How to fall in love with saving money

jimjames

cathybird wrote: »

Speaking of gluts from the allotment I have a frightening number of apples at the moment and I haven't even brought the whole crop back home yet, just the ones that fell off the trees. The plan is to get out the juicer today. I could freeze some for crumbles in the winter, I guess.

Freezing is a great way to have supplies over the winter. You do have to prepare them for best results but well worth it to have your own organic apples to use for cooking when they are out of season.

I tend to peel and cut them and very lightly cook to stop them going brown, cool and freeze in bags for the correct portion size to cook with. I also freeze blackberries but without cooking and can then make crumble quickly from the frozen ingredients. If the freezer is on already there is virtually no incremental cost for more items in it and being able to use food you've got free is a great MSE idea.

Ken68

Slightly off topic but you can buy milk at 25p a LITRE if you use powder. Same nutrition, and if the taste doesn't suit, for half price make it suit.

cathybird

Thanks JimJames My problem is that my freezer is currently full with supplies for November and December and I certainly don't have room for the number of apples that I have. Also, keeping in mind that I live by myself, there's only so much apple crumble I can eat. I've got four bags of apples plus three other trees still groaning with fruit. I told fellow allotmenters that they could just take as many Bramleys as suited them but there's still going to be a lot of fruit left over, I think. I do have the second freezer but don't want to install electricity to the shed just for that. Maybe I should just do a lot of juicing over the next month.

The bulk of my allotment produces soft fruit such as gooseberries, raspberries and plums and I turn that into sorbet and jam. The sorbet is already mostly eaten and the jam will go into porridge and desserts. I love home-made jam. I could turn some of the apples into jam, I guess. Got a Kilner jar free since I emptied it of spare coins :rotfl:

cathybird

Thanks Ken In all honesty my use for milk is limited and I could really dispense with buying it altogether except for things like macaroni cheese, which I am about to make to take to work next week for two or three lunches. I could have water with porridge and water is even cheaper than powdered milk. But yes, good tip, and something to keep in mind, since I suppose powdered milk lasts a good long while.

cathybird

Very curious to know what use other MSEers make of their freezers but that's probably a subject for another thread. And in fact I'd be willing to bet someone else on the forums at some point has asked that already.

Ken68

Lots of other boards Cathy, just click forum and make them favourites, then group tab if you want. Old style, Food and Groceries etc.
Good that you have started at the most important board lol

cathybird

I was a bit worried this morning because the bulk of other posts on Savings & Investments seemed to be people discussing investments and I thought perhaps a savings diary was a little out of place. However another couple of savings diaries cropped up this morning, so I'm more at ease about it. I guess people who don't want to read them won't read them and those who do, will.

Ken68

I started off on Gas and Electric boards then moved onto Water then Food and Groceries etc.
"New Posts" will give you an idea how versatile the forum is.
On "CP" you can get a subscribe list of your postings, helps to keep track . The Arms is for general discussion and the weekly email is useful.

cathybird

Yes, I should do a bit of hanging about on the food and groceries board - I've no doubt it would be useful.

Basically my big weaknesses are food and books (and if you combine the two in a cookery book it will be all I can do to resist buying it). For books I've basically imposed a "no more new books" rule on myself for November but it is already being severely tested. The fact that I've got probably a couple of thousand books I haven't even read yet doesn't deter my sense that my holdings should really be added to.

davenport151

Hi cathybird -have just read your entire diary with interest.
Check out the starting from scratch thread in the money saving & the site - how much have you saved?
Started because some of the other boards seemed to be out of our league for now. We are all in the same position there.

I find money saving is part upbringing/part learning. Its took me this long to respect and look after my money. Part of the latter is finding this site and educating myself.

Good luck!