im rubbish at being thrifty

winniepooh

Morning people,

Im trying so hard to be thrifty, I meal plan and stick to it, never throw food away, not using tumble drier, keeping heating to a bare minimum, Cook from scaratch (but nobody in the house is enjoying it, make my own bread (which tastes vile), freeze extra portions, use stardrops and zoflora for cleaning, squeeze loo rolls, buy everything value.

the only thing I manage to do well is squeeze the bloody loo rolls .

Does anyone else struggle to be thrifty?

I would love to be like you lot you really inspire me

Sambucus_Nigra

What's going wrong with the cooking?

Give us a few recipes that you are using and how you are doing it and we'll see if we can help. Include your bread. Is it just that people aren't used to non-takeout/ready meals?

quintwins

My hubby hates hm bread so i gave up on it, he also hates reduced bread, he likes the £1.50 soft loaves so the fact i can get away with 75p lidl bread is good, i buy all other bread products reduced he just likes a nice loaf.

I have no problem buying value tho

I don't batch cook, i hate reheated food and rarely use the microwave so thats lost on me.

I use my tumble drier if i need it, i have 3 kids and a hubby with a physicial job, i can't have dirty clothes hanging about because i don't have room to dry the clean ones, i do have a A+ rathed drier tho.

We keep our house warm, me and ds have ashma and if it gets cold we get really bad (altho going from cold to warm is just as bad )

I think we should pick and choose oldsytle/thirfty ways that suit our lifestyles and budgets, saying that we love home cooked meals and like i said we use 90% value, can i ask what you were eating before? if it was ready meals you could find your family are craving salt and sugar and it will pass, or if it was things like fishfingers/nuggets ect you could try making your own.

savingqueen

winnie - you might find it hard to be thrifty but doesn't sound like you are rubbish at it at all! Don't be hard on yourself. There are few of us that do absolutely everything OS/thrifty I can assure you. I am still learning and a long way to go yet. I might bake my own bread but not every single loaf and all my veg for example comes from the supermarket. I don't use a tumbledrier but have a car and dishwasher etc etc.

Forget baking bread for now and try something else from scratch eg cakes or soups or something completely different like learning a new craft or something not necessarily OS but MSE like using cashback sites or shopping round for insurance etc. Make sure you are also building in a bit of luxury whether its a small treat from the shops, a bubble bath, a natter with a friend, a good film or whatever - you sound like you need to spoil yourself a bit!

How long have you been playing the thrifty game out of interest?
sq:)

winniepooh

quintwins wrote: »

My hubby hates hm bread so i gave up on it, he also hates reduced bread, he likes the £1.50 soft loaves so the fact i can get away with 75p lidl bread is good, i buy all other bread products reduced he just likes a nice loaf.

I have no problem buying value tho

I don't batch cook, i hate reheated food and rarely use the microwave so thats lost on me.

I use my tumble drier if i need it, i have 3 kids and a hubby with a physicial job, i can't have dirty clothes hanging about because i don't have room to dry the clean ones, i do have a A+ rathed drier tho.

We keep our house warm, me and ds have ashma and if it gets cold we get really bad (altho going from cold to warm is just as bad )

I think we should pick and choose oldsytle/thirfty ways that suit our lifestyles and budgets, saying that we love home cooked meals and like i said we use 90% value, can i ask what you were eating before? if it was ready meals you could find your family are craving salt and sugar and it will pass, or if it was things like fishfingers/nuggets ect you could try making your own.

Thank you youve made me feel a bit better,weve never really eaten ready meals unless weve come home really late and that doesnt happen often, oh will not eat value meat at all so I thought id just hide it and act like I brought expensive meat I honestly thought he wouldnt notice but he did straight away, our butcher is very expensive.

I do like my slow cooker, I love doing a slowcooked chicken but every time i do a stew or casserole they all taste the same . I did pork chops in apple and cider last week, the pork chops were very dry.

I use the breadmachine recipe (its a morphey richards) and the bread never rises properly and tastes really salty, I measure everything out properly cant see what im doing wrong.

