make do and mend for tougher times

Hobsons_Choice

Molly41 wrote: »

We participate in a local hedge hog rescue and now have a feeding station with movement sensor controlled video. We are getting to know our visitors. It is so easy to encourage hedgehogs into your garden by building a rough box and placing in it water (as important as food) and peanuts which have been crushed - all hedgehogs like these. They then begin to include your garden on their night trail and often cover 4 miles a night.

Our videos of hedgehogs are http://www.youtube.com/user/DaveHogsAndDogs
and our local rescue http://www.brackleyhogwatch.org/

We have two hedgehogs that visit every night. We put water and dried mealworms down for them, but will try the crushed peanuts now - it's cheaper and the birdies are getting fed up of their mealworms being eaten!
We used to have a badger that visited every night for his peanuts, but he disappeared last year - just as well, since they will eat hedgehogs!!

maryb

Fuddle, have you thought about using the green stayfresh bags from Lakeland? (I think you can also get them cheaper elsewhere). They really make a difference and make it possible to shop for veg just once a week. Broccoli stays green but tends to smell a bit strongly of brassica by the end of the week but 4-5 days is fine. You can reuse them lots of times so they work out fairly cheap to use once you have made the initial investment

prepareathome

Mar hope dr can find out what is wrong and sort it without much fuss and bother.

Fuddle your meal plan is great and kick that guilt, you didn't switch off the freezer, it died so totally not your fault.

Mono I forgot my DGD3 has grace as her middle name - Libby Grace, Libby because her brother who was 3 when DIL was expecting her told us he was having a sister called Libby ( this was right from start before scans etc) and would not consider a brother, he was adamant. Where he got the name Libby from we don't know as he as far as we know had never heard the name, no-one we knew had it or at his nursery or siblings of the children there. So her name had to be Libby no matter what son or DIL wanted.

SDG am glad yesterday was a sad but happy day and so many came and you have the memorial service to celebrate his life.

Well got out this bed longer than an hour yesterday which was good and toddled off to Ald* for first time and embarrassed myself. Place was heaving with long queues at each checkout. I go through and go to pay and disaster, I only had cc on me( had put most of my money on it as had to buy some things on-line) and they don't accept them. I never knew, never expected that. Guy on till looked at me in disbelief when I said I had never been there before so didn't know only debt cards and cash accepted, said he can suspend it while I go to a cash machine but then told me nearest was about a mile away so I knew moaning minnie would not be happy so had to say no and leave most of the shopping, came away with just some onions and broccoli as only had enough cash for them.

The worst part is everyone staring at you and nudging each other as they thought my debit card had been refused. One guy loudly said to another about how some people need lessons in money management instead of trying to buy with money they don't have and another about was going on about posh types thinking money beneath them and coming to their stores to buy up their food- posh, I still talk with a slight Scottish accent never heard it called posh before and I was only dressed in cheap trousers and top no better than anyone in the store but to them I did not know the rules so must be an outsider slumming. As I left there was a lot of rumbling, oh well at least I got them all chatting.

Mind you this store in one of the rougher areas of the city where to any outsider they would be seeming to talk a different language. For all the time I have lived here I have never picked up local dialect. So will not be going to that particular store again, there are another few a bit further away and I will go to one of them sometime as did find quite a few things there I want to try.

I wonder if this is how things are going to go as money gets tighter, people seeing anyone who appears to be not local as an outsider who has no right there as they are taking what they think of as theirs.

When I went out to car hubby was sitting in it with doors locked as gangs were hanging around at one end of car park. Are places going to become no go areas like they were in the '80s.

Well got to get up and see if can get old pc to work as its going to be another few weeks now till can pick up another one and all the stopping and starting to type T and Y via on screen keyboard is really getting me stressed.

Hugs and Love to Allxxxxx

Mrs_Chip

Is that 3p right Fuddle? That would work out at about £250 per year for running one freezer - doe that sound right?

I would say that unless you are using 'spare' heat from the oven - I mean used for other things as well, then drying is not particularly cost effective, and it may be cheaper to buy dried veg (especially if you are buying the veg not preserving a glut from the garden).

Sometimes the simplest option is the best - buy everything as cheaply as possible, buy and use tins where you can and be flexible with your menus, if you are going to the shops take advantage and buy fresh for the next few days, then back to the store cupboard!

