2014 Frugal Living Challenge

happycrafter_2

You can either put a tin of condensed milk in a saucepan of water and boil it (making sure the water doesn't all disappear which means the tin explodes everywhere) or I use 1 tin of condensed milk add half the qty of the tin of butter and brown sugar and boil it all together until thick. I think it works out as 400g tin of cond milk 200g brown sugar and 200g butter it makes loads I did this at Christmas for sticky toffee pudding and had enough to make millionaires shortbread as well.

skintygerlinky

Happy Sunday all,

Lovely night at friend's house last night - we sat and gossiped with a couple of drinks whilst here hub fed us! Had a lovely meal. They are both enjoying a frugal 2014 too so was good to swap stories and tips!

Got to get head down and do lots of uni work today so no spends there. Got some knackered looking parsnips in the fridge so later I'll take a break from studying and put them out of their misery by turning them into curried parsnip soup and that'll sort out a few lunches next week.

Loving this thread - so inspirational. I look forward to logging on and seeing how everyone's doing. Let's keep it up!!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

happycrafter wrote: »

You can either put a tin of condensed milk in a saucepan of water and boil it (making sure the water doesn't all disappear which means the tin explodes everywhere) or I use 1 tin of condensed milk add half the qty of the tin of butter and brown sugar and boil it all together until thick. I think it works out as 400g tin of cond milk 200g brown sugar and 200g butter it makes loads I did this at Christmas for sticky toffee pudding and had enough to make millionaires shortbread as well.

FAB thank you, how long do you boil it for? or do you go with the flow, and watch colour consistency?


I am going to be a pain now..lol.. is it poss to have the recipes for your sticky toffee pudding please..


Would I be able to freeze portions of the cake and sauce?? or would I just have to scoff it all??


as it is only me that would eat it


We have 3 or 4 pigs going to the abotoir on Tuesday, so money is going to be practically non- existant after paying for that, and them to be butchered etc...


So really do need to live on thin air for the next week or so..


going to walk over to Arsda and only take a few £££ with me to get some basics.. carrots, milk and bread...

23rdspiral

miss_empty_piggy wrote: »

Hope you're recovering 23rdspiral (haven't read posts since the one above yet) but didn't want to miss sending my best wishes. Take care.

happycrafter wrote: »

Hope you are back on your feet soon

Thank you for the well wishes. I'm feeling far less tender, am out of bed and able to do some light housework and the results have come back good so I'm feeling brighter than I have in a month

23rdspiral

Is anyone else using spreadsheets to track budgets / spends?

I haven't seen as much about them as I have before on this thread. Is CW still around?

I sat yesterday and properly set up cws spreadsheet for the new year. I've used it before but not last year, and now we only have 1 income I needed to tweak things substantially. I wasn't sure how to add entirely new spending detail sheets so adapted what was there.

So 'Groceries' sheet now includes Cleaning (husband now paying, he didn't before) which frees up 'Toiletries & Cleaning' for another purpose entirely, and 'Other' will be my savings money I spend on me (clothes, toiletries, stationary etc, but hopefully not much!).

My husband won't track his personal spends (coffee, subway each Friday) but it's not too much and he'd spend it whatever so there's no point me worrying about things I can't control!:o

The Dog should have been on Other but I've moved her into 'Regular Spends' Spare 1, as it's not much more than kibble, meat & poo bags on repeat. I'm pretty sure I've got them as cheap as possible without compromising her health or quality of life so I shouldn't need to track that in detail.

I also used to note spends in a little notebook in my handbag. But notes would get lost amongst other things in there. So I've got a notebook/purse combination which should help keep things manageable.

I'm curious to hear what systems & adaptations people are using?

happycrafter_2

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

FAB thank you, how long do you boil it for? or do you go with the flow, and watch colour consistency?


I am going to be a pain now..lol.. is it poss to have the recipes for your sticky toffee pudding please..


Would I be able to freeze portions of the cake and sauce?? or would I just have to scoff it all??


as it is only me that would eat it


We have 3 or 4 pigs going to the abotoir on Tuesday, so money is going to be practically non- existant after paying for that, and them to be butchered etc...


So really do need to live on thin air for the next week or so..


going to walk over to Arsda and only take a few £££ with me to get some basics.. carrots, milk and bread...

http://www.carnation.co.uk/Recipes/17/Sticky-Toffee-Pudding I use this recipe but make the sauce as above I just do it by eye it does thicken as it cools as well, it's also more of a low boil than a full on boil.
I have frozen portions before and they have been ok just reheated in the microwave.

Boomdocker

kb_soma wrote: »

This one looks good, not too many ingredients either: http://titlisbusykitchen.com/recipe/chicken-madras or one which uses paste: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/quickchickenmadras_67786 I may try it myself too

I usually make a homestyle curry from the curry lovers cookbook by roopa gulati http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1993658/homestyle-chicken-curry this is lovely, I'd recommend this.

Thanks for the link to titlis busy kitchen, some great looking recipes on there and have bookmarked. Great recipe for egg curry which I love, not so sure about the brain curry though but really interesting.

happycrafter_2

I'm using a spreadsheet for my income and outgoings of bills I also have a notebook for other spends I am using January to see what works best for me then I can continue with a method I know suits me.

Glad to read your feeling brighter

Boomdocker

Hi all, had my first go at a bit of batch cooking today. I used a version of Jack Monroes macaroni cheese recipe found on her website (agirlcalledjack). I doubled the recipe and have frozen four portions.

If you haven't seen her website before it is well worth a visit.

pm2326

Need to start using some baking ingredients up and dont want to buy any naughty food ie cakes biscuits etc as a waste of money so have a mincemeat and marzipan cake in the oven...house smells all christmassy again !!