It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

mandy47

t14cy_t said:

i collected a too go to bag from my local costcutters, heres what i got!! 3 litres tropicana orange juice, 2 loaves hovis, 2 packs of ham, 3 ginsters pasties, 2 steak slices and 1 pie from the hot counter, punnet raspberries, strawberries, stirfry, cheesey coleslaw, spinach and 4 ready made coffees!!!! all for £4. wowsers. very impressed. nowt wasted here. xx

That's a really good haul.
 I haven't had a too good to go bag for quite a while. I was finding some of the items weren't fit to eat.  
DD did have one from Soho coffee this week, it only contained 3 items, one being so spicy she couldn't eat it. She did enjoy the slice of cake though. 

Rosa_Damascena

t14cy_t said:

i collected a too go to bag from my local costcutters, heres what i got!! 3 litres tropicana orange juice, 2 loaves hovis, 2 packs of ham, 3 ginsters pasties, 2 steak slices and 1 pie from the hot counter, punnet raspberries, strawberries, stirfry, cheesey coleslaw, spinach and 4 ready made coffees!!!! all for £4. wowsers. very impressed. nowt wasted here. xx

Very impressive! I would give the meat away but still be happy with the veggie stuff.

Spendless

It is 10 days till DH's payday, we are nearing the overdraft limit and I am waiting to hear the outcome of a job interview, having heard at the beginning of the week that I'd missed out on a job offer (fantastic hourly rate, 12 month contract) by just one point - sigh! This job is less money and only for 6-12 weeks but at least it'd be something. It's a help that DD is working and paying for her own spends. She learnt yesterday that her seasonal job will  continue till September, which is perfect as she has had  an offer from a drama school recently to start in the Autumn

I'm going through a bit of a feast and famine with my food stock at the minute. I had a think back to how my (late) MIL always thrifty, limited opportunity to get out and buy items managed, and came to the conclusion, I am buying too much fresh stuff in order to create choice (I also was thinking about Jackie's kitchen  zero food waste policy).


I remember being at MIL's one lunch time and it was hard boiled egg sandwiches to eat, because eggs were all she had. I  also have in eggs plus frozen prawns, tinned tuna, a full block of cheese and some ambient or now frozen ready meal for  DH to take as pack up. He works away 3 days a week and DD is veggie so I can manage with what I have in, instead of buying more 'stuff' 

I've sorted through my fridge this morning and put all the condiments like chutneys more visible. I can ring changes for meal times like this instead.

I

euronorris

That sounds tough Spendless. I hope you get the job.

Do you meal plan? If you dont, I think you might find it helpful to do so over the next 10 days to stretch what you have in.

I think fresh can be fine so long as it's planned for, and/or ca  be easily frozen if not used quickly enough.

If you need any help with meal ideas to make your food stretch, I'm sure everyone here can help.

And if you've got it all under control, then please ignore this. Just want you to know that we'll help where we can.

London_1

The other day I had used an egg hard boiled, and stuck some mayo in it and a little chilli powder to liven it up a bit.I used about half in a salad with other bits of bobs and had the rest in the fridge covered over (does whiff a bit, boiled eggs ).

 The next day I did a jacket spud for lunch, and stuck the egg in as filling and topped with some grated cheese so all was used up and the jacket spud had a slightly different filling rather than just cheese, popped it back into the microwave for 30 seconds so the cheese melted into the egg and cheesey potato mix, and topped with some ground black garlic pepper, a small chopped tomato and a couple of slices of beetroot from the jar diced up, drizzled with a squirt of balsamic vinegar  over the tom/beetroot salad and it was a veritable feast.

Absolutely nothing gets wasted in my kitchen .Food is far to expensive today to waste.

I do like spicy food, and find if things are diced up they seem to go further.
Its surpising how even half a humble carrot either diced or grated looks a lot once on the plate.

My spice cupboard is my go-to place for something different .even a teaspoon or so of cumin/tumeric mixed into half a tin of beans livens them up when put on toast. As I live alone, a big tin of beans does me easily a couple of days as I will have half one day and put the other half in the fridge in a lidded take away box to use the next day. 

