The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

beanielou

Happy new week comin g
Funnily enough I had tinned peaches & custard the other day!

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Last day of July..... where is the time going?

Still, we're hooking up with a new-ish, but very much admired and loved chum today :j They are an inspiration, and a kind and caring person to boot Wish we could see them more often - but then I'd just get greedy for more of their company, so...... We'll just enjoy the time that we do have with them, and share them with others

I've got to do some money-shuffling, will do that next. And I've got to do some longer term planning of things, looking at what time we have available and when etc. I also need to sort out what I'm realistically going to achieve for the last 5 weeks of my THT - if I got my arris shifting, I could actually do quite alot - GET TO IT GREYING!

I have ended my July food budget at £8.07 over budget - which I'm actually quite pleased with, as had it been a 'normal' month, that would have brought me in just shy of £2 under budget - and one of the aims that I set myself for UFM-J was to stick to my £150 food budget. The slightly depressing thing is, that we didn't really buy anything that was out of the ordinary. Had we been meat eaters, it's like existing on 'own-brand' sausages, and never getting to eat steak. Whilst I remain grateful that we can afford to have food in our home, freezer, fridge and storecupboard, I try to frugalise so that we can have some treats. We're still 'living' this life as we go through it - not seeking simply to exist.

I know that I have said that going forward I will put an extra £10 into the food budget, so it will be £160, but have we got to have UFM every month? I was reading something the other day that for the umpteenth time was banging on about eating 'seasonally' to eat cheaply. I would question if a) you don't have your own garden/grow some of your own veg and b) you don't have access to a decent multi-stalled produce market whether that applies anymore. I mean take the peas I saw in mrS yesterday. Peas are very much in season, why are they £1.50 for..... I'll hazard a guess the pack size was 750g - 1kg, which means you'd yield about half that amount (if lucky) in actual edible peas. (You'd have to make peapod burgundy with the pods..... ) You can buy 900g of frozen peas for in between 90 - 99p, so where is the seasonality saving? The frozen peas could easily be a year old (but are perfectly fine). Peaches and nectarines have been going UP in price at the local greengrocers - they were 5 for £1, now 3 for the same price - seasonality, glut, market saturation? I don't see it anymore.....And as for the price of courgettes........................

If anyone can see where I'm going wrong with all this - can you please shout up? I keep on thinking it is doable to feed a family of 3 (actually 2 and a half!) on £150 a month, and keep on getting proved wrong........ And given that I rarely (if ever) routinely find YS'd items for less than a third knocked off the original selling price - I'm just going to discount YS'ing as an option - it doesn't work for me in my current location/domestic set up.

Tea tonight is going to be 2 salads and a piece of l/o courgette bake out of the freezer. I expect it to be snowing by tea-time now that I have mentioned salad........ :rotfl:

Can't think of owt else MS to bang on about, so I best away and do me money shuffle and chores.

Ta for popping in. Appreciated

Greying X

Cheery_Daff

I know what you mean about seasonality. I think it's just got so easy and cheap to fly things across the world sadly. I suppose strawberries and other stuff that's not easy to transport is cheaper in season, but I still consider strawberries 'expensive' and rarely buy them anyway.

I confess I'm not even entirely sure how much we spend on food right now, as most of it comes from Mr cheery's cash budget and I don't keep track of that. But to me £150 seems like it SHOULD do two and a half - but I'm pretty sure we spend well over that when we're not frugalising and making EVERYTHING ourselves (and we dont even have a half to add into the mix).

I think you do fabulously well on your budget Greying. When we're being uber frugal we resort to porridge and lentils and quickly get bored It's quite a challenge to be frugal AND fabulous and I think you manage both admirably :kisses3:

Hooray for your cheery new friend they really are worth their weight in gold xx

beanielou

I too think you are frugal & fabulous

starnac

Greying I think £150/160 is a fab amount for the 2 1/2 of you. You feed your family good food so don't worry too much about it. As BG gets older they will unfortunately make more of an impact on your budget, just counting things like packed lunches and the things we say we won't feed our kids (crisps in my case :rotfl: )

I agree about buying in season. The prices tend to go up rather than down as the big shops see a profit to be made in the demand. We have been growing strawberries and tomatoes for a few years now. Next year I plan to make a concerted effort to grow things that will actively affect our budget rather than growing things for the sake of it.

Our food budget has slipped a bit since we paid off our overdrafts and we spend quite a bit more than your budget and our family is only slightly bigger than yours. But when I had it in hand I was spending only slightly more than you for the 4 of us.

