Home Made Vs. Shop Bought

RuthG

That's food and cleaning. But then I dont use toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, or several different cleaning sprays for kitchen, bathroom etc. I use Stardrops (about £1 a bottle from Wilkos) for the kitchen/bathroom and dilute it a lot, water and microfibre cloths for windows and woodwork, pit rock (instead of deodorant), bicarbonate of soda instead of shampoo and water instead of toothpaste (dentist has found my teeth cleaner since switching to water only).

We buy fruit and veggies from Aldi and as we have four major supermarkets in the area, we check online for the bargains before we go; we made a decision some time ago, never to pay full price (supermarket price) for anything if we could possibly avoid it, so we get our meat at cut price (when it's almost at its sellby date - just take it home and freeze it) and buy beans and lentils to make it go further.

watermelon88

We do all our shopping online as its too much to carry on the bus. It would be great if we had a car or lived close enough to town to walk it :-) could shop around then

BitterAndTwisted

Carry shopping on the bus? I don't do that any longer since I bought my trusty shopping-trolly. It was the best tenner I ever spent. Not physically going the the shops means you never see any of the reductions on perishables or proper bargains but then I'm lucky as there's a really good market not far from here that's open five days a week and a wee famer's market on Sundays if I'm feeling flush

LameWolf

Hi Watermelon

Regarding jam - it depends what you're making, to be truthful.

If you can snaffle wild fruit, or scrounge from a friend who has a glut, you only need to buy the sugar.;) If you need to buy the fruit, sometimes PYO places are reasonable.

We have cherry plum trees growing near here, as well as blackberries, and apples on common land, so cherry plum jam, and blackberry & apple jam is dirt cheap for me to do. I buy strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and cherries from PYO places, and though they're not as cheap, they make lovely jam.

But the real reason I make all the jam we eat in this house is that it tastes so much better than shop bought!:D It's literally just fruit, sugar, and if it's a low-pectin fruit, the juice of a lemon to aid setting.

If you sterilise your jars properly and pot the jam carefully, it will keep unopened for a very long time; once we've opened a jar, we keep it in the fridge - no idea if that's strictly necessary, it's just what we've always done. I've opened up three-year-old jars before now, and they've been perfectly fine, and the jam was delicious.:)

I can't advise on suitable jam for diabetics, as that's not something I've ever had to look into, but I bet there'll be information online somewhere; hopefully another OSer will be along soon with more knowledge than I have.:o What I will say is that home made jam is so lovely that you don't need to dollop loads on to get the full flavour.;)

I do make our bread, too, but I use a bread-maker (my arthritic hands won't cope with doing it by hand). You do know you can freeze bread, don't you? We keep a sliced loaf of wholemeal in the freezer for emergencies.;)

Good luck with everything.:o

ammonite

I was going to make my own pizza last week but when I reckoned up the cost of the items to make it, would have cost me a fortune. Ended up buying 2 on offer at £1 each.

watermelon88

My fella just informed me that there's a wooded area near his mums where loads of blackberries grow :-) so there's some free fruit at some point (what time of year do you pick blackberries in?)

I found some diabetic jam recipes, they don't keep as well as normal but worth giving a go.

I need to find out how to pot it properly. I'm going to start buying my fella tesco value jam for now, as he likes jam and it's 29p a jar and I can keep the jars :-) going to ask people I know to save me theirs too lol

RuthG

Blackberries, usually late August/September, but it depends how far south you are!

You will also need pectin if using blackberries, but you can get it free from crab apples (make apple and blackberry jam); there are often crab apple trees just growing by the side of the road, or near where the blackberries grow.

watermelon88

I'm thinking of planting blackberries in the garden. We want to do something with the garden, might look into growing our own fruits

anna-marie

I would say home made can be cheaper but only if you are economical in the way you buy the ingredients, if you're not careful it could work out a lot more expensive.

For example I've priced up the cost of making a Quiche Lorraine
Homemade using budget ingredients = 67p to serve 6
Homemade using famous branded ingredients = £2.20 to serve 6
Readymade budget quiche (Asda) = £1.64 to serve 6 (i.e. 2@82p each)
Readymade branded quiche = £3.30 to serve 6 (i.e. 1 and a half@£2.20 each)
Readymade luxury quiche (M&S) = £7.80 to serve 6 (i.e. six tenths of one costing £13)

Also you have to take into account the taste factor! I like home cooked food more.

For cleaning products I have a small array of products that lasts a long time and takes care of everything - non branded washing up liquid, bleach, vinegar, bicarb of soda and sterilising fluid...that's about it.

watermelon88

I don't have a lot of cleaning stuff. Just value multi purpose cleaner, bleach, cistern blocks. My dishwasher tablets & washing powder last ages which is good