Giving every £ a job

Blackcats

SH - I'd love to see the sulky sayings in one of your books.
Foxgloves I was sometimes a sulker and sometimes a tantrum child.  Mum would also say "careful with that face, you'll stay like that if the wind changes".  My Nan who was very religious would say "God pays debts without words". On one occasion I had a hissy fit and threw myself down onto the floor, only to land on a dropped pin from my mum's sewing.  My Nan tutted and then said "see - "He" has shown you what he thinks of silly girls".  

missRickiC - I'm going to try to compensate rising costs with adjusting meal plans too  - even if we can beat the rising costs a bit that's money that stays in our pockets.  I think I see you over on the OS monthly meal challenges?  It's really helped me and great to see how other people manage their shopping.

rebecca - I will look out for that pub next time we go to Cornwall.  We went to his fish and chip restaurant on the quay at Padstein which was functional but very nice.  I agree about eating out - we have been out for a curry this month and noticed that even without alcohol the bill was similar to a few months ago when we had 2 glasses of wine.  I've been going to this restaurant for 35 years (eek) so try to support them and we think that cutting out alcohol to keep costs the same is a good compromise.  I have a glass of wine either before we go or when we get home (or both) so it still feels like a treat.

I had a shopping from home win today ... I was sorting through my wardrobe and came across a favourite pink coat that I didn't wear last year (to be fair there was nowhere to go last year) and haven't worn this winter.  The reason being .... a button had fallen off 🤷‍♀️.  So I've sewn it back on, put a few strengthening stitches in the other buttons, will take it to the dry cleaners, wash a nice scarf that I knitted to go with the coat and lo and behold I've got a nice fresh spring look.  

  

savingholmes

Well done on mending the coat

 Nice win

foxgloves

Good shopping from home on the coat, @Blackcats. I have a couple of items awaiting repair. As soon as I've done them, they will be returned to regular wear.
F 

MissRikkiC

Great news on the coat! I’m back to my old dog walking coat now that I’m 5 months pregnant. The zip on my nice outside coat split from the bottom up and I had to do a funny dance to shimmy out of it- tell tale signs that my bump was too big for it. 

Yes I am over on the GCs board. I’m going cost our staple favourite fajitas for what we usually have but I already know it’s not a cheap meal. I might push it back to once every 10 days initially and see how it goes down. What are your go to cheaper meals @Blackcats? I’m sure I read a comment of yours over on someone’s diary that you’re a foodie come the weekend so I’m curious to know as we are very similar 😀

Alchemilla

Pink coat sounds lovely. I am quite keen on pink at the moment.

joedenise

@MissRikkiC - have you looked at the recipes at the beginning of the Grocery Challenge?  You might find some new ideas for cheap meals amongst them.

One of my favourite cheap meals is a mixed bean goulash based on a Jack Munro recipe for years ago, all of her recipes are cheap and quite a few interesting ideas!  Have you ever thought of putting mandarin oranges or peaches in a curry?  She does! No idea if it works but might be worth a try!  In fact I must have another look at some of her recipes and try them out.

MissRikkiC

I have her book ‘cooking on a bootstrap’ and do really like it although it often feels like too much when we’re not as strapped but It’s such a good book!

[Deleted User]

Well done on the coat!!!

Alchemilla

I like fruit in curry. Dried apricots. Yum!

Blackcats

Thank you SH and Foxgloves Rebecca and Alchemilla  - the coat is back from the dry cleaners and back in use.  It's a Bod*n so obviously bought in spendier times but I might as well enjoy it again - makes the day a bit brighter when out and about in it.  

MissRikkiC - we do a mixture of things to keep our weekend food at home interesting enough to stop us going out for dinner or getting a takeaway.  We have fun making restaurant at home dinners, laying the table nicely, playing music and we go to our local independent off licence to chose a nice bottle of wine (appreciate that you probably won't be drinking at the moment).  We used to buy 2 supermarket bottles a week but now buy 1 nice bottle which still works out cheaper. 

Some of our restaurant at home dinners include - 
italian night - a bowl of olives, salad and home made pizza or home made chilli prawn linguine we usually add in cherry tomatoes and a handful of spinach (a bag of frozen prawns can give a few meals)
chinese night - shop bought pancake rolls, home made Singapore style noodles and/or 8 treasure rice - both use small amounts of ingredients like peas, corn, spring onions, chopped peppers, left over ham or chicken and a few more of those frozen prawns
indian night - we've just learned to make onion bhajis and they are delicious, make a curry usually using a shop bought kit like spice Taylor 

Another favourite is chicken kebab with home made flatbread - you can bulk up the kebab with vegetables and we like peri peri chicken with Nando's style spicy rice

last night we made our own spicy beef burgers (very small amount of meat needed), potato wedges and home made coleslaw.

@JoeDenise the goulash sounds nice.  We are trying to have more meat free meals (despite the evidence to the contrary in the weekend meals above 🙃)

JoeDenise and Alchemilla I quite like fruit in savoury dishes - works well in tagines but OH has a bit of an aversion to the concept.

it's my day off tomorrow - I work a 9 day fortnight so we call this our bank holiday weekend.  The weather looks promising for tomorrow so we plan to go for a long walk to a local beauty spot, we'll have a cooked breakfast either eggs on toast or beans on toast at home and take a flask of tea for me and coffee for OH on our walk - I think one of the bargain chocolate oranges will come along with us too.