Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

And hello Saturday Savers,
Despite a rubbish night - woke at 4.15 am & didn't get back to sleep because my treacherous brain went into overthinking mode - I've enjoyed today. Successful city centre trip with everything on the list bought except one specific item for the presents stash which I may be able to buy locally. All spending was planned except one item......& anyone who laughed at Mr F's trademark solution to warm layers last winter (wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt over another short-sleeved t-shirt) will be amazed to hear that not only did he find another long-sleeved rugby shirt in the right size that he liked......an achievement in itself......he also found ANOTHER warm top (a thick overshirt) & asked if the Clothing Pot could stand him having both items!!! It definitely could & it did! We used £20 of vouchers, plus it turned out he also had a discount code on his loyalty app..I'm going to nab the £20 voucher money from the Clothes Pot as it can usefully be nephew birthday cash this autumn.
Lazy afternoon sitting in the garden under the bunting reading my book & being visited now & again by Soot & Ash. Garden pickings - more blackberries & a pepper. Mr F's cooking night & I can see he's been chopping a lot of our fresh garden produce. I've treated us to a yellow-stickered bar of chocolate for tonight. We will watch either a film from our own collection or start a new Scandi drama series.
The sense of peace in our garden this evening is incredible. I must try & recreate it my mind starts catastrophising nonsensically in the wee small hours.
Take care,
F xx

CRANKY40

Couscous is a good idea if you have access to gas to boil water in a power cut. It's also very quick to cook if you're cutting down on power usage. One portion in a bowl soaked in hot water is ready very quickly (microwaved for 30 seconds even quicker) and can be used as a savoury meal or with yogurt and pre prepared fruit (stewed defrosted fruit from freezer) as a dessert or breakfast.  I'd also say not to buy anything that you don't usually eat "just in case" as it will just take up room and sit on the shelf forever laughing at you in it's own tinny way. I always try to have basic fairy cake ingredients in - when we were snowed in they were so useful as they kept everyone in "cheer us up" food. 

I add red lentils to anything that is long cook savoury (bolognese, lasagne, curry) to increase protein and to add the fill you up factor. My sensory eating 17 year old hasn't noticed them yet. After the afore mentioned snowed in incident I also try and keep at least one loaf in the freezer plus the means to make more in the baking cupboard. Chopped tomatoes would be another choice as they can be eaten alone on toast, with bacon or added to the bolognese, curry etc to help the lentils cook in the tomato juice. Cheap baked beans for the same - they may be like bullets on toast if you eat them alone, but added to the remains of a bolognese sauce with some chilli powder, more tinned tomatoes and maybe more lentils, they will produce a chilli that a person who would turn up their noses at red kidney beans will eat no problem. 

Pease pudding makes a nice soup. One onion sauteed, one pint of ham stock (made with a stock cube) and one small tin of pease pudding (yellow split peas and seasoning), current cost 50p,  cooked on low for 20 minutes then blended makes a really yummy pea and ham soup. Throw in a bit of chopped ham as you are serving if you're trying to persuade other occupants of the house that you aren't economising. Even my House Troll (the 17 year old) likes this soup and it makes enough for two people for lunch with some added toast or bread. 

Cheery_Daff

All excellent suggestions Cranky! We don't have a gas cooker, so in our power cut, we were thrown completely and couldn't even boil water until we found the storm kettle and sat in the garden lighting a little fire in the snow 😂😂 Bread and jam on the first day - then fortunately we could escape on the next day as the power was restored locally (just not to us) so we ended up mostly with cup a soups 😂 Going to experiment with dehydrating some of our own soup this year.

Good clothes buying for Mr F! Most impressive!

ladyholly

I find instant mash is a good stand by and neither of us mind it.

foxgloves

Thanks for those suggestions, @CRANKY40. You are right about couscous. It only needs a tiny amount of boiling water, & could easily use a little bit from a kettle boiled for something else, such as a cup of tea or a hot water bottle. 
Agree about red lentils. I make quite a few recipes with those -dhals, Hairy Biker veggie curry, lentil roast, etc, & Mr F makes a lovely lentil Bolognese sauce. I also make Rose Elliott's golden lentil soup & Cranks lentil & tomato soup. All cheap, healthy, filling & freeze well.
@ladyholly - I don't like instant mash because it was one of the few things my fussy-eater sister actually ate back in the 70s so it was frequently served..Agree it's a filling use of a bit of boiling water though, which I expect is why it's a staple on food bank lists.
@Cheery_Daff - We have a gas cooker but in the event that our supplies were limited (I think storage facilities in the UK are very limited), we'd have the slow cooker, camping gas stove & toaster. I think as with all things, it's a case of planning for the worst while hoping for the best, isn't it? That's kind of my approach these days.
And yes, I was so surprised when Mr F chose that 2nd warm top & he seems very pleased with them both so I'm considering this a warm clothes 'breakrhrough'!
F 

