Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Blackcats

Hi Foxgloves, I didn't get as far as O level Domestic Science. After I dropped the apple and blackberry crumble I'd made in class whilst running for the bus I never found enthusiasm for the lessons, The pavement was stained with blackberry juice for many years after that plus I broke my mum's "best" Pyrex,
I never used a shopping list when I went to the supermarket in the spendy years. I did, however, prepare for the trip to the shop by checking that I had enough credit available on the credit card. I would fill the trolley with branded items and when the kids were at home would buy two different lots of cereals, two different types of yoghurt, shampoo for frizzy hair, shampoo for blonde hair etc etc. I could never resist the washing machine gels and capsules - such pretty colours and enticing sounding scents. I bought washing liquid for delicates, another for darks, etc. At the checkout I never had the vaguest idea of what the bill would be and it was always a surprise when I heard the total. When one of the kids got a Saturday job at the supermarket we got family discount but rather than saving money I could justify spending the savings from the discount on bigger and better bunches of flowers so my rationale was £10 saving on a £100 shop meant a £10 bunch of flowers. Good grief - I can't even begin to contemplate how much money I wasted in that supermarket.

chocomonsta

foxgloves wrote: »

Awww, that's lovely of you Chocomonsta. Until a couple of years ago, I had a blog about my garden, it's wildlife & all my recycling projects, simple 'How to' posts, etc, with photos, etc, but I gave it up. The biggest fan of my blog posts was a dear friend whom I'd known since I was 18. She used to read it on her way home from work & used to say it fair cheered her up to read about all our frogs, veggie growing action, etc. Sadly, she died very unexpectedly & after that, I just didn't feel like writing it any more, as one of its features were all her funny comments. So I suppose, as I now garden in a very money saving way (a bit different to the Spendy Years when I practically lived at the garden centre & would think nothing of blowing £50 just to fill a couple of pots), that my garden efforts now feature regularly in my reformed spender's diary here.
The Holly blue butterflies were out today, so nice to have them flitting about while I was planting out my larkspur, clary & cosmos.
F x

Such a shame that you stopped, may be you can incorporate into this thread and think that your dear friend will be reading from somewhere (hugs)

I have made a little pond this year, but it has gone all green and manky. I think if any frogs dare to go into it they will jump out immediately. I intend to improve it soon, but probably will be too late for this years froggy get togethers! We had a toad for years who has sadly disappeared too.

foxgloves

Toni's Friend - I haven't always had a big garden, I agree with you that it's amazing what you can fit into a small space. Agree with previous post that lavenders are great in pots & bees love them. You may have discounted the classic butterfly bush family - buddlejas, on the grounds of their size, but there are smaller varieties which are fine for pots - i.e 'Buzz', which I think actually has flowers in different colours from the same plant. Bees & butterflies love buddlejas & if you pop out a tnight in the summer, you usually find the a range of moths tucking in too. If you want to add some annual summer bedding to your containers which is attractive to bees, you could get some annual echium seed. There are lots of varieties of echium, but the one I'd recommend for this is called 'Blue Bedder'. Very easy to grow from seed, a pretty shade of blue & not tall plants so fine for containers.
F x

foxgloves

Hi Chrystal - I'm sure I've already posted the garlic flatbread recipe on here somewhere, but I couldn't begin to tell you whereabouts in my diary to look, so I'll post it again. Yes, I'd say these are an ideal thing to make when you need to stretch a meal to feed big appetites. OK, here goes.......Oh before I start, you'll need a heavy bottomed pan as they are cooked on the hob. I use a nonstick ridge pan, but have also successfully made in a normal frying pan. I like the ridges though!

You will need:
400g self-raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 good-sized garlic cloves
250g low fat plain yoghurt (see note below!)
1 tsp salt
a few grinds of black pepper
c.100ml cold water

Crush the garlic into the yoghurt & stir to distribute.
Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt & pepper into a bowl. Add the yoghurt/garlic & stir to combine, adding the water to create a slightly soft ball of dough. Turn it out onto a floured board & cut it into 8 equal sized pieces. Get your griddle pan pre-heating. It does need to be hot! If it's non-stick, you shouldn't need any oil. My best flat breads are when I don't use any oil at all, but depending on your type of pan, you may need a wipe of oil if they look to be sticking. On a ridge pan, they don't stick at all.
Roll each piece into a rough oval shape (think pitta bread shape/size). Cook in a factory assemblage style......get that first one onto the griddle, while you start rolling out the rest, etc. They only need 2 or 3 mins per side, so when the flat bread is starting to puff up, lift to have a look if it is cooked underneath, then flip it over. Wrap them in a tea towel when cooked to keep them warm while you do the rest. They freeze really well, if there are any left over once your hungry 6-footer has been!

Note re the yoghurt: This is a great way to use up yoghurt which has been sitting around in the fridge doing sweet b*gger all. The recipe works best with yoghurt, but if you don't have any, but you have some surplus or soon to be past its best milk, you can use that if you add a big squeeze of lemon juice an hour or so in advance to sour it up. In my experience this does make a dough which is softer & harder to handle but it's perfectly doable. the last batch I made recently, I didn't have quite enough leftover yoghurt, so I soured a small amount of milk with lemon to make up the difference.

