Living on next to nought - is that the key?

Upsidedown_Bear

Goodnight Greying and fellow Pilgrimers.

Upsidedown_Bear

Smilie of the day.

mrsinvisible

Good morning, (is it still morning, as l too have done a marathon catch-up.) the food looks as lovelly as ever, GP, and all this talk of pups and cats, l have no pets but used to have the dog/cat/kids/menagerie, and sometimes l get tempted......... (like now).
I love my bero book, it is the one with the girl in the brown gymslip, with the temperatures as low, medium and high, the jam cake is one of our all time favourites.
What is the 'absorption method' for rice cooking, GP? sounds intriguing .
Hoping for an NSD today, but not confident.
Off to put the Halloween decs/tat back in the loft, and to vacuum up the debris. play nice, all. xxx

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Lawks! It's Movember already....

DawnW - thank you for your kind words Lovely to *see* you here

Upsidedown Bear - what would we do without you? I particularly like yesterday's smilie of the day, which (!) is clearly Greying trying to put out the burning toast..... :rotfl:

Lilty - lovely to *see* you back after your sojourn in [STRIKE]better[/STRIKE] other parts :D


Dinner last night was as on the planner - pizza and wedges I should have posted that yesterday morning, to allay Igamogam's fears that the meal planning and structure of this thread had all gone to blazes, after last week's 'departure' :rotfl:

Pic here;



The MSE bit to this meal was that I used Leanne Brown's 'Fast pizza dough' recipe, found in her From Scratch recipe PDF. The recipe makes great pizza dough anyway, but I also used up the 2nd pot of 'whey' that I had frozen following my paneer making jaunt (I actually used the other pot in the savoury scones I made on Thursday - think I may have forgotten to mention that). The result was a beautifully light base that cooked really well, coloured nicely and that rose really well (considering it is only a 300g flour mix, it made quite a *wodgy* pizza). It did help that the weather is so mild though, the rising time was very quick and the prove equally so. The wedges are from the 25kg bag of wilja potatoes that we got for £3.99. I noticed last night that nearly all the potatoes are 'long' rather than 'round'. Wonder what make them grow like that? It doesn't affect the taste or anything, of course, but they were definitely more 'round' last year (from the same supplier).

So, what plans for November? Well, I'm not going too *rad* this month. As none of the Autumn test rugger matches are to be shown live on any of the TV stations to which we have access, there is no need for us to have any MAN-APPROVED nosh to munch whilst we cheer the participants on.....

I am going to trial 'weekly shops'. Now, I know you'll say, 'Eh? Greying, have you lost the plot? That's how a lot of folks shop.' And of course, Dear Reader, you'd be absolutely correct. But do you know what? I have never had to shop/budget weekly. I grew up in a home that was paid weekly (Friday lunchtime, in cash which was collected - for the whole organisation - from the nearest town - 8 miles away - by 2, unarmed, unprotected, fellow workers, in the works van :eek:) And a home that budgeted weekly - and my, did we have 'end of the week' type meals.... every week...... :rotfl: But by the time I left home for Uni, I had to budget on the basis of a term, and then by the time I was in employment, monthly pay, by BACS was increasingly the norm. I've done monthly budgeting ever since. And yes, I buy 'fresh' stuff more regularly than just once a month, but I'm going to trial picking up provisions on the basis of what I'm cooking that week - I've still drawn up a monthly meal plan, as I prefer to do that still. I want to see if it makes the budget last/work better/stretch further. I'm still 'charging' myself an amount at the start of the month for the 'store' provisions that I use, and that has been put into the 'stores' pot - we're getting low on rice and chickpeas, so some stocking up will need to take place.

The other 'string' to this month's experiment, will be to try to [STRIKE]afford[/STRIKE] include much more fresh food into our diet. You're going to see a lot of references to members of the 'cruciferous' family of veg. Partly because they are in season, and partly for their antioxidant properties, as it is Movember.......;) Now, I have to say, by jumping in a bit early, I have got some bargains in the 'fresh' department for this week. I even picked up more of those lovely apples from the market, as 9 cox apples for 99p is not to be missed. They are probably a 'special' for Halloween bobbing, and will go back up to 'horrendous' price next week, but I made hay whilst I could I think that we are all in agreement that 'fresh' food is more expensive than junk food. And whilst we don't actually eat that much junk, we could certainly ramp up our fresh intake. But I do suspect that my budget won't be able to support it. We'll see.

I'm sticking with aiming for 15 NSD. I am in a bit of a quandary about NSD's. I certainly think that they are beneficial if you are having money problems and you know that one of the things that you do, is spend money for the sake of spending it. I think NSD's add a nice challenge to curb unnecessary spending. I also know that there is a correalation between me meeting my NSD target and being on/under budget, and me not meeting my NSD target and busting the budget! However, the one thing that NSD's hamper (IMHO) is the ability to pick up YS'd bargains as you see them. You don't want to bust your NSD for a 30p aubergine, but aubergine curry is on your meal-planner and a 'proper price' aubergine is 45p and a car ride away...... what do you do? :rotfl: (sounds like a TV quiz!! :rotfl:) mmm, it's a difficult one, and no mistake.

