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

otb666

on the soup front I always blitz veg in microwave for 5 mins before putting in slow cooker and always get good results. I leave slow cooker on for an hour and then turn off and cover with tea towels (bit like a hay box?) This is because i am inpatient and like to eat asap.  Loving the tips on here and will be using my beet ends and tops going forward.  As i had fibroid and hysterectomy at least 6 years ago cant comment on cups/tampons etc.  My son is 24 and after uni took a year to find his feet (get a job), he doesnt want to learn to drive tbh I think fair enough with petrol prices and I think we have to remember the children young adults have been through an awful time as we all have.  I am another one who feels if occasional takeaway brings you simple pleasure I will grab it with both hands.

ellenvan

We do try to cook from scratch - but soups I sometimes use own brand tin  and then throw in the extra leftover veg- e.g. mushrooms soft peppers pasta etc. Usually makes it into more of a meal than just soup.

Everyone is going to be watching the pennies next winter - so any additional funds we are salting away for harder times.

Have won a few small prizes from the competition thread on here recently - have also put these away for presents. Worth a look if you have spare time on your hands.

Bluegreen143

PearlRose said:

Hello everyone, I'm super new to this forum and love the honest discussion and supportive atmosphere here. 

The most noticeable area of our increased living costs is the energy bill. We had a fixed deal and used to pay slightly above £90 a month for gas and electricity. Now it will be about £250 (fixed for two years). Although the Ofgem announced a 54% cap, it's an 143% increase for us.

There are also increases in other things. We have had milk delivery from a local farm for a few years, and the price has slightly gone up (£0.75 per pint), which is reasonable considering the increase in their costs. It's £0.69 in Sainsbury's or Aldi. The difference is 6p per pint and less than £2 a month, so I would like to keep supporting the local business. 

Our milkman delivery is £1.05 per pint (in a glass bottle - they do plastic bottles cheaper) so I think you’re getting a great price. We are £10 a week for the milkman (8x pints whole milk and 1x chocolate milk as a treat for my son in the weekend delivery) and I do debate keeping it or not, but we can afford it for now and I like that we are supporting a smaller business, the farmer gets a fair price and it reduces our plastic waste.

I also get a vegetable box from the local greengrocer but I switched that to fortnightly which is suiting us better as it wasn’t all getting used, we do like to top up from Tesco with our choice of veg too (if the greengrocer was walking distance I’d top up there, but I’d need to drive, pay for parking and it’s another errand in my life so for now I stick with milk deliveries, veg box deliveries and everything else delivered from Tesco 😆).

elsien

I am pleased with tonight’s tea plus enough for another day. 

Courgette and feta fritters. 

Courgette, feta, lemon, spring onions, yoghurt for dip  all free from olio. 

Eggs 20p off the reduced rack. Herbs from the garden. Flour from the store cupboard. 

greenbee

Spendless said:

ariarnia said:

-taff said:

If the soup is tasteless for you, are you OK with tasting other stuff? soup i buy tastes fine. and it's not just me. everyone thinks i make bad soup

To make it smooth, you really do need a blending stick or a food processor jug, or push it through a sieve [ the last will only work if the veg is super soft] i have a 'soup maker' and a stick blender. when i use potatoes or cook the veg too long then it turns out mushy like runny mash. when i use other things it turns out grainy. this is what other people say. not just me. 

Cauli is OK in a cauli and cheese soup but I wouldn't put it in a normal veg soup, ditto for kale, too bitter. Broccoli, also wouldn't use in soup unless it was specifically broccoli and cheese of some kind. Basically, most brassicas really. i was told by someone to use cauliflower because it breaks down and thickens the soup as an alternative to potato. and it did. but it was mushy rather than thick if that makes sense?

If everything is tasteless, unless you over salt. i don't add salt. i don't think we add salt to anything other than the occasional chips and eggs. when i add stock (marigold or oxo are what i have in) then to add enough to taste it then it's too salty.  

i'm happy to try a recipe but don't really want to follow recipes iyswim? the idea was to find a way to use up what we have and add an extra 'course' to the meal to fill up on veg. not buy things to cook something specific. i read how easy people find it on here and just can't figure out the knack.  

thanks for all the help and advice again. i've got a couple of butternut squash that have been lurking in the fridge for a while so i might try again this weekend. 

I think some of your bolded answers might shed some light on it. Soup needs salt added during the cooking, without it it's a bland veg and water mix and I don't add salt to much else either other than a few things at the table.

 If you're using a soup maker how are you cooking the veg for too long? Mine you switch on, it counts down from 19 minutes and then bleeps at you to turn up to eat it.

I also think you need to be careful with what veg you're using, such as the cauliflower. Totally understand the need to use up what's in, but some things are going to affect other veggies in there. Eg I have an aubergine in clear need of using up. I'm also contemplating making soup but I wouldn't dream of putting it in - I'd be too wary of what it what do. If you ask on here before putting together, then there's a wealth of knowledge and someone will tell you if you have a clash. 

