Preparing for Winter V

amber03

I have always stocked up with tins and anything that will store ok. Some of my family used to make fun of me, didn’t bother me. Also it all came in handy when we went into lockdown. Starting to store a few more bits now for the winter months. Was only on about stocking up on coal and logs for the fire for winter. We are in a smokeless zone so have to be careful what we buy, as the council are very eager sending out threatening letters if they think you are burning anything else.x

London_1

Luckily I use UHT milk all the time and have done for several years as I'm not a great milk drinker and only use it in tea or custards.I buy 6 at a time from Aldis as they are just as good as anywhere and they were 75p for a litre so £4.50 a time I have around 10 litres in my top cabinet at the moment but when I shop next week I will get another 6 as the dates are running at around dec/jan at the moment 

Cheapskate

Been MIA from MSE for some time, but back on it for lots of reasons! I think this thread's going to be quite a busy one over the next few months or so...

Now summer hols for my children, and I'm off work for 2 weeks shortly, so going to start applying myself to winter preps again - taken my eye off the ball for a while, but ever increasing costs can't be ignored, and I want to stop the rot whilst it's good weather and I can build buffers of fuel credit, stock up my pantry, and all the usual.

Lots of our frugal items have had it and need replacing, including HWB, food Thermos flasks, pj's etc., so cracking on this weekend as I was paid today.  I have a fair yarn stash to work through for blankets for us, the car, and to gift to family for Christmas etc., and shed loads of things to sell on various selling sites - even a few quid here and there will help!

Needless to say, the slow cooker is already out, and batch cooking will begin at the end of the hols when we've worked through the random stuff in the freezer.  My daughter works in a SM, so keeps her eye out for YS things for both of us, including her staff discount it's quite good sometimes!

Absolutely dreading fuel hikes come autumn - already switching off every single thing I can bar the fridge & router! 

A xo

Laura_Elsewhere

Primrose said:

We have a supply of bulk rice but also have a number of packets of Tilda type 'one minute'  rice.  I know they're  perhaps a price luxury item but given the current hike in cooking fuel prices Im wondering if the there is now less of a price differential between the two rice versions.  Certainly in this ageing household , easy short-cut culinary convenience options are proving a boon. 

We boil 8 portions of rice at a time, then divide it up and freeze as single portions, so we can just ping them in the microwave in a minute, in between pinging the sweet-and-sour chicken we also make 8 portions at a time and freeze as single portions  
We also make pasta sauces in bulk and boil the pasta, cool it quickly in cold water and add a drizzle of olive oil to stop it sticking together, then freeze the pasta and sauce as a ready-meal. 
I haven't quite worked out the best way to pre-cook and freeze potatoes for having with stews, but I do intend to figure something out so we can have ready-meals of stews without needing to 'do' anything else. 

We have only a small fridge-freezer, but we kept the rectangular plastic meal-trays from back when we used to buy ready-meals, and we have one freezer-drawer which will take those, three across and two deep, and three high, so we can freeze up to 18 ready-meals - two different pasta meals, sweet-and-sour with rice; various stews (not yet with potatoes...). 

It's nice being able to ping supper and still have home-made healthier food - and definitely uses less fuel - we slide the frozen meals out into bowls, and then swap the two bowls round, so they 'rest' between pingings, meaning we'll heat up both portions completely in only about 10 minutes, probably 8 mins of actual pinging. 

Laura_Elsewhere

We've been experimenting with turning the water heating off completely - it turns out that if we switch it on, there's enough for me to have a bath in an hour, and enough to wash up with in half an hour. If it's been on for two hours, then the water stays hot enough for washing-up for c.2 days, meaning it only really needs to be on for two hours, 2-3 times a week and it gives me all the hot water I need. 

I was surprised, as I thought that, from completely cold, it would take much longer to heat up. 

poppy811

I find semi skimmed milk freezes OK.  Needs a good shake when defrosted.  Stops me shopping so often as always seem to buy a couple of “extras”!

JinJinBlue

I've been stocking up with tins and long life oat milk etc for a while now as well. Whai I've recently been doing is looking at my winter clothing to make sure that it's clean and in good repair. Mostly, I buy from charity shops because I have a thing about recycling and upcycling. You can always customise 2nd hand clothes as well. A friend bought two blouses and swapped the collars and cuffs over. Voila! Two new look blouses and unique to her. My latest buy from a local market was some S*ft Top thermal socks, the sort that are advertised as being suitable for diabetics. Much cheaper than elsewhere. I haven't bought new clothes for ages but something tells me that they too will go up in price. Thanks for all the tips and advice on here. It's helping me not to be so worried and scared about the coming winter and what lies ahead. 

PipneyJane

Primrose said:

We have a supply of bulk rice but also have a number of packets of Tilda type 'one minute'  rice.  I know they're  perhaps a price luxury item but given the current hike in cooking fuel prices Im wondering if the there is now less of a price differential between the two rice versions.  Certainly in this ageing household , easy short-cut culinary convenience options are proving a boon. 

@Primrose, you need to learn the rice trick.  In a saucepan put your quantity of rice (say 1/4 cup per person). Cover with double the quantity of boiling water (1/2 cup per person), put the lid on, bring back to a rolling boil and switch off. Leave undisturbed for 15 minutes or until all the water is absorbed.  Works for all white rice eg  long grain and basmati rice. Also works beautifully for bulgar wheat - if you need a  high fibre/high protein grain - and quinoa.

- Pip

PipneyJane

I’m at the commonwealth games at the moment. My first job, when I get home next weekend is to take all the coats to the dry-cleaners that are currently hanging in the porch.  Went to get a basic waterproof to bring with me and discovered that all of them wreak of damp. 

Must sew on buttons and mend the linings too, on the coats before I do this. Also need to check out the gutter and the drain on that side of the porch, to find the cause of the smell.

- Pip 

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane, yes, I'm just sorting through our heavy woollens and coats and gloves and so on, to check if they need washing or mending. 
And I shall be going over all my shoes and boots to see if I need to do any cobbling - new heels, new soles, or repairs... and then dubbin and polish and making them all lovely and watertight!