Im so dedicated to be thrifty i really get a buzz out of making something and saving money but I have had many mant mishaps.

Just looking at joining the local adult class for sewing.

winniepooh

savingqueen wrote: »

winnie - you might find it hard to be thrifty but doesn't sound like you are rubbish at it at all! Don't be hard on yourself. There are few of us that do absolutely everything OS/thrifty I can assure you. I am still learning and a long way to go yet. I might bake my own bread but not every single loaf and all my veg for example comes from the supermarket. I don't use a tumbledrier but have a car and dishwasher etc etc.

Forget baking bread for now and try something else from scratch eg cakes or soups or something completely different like learning a new craft or something not necessarily OS but MSE like using cashback sites or shopping round for insurance etc. Make sure you are also building in a bit of luxury whether its a small treat from the shops, a bubble bath, a natter with a friend, a good film or whatever - you sound like you need to spoil yourself a bit!

How long have you been playing the thrifty game out of interest?
sq:)

Hi saving queen, only a couple of months really to be honest

quintwins

winniepooh wrote: »

Thank you youve made me feel a bit better,weve never really eaten ready meals unless weve come home really late and that doesnt happen often, oh will not eat value meat at all so I thought id just hide it and act like I brought expensive meat I honestly thought he wouldnt notice but he did straight away, our butcher is very expensive.

I do like my slow cooker, I love doing a slowcooked chicken but every time i do a stew or casserole they all taste the same . I did pork chops in apple and cider last week, the pork chops were very dry.

I use the breadmachine recipe (its a morphey richards) and the bread never rises properly and tastes really salty, I measure everything out properly cant see what im doing wrong.

Im so dedicated to be thrifty i really get a buzz out of making something and saving money but I have had many mant mishaps.

Just looking at joining the local adult class for sewing.

I don't like homemade soup unless it potatoe and leek so i never make soup in my slowcooker, and i like my stew mushy so i cook it in a pan, but i do make casaroles ect in my slwocooker, you could find your slowcooker is tainting your food if you make curry of chilli in it, try fill the pot with hot water and add a tumble drier sheet or some fabric softener (i don't use either of these so i add laundry liquid) and leave it over night then give it and really good rinse. Also you could find there wasn't enough fat on your chops. really the cheapest meat will do.We use value mince i split a 750g packet in half and that feeds 5 of us, because we acually eat so little and it's bulked out with loads of veg no-one really notices the cheaper meat. All my other meat comes from the butcher except for sausages which i only buy reduced and bacon. Only value items i won't use is beans (we buy branstons on offer wich is acually cheaper) gravy (we use tesco own) and pancakes because value ones have surup in them which makes the texture strange, we also avoid things like value buggets and fishfingers, i do buy fishfingers and nuggets if it saves on a takeaway then it's worth having them in the freezer, but i buy iceland, usually the same price or cheaper than value and tastes nicer, there nuggets are made from 100% chicken breast.


I had a breadmaker and my bread rose ok he just thought it was too heavy.

nuatha

winniepooh wrote: »

I use the breadmachine recipe (its a morphey richards) and the bread never rises properly and tastes really salty, I measure everything out properly cant see what im doing wrong.

Im so dedicated to be thrifty i really get a buzz out of making something and saving money but I have had many mant mishaps.

Would you post the recipe you're using for the bread machine?
Too much salt will not only taste salty but will inhibit or kill the yeast which would impair the rise.

Mishaps is how a lot of us learn, we share successes and failures in various threads here, but when someone asks for help then the answers are from people who've succeeded, - for example If I post a recipe in response to a request, I post the version that works best for me, I don't post the 20 variations that failed. It might seem that I don't have cooking disasters, I do. (Having made my own bread for 20 plus years, I tried a friends sourdough recipe at the weekend and produced something you could use to demolish a house).