foxgloves

@Cheery_Daff - The power-cuts you experienced will have concentrated your mind on what things it might have been useful to have in place to help mitigate their effects. 
I think I read somewhere about commodity prices that coffee would continue to rise in price. We do like decent ground coffee. Atm, one of the best value seems to be Mr M's own label organic, which has been 2 bags for £4 for ages. If that price holds, I think I might suggest we stock up on that.
We are fairly rural but not 'in the middle of nowhere' like you. We live in a village with a small corner shop & a farm shop..We are only 1.5 miles from town though - it's a small historic market town with some small Indie food shops as well as A*di, Mr M, Mr A & Waitr*se. There is also a L*dl over towards an adjoining village, which is reachable by bike if I wanted to go there. Floods are a problem locally but so far, we've been able to get in & out of our village.
F

foxgloves

Hello Campers,
Pleasant day - not a no-spend, as we decided to pop to the village farm shop for breakfast, This feels like much more of a treat these days, much more so than back in the Spendy Years, when we ate out so often, I think we ceased to appreciate it. Budget neutral as we used our Personal Spends. On the domestic front, I've done the laundry (usual 40° load knocked down to 30° & usual 1hr 58 min 30° load washed on 30 min cycle). All dried for free in the sunshine. Everything seems perfectly clean. This has to be a decent saving done weekly.
Today's garden pickings: tomatoes, courgettes & beans.
Weeded & cut back one of our front borders. Cosmos still covered in buds so did a thorough dead-heading & collected ripe seed heads in a basket for free plants next year.
You may remember me saying I had a serious conversation with Mr F recently on the topic of inflation/energy bill crisis & that we would need to rise to the challenge with day-to-day budgeting? Well it's definitely sunk in. We'd planned a Chinese takeaway for next weekend -a treat to mark the last day of his week off work. I have at no point suggested this should not go ahead. Anyway, this was him today....
"You know this Chinese takeaway. Did you budget the money for it?"
Me: Yes, I left a bit extra in our buffer zone to cover it.
"What would you do with it if we didn't spend it on a takeaway?"
Me: Well, it could be used for a number of useful places - a savings pot, divide between a couple of pots or it could be converted to cash & stashed for nephews' Christmas money".
"Only I've been thinking. If we had steak instead, it would not only be cheaper, it'd come out of our grocery budget & we'd save spending the money you put aside".
Me: Yes, that's very true.
(Pause while he swigs some more coffee....)
"You know there's a pack of BBQ pork steaks in the freezer, don't you?"
Me:I do now you've reminded me about them.
"Well why don't we forget about buying takeaway or steak and eat those instead? We've got a bottle of cava, so we'd only need to buy dessert"
Me: Why don't I make one? Plenty of blackberries & apples. Could make crumble or fruit sponge.
"God, I love fruit sponge. Would it have ice-cream with it?"
Me: Yeah, it probably would 
"RIGHT, that's sorted. I'll make a fresh batch of ratatouille to go with that BBQ pork & steam some new potatoes. It'll be lovely. We've got to be thinking like this with everything now, you know"
Me: We have, yeah.
(thinking.....oooh, that means we'll also be using up more aubergines, peppers, tomatoes & courgettes!)
I do go on, don't I? Am chatting to you from the veggie garden bench where I've brought my book to enjoy the last of the evening sun.
Love to all,
F x

QueenJess

I thought of this thread with the whole shopping from home thing. Lately I’ve been shopping from other peoples homes using my buy nothing local site on Faceache. My local one is actually quite good and in the last week I’ve picked up two excellent books to read to DS, a book bag for DS (his old one was broken beyond repair), a Lego set I will use as a Xmas/birthday present for DS and a bag of cooking apples.

It’s definitely worth a look! I do find the more you offer decent things, the more it encourages others to do so as well. A great idea, all free and stops things going to landfill. It fills the gap in the community where people used to share with people they know, where as lots of people don’t know each other very well in the community anymore.

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

hi foxgloves and friends
I'm enjoying all the talk about stocking up. The coffee i like was on offer in Mr A so i bought some even though i have over half a jar left. I also bought extra tins of chopped tomatoes. I'm making butternut squash soup later to put in the freezer and a quiche so i can make best use of the oven while its on (i like to roast my BNS first). I will look up the recipes you mention above .
I've also bought 50 tealights and a small torch to keep by my bed and extra long matches. 
I'm grateful i can afford to buy in some extras . 
I know you like Nordic dramas - I'm watching Spiral on iplayer at the moment - French crime drama - can't remember if i've mentioned it on here before !
love Deni x

milann

I have actually been using stock as I want to give my fridge freezer a defrost. I plan to do a big cook off once I’ve finished my stock. It’s ages since I’ve done this, then it’ll be a matter of just defrosting with a carb. Think I’ll make the most of my Costco card. I split the cost of membership with a family member and we go together. I usually buy a big block of cheese which I grate and freeze. The chicken thighs are very good value too.