 80p for another 350 g block of cheese, but since that's a regular item on the shopping list (only ever on discount, I buy several at a time and then don't rebuy until the next discounts).

I did a survey once about consumer types once and the default for those of us who don't fit into other categories is 'maverick consumer' aka pain in the posterior, I expect. Probably a lot of canny ones on MSE fall into the maverick category.

Just taking five away from the kitchen, have made a batch of wholemeal bread rolls and a sort-of fruit loaf, which is a small handful of mixed dried fruit and the last of the cinnamon (bought in 2011 about time I got fresh), strong white breadflour, oil and dried yeast. Not using a recipe as they all seem to want milk and I haven't milk to spare.

I shall report back later on how that works out for me; fruit loaf and bread rolls are proving.

Once I've had my cuppa, I intend to make a clean sweep of the veg in the fridge, plus two sad & lonely garlic segments and make a big pot of a tomato-y thingy, which I can eat a variety of ways in the next few days and also freeze some. It'll tidy up what's in there. I have £1.42 of my self-imposed budget for £20 for grocery spends, we shall see if I bring it in to budget or whether choose to dip into another note.

It's a good exercise into using what you have, rather than running to the shops every day because you don't fancy whatever it is you already have the makings for. Stops the self-indulgence in it's tracks.

I'm reading a book I got last week for 25p which I think would interest many of us here; Breadcrumbs and Banana Skins, the birth of thrift by Jacqueline Percival. It's about how thrifty people had to be before, during and after WW1 and how it wasn't just the poor who were struggling. There were a fair few people who were posh on the outside and impoverished behind the scenes but having to scrabble like mad things to maintain a prosperous front and their social position.

Very interesting read, lots of things in there that even Old Stylers would baulk at, I reckon, but fasacinating reading, if for nothing more than thanking your lucky stars for your prosperity in modern times.

Frugalsod

I try and time my shopping trips to the local T. Express at the same time that they bring out the deep discounted items for the final clearance. It is usually 90% off at this point.