Is OS *REALLY* cheaper?

spaceraiders

Has anyone looked into the cost of using the oven/hobs when cooking yourself? I can't imagine that it'll be that expensive but how much does it cost to, say, boil a pot for soup for 1 hour or cook something at 180 C in the oven for 1 hour?

I like making chili; it's tasty but so cheap to make! You can make 4 veggie portions for about £1. I've seen pre-made chili sold in cans for cheap but never tried it.

ceridwen

In answer to the basic question of "Is O.S. really cheaper?" - well, there might be one or two "swings and roundabouts" here - but yes basically.

I guess its basically an outlook on life in many ways. Well - to give my own examples this weekend:

- I noticed that even though Iceland's bread is cheaper than many supermarkets (but - like them all - inedible in my book) - my own will be noticeably cheaper, even allowing for the cost of the electric for the oven. Not to mention - very much nicer and healthier.

- I'm being careful trying not to waste any food - so some leftover cooked potato from yesterday for instance was potato salad with lunch today.

- One should be able to "cook" many oven things (after an initial heat) in a haybox. Have just got one - will see how I go.

- Have spent some time this morning preparing windfall apples for drying. They are now in the dehydrator drying up - hope this will be successful. In the past I would have just ignored those apples.

- I'll be doing some handwashing in a moment and rinsing it out afterwards with water from my waterbutt (rather than my metered water). May think twice about that in cold weather - we'll see - but for now at any rate I'm doing it and at a very rough guess I think I'm saving myself 50p each time I do that (rather than using my machine for this) - I'm useless at maths, so I may be wrong. But gives me an added incentive.

Its more time-consuming doing this sorta stuff - but I'm determined to reduce my reliance on employers as much as possible. Put it this way - I trust me to be concerned about my financial welfare - but I dont trust them;)

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Don't know about everyone, but as ready meals are full of salt, I end up drinking loads of juice to offset the dehydration (and I can't see it saving myself money if OH drops dead from a stroke - he has high blood pressure so has to avoid salty stuff as much as possible). They also have next to no meat, so would be paying for 3 chunks of mechanically recovered pulp with money that could go on half a chicken breast from a real chicken (or something non meat based). And I would need to add vegetables to give kids something resembling vitamins. So, really, in effect, I would be paying £1 each (£4) for a plastic tub of gloopy sauce made of salt, sugar and chemicals that could well put OH in box in ground.

Try feeding argumentative OH's on just a 99p ready meal whilst you and kids tuck into a proper meal costed properly. See how long it is before he says it isn't enough for him to eat, it's not fair, you're changing the rules, etc. I would suggest that he has microwave lasagne whilst you and kids have HM. And if he prefers it that way, tell him to do his own!

Evil, aren't I?

Uniscots97

Crikey looking back at one of my original posts on this thread it really shocked me just how much ingredients have gone up! The lasagne I make has gone up to 85p per large portion from 32p.

MrsBartolozzi

ceridwen wrote: »

-
- I'll be doing some handwashing in a moment and rinsing it out afterwards with water from my waterbutt (rather than my metered water). May think twice about that in cold weather - we'll see - but for now at any rate I'm doing it and at a very rough guess I think I'm saving myself 50p each time I do that (rather than using my machine for this) - I'm useless at maths, so I may be wrong. But gives me an added incentive.

HI there Ceridwen, unless you have some industrial sized washing machine:D I would suspect that costs a lot less!! My machine is 2550W (it's old - nearly 16 soon so I couldn't find any info on power per wash cycle, but I suspect newer ones are more efficient) , and the full wash cycle I use takes about an hour giving an electrical usage of a maximum 2.55KW/Hr or 2.55 electrical units, for me that's less than 20p if I time it right, and is for a full length wash at 40 deg C. (I do suspect that it will be even less though cos it isn't heating water/ spinning for the whole hour and parts of the time would be using minimal elec).

Obviously using the water from your butt;) will be save money if you are metered and is more environmentally friendly, but my butt is full of dead flies and I don't think I'd like to rinse clothes in it .
HTH, MrsB.

London_Welshcake

Hello!

I'm finding the ideas, hints, tips and suggestions on the forums really helpful so thank you all.

I have just one question that is driving me nuts...I get what the thread is about and I know that RM= ready meal and HM = Home made... but what does OS actually stand for?

Thank you!

Pink.

Hi London Welshcake

Welcome to the Old Style board :hello:

OS is short for 'Old Style'

For a list of abbreviations have a look here: Abbreviations on MSE

Pink

Edinburghlass_2

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

HI there Ceridwen, unless you have some industrial sized washing machine:D I would suspect that costs a lot less!! My machine is 2550W (it's old - nearly 16 soon so I couldn't find any info on power per wash cycle, but I suspect newer ones are more efficient) , and the full wash cycle I use takes about an hour giving an electrical usage of a maximum 2.55KW/Hr or 2.55 electrical units, for me that's less than 20p if I time it right, and is for a full length wash at 40 deg C. (I do suspect that it will be even less though cos it isn't heating water/ spinning for the whole hour and parts of the time would be using minimal elec).

Obviously using the water from your butt;) will be save money if you are metered and is more environmentally friendly, but my butt is full of dead flies and I don't think I'd like to rinse clothes in it .
HTH, MrsB.

Think I'd rather sit on my butt and use the internet to research other ways of saving money than going back to hand washing

jollymummy

As others have said I think the quality of homemade stuff is the equivalent of the finest ranges in supermarkets which are pretty expensive. The 99p ready meals have the cheapest of everything in them, so false economy really.

London_Welshcake

Pink-winged wrote: »

Hi London Welshcake

Welcome to the Old Style board :hello:

OS is short for 'Old Style'


Pink

many, many thanks!