Curbing the ridiculous

Scottiedog_3

I've found that freezing milk results in a slightly odd liquid when you thaw it again. It was OK for cooking into sauces or whizzing up to put into hot drinks. Otherwise people wouldn't be very happy with a glass of frozen then thawed milk  - it just looked 
Not Normal. The taste seemed to be OK. This was with semi-skimmed milk. I don't know if full-fat would be even odder.

badmemory

My defrosted full fat milk appeared & tasted fine.  I only tried it at the beginning of lockdown when one week there was actually none in store.  I no longer bother freezing, but then I usually have about 3 litres in anyway.  I've only come across an empty shelf once since then.  So fingers crossed!

RebeccaPearson

warby68 said:

I'm curious, do you have supermarket deliveries where you are? We also consume a lot of milk. A once a week 'dairy' delivery sounds like it would be useful for you as it seems like you can never go out without needing milk, cheese or yogurt and it weighs a ton !!

Sorry you're £7k out - I'd need to get to the bottom of that if it were me. Glad it doesn't affect things though.

We don't have deliveries by supermarkets sadly!  We do have a person who delivers milk but it is extortionate and the problem is that milk here has very short dates so I'm not sure that a weekly delivery will work.  It's not so bad if I'm working in the office as I have to pass the shop on the way to the car - it's a pain now as we don't have a second parking space at the flat so I have to park at DH's work and walk the rest of the way carrying the milk but once we are in the house it will be fine as will be a short walk to car from shop and then straight into house!

Thankfully it's not 7k as I had miscalculated - I had lumped in future savings and we also had a couple of further expenses re the house we hand't been given a figure for yet and DH has counted the insurance costs (which I've managed to get down to £1159 by increasing the excess to £250.  

RebeccaPearson

joedenise said:

@RebeccaPearson - try grating your cheese - it seems to go much further!  I use the small grate and as I need to limit dairy I never have more than 30g of cheese and the small grate gives a nice big pile of cheese!

With the milk, would it be worth keeping some Long Life in stock to use in an emergency, or even just for cooking?

joedenise said:

@RebeccaPearson - try grating your cheese - it seems to go much further!  I use the small grate and as I need to limit dairy I never have more than 30g of cheese and the small grate gives a nice big pile of cheese!

With the milk, would it be worth keeping some Long Life in stock to use in an emergency, or even just for cooking?

Thank you - good tip!  (sorry, no idea why your quote posted twice).  I do for me but DC1 we think is autistic and will go mental if his cheese isn't how he's used to.  But I don't use a small grater so I will try that for me.

Re longlife - yes, that's a good idea too.

Alchemilla

RebeccaPearson said:

joedenise said:

@RebeccaPearson - try grating your cheese - it seems to go much further!  I use the small grate and as I need to limit dairy I never have more than 30g of cheese and the small grate gives a nice big pile of cheese!

With the milk, would it be worth keeping some Long Life in stock to use in an emergency, or even just for cooking?

joedenise said:

@RebeccaPearson - try grating your cheese - it seems to go much further!  I use the small grate and as I need to limit dairy I never have more than 30g of cheese and the small grate gives a nice big pile of cheese!

With the milk, would it be worth keeping some Long Life in stock to use in an emergency, or even just for cooking?

Thank you - good tip!  (sorry, no idea why your quote posted twice).  I do for me but DC1 we think is autistic and will go mental if his cheese isn't how he's used to.  But I don't use a small grater so I will try that for me.

Re longlife - yes, that's a good idea too.

This reminds me of a classic DD1 meltdown. She'd asked for "long pieces of cheese" so I gave her batons.
After the meltdown subsided it became clear she meant "grated".

RebeccaPearson

Scottiedog_3 said:

I've found that freezing milk results in a slightly odd liquid when you thaw it again. It was OK for cooking into sauces or whizzing up to put into hot drinks. Otherwise people wouldn't be very happy with a glass of frozen then thawed milk  - it just looked 
Not Normal. The taste seemed to be OK. This was with semi-skimmed milk. I don't know if full-fat would be even odder.

Yes, I've never tried this - my MIL freezes milk but I only really have it in coffee at her house so no idea what it actually tastes like!

RebeccaPearson

Scottiedog_3 said:

I buy ready grated cheese as the arthritis in my hands makes grating very painful. It's very popular in Scotland so I can't be the only one who finds it useful. @joedenise is right that it is easier to portion out and is very good for cooking. I now make toasted cheese by lightly toasting bread in the toaster, putting a layer of cheese on the bread, then zapping it in the microwave for about thirty secs. 

Sorry you have arthritis Scottie.  Good tip on the toasted cheese - yum!

RebeccaPearson

QueenJess said:

If it helps, we were spending an average of £125 a week until very recently (this is what happens when DH is in control...).  I am slowly bringing it down and expect to get under £100 a week soon (this month is about £105 a week including all food, cleaning stuff, soaps, toilet paper etc).

