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

cuddlymarm

Good morning guys
Todays my day off so I’m having a slow day. Getting jobs done with little breaks in between.
I plan to do a chilli for tomorrow while doing todays food prep. Also add a couple of days to my rolling menu plan, cos I’m aiming to shop as little as possible for the next few weeks to get the holiday spends together.
I’ve been keeping my eye out for a garment steamer for a while and HB had a nice one in for £20, not a bad price and it means I can pass on my ironing board to a person that likes ironing. Our flat is quite small so storage and wrestling to put it up is a pain plus I iron very little these days.
Work is still really busy with constant queues and not enough staff so I’m having to make sure I get plenty of rest on my days off. I’m no spring chicken anymore. On the up side we won £12.50 each for selling so many hot cross buns at Easter so I’m going to treat myself to the cinema on Friday, I’m going on my own because none of my men will go to see the Downton Abbey film plus it means I can go in the day time.
if it’s of any use to anyone Iceland are offering 10% off on a Tuesday in store if you are over 60. You just have to show a bus pass, driving license etc. I’m avoiding it this week because I don’t need anything.
Also I managed to book a TGTG bag at Morrisons so that will be exciting. Sad huh 😂  Last time I was inundated with carrots and tangerines but nothing went to waste. I need to juggle the freezer to make a bit of space, I got quite a lot of bread last time. 

Anyway enough of my waffling
Bye for now

London_1

Spendless ,you're more than welcome, great tip for those without a blender. often its 'thinking outside the box' that works and adapting things a little. My blender is an attachment that I had with my food mixer I bought , gosh I hate to think how many years ago now

JIL said  "I dont think many people can afford to pay for convenience anymore."

I think you could be right there, and perhaps ready-meals will take a back seat, and folk, through perhaps lack of funds will discover that its possible to really 'eat well for less'

ChihiroSen,  Gosh it does seem that your bills have escalated ,so welcome aboard. I hope you can get a few ideas on here to help a bit. I live alone now, and have always been very aware of the price of food over the years. I'm pretty frugal, and just waste absolutely nothing if I can possibly help it.

 Some good suggestions of a soup and pudding night, and maybe a veggie night or two do really help. I do eat meat but its not the main part of my meal.

Growing up in the 1940s/50s meat was rationed along with lots of other things so vegetables were used to help fill you up a bit luckily I like veg, and my late Mum would always have a soup pot around so if you had soup at lunchtime then dinner you had a pudding or if you had soup before dinner then you din't have a pudding.

I still make and eat soup daily as its easy to make and really quite inexpensive. A kilo of carrots with a few spices added will easily make a spicy carrot soup which will give me plenty for the week. I see what's the veg on offer that particular week and use it.
A few weeks ago leeks were on special offer, so half a dozen bought trimmed and frozen will easily do lots of things from soup to (with a couple of cooked chicken thighs ) a chicken and leek pie.So the humble leek or two, plus a couple of thighs (always cheaper to buy ) made into a pie with some pastry and a diced carrot thrown in for good measure. will make a pie that will you probably get 4 portions once quartered. Cost little but a bit of time, but saves you a good deal of money. 

I bought a reduced tray of chicken drumsticks a few months ago for £1.25 for 10.This was a real good buy for me When I got them home I took four, dipped in flour,egg and then coated in dried sage and onion stuffing then open froze them. Once frozen I bagged them up. At least two meals with salad there for another day. = four meat building blocks for two meals

The remaining 6 I chucked into my slow cooker with diced onion and carrots and a chicken stock cube and cooked for a couple of hours until the chicken was falling off the bones .
 Removing the chicken I then stripped it all off the bones and the remaining stock was poured into a jug and left to cool.

The amount of cooked chicken  was pretty good, so that was turned into a tasty large pot of chicken curry which gave me a good 7 portions for the freezer.

The cooked stock once cooled I skimmed the fat from (saved to use for cooking roast spuds in ) the jelly stock underneath with a few scraps of chicken in was then saved, and I usedit to make a big pot of soup by throwing some more veg odds and ends in. Mainly stuff that was just starting to look a bit sad from my veggie box.