I make soup with aubergine It includes peppers, onions, tomato and feta. It's always worth looking for recipes if you want to try something new. 

DuranGirl

M'chap is a big fan of the yellow stickers, but I'm trying to persuade him now that he doesn't have to buy everything that's on offer! We've only been living together for a few years, he lived alone for a long time (no real cooking skills to speak of) and grew up with not a lot of food in the house.  I'm showing him how far I can make a budget stretch, so I'm hoping he'll slow down a bit. Even YS is an excess spend if we don't really need it! (The freezer will only hold so much!)

Made my first hummus from scratch today. We only ever get it on YS, so I showed him I could make a fair amount at a reasonable cost so we can have it more often (he really likes hummus)

Also planted some dwarf borlotti beans on the recommendation of a very thrifty customer who grows them and lets them dry on the bush and pops them in her store cupboard. Plus more salad leaf seeds. I'm not the greatest gardener but my potatoes do well, my rhubarb is looking quite good and the fruit canes my friend gave me seem to be settling in nicely. (Green) fingers crossed!

JIL

I would recommend knorr ham stock cubes to flavour soup. Gives it a really good smoky flavour. Also theres an umami stock cubes that is a really good taste. I also use yeast extract or marmite, that gives a great depth of flavour, just a teaspoon will do. 
I would also suggest if using herbs, spices or tomato puree, that gets sauted off with the onions and veg as that gets rid of any raw taste.

I often chuck in left over cream cheese in my soup at the end of cooking. Parmesan rinds enhance a tomato soup.

Re the butternut squash soup, a good way to do it, is slice in half length ways, scoop out the seeds, and throw over some chopped onions, sweet potatoes chilli flakes and oil and bake (in the interest of mse, whilst you have the oven on already)
Make some stock with cubes, add the scooped out squash, sweet potatoes and onions and blitz.

Theres nothing better than a bowl of really good soup, it's like a big bowl of goodness. 

Spendless

otb666 said:

  My son is 24 and after uni took a year to find his feet (get a job), 

I have concerns with this and my own son (22) who finished Uni last month. He got engaged last year after a 12 month relationship. He has known her and been friends with her since moving to Uni at 18 (house mates). 

Fiancée graduated last year and has yet to find work and their wedding is booked for next summer. I have no qualms about their relationship but worried they are trying to run before they can walk in terms of having  jobs, somewhere to live, some money behind them. They are currently back in their digs packing and then are moving to fiancées parents next week  whilst they job hunt. Her parents live where everything is in walking distance so fine for hospitality etc type jobs, but nothing without commuting to limited places for graduate work. When they got engaged I'd have suggested to them to find their feet first before booking a wedding, especially since DS was still going to be a student for 1 year of their engagement, but we weren't the set of parents told first and when they visited us with the news just a couple of weeks later dates etc had already been planned.

The timeline you've given me for yours to find a job is roughly the same I've known my friends sons have when they've graduated between 6-12 months to find something. Add in that DS has never worked for someone ever, he's done some on-line work that gives him a small amount of money and fiancée hasn't worked since her sixth form days other than a few days work very recently. 

London_1

My grandson Henry comes home at the end of this month after finishing his degree and hasn't got the foggiest idea what he wants to do as yet.But he's a bright lad and I'm sure will soon get bored of not working, as even at Uni he worked weekends and at times durring the week.
His younger brother ,(the last of the four boys) is due to start in September at Uni and he is all fired up and raring to go.Bless him he has worked for the past 2 years part time whilst doing his A levels and saved so far £2.5K towards Uni including birthday and Christmas cash so I know he will be OK bless him.
He also is not too bad at cooking for himself and a very careful shopper when he goes food shopping my frugal ways must have rubbed off on him. He is due to fly to Cyprus for a couple of weeks with his pals next month I have my fingers crossed for his flight He paid for his holiday himself as well:) our Mikey has a sensible head on his shoulders at 18 and I think will cope pretty well fingers crossed.

Jack is awaiting to hear if he's got his teaching job and the eldest Ben is a full time teacher in north London. Once the boys are all settled then we can start to make preperations for movingn to the IoW as we planned.
I do have an enourmous amount of decluttering to do first though as we will be combining two houses into one bigger one.

JackieO xx

Bluegreen143

When I left uni it was 2010 so the economy was rocky then too. I worked part time (late afternoons) in a call centre for the first year after graduating, and the other half of the time (the mornings) did an (unpaid) charity internship/office volunteer role. It paid off in that they later offered me my first “proper” job when they had a vacancy. I was living with my now-husband, who is five years older and had a full time job, but at the time we weren’t serious enough for him to fully support me.

At that time, many of my friends worked in bars, shops or call centres for around 1-3 years before they secured a job in the field they’d studied in (in fact, several ended up retraining to do other things - childcare, personal training etc - rather than work in their university field). 

I don’t know how the job market now compares though, I’m signed up to a few HR industry newsletters (I don’t work in HR but in a closely related field) and apparently there’s a huge shortage of workers in almost all fields 🤷‍♀️