Hope this helps m'duck & that they turn out nice for you. I always find that like pancakes, the first one is never quite as good as the rest, I guess because the pan gets hotter as it goes along.
F x

foxgloves

Thanks, Chocmonsta. Yes, I shall think of this as my blog for now. We are expecting a significant change to our financial circumstances later this year if things turn out as expected, so another thought was that I could finish my diary on here & start a new blog, as I did like adding photos of projects, particularly garden ones. I like the community of readers & posters on here though, so I shall see how I feel when the time comes.
Re your pond.....oh yes, it's infuriating when you've put all the work into making one & it rewards you by going as green as possible! It's usually from the sun & too many nutrients in the water feeding various algaes. You often find that as things find a balance, the water starts to clear. Yes, you are too late for froggie romances & tadpoles, but that's not to say that frogs won't enjoy using your pond for their summer dips. Once they start breeding in a pond, they tend to return every year. We have around 20 breeding pairs descend on us every Spring, the croaking is crazy, as the annual amphibious orgy gets underway. It was too much for our resident toad. He absented himself from the pondy bordello & hasn't been seen since!
F x

foxgloves

Blackcats - Had to laugh at your school blackberry disaster! I was lucky not to have too much in the way of cookery lesson mishaps......well, unless you count the classic jelly + evaporated milk mousse which failed to set (it was green) & I could only get a seat on the top deck of the bus on the way home. I don't know who'd peed off the driver that day, but suffice it to say that by the time I got home, there was barely any mousse left in the bowl!
Your comments about supermarket shopping in the Spendy Years so resonated with me. Yes, same behaviour here. Particularly standing at the till.....you would check your credit card before you went to make sure you had enough space for your shopping.....I'd stand there with my debit card, inwardly cussing the bank, hoping that my card wasn't going to get declined in front of a big queue of people. This, of course, would be solely the bank's fault....definitely never, ever anything to do with the fact that my salary used to disappear into a black hole half way through the month due to my permanent failure to live within my means. If I considered I'd 'done a good shop' (never based on anything maths-based, such as adding up as I went along), then that was all the more reason to add 3 magazines to my trolley before checking out. I tell you what I'd checked out of....bloody Sanity FM, that's what!! My Mum used to tell me regularly 'You can't spend what you haven't got'. Naturally it fell on deaf ears.....of course I could! I still had cheques left, a tidsy bit of overdraft limit left, a 'Flexible Loan' arrrangement.....(the latter being sufficient material for a whole post on its own....), etc, etc, then of course later, a credit card. The sea change came when I truly saw credit for what it really is. A chance to spend somebody else's money, for which you pay them handsomely, on top of having to pay it back. Yep! Never going that route again, & Mr F, who if anything was EVEN WORSE WITH MONEY THAN ME, completely agrees. I don't think I really had any self-respect around money. And now I do, & I like it.
F x
Oh....& P.S. I have now seen the plastic cactus................You were dead right I wouldn't buy one, lol!

1LuckyLady

Foxgloves, we've talked last year about the school cookery lessons in my eldest's school on the small things thread, I was annoyed about what the school calls cookery.... (I think it was maybe bought pizza bases that he had to take in the toppings but then still bring home to cook... or maybe it was the rocky road dessert that everything has to be measured out at home and then was just basically taken into school to mix the ingredients together and then put in the fridge to set! :mad: This school year hasn't been much better (the teacher made the dough for a calzone) This week though he is making burgers from scratch. He tells me though that none of his friends do any food prep or cooking at home, I asked him how they'd survive if their parents weren't around and his response was that it was ok because they live near a KFC!

foxgloves

Yes, I remember that conversation, CCL, & I've heard similar from parents of kids who have learned to create a sandwich filling, design the packaging & think how they'd market it. I suppose there's a bit to learn there on the CDT front, but precious little of any lifeskills value. We learned how to cook & how to plan a meal for all sorts of different scenarios. There was a fair bit of science involved too & a good nutritional grounding. Sure, I went off to university & lived on pizza, Chinese takeaway & haagen d*z like everyone else, but the knowledge & skills were all there when I needed to use them. One fellow student came from a household where her Mum had done absolutely everything for them & she didn't even know how to heat up a tin of beans!! I think my secondary school was quite progressive because it was in the 1970s but girls & boys did cookery & needlework in the first year and also metalwork & woodwork. Could then choose what to continue. Mr F is a few years younger than me, but his secondary school only let girls take cookery lessons. Back then, he wanted to be a chef & was most put out!

foxgloves

Sorry, 1LL.....I just called you 'CCL'. My fault, I'm stupidly not wearing my specs..... I could be typing any old rubbish, lol x

Honeysucklelou2

I've learnt the hard way not to do everything for my lot. DD2 can cook well as she's training to be a chef but DD1 left home, knowing how to open a tin, make toast and a batch of cakes but not a lot else. I felt awful that I'd done so much cooking for her and around her, I hadn't actually prepared her, if that makes sense.