Making savings before it's too late

[Deleted User]

I am planning ahead to first week in feb when dd and her 2 are staying with me for one night while she works locally for a few hours. I am always tempted to drive out and get fish fingers and chips as one 8 year old is a fussy eater but no!!

So I am meal planning and going to use what I have in, sausagemeat and puff pastry, both frozen= sausage plait. Potatoes, (red rooster which keep) I don`t eat potatoes, making wedges with baked beans for light meal before they all leave. Frozen stewed apple and topping = eves pudding plus custard.

Phew I can do all the food and not spend a penny. I even have some full cream milk in the freezer and oad jus rol cinnamon swirls to bake today and freeze for them. If I went to the supermarket for the fish fingers then I would be spending on petrol plus at least £20 in store, including the `treats` and comics

moneyistooshorttomention

You've reminded me Kittie - your comment re full cream milk in the freezer.

Now that the move back to glass milk bottles has started - I'm wondering how I'm going to store my milk in the freezer in future. The current plastic containers - and I just chuck them straight in there. But glass bottles...and they're nearly with me. I can now buy conventional milk in glass bottles again and I think I should be able to buy my organic milk in them soon.

Hmmm....:think:. Added to the "what am I going to use now to store my loaves of bread I make and then cut in half and put in ziplock bags in freezer" list of "things to solve" that I've not figured out yet....

Any ideas? Would it be safe to just put glass bottles straight in to the freezer as they come? Would I have to decant the milk into those posh glass storage jars (Kilner/etc) and leave "margin for expansion" at the top?

[Deleted User]

money, I use glass jugs to store milk in the freezer, just leave enough headspace, trial and error, leave more than you think the first time. The jugs have lids but you can also get re-useable milk bottles with screw tops. Plenty on ebay `milk bottles with lids`. I have frozen all kinds of glass

tori.k

Grease proof paper would be fine for wrapping bread for the freezer, you can get unbleached soy wax as a alternative to petroleum based wax paper.
Milk you would have to decant to allow for expansion, I use the big douwe egbert jars for freezing soup and stock without issue, never tried the Mason jars I only have a few and they are used for fermentation but can't see it being an issue as long as you don't fill more than 2/3rds full.

PipneyJane

Afternoon All

I’m de-lurking to say a big THANK YOU to you all for your inspiration and kindness.

My heart has been bleeding for the people caught up in the Carillion collapse last week. I feel it quite badly because it could quite easily have been me: I work in that industry. I have colleagues who TUPE’d to Carillion in 2016. As well as the dinner ladies who made the headlines, Carillion employed a lot of engineers, architects, quantity surveyors, etc. There are many who will be struggling now, people in professional jobs who’d lived middle-class lives, who will be discovering that the benefit system wasn’t built for them and that Jobseekers Allowance doesn’t cover the bills, let alone the mortgage. (If they are renting, they may be able to claim housing benefit but if they have a mortgage, they’ll be made homeless first. In the last Budget, the Government did away with financial support for mortgage payments.)

Regarding freezing milk, 26 years ago, I used to put full glass milk bottles into the freezer. They had the old foil lids which would bulge up as the frozen milk expanded. I wouldn’t freeze anything in glass now - the community centre I frequent has had multiple glass jugs shatter when people placed them in the freezer “to chill” and forgot about them. I’ve helped clean up the mess.

Nowadays, I freeze milk in re-used plastic 1L milk bottles, leaving an inch of headroom for expansion.. It takes about 2 days for a bottle to defrost completely in the fridge. I wash the bottles out carefully and throw them out when they start smelling off.

- Pip

Seraph123

kittie wrote: »

those were the days.