Oh my! I seem to be rambling. Anyway my point is, you are doing exceptionally well managing the budget. If you need to raise it £10 then that's still amazing. Be proud in what you achieve

in_need_of_direction

my tuppence, for what it's worth. I think that you are penalised for cooking from scratch and buying healthy food. typically offers are on convenience food, sweet things, meat products, etc. could be talking absolute garbage but just take a look at special offers, they tend to be on unhealthy snacks, etc

Greying_Pilgrim

Ha ha - you are all so kind. I'm feeling more soggy than fabulous at present. It's only rained twice this arvo - when I walked TO meet my friend and when i walked FROM meeting my friend! :rotfl:Stair-rods!

starnac that is an important point, £150/160 does cover all meals - brekkie, lunch (packed or otherwise) and tea for us all. Neither DH nor I buy lunch out - well, actually July did see us spend £2 on budget sandwiches when we were away from home for a second day, but they were mrT £1 a packet ones, not sangers from a posh caff nor nuffing And yes, I also agree about the 'treat' foods becoming more normal as BG gets older - they will want to be like their peers won't they? It's understandable. Yes, I probably should be a little less harsh on myself - but it comes down to not really having anyone to compare with - and whilst I don't mind one bit if other parents feed their children all manner of packaged, logo'd snacks & food - it does mean we can't compare budgets, because we're not buying like for like. But, it was because another parent kindly gave BG a little individual package of raisins that I found out BG loved them. I now let BG have sultanas/raisins, it's just they come from the jar, rather than their own little box. BG doesn't seem to mind, and eats them up all the same But had that parent not been so kind in the first place, and shared, it may have taken me some time to discover a food that BG now loves.

INOD - I think there is something about foods that are routinely on offer and foods that are not. Maybe I missed it, but yesterday in mrL there was quite a bit of meat YS'd - 1/3rd off. I didn't look too hard, it wasn't of interest, but there was definitely mince, and chops I think - amongst other pieces. Now, I don't know what the 'proper' price for this meat is, I'm assuming mrL is competitive, but I saw no comparable reductions in fruit & veg - which doesn't mean that they weren't there - I just didn't spot them. I think the meat reductions would have perhaps..... aided me to s-t-r-e-t-c-h my budget a little if I was a meat eater??? And even though I get the majority of my pulses in 2kg packs from asian stores or the world food aisle in mrT, they have rocketed in price in the last year. Pulses are a staple for us, so I just have to absorb the price rises.

Mmmm, perhaps this is just how it is - perhaps everyone is either spending more on groceries, or has cut back/cut out? Our food waste is minimal, we don't go overboard on exotics (given that we are predominantly vegetarian), and we shop predominantly at the discounters/own brand or on offer. Mmmmm.

Anyhoo, best go and get tea started. Knew mentioning salad would jinx the weather :doh:

Greying X

Moneywhizz

I think I remarked on your thread a good while ago about how amazed I was at your food budget. I think you are definitely too hard on yourself. I know people who would spend your monthly budget in a week and not eat a fraction as well as you do. We spend probably £250 a month for two adults, including treats (read chocolate) and cleaning materials. I couldn't always afford to do that and I dare saying could do it much cheaper if I had to but still, I think I would struggle to cut it down to less than £200.

If you can afford to I would increase your food budget so that you are not constantly battling to stay in budget. If that is not possible you should be proud of how well you provide for your family on such a tight budget. Your diary is such a joy to read.

Cheery_Daff

I agree

I don't normally notice meat reductions (I've been veggie for 20 years so doesn't occur to me :rotfl: ) but yesterday they did have Richmond sausages in Fu1ton's reduced to 25p for 8 :money: Now, I have no idea whether they're any good, or nearly off, or even how much they normally cost - but if I ate meat I reckon I would have snapped up a couple of packets for the freezer :j

As it is, I am experimenting with dried soya chunks :rotfl: NOT the most appetising sounding of foods :rotfl: Can't even remember when I bought them, but I think they were pretty cheap. Had to soak them for 10 mins and have made a kind of fake shepherds pie with those, some red peppers, and peas, and a bit of passatta, topped with instant mash and cheese, and served with frozen green beans and instant gravy.

Nothing but classy in the Cheery household :rotfl:

The_Arrowmaker

Long time lurker here but I will emerge briefly from hiding after reading your post last week about National Trust deserts (confession: for a moment I had thought you were going to write about Dorset Apple Cake but then I realised you were writing about deserts not desserts:rotfl:).

Dorset was *the* reason we joined the National Trust very many years ago, when our now Teen Arrowmaker was probably not much older than Baby Greying is now. Head eastwards, to Purbeck, where you will find Corfe Castle, Studland (free parking for NT members) and Brownsea Island. We have spent year after year there, never tiring of the area as our children have grown up.

Incidentally, I love your diary. :A As a vegetarian, budget conscious household I find your writing, recipes and your photos of your tea inspirational. I often look to you for ideas (we ate bottom of the fridge jalfrezi last night and very nice it was too).

Hides away again