NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

PenguinOfDeath

Excellent, I've just harvested a load of HG shallots, ones I can't use fresh soon shall be chopped and frozen!

WeeMidgie

My lovely neighbour has de-grassed, applied weedproof membrane and spread gravel over our adjoining front gardens. He said I only had to pay for materials, but I also gave him a thank you card with some Morrisons vouchers as he and his wife are young and has a wee girl and a mortgage to pay. It still cost a fraction of what a landscape gardener would have cost, and looks really smart.

Other than that, costs have been minimal, and I'm eating from the garden, at least for strawberries, peas and salad veg, which is saving on the food shopping. Frugality will be the rule till the end of next month when I have visitors from overseas. It'll be a pleasure to treat them to some nice outings in the area.

RicardaRacoon

Evening everyone

Frozen onions... I often throw onions away as I just don't need enough to use them up in time. So might give freezing a try next time.
Always amazed at what you can freeze. I freeze smoked trout, all sorts of meat (but not slices of ham as they seem to get soggy, so I only freeze diced ham which then goes into cooking), egg whites left over from baking, any LO veg, pesto sauce...
So happy to have a big freezer downstairs and a medium under my fridge... In my old flat I only had this small freezer compartement in my fridge and no space to put a separate freezer, so it was always a juggle. "Before I can cook a pot of barley soup I have to eat up two chicken tights and all my ice cream." and things like that...
The big freezer by the way came from someone at work who had a big freezer built into the kitchen of her new flat and didn't needed her old one anymore, so I got a free freezer.

I think I will have to try the baked bean lasagne as I'm always on the lookout for vegetarian meals. I really try to cut my meat intake as far down as possible and try to add some vegan meals each week, though I know that I will not go vegetarian (or even vegan), at least not at the moment, as I like meat too much...

My spend of the day was a coffee and a muffin this morning when out knitting with friends. Small groceries round planned for tomorrow to top up on fresh fruit, but that will be all I need for the rest of the week.

Weemidgie glad that you could have the garden sorted out for a little money! It pays to have nice neigbours and to help each other out.

Have a nice evening everyone!

[Deleted User]

I too dice onions and freeze,living alone a whole onion when I only need maybe half of one would be wasted otherwise.two years ago I was in sainsbobs around 8.pm. and they had reduced a big 7.5 kilo sack to 10P I bought it, took it home, sliced and diced for ages until I couldn't find anymore room for them in the freezer then went round to all my neighbours giving the remainder away At 10p it was the bargain of the year :):) and my neighbours still talk about me knocking and asking 'Want any onions going free :):) Best buy I ever had in YS stuff :):) House smelt a bit like a fairground for awhile until I opened the front and back windows.The frozen ones lasted me almost a year in casseroles and slow cooked meals

Primrose

Fantastic bargain on the onions Jackie. It,s the one vegetable i couldn,t do without and can never grow enough to keep us supplied. Don,t know how people managed during the last war when the supply of all i oorted onions geound to a halt. Food must have been very dreary and flavourless. All kinds of home grown soft fruit and veg coming on stream here. Still trying to eat remainder of last year's crop from freezers to mske room for this year's.
Just returned from 3 days away and courgettes and cucumbers seem to have matured to full size out of thin air. We joke it's the time of yesr when all the neighbours start running in the opposite direction when they see you approaching bearing courgettes!

katsu

I went to a craft course today and resisted the urged to buy too many nice things. I also got take away lunch rather than eating in a cafe.

Lynplatinum

Ahoy fellow frugal sailors!

Am currently in Cornwall - house and dog sitting for a friend who has gone a cruise. Definitely a win-win - my friend saves on kennel fees and worry over if her house is looking empty and I get a free holiday in Cornwall with a lovely little doggie to play with! :j

We shall have to rename you the onion queen - Jackie O!! Brilliant!! I never runaway when some keen gardener approaches with spare anything! I am v happy to be a dustbin. :j

Who mentioned hot dogs???? GROAN !!!! I want one now!!

While I am here am still trying to be frugal and to follow Sl!mming Wor!d so that I can return with a healthier body and healthier wallet! So hot dogs are definitely not on the menu!! :-(

How do you free egg whites?? They are the bane of my life?? What do you use them for? (Other than merangue and whatever those things with almonds are called) How does one use them from frozen? (I.e. thaw them - over night or how long??)