In thse days, real ground coffee was a luxury, oh that smell in coopers in liverpool. Memories, the second hand dining table that we painted lime green, the orange sofa

It is amazing how quickly credit cards and debt, even if minor, became the norm and thence came the transition from a simpler life to a life full of `things`

Oh such lovely memories of Coopers. It was olfactory heaven

blackcatsx2

As a child/teenager having a cup of tea “out” was a real treat which usually occurred on a special shopping trip or because we’d missed the bus and had an hour to wait. On proper day trips out we took a flask. However, a British Home Stores breakfast was an occasional treat on shopping trips. When I look at how many coffee shops there are now on high streets, in stations, in supermarkets etc it makes me wonder how we didn’t dehydrate in the past ! :rotfl:

moneyistooshorttomention

PipneyJane wrote: »

Afternoon All



Regarding freezing milk, 26 years ago, I used to put full glass milk bottles into the freezer. They had the old foil lids which would bulge up as the frozen milk expanded.

Nowadays, I freeze milk in re-used plastic 1L milk bottles, leaving an inch of headroom for expansion.. It takes about 2 days for a bottle to defrost completely in the fridge. I wash the bottles out carefully and throw them out when they start going off

I can sympathise re those Carillion people - and it must be absolutely galling for those that didnt make a conscious decision to work with them - but were just TUPE'd over against their will.

I knew about that (shocking) refusal by the Government to pay mortgage payments any longer for unemployed people - and I can imagine unemployment would be even worse for someone that had owned their own place (but with a mortgage still) and found they had lost it and then had to get rented accommodation. Worse than having been stuck in rented accommodation in the first place - because you'd have "lost what you had" and be trying to get a rented place as a claimant (and we know what landlords/ladies think of that):eek:

***************

Re the milk bottles - I can imagine all sorts could happen to milk in any community place (less care and attention being paid perhaps?). But - if you've put old-style milk bottles in the freezer successfully in the past - then I imagine "one careful home-owner in own home" could do that without a problem - and the foil tops would just expand up as you say? Presumably glass milk bottles are stronger than a lot of glass?

I did think of keeping some plastic milk cartons before they stop producing them (or at least I've found my source of supply of organic milk in glass bottles - non-organic now being available again here..so it cant be far away...:D). However, it wouldn't take long for those plastic cartons to become manky and it's only a fall-back position, I feel, for a matter of a few weeks/months and not for the "rest of my life".

Off to google "milk bottles with lids" - though I've got a suspicion I'll find they are plastic...but will have a look...

EDIT; Ooh....quick looksee - and Amazon do indeed have glass milk bottles with lids - and they're metal lids (not plastic). Yay! Result!

[Deleted User]

I have a couple of those glass milk bottles with metal screw top lids, bought them when I was into raw milk and wanted to decant it

I hate what has happened to the high streets blackcats, it happened sneakily when out of town supermarkets came. I travelled to dd the other day, through several villages and not a village shop between them but there were many houses, many bungalows and obviously now very many lonely isolated people. The shop was the hub and now pubs too

It is going to be hard to replace plastics like cling film, I remember the days before plastics like this. Pyrex and there are still ancient pyrex dishes in charity shops. Food was wrapped in greaseproof paperbags and everyone carried shopping bags. I still use an old fashioned whicker basket, its very good for not squashing things, however I always carry my purse in a crossover bag

How to cover things for those who microwave? I used to use a pyrex lid. I scarcely microwave anything these days, not for many years but microwaves and clingfilm go hand in hand. Clingfilm over dishes in the fridge, again glass dishes maybe with a plate on top. Not buying `disposable` clingfilm will eventually add up in cost savings but will be priceless for ocean care. Silver foil is good for topping containers in the fridge and can be used over again but is relatively expensive and not good for the savings budget

I have very many lock n lock boxes, given dozens away while I kondoed (downsized) and they should last my lifetime, with care.

PollyWollyDoodle

I do sometimes just use a plate to cover things in the microwave, but I've got one of these Charles Viancin lids. Yes they are silicone but can be reused hundreds of times. There are cheaper versions but these are so gorgeous! I hardly ever use cling film in the microwave.