The jump from a real butchers prime cuts to supermarket value would be a huge change in quality. You could ask your butcher about better value cuts. My favourite beef is shin, it needs long slow cooking (or a pressure cooker) but produces a marvellous stew. Its one of the cheapest beef cuts.
HTH

Uniscots97

Winnie, it takes time to be thrifty and working out what's going to work for you. Sometimes the easiest one to master is finding out when the best reductions are in your supermarket. We had home made donner kebabs at the weekend. I used YS (that means Yellow Stickered i.e. reduced) lamb mince 500g for £2.68. Not the best bargain but certainly a lot cheaper than normal. A pack of Value wraps (tried wraps this time rather than pitta bread) at 67p and then herbs/spices needed and ketchup and a bit of mint sauce to make the kebab sauce (which is so easy). A lot cheaper than buying 3 large kebabs! If your family like take away stuff then treat yourself to 'The Takeaway Secret'. I'm sure there's a thread about the recipes somewhere and what people have tried etc.

As for your slow cooker try what someone suggested above as it might be tainted. There's a thread on what people try in slow cookers. I tend to make my steak pie filling in my slow cooker, OH loves it. I never do it in the oven fully.

As for everything else its about using things up. I planned to reduce the amount of bottles under my sink. Yes I use stardrops, vinegar, green household soap and sometimes oxy powder (if i can't get Biotex) but I have an array of stuff I have been slowly working my way through for the last 7 years (I got a bin bag full of stuff from a friend that was moving abroad). So be gentle on yourself, even changing your handwash you buy for filling it with a cheap bathfoam or something you already have is a step forward.

sarah222

I got to tesco around 7pm and get loads of bargains, not value meat just stuff thats sale by is that day. They reduce it but if you freeze on day of purchase its fine. I got 6 pork chops that were lovely for £1 last week. I buy bags of veg (Ive posted this alot lol) for next to nothing. I got last week a punnet of mushrooms for 12p, cooked in veg stock with a little garlic and black pepper then blitzed in a blender for cream of mushroom soup and it was fab! I dont like cheap bread and I also dont like my bread machine I agree it doesnt rise right and I have a Morphy Rich too. So I use it to mixed and kneed the dough then I tip it out shape it and put on my boiler under stairs then once risen I cook in oven. (I have a bad elbow so find the kneeding hard). I do use the bread machine tho for cake mine has that feature. If the cake isnt moist enough for you serve it with custard for a desert most men like a stoggy pud lol. I dont meal plan as I never know what tesco are going to reduce but thats half the fun. This week got loads of fish so fish pie on menu and paella. I do visit our local butcher and get half a lamb and a silverside once a month/2 months also. This gives me some lovely joints and cass meat and due to me getting such a bargain on the veg etc I can justify the extra cost of the meat in my own head. I also bulk buy soap powder, softeners, cleaning fluids every 3-4 months using coupons from Supersavvyme etc. Tesco will reduce these items or do offers every 3 months or so anyway and I coincide my bulk shop with that. I got softener (Lenor) last month for 27p. They had it reduced to £1.27 and I had a £1 coupon so bought 6 bottles as my mum is also registered for me lol and you can print a coupon a month from some sites so I stock up when I see coupons then spend when I see offer. Getting offers like this can really help give you extra and make you feel better when you spend £1.20 on a loaf lol

krlyr

I've found using the slowcooker for some stuff results in a bland taste so I do it on the hob. I either use a big wok, or a Le Cresuet pan I have on loan at the mo. I find allowing it to simmer and reduce intensifies the flavour - much better after 1 hour on the hob than 8 hours in the SC!
I use the SC for other stuff, e.g. it's fab for getting fabulously tender pork chops, but it just doesn't cut the mustard for some recipes, so could be worth trying your casseroles etc. on the hob to see if that helps with the flavour.

I got given a low-knead bread recipe that works well so no need for a breadmaker. I think it was a very similar recipe to this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/sandwich_bread_loaf_93879

Instead of kneading for 10 minutes though, the person gave me the instructions to knead for 30 seconds, let rest for 10 minutes, knead for 30 seconds, let rest for 10 minutes, and knead one more time. I gave it a try and it really did work - infact it had a better texture than a bread recipe I'd tried before which needed about 20 minutes of kneading (ouch!)