I have had 3 NSD days as bought my veg box down with me and my friend had stuff that needs using up!! Result!

Also experienced the kindness of strangers today - went to a beach today and asked about where the parking meter was located and could I take dogs on the beach all year. They told me about where was best to walk the dog and then gave me their car park ticket which had an hour left on it. Wasnt that kind?? :A

Glad all on here are doing well. Sailing frugally forth shipmates! :)

GreyQueen

Primrose, I think the problem with supply of onions was limited to the start of the war, as we'd been importing most of ours. Home production was stepped up later. Onions do grow perfectly well in the UK but not to the size that they grow in hotter countries, nor do they keep as well. I think it's because they favour really hot sun to 'cure' them when they're drying out.

I buy one net of white onion sets (they're either Stuttgarter or Sturman) and one of red ( Red Barron) from £land each year and have onions coming out of my ears. Give quite a few away to family.

Tonight, I will be harvesting the first of the courgettes and will snaffle a new season onion as I'm out of them. When you cut into just harvested veg like those, a ring of dewdrops will appear around the outer edge of the veg, they are just soooo fresh. You lose that in hours and I have never seen that in shop-bought produce. Lovely.

Will be working today, and gardening, and living contentedly on my modest income. Shopping as an activity seems so bizarre to me now, it's almost that I could imagine myself like David Attenborough, crouching behind a municipal flowerbed, commentating breathlessly on the behaviour of these animals as they forage..........:rotfl:

Lynp, how lovely that you're house and doggie sitting, and what a perfect example of a win-win situation. I'm envious! Hope you have a brilliant time - I was in Cornwall in July 2013 and it was so gorgeous.

[Deleted User]

GQ how lovle to be able to have your allotment with the abundance of veg inyour 'growing' larder.
I used to be able to garden like that but now because of the inability to baen for long I have a gardener who comes once a fortnight and keep my patch of Kent tidy for me.but I do have a good farm shop nearby and kind neighbours who pass on extra stuff in exchange for a baked cake or two :)As a little girl growing up in the late 1940s and early 50s everyone grew stuff if they could.I had a gt.uncle who owned a market garden in Herne Bay and as a family we would troop down on the steam train and 'help' him pick stuff.Strawberries were the best crop as he always had far too many for his small shop and limited storage meant he didn't mind if my two brothers and I 'helped' him pick (we also could eat what we wanted as well )
We always came home on the train laden down with stuff that my parents didn't grow in our own large garden.gooseberries and lots of stuff that Mum couldn't get hold of.In our own garden they grew spuds,lettuce,cabbage,brussels,onions, rhubarb tomatos, black currants and redcurrants and we had a decent bramble bush at the bottom of the garden along with several apple trees.my dad also kept a few chicken for the eggs, then the table when they grew too old.We were never allowed to 'name ' them though, as he said we'd never eat them if they had a name
as you say to pull or pick something and eat it the same day has a taste of its own.Nothing like the stuff grown today.few chemicals available in those days. Soot from the chimney went onto the rhubarb.Nothing was wasted My Mum used to make the most foul smelling mixture of rotten down thistles in a bucket of water which she used as fertiliser.Smelt and looked gross but grew some great fruit and veg .

Today I shall be downsizing my glut of crockery to the CS as I have far too much in the cupboards.I really don't need all the junk I have in there as there is only me to use them so out will go dinner plates and odd cups and saucers that haven't seen the light of day for yonks I shall be firm as I really need to get shot of it and make a bit more room in my cupboards.They are just crammed too full of stuff thats not used anymore
Onwards and upwards chums
JackieO xxx

carolbee

We've got an allotment, our first, got it in December, so this is our first crop from it. The other plot holders hav been very kind and generous with tips, seeds,,plants and produce, and we are now the "go to" people if they have any bits of wood etc to get rid of, as I appear to now be married to a Womble. Seriously, he has made some good things out of bits and bobs, a shed, a pallet herb holder etc.

We too see people scurry away when we are armed with courgettes. I made a courgette cake and it was delicious. The flavours of the veg ar just so lovely, and we too are happy to share with friends, family and neighbours.

If anyone lives near Margate, or when JackieO goes to Westgate let me know, courgettes are the new seaside rock to take home 😀