When I made my cottage pies yesterday apart from the lentils I threw in, and four diced mushrooms and a diced onion I only used a carrot peeled and diced for the mix, and with the reduced fat minced beef (and that was yellow stickered) I made 6 individual cottage pies for £2.70. That's 6 meals for 45p a pop plus a little steamed veg when I evetually eat one of them the meal won't cost more than 50p per portion 

I still have one carrot left in the fridge peeled and in water to use in the coming days
I have about a third of a cauliflower, and some sweet potatoes, and a few mushrooms so I will make a couple of portions of curried veg today to use them up. this too will be portioned up and put into some spare take away boxes for freezing. 

Just working out my June food menus to use up what I have in the freezer and need around 34 evening meal type meals and looking in the freezer I think its definitely doable, as I am using up my freezer stuff as I can to enable me to do a defrost before I go on holiday in July.

 My tinned cupboards are still pretty full so not a problem there. Today I will definitely make the veggie curry I think though, and will chuck a tin of chick peas in for good measure, as I have a good few of them in the tinned cupboard.

Its making the most of what you have, before buying anything else No food shopping needed just yet awhile as I'm still OK for fruit

I have a couple of bananas and four large oranges and 12 gala apples, plus tinned fruit if needed. I may stew 6 of the apples today and make a crumble to take to DDs tomorrow as I have Sunday dinner there every week, and usually bring the pudding  

Have a good a frugal weekend chums what ever you are doing the sun has come out just now so a nice day hopefully 

JackieO xx

Floss

I keep salad cream, mayo, garlic/ ginger/ chilli purees, mustards, tartare /horseradish  sauces & mint jelly in the fridge door, with the open chutney jar at the front of the salad drawer so I can see everything. Mint sauce & tommy K are kept in the cupboard with the herbs vinegars & spices, salt, stock cubes and vinegars & oils.

I'm just coming off an energy fix & my DD will double next month. Having a single income with all the usual fixed bills plus legal bill for divorce & relocation costs being paid off means things are getting a bit squeaky-bum.

elsien

This is in part why I still prefer using cash. I give myself a set amount every week and portion it out for all the regular expenses plus food. 
I now have £4 budgeted to last me till Wednesday. Which is fine, as I have plenty in (thanks, Olio.) Plus I’m not skint, I do have a comfortable buffer for now.
But seeing those few coins is a far better reminder to avoid unnecessary spends that anything online ever is. Virtual pots just don’t do it for me. 

Floss

I have 2 bank accounts, one purely for salary & bills that pays my "housekeeping" into another which I use for shopping etc. I have reinstated my spending spreadsheet, so I know to the penny what there is, and can plan for any expenses such as MOT etc.

YorksLass

I do an online grocery shop twice a month that I pay for with my credit card (I get extra loyalty points for using it) and that's a set budget per month, paid off as soon as the delivery has been.  Some months of course have more days than others but it's still just twice a month.  I also have a cash purse that I use on the in-between weeks for top ups.  It seems to work for us as there's usually a little bit left over at the end of each month that's going into a winter squirrel fund reserved to help with energy bills.  Admittedly, with all the recent price increases (and probably still more to come), the left over bit these days isn't as much as it used to be but there is still a surplus and I'm pleased with that, especially as I'd cut the grocery budget down by £12 pm when I was setting my annual budget.

I'm another one who hates food waste and I find having a well stocked pantry helps when there's more week left than money.  This week I baked some frozen vol au vent cases that didn't get used at Xmas and made two fillings for them - egg mayo and coronation chicken.  We'd had a stir fry and I'd deliberately kept some cooked chicken back for this purpose.  That, with finely chopped gherkin, dried apricot, mayo and curry powder made a tasty filling.  I'd also hard boiled 3 eggs, one for the mayo filling and the other two we had in lunchtime sandwiches with some sliced tomato.  Before last week's grocery delivery I used up the last salad bits in wraps with curried tuna mayo for another lunchtime.

One of my latest good buys was a 400g pack of ground ginger from the World Foods isle in the SM that cost £3 (I do use a lot of ginger).  To buy the same quantity in the little glass jars worked out at £8.94!  It can be hard work stretching the pennies but I look upon it as a challenge and I'm not too old to refuse a challenge.  

On this week's kitchen To Do list - over and above the week's meal plan - I'll be doing two lots of soup (minestrone and tomato & red pepper), cooking the last few baby potatoes that are getting a bit sprouty (potato salad) and using a part packet of veg couscous.  Odds and ends used up, no waste, time and money saved by not making yet another trip to the shops - and probably over-spending.  What's not to like?

Rosa_Damascena

I have finally relented and bought a Blue Light card. I'm pretty sure I'll make the £5 outlay back on Asda alone.