I've 4 *Buddha Bowl* meals on the planner, in place of 'Soupsand.....' Just ringing the changes - I like 'Soupsand...' so expect to see them back at some point - probably for the 31 days of December, after I try to claw back the November budget! :rotfl:

I think that's about it for November. October's *challenges* worked well (apart from my NSD fail ), I really enjoyed the Saturday is Strictly Curry Murray meals. So thank you to Judy and Glasgow for your inspiration Now that I have made paneer, I suspect that I will make it again, in fact, it may well be appearing on the meal-planner at Greying Towers in the very near future..... :whistle: The 'Soupsand...' was good too, and I enjoyed trialling PC cornbread and making stottie cakes for the first time The recipe for stottie cakes has gone into my recipe index

Right, well, I've waffled on enough..... best go and get some chores done.

Thank you for dropping by, reading and joining in. I greatly appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying

Hopefuljoy

Have a wonderful day folks! See you all later after I work out the damage to my finances of the half term! Two sleeps to school and the Christmas half term and I'm really excited to go back. This is very good news!

mothernerd

YS goods don't count as breaking a NSD as long as you only buy ys goods and nothing at full price.

Greying_Pilgrim

I hear you mothernerd - but when I've tried 'ignoring' YS spends before, I began to buy things almost 'because' they were YS'd. Sure, we used them, didn't waste them, but say for example, we'd have 5 vegetable accompaniments on our plate rather than 3. OK, so it made for nice meals, but 3 was sufficient, we didn't need 5 - it just meant that we ate more and it - in the long run - cost more. Of course, the trouble is, is that you can't rely on YSing to get you what is on your list, and you can't always substitute.

What I'm aiming for - but I think is going to be a tall order - is to only spend money once or twice a week, get a week's provisions and nab some YS'd stuff that is needed that week or the next (depending on the perishability of the item) whilst trying to stay in budget. I have to say, I'm not sure that it can be done, but I want to prove myself wrong, and I want to be able to prove myself wrong, week after week, not just for the odd week here and there.

I was thinking that this may be easier if the household ate meat. I was wondering if you bought meat items, say some chops, sausages, bacon and stored them/froze them portioned up, you would be looking for things to accompany them, which would give you scope for YS'd bargains. Making veggie food from scratch seems to be harder, as you are rarely starting with the one 'starting block' that a piece of meat gives you. Or have I missed something?

I know that there is the argument for holding stores of food. I do buy some items in bulk, eg rice, chickpeas, cornmeal and lentils. But I did open my cupboards the other day, and wonder if having eg 3 types of grain, 2 types of lentils, 4 types of beans was a help, or a hindrance to budget cooking and simplicity. Don't have the answer to that one, was just something that I wondered if I was doing 'right'.......

This is all part of a 'working through things' task for me. I'm trying new things, or new ways of doing things to try to set up Greying Towers for a simple, frugal life of richness for the now and for the future. I'm not about pinching - people or pennies Some of this is going to work, some is not. I'm happy to be flexible, but won't compromise on *enjoyment* - none of us knows how long we've 'got', so enjoyment of living is still a higher priority on my list than crowing that my expenditure for the household is tuppence!...... on a bad month...... [Greying very much sending self up there!]

Greying

Upsidedown_Bear

Greying - do you read Ilona's (Meanqueen) blog?
http://www.meanqueen-lifeaftermoney.blogspot.co.uk/
You remind me of her in many ways. Which is a compliment to both of you

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

...I was thinking that this may be easier if the household ate meat. I was wondering if you bought meat items, say some chops, sausages, bacon and stored them/froze them portioned up, you would be looking for things to accompany them, which would give you scope for YS'd bargains. Making veggie food from scratch seems to be harder, as you are rarely starting with the one 'starting block' that a piece of meat gives you. Or have I missed something? ...

Hello Greying!

Your November challenge and musings about said challenge are really interesting & have had my mind whirring today.

As you know we are not veggie but upon refection, we certainly don't plan the meal around the meat - we actualy plan it round the veg! We tend to buy meat only on red/yellow stickers & store it in the freezer so for us this is the storecupboard staple (only way we can afford meat tbh). I tend to buy meat in bulk as the per unit price is lowest that way, but prefer to buy fresh & freeze myself rather than buy frozen. The veg though usually (but not always) stickered is what we buy fresh and hence what needs to be used up before it perishes so this is where my meal plan starts. Our starch or starchy veg is normally also from the store cupboard, and is usually added based on whim.

The basis of our meal plate is 1/2 green veg - 1/4 meat & 1/4 starch or starchy veg - flavourings and cooking method are dependent on which of us is cooking for the day. We tend to eat around the world as you do, experimenting with flavours & combinations.

As to budgeting and planning - pay is once a month but meal plans & shopping are done on a weekly basis. I allocate the same amount of money to each week but this includes replacing storecupboard items, as well as household needs such as cleaning supplies & paperproducts so our fresh stuff is limited to what is left after the stashes are replenished. I think this allows for our tiny kitchen & limited storage as well as lets us eat with the seasons filling ourselves with nutrient rich freshly cooked food.

OK - best stop for now - a meal plan calls my name!

XO
RT

Upsidedown_Bear

Smilie of the day part 2.