Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

What a lovely mental picture WONDERCOLLIE thank you so much for sharing, I shall be giggling for ages, poor old boy, it's not fair is it? Cheers Lyn xxx.

westcoastscot

pennib wrote: »

Thanks WCS. Going back a couple of years there are photos on there of the start of the veggie plot. It's changed a bit since and is larger now. DH and DD have put a fence around it so that it's separated from the field. mmmm chocolate cake eh, hand over a bit then!:D

Oh will have a read back then - keep thinking about starting a blog as i get lovely feedback photos through etsy but feel it wouldnt be so interesting now we're not on the island crofting and home-schooling.
Sorry arms too short to reach that far so i've eaten your slice for you :rotfl:

pineapple

We're all familiar with products getting smaller but the contents are getting adulterated too. A favourite moisturiser brand reduced the SPF level. I wrote to them about it and they said that for cost reasons they had had to reduce one of the ingredients (which however is perhaps no bad thing).
As for food I've noticed that one particular brand of chocolate tastes cheap and nasty these days, the Worcestershire sauce I've recently revisited is not as hot and zesty etc etc.
I thought maybe it's my aging tastebuds but I've found similar comments on the net. Of course those of us who remember how things used to be are a dying breed!
This is a form of stealth inflation - manufacturers cutting quality but charging the same. Another reason to cut down on consumption of manufactured products.
Sorry just my Saturday morning rant!

mardatha

http://news.sky.com/story/1058823/pound-falls-as-triple-dip-fears-fuelled


Getting worse, preppers !

westcoastscot

That's grim reading Mar - it seems to me that everytime we have another blow to the economy its harder to spring back? or maybe it's me - feel like i've lost my optimism for the first time in my life..........don't like it at all!!!!!! Hope it comes back soon otherwise shall have to invest in a pair of rose tinted glasses!

GreyQueen

Morning all.

I'm going to *trembles with excitement* the army surplus store this morning. Full of preptastic things and a lovely bunch of blokes. I have my Xmas pressie money still burning a hole in my wallet, yay!

Pineapple, my spies and informants have advised me that Th0rn0ns chocolate isn't what it was and they won't be buying it again. I wasn't a customer in the first place but I had some at Crimble and they tasted cheap & nasty, not at all like their advertising would suggest.

Lots of things are getting stealthily shrunk, often going down about 5g or 10g at a time. I figure the manufacturers and retailers are trying to train us to see this a normal before re-shrinking further a few months later.

It's now got so that so many things have been shrunken to bring them in at the £store/ 99p store remit that they are cheaper to buy elsewhere.

About 16 months ago, I was trawling in £land and saw that my regular soap, the Knights Casteel one, had shrunk from 6 bars for a £1 to 5 bars. I moved fast and hit up the discount chains and got lots at 6-for-£1. Fast-forward a few months, and I'm glancing down at the new 5-fo-£1 packs and thinking that it looks a bit smaller, too.

Burgers have shrunk each bar by 10g, as well as being down one bar. So, in autumn 2011, your £1 bought you 600g of this soap and it now buys you 450g; you've lost out on a bar-and-a-half. Talk about stealth inflation.

Mum buys her groceries for cash and typically takes out £250 a time from the bank, shops until it is nearly all gone, then takes out another £250. She's really noticed that the intervals between the wallet refills have shortened. She hasn't moved to more expensive habits; indeed, with my coaxing, has extended herself to Aaaldi and Land of Ice, but those £££s ain't going as far as they used to was.

Well, I have shedloads of hot cross buns whoopsied down to 25p for a half dozen so starvation not imminent chez moi.

Have a preptastic day, people.

[Deleted User]

PINEAPPLE I have a very old cookery book which has a basic recipe for home made Worcester Sauce

1 pint of brown malt vinegar
2 shallots
2 tablespoons anchove essence
1 tablespoon of walnut ketchup
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
a little salt

Mix all the ingredients together and put into a bottle. Cork firmly and shake the bottle twice a day for a fortnight. Strain sauce and bottle. Seal well.

I've compared the ingredients to those listed on a bought bottle of worcester sauce and the only other ingredient listed was 'spices' so what you have above is the start and you could add in anything spicy you fancied until the taste was right. I would be inclined to add a little cayenne pepper and perhaps a touch of mixed spice, maybe a little mustard powder too, but you could experiment to get the taste you personally prefer. I haven't made this one but I'm going to start some today and I'll let you know how it compares to the manufactured one in a couple of weeks, Cheers Lyn xxx.

Cheapskate

Morning all

We used to have that same store here, GQ, but shut down years ago. They were going to move into the shiny new "mall" in the town but never did - suspect council put the kibosh on it with eye-watering rates, as is their wont!

Today we are going to a local seed swap and seed spud sale, hope to find some nice cheap things. Spring has not really sprung here, but it's a bit sunny, I can see how grubby the windows are, and if I buy food seeds I can kid myself, can't I?! :rotfl:

My grocery money's going a shorter distance each week, too, and I agree with you about getting smaller packs of things for the same money.

Pineapple, agree with you, too, about things not tasting the same, and I don't think it's an age thing either. The chocolate I used to like is horrid nowadays, so I save for the really good stuff and have less often, even most bread tastes yuck to me now, compared with what I bought even just a few years ago!

A xo

Helen2k8

How is everyone doing today?

I have a bit of a dilemma - at the point where cash is soooooo tight, I am finding bargains that will really be useful long term. Would you stretch now and reap the benefit later, or do without and risk paying more later?

mardatha

I was thinking the same thing this morning Helen and thought it would be best to go for it. Grabbit now. What do others think?