Again back to my herbs and spice cupboards, and a few of those livened it up a tad. I will throw almost anything into soup and its great for any sort of veg Even a sprouty spud once peeled and diced will thicken any soup up to make it a bit more sustaining.
Once cooked I decided to only blend half of it, and left some chunky bits of veg in the pan.the half I blended gave it a bit of body and I ended up with five portions of a hearty chickeny/vegetable soup which with crackers and cheese at lunchtime or as a starter for dinner was excellent for extending my meals a bit .

I ended up with 2 meals of chicken drumsticks, 7 curried chicken meals and 5 good bowls of soup to streetch my dinners a bit more so 11 meals plus soup for five to help with the meals which I thought wasn't bad for £1.25. 

The basic outlay for meat wasn't a great deal,and it didn't look a lot at the begining, but with a bit of juggling it gave me more than enough.

Probably one reason it takes me ages to defrost my freezer  The cost of meat is rising almost daily it seems. So meat must be treated as it was when I was a little girl ,not as the main part ,but as the basis to build on. 

People are always pretty good on here for recipes and I have had some brilliant ideas from them all. Even though I have been cooking for well over 60 odd yearss I love to find and try new things. 

Hopefully we will all pull together and get throught the tough times ahead  

Cheers chums 

JackieO xx
 

Siebrie

elsien said:

Random question - making a job lot of spag Bol tomorrow to use up some stuff, mince bulked out with lentils.
Got a surplus of courgettes and was pondering grating some of those in - I tend not to like soft courgettes as a rule, but am thinking that ideally they may be less noticeable grated and with a splosh of red wine. Any thoughts? 

elsien, I fry the ground meat (and optional dried, then rehydrated and boiled soya) in a deep sauce pan, then remove the meat and fry onions and garlic, any veg I want to include or need to get rid of, add the tomato (sauce, passata, whatever you have). After it's all 'done' I blitz the sauce until it's a nice thick consistency, add the meat, heat it all through, and serve. Lots of veg, and no-one notices.

Veg I have included: courgette, leeks, mushrooms, red lentils, small amount of (any type of) beans, leftover fried fennel, carrots, peppers, spinach.

Sometimes I add 1 or 2 spoonfuls of cream cheese to give a fuller taste. In the end, my sauce is more 'red sauce' than 'bolognese'

GaleSF63

Probably one reason it takes me ages to defrost my freezer   

JackieO xx
 

I have 3 possible ways to defrost my freezer - it's the size of an under the counter freezer and has drawers. One is to empty it completely but not really practical as it contains things that I spread through the year as I can only get them at certain times, one is to eat all the meat and fish on the basis that anything else that accidentally defrosts a bit isn't going to poison me if it refreezes, and one is to not run it down at all because the more that is packed together out of the freezer, the more it keeps itself frozen. (Not to be recommended in hot weather.)

Spendless

I agree about the herbs/spices. With my lentil soup the other day, I added some tropical peppercorns which gave it a nice bite. They are from my son's school cookery days and he's now 22 and finished his degree last week! They still have their strength though.

Yesterday I finally got the lid of a jar of pickled onions that's been defeating me for months. goodness knows how they're put on in the first place. I do have this issue with a couple of Aldi items. Having used every tip I could find to loosen it and none working, I located 2 clean mason jars and went for putting a puncture in the lid. I then decanted the whole jar between these two making sure I shared the pickle juice. 

It had come to me recently I can stretch out salads and sandwiches more if I utilise  my pickles. I have in Branston, beetroot, gherkins (though I'm not a huge fan)  and the onions.

I learnt yesterday I didn't get another job I went for. Need a more concentrated effort now on this front.  

-taff

@GaleSF63 I get a big box, or laundry basket, I line it with a blanket, then a duvet, then put all the freezer stuff in there and wrap it all up. Lasts for hours with no defrosting.

@London_1 I also add rice or pasta to soups, M&S make a lovely chicken, mushroom and rice one so I went online, looked at their ingredients and copied it. Turned out lovely. If you have portions of soup frozen for one, add some rice, bit more flavouring of some kind, bit more water because the rice or pasta will absorb it, bingo, meal for two...

