One income family of four - can we get ahead even after pay cuts?

joedenise

I would also freeze some of the milk as it's now in plastic bottles.  They freeze well and if they are the one pint bottles they would only need to be got out and into the fridge the day before to defrost (takes at least 2-3 days to defrost for the 4 pinter's!).

Or how about using some of it to make some yoghurt or rice puddings - or both!

Bluegreen143

Ah it’s glass bottles @joedenise - the change to plastic is from Friday. And honestly the freezer (in fact both as I have an extra small one) has no space in. Was playing Tetris to get some sliced sourdough in this morning 😂

Baileys_Babe

Our freezer is usually rammed as well 

Bluegreen143

Clearly need to have an eat out the freezer week but it’s not full of meat or meals sadly! Just lots of odds and ends, veg, berries from the garden ready to make jam etc.

Bluegreen143

Might make some yoghurt, I was doing that at the start of the year and it was OK. I didn’t like it quite as much as bought Greek yoghurt and it was costing so much for the milk (using the glass bottle milk) it was more expensive than buying yoghurt so I stopped 😂 I use the instant pot to make it which works well.

joedenise

Maybe you could make some veggie meals with what you have in the freezers?  Also have you got enough berries to make, say, a mixed berry jam now to help clear a bit of space.  Have you got lots of single portion meals in there when you say odds and end?  If so you could just have a freezer dip meal and all eat different?  I know it's not ideal when you have little ones but it would help clear some space so you can get some HM ready meals in there.  My freezer always ends up with HM ready meals in it as I make meals for 4 and there are only 2 of us so almost everything I cook ends up with another meal for the freezer which I try to use the following month (I do a monthly meal plan and aim to have at least 2 meals a week using up the HM ready meals plus using some of the meat in other meals which then mean another meal into the freezer - hope I've explained that well enough to understand!)

Baileys_Babe

We have more than 1 freezer, in fact, we have 4
At the weekend I am planning to look through the freezer list and do a meal plan.
To speed up the defrosting @joedenise you can place the frozen milk bottle in a bowl (i use a washing up bowl) of cold water, the milk should be defrosted in hours not days. If you shake the bottle every hour or so it also helps.

MagicCat

Good news on the UC!

You have reminded me I need to cancel my milk next week as going to my mum's for a couple of days, would have come home to it on the doorstep otherwise  Thanks for the info about the Disney stories, will have a look.

thriftyish

@Baileys_Babe I have freezer envy! @Bluegreen143 We were buying about 50% of our milk in glass at our last house, but I had to cancel when we moved and it was expensive, though I still miss the milk on my doorstep! We try to be more sustainable & support local businesses but its a hard balance isn't it? Especially when somethings are so much more expensive! We are back to milk in plastic, but have made lots of changes in other areas and some definitely save money. My favourite changes are my menstrual cup (not for everyone but better than anything else I've tried, I wouldn't go back to tampons/pads now if they paid me... well I might for a good price ) and my reusable razor. A huge pack of 100 blades works out about 8p each! 

Baileys_Babe

We do something similar to @joedenise with regards to cooking extra and freezing for another day. 
I also batch cook somethings like bolognese and freeze in family-size portions which I can then decide to serve in a lasagna or with spaghetti etc

When we only have single portions leftover we freeze these and store them in one drawer, OH used to take these to the office for lunch but now we have one day a week where each person gets to eat what they like from this drawer.

When we end up with lots of silly  little bits I serve them up with jacket  potatoes or noodles and everyone has what they fancy.