I'm sure I could do lots more, but there is plenty I refuse to give up that is more expensive - like my organic veg/fruit box etc.  I find if I really concentrate on it, I can bring it down, but as soon as I'm too busy (or leave it to DH!), it goes right back up again.

I'm assuming you don't have much space where you are at the moment, but when you move, a big freezer is a must for batch cooking/saving food etc.  I did swap to Aldi for pantry basic stuff which I know you can't do, but I'm sure there is still some stuff you are able to do or able to do a bit more like making sure absolutely nothing goes to waste, batch cooking, making use of loyalty schemes (including credit card ones?), go ys shopping (if possible), down shifting some items, making things from scratch etc.  Plus your growing your own plans should help too.

However, it does take time and you are very short on that right now, so I would just give yourself a break and accept it is expensive for now and start tweaking when you can in the future.

A milk delivery sounds like a good idea for you (if possible).  I'm a fan of home delivery as it saves me so much time and I'll gladly pay up to £5 for the convenience of that!  You can get slightly longer life milk (the filtered ones) if you have room in the fridge to store that much and you can freeze (although I have never done that).

Yes, we don't have much space here but in the new house there's already 2 fridges in kitchen (plus small freezer) then a fridge and freezer in the garage.  We might get another freezer to plug into the dining room for convenience (because we will use it when we renovate and the ones in the garage, I don't think will last much longer!) so we will definitely be able to batch cook and freeze much more.  We could definitely get better at ensuring no waste, and in new house we will be able to do things like use the chicken carcass to make stock or soup and freeze, which we just can't do now.

I think I am going to start WFH on a Weds and just go into office Mon and Fri, which I do think will help with organisation as I won't have to "get ready" or drive in, meaning more time in the morning, and can use my lunch half hour productively to clean a bathroom or something or start off a slow cooker and then won't have "commute" (I say this because it's about 20 mins, though more like 30 at the minute with the walks both ends) on the way home.  Then with my Tuesdays and Thursdays off and access to a decent cooker, freezer and storage generally, I can easily do some batch cooking with DC2 down for a nap.

We can't get milk from anywhere other than the dairy here - its a monopoly sadly and the dates are shorter than you'd find in the UK (not more than a week, if that) so it's quite tricky....

RebeccaPearson

Alchemilla said:

RebeccaPearson said:

joedenise said:

@RebeccaPearson - try grating your cheese - it seems to go much further!  I use the small grate and as I need to limit dairy I never have more than 30g of cheese and the small grate gives a nice big pile of cheese!

With the milk, would it be worth keeping some Long Life in stock to use in an emergency, or even just for cooking?

joedenise said:

@RebeccaPearson - try grating your cheese - it seems to go much further!  I use the small grate and as I need to limit dairy I never have more than 30g of cheese and the small grate gives a nice big pile of cheese!

With the milk, would it be worth keeping some Long Life in stock to use in an emergency, or even just for cooking?

Thank you - good tip!  (sorry, no idea why your quote posted twice).  I do for me but DC1 we think is autistic and will go mental if his cheese isn't how he's used to.  But I don't use a small grater so I will try that for me.

Re longlife - yes, that's a good idea too.

This reminds me of a classic DD1 meltdown. She'd asked for "long pieces of cheese" so I gave her batons.
After the meltdown subsided it became clear she meant "grated".

Oh gosh yes, sometimes it's difficult to understand exactly what they want!!  DC1 had a meltdown this morning because he wanted to put his undercrackers on himself and he was putting them on back to front so I was trying to help him but he went mental as he wanted to do it himself!

RebeccaPearson

So 1l of milk and some cheese was £3.90.  Fought a battle with myself NOT to buy Gu cheesecakes (which were on offer at £2 so very good value).  I won and walked out with just the milk and cheese and instead we each had a "crunchie" for "pudding" from stores.

Today is usual at home as DC2 needs to nap (just put him down).  DC1 has just demanded apple so he's sat chomping on some apple slices but now all the fruit we have in the house is half an apple.  It always gets like this Thursday/Friday.  Might go to MIL's this afternoon, just to get out for a bit.  DH has band tonight so I get to watch what I want on tv (yay!) and we need a tenner petrol in our other car and more milk(!) so DH will do that.

Work is just awful.  Got an indication yesterday someone else now likely to leave because of 2 particular people.  It used to be such a nice place to work.  But I don't want to leave as I have a good deal there and lots of flexibility.  But atmosphere is terrible.

Doesn't look like we will be exchanging friday - we are still waiting on one piece of paperwork -if that comes by friday we will exchange but if it doesn't it will be next week.  DC1 keeps mentioning the new house and he said "DC2 is sad" and I said "why" and he said "he wants the new house" - bless him.

I've been so good recently at not buying !!!!!! on way to work/at lunch/on way back from work.  I do feel it is making a huge difference to the spending.  I make my lunch for every day now and have stopped going out at lunchtime at all.  It really is true that all those southern fried chicken and sweet chilli baguettes (oh how I miss them!) and "just a chocolate bar as well" really do add up.