@ChihiroSen - are you meal planning or just buying things you normally eat. Have you any wastage, which SM are you shopping in, which SMs are available to you.. Did you want help to reduce the bill?

Toonie

I've been catching up on this thread and noting down useful tips, thanks all. I do have to say the Old Stylers are brilliant, always coming up with ideas.

We're still stuggling along (on one wage and no benefits as DWP messed things up again) and so I've frugalised things further. DP and I always have a good meal in the evening, he takes a packed lunch to work (which includes something baked for his breakfast as he doesn't like eating early). I eat cheap things during the day, whether that be little drop scones for breakfast (ingredients cost about 20p per person) or yoghurt and oats. Lunch is either soup (usually with pearl barley) or soon it will be salad as my lettuce is coming along well. I've also got pea shoots started and some other bits coming along so hopefully by mid June my salads will be mostly homegrown.

It was interesting reading about rental prices as I've not rented for the last three years having moved in with DP. The last place I did rent was a 2 bed house with garden for £1250 a month (with a housemate). I had a look around to see what was in my area and the cheapest accomodation you can get is a tiny third floor studio flat for £900 per month or a really tiny room in an HMO for £875 (but that includes some bills-not electric though). To rent somewhere similar to what I had before is now £1800 per month! Crazy prices.

sammy_kaye18

Spendless said:

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

Ah Spendless I feel for you. I hope the job comes around for you and if I can help in any way I can. 
I was down to our last 70p of electric this morning but thankfully child benefit came in today so we are ok. Its only £130 but its a reassurance. 

We have been in the same boat after husband was made redundant and went back to his old job but is now on £4K less a year but he hasn't had a pay in 6 weeks. So money has been very tight and we have really had to make things stretch for the last few weeks and his credit cards are nearing their limit too!
Thankfully I belong to a preppers page on FB and thanks to some of the wonderful ladies on here who have advised me over the last 18 years and gotten me through some very sketchy moments ~  I have had a stock cupboard and a pantry to help eeeek us through and provide me with some back up.
I find making a list like an inventory of what you have helps. Go through cupboards and freezer / fridge and write everything down. Sometimes asking others to have a look offers up suggestions and ideas you wouldn't sometimes see yourself. x 

sammy_kaye18

euronorris said:

in_my_wellies said:

I use my pressure cooker for gammon but would like to try the slow cooker. How long does it take  please?

I put it on low around 8am, and lift it out around 5pm ish. I don't think it's necessary as such, for it to be that long, it's just how it works around my work day. I put a cm or two of water in the bottom and drizzle some honey on the top and leave it to it.

Our dinner tonight was chicken korma, done in slow cooker, with some rice (done on the hob). And portions left over for another time  

Thank you Euro!
My husband is a big gammon fan but I loath putting the oven on to cook it because I think its better once its been slower cooked but have never tried it in the SC before. 
I have a joint in that I brought in a meat deal from somewhere so I think I might do that tomorrow for tea if I defrost it today and then it can cook all day tomorrow whilst I crack on with my decluttering. 

sammy_kaye18

dreamyd said:

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

There's a BP garage with a convenience store attached on my bus route home.  I get a TGTG bag from them whenever I'm working in the Dept office (usually twice a week). They seem massively overstocked with all kinds of stuff. My latest bag  (£3.29) had  he following, which is a fairly typical haul:

2 packs of cooked cocktail sausages
1 pack snack eggs
2 pots (284ml) double cream
A twin pack of decorated cupcakes 
A pepperoni pizza
A small tub of guacamole
A Dunkin Donuts twinpack
A fresh portion of cod 

We're not massive fish eaters, so the cod went straight into the freezer to pass onto a friend who is. The rest of the bag fed us for a chunk of the weekend.  The cream will be whipped then frozen into ice-cube trays so that I can use a little every now and then.

You could also chuck one of your double cream in the food processor and make your own butter as well if you need to. x
Planning on doing this with the kids as a fun experiment in the holidays next week as we always seem cream reduced