ETA- PAH, our Aldi takes CC and Debit, so it must be a local thing. Ignore the whinging, people are always looking for somthing tomoan about!

mummysaver

Fuddle, sorry to hear about your freezer, they are a complete pain when they die, the expense is bad enough, but clearing them is grim! As others have suggested, try using the longer lasting veg for a while, and explore the world of tins - sweetcorn, peas and mushrooms are all fine, and I confess I have a weakness for tinned baby carrots, they remind me of childhood! Fruit intake could also be upped if you're concerned about vitamin intake?

As for a dehydrator, I have one, and I use it regularly, but it is a cheap one from Westfalia, it works brilliantly though. The amount of use you would get from it very much depends on your style of cooking and eating, I use mine for dehydrating fruit for snacks, making fruit leathers and drying toms and mushrooms a lot, mushrooms cos they take up a lot of room in the fridge and I particularly like the way they taste in ristto or pasta after they've been dried! However, I wouldn't suggest rushing out to buy one, do some investigation and perhaps put a pound or two away each week, that way by the time you have enough money you should have decided if it would be worth buying

valk_scot

Wouldn't worry about it PAT, I've got cut glass vowels compared to the local accent and I always get labelled posh, the kids are teased at school for talking posh too. I just think of it as articulate, lol, and don't let it bother me. Who cares what the prats in the queue think, if that's all they have to worry them they must have very small lives as my mum used to say. The folk in my local Aldi and Lidl aren't like that though, everyone round here uses them from the folk in the big posh houses up the road to the folk in the estates, the local Polish community, the sudents and "posh" but poor folk like me, lol. It's quite friendly really.

Mardatha, plain chocolate is supposed to be a good source of iron, isn't it?

fuddle

Mrs_Chip wrote: »

Take this as a chance to learn new skills and expand your diet into new areas. It might mean trying to get the family to eat different things, but that is a good thing, to be truly OS we have to be willing to eat anything we can get our hands on! I draw the line at tripe!

I am not buying a dehydrator. I am making do. I've decided. Cauliflower cheese is a dish I have never tried so fancy a go at that. I am going to have to be flexible as the Coop doesn't always have in what I go for. It's a difficult concept to get my head round as i've had that strict monthly meal plan in place knowing everything was there when I needed it. I'll get used to it though.

maryb wrote: »

Fuddle, have you thought about using the green stayfresh bags from Lakeland? (I think you can also get them cheaper elsewhere). They really make a difference and make it possible to shop for veg just once a week. Broccoli stays green but tends to smell a bit strongly of brassica by the end of the week but 4-5 days is fine. You can reuse them lots of times so they work out fairly cheap to use once you have made the initial investment

I will look into those, thank you Anything that will help keep preserve the life of my veg will be excellent

MrsC I've only had the electric monitor on for a couple of days. The past few days I've been using 4p and hour with everything off, i.e. just me in the house. Now DH has switched the freezer off I'm using 1p per hour. There's definitely a 3p difference and can only be down to the freezer really but If it's been broken and whirring away unnecessarily, maybe that's why the high hourly cost.

The 1p with everything off includes the fridge and freezer (two seperate items) in the kitchen so no, it definitely doesn't cost that much to run a freezer (that 1p also includes a fishtank, a boiler that is off but still on and an alarm system) So not even 1p an hour to run a freezer. Sorry If I've worried anyone.

maryb

It's very hard to work out how much a freezer actually costs because it's not running all the time. I did plug in one of those meters that tells you how much electricity you have actually used in a given period and it suggested that my 20 year old chest freezer uses 1.4 units per day which on my tariff is 13.5 pence per day so approx £50 per year. Do I save £1 per week using it? Not sure actually. I have another freezer which is an upright with drawers and that is essential but the chest freezer tends to be used for bread and chicken stock and a few bottles of milk for emergencies. So I'm really paying for convenience

Pooky

I keep everything except potatoes and onions in the fridge, currently there's a big bag of carrots, 3 caulis, 3 broccoli, 5 leeks, 9 peppers, 6 parsnips, a pack of toms, celery, 3 cabbage, cucumber. Pots, sweet pots and onions go in a dark drawer.

The stuff in the fridge will last at least two weeks, if I cut a cabbage in half then the unused half goes in a press seal plastic bag with all the air squished out. When I prep a cauli/broccoli etc then whatever I'm not going to use for that meal goes into a plastic lidded box with water to keep it fresh and crisp.

I use a lot of frozen veg too, it's probably fresher than the "fresh" stuff. The only tinned veg I use regularly are sweet corn and potatoes, not keen on the carrots or peas.

Still no sign of the cat, it's refuse collection day so I shall have a word with the bin men when they come round to see if they've "found" any sign of him.

fuddle

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/1094/20-Stayfresh-Longer-Bags-25-x-38cm Are these the fresher bags?