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

YorksLass

We don't often have a joint of meat nowadays but I did treat us to one for this weekend.  At £15.70   I had to think long and hard about this but it has provided us with several meals.  Roast yesterday with all the trimmings and today I've sliced and frozen the rest.  There's 3 boxes of slices in gravy, a box of chunked that will make 2 curries and more slices on a plate in the fridge that we'll have later this week with chips and pickles.  That's 7 meals for 2 so not quite as bad as it first seems.  Of course, they won't all be eaten at once - more like rationed out over the coming weeks!     In contrast, this coming weekend we'll have a small, inexpensive  gammon joint - good value, tasty and versatile.

On a more frugal note, today I've made a large white loaf, a tub of sweet chilli hummus, a tray of cornflake flapjacks and 4 lemon cream pots, all using existing stores.  Salad tonight (pilchards).  Tomorrow I'll make a big pan of carrot & lentil soup (loads of carrots in the fridge) and a batch of fruit scones to use up the last bit of yogurt.  The soup will be welcome as, although it's still officially summer, some days are feeling quite autumnal.

No shopping needed this week but the WIP shopping list for my next online delivery is getting quite long so I'll review it to see if I can prune it down a bit.  It's mainly store cupboard stuff as I've been using up a fair bit of existing stocks.  It will be interesting to see what has gone up in price.  And if I actually get what I order.     It hasn't been too bad lately but the basic brands are quite often out of stock.

mandy47

Busy day today. My friend gave me a huge bag of plums from her garden. I gave her a jar of home grown and pickled beetroot.  
Stewed the plums and popped in the freezer along with a large tray of HG and roasted tomatoes. HG french beans and runner beans prepped and frozen. 4 large jars of beetroot pickled and rhubarb stewed and frozen. I'm planning this weeks menu to use up some batch cooked items from the freezer to make room for more garden produce.
 I'm playing freezer Tetris at the moment.

Floss

When I still had a husband and my allotment, we invested in a second freezer for the allotment produce so we could store enough to keep us in fruit & veg until the next year. 

Jellytotts

Floss said:

When I still had a husband and my allotment, we invested in a second freezer for the allotment produce so we could store enough to keep us in fruit & veg until the next year. 

We just rid of our chest freezer that was purchased for that very reason.  When I saw the predicted price rises in electric and worked out it cost £82 a year to run on my old tariff, I had a long hard think about what I was freezing.  This years produce has been pickled and chutneyed and sauced so much less has gone in the  normal freezer.

It’s hard to know what to do for the best sometimes but this was a good decision for us.

joedenise

I'm planning on running down my outside chest freezer, hopefully by the end of the year and getting rid of it for the same reason.  What's the point in paying to keep more food than you can eat?  Will make do with the fridge/freezer in the kitchen, after all there are only 2 of us so should be easily doable.

Florenceem

Bought a pack of cooking bacon from Asd. today - their yellow pack - 75p. I plan to make an egg & bacon pie that I saw on You Tube - different to the one that I usually make.

London_1

Florenceem said:

Bought a pack of cooking bacon from Asd. today - their yellow pack - 75p. I plan to make an egg & bacon pie that I saw on You Tube - different to the one that I usually make.

Egg and bacon pie is gorgeous ,not the anaemic quiche stuff sold in supermarkets for silly money. Let us know what you think of it, I haven't made one for ages, I shall keep it in mind for next time I gete some of Asda's or tesco's "cooking bacon " a daft phrase I think as bacon is meant to be cooked  

JackieO xx

Floss

joedenise said:

I'm planning on running down my outside chest freezer, hopefully by the end of the year and getting rid of it for the same reason.  What's the point in paying to keep more food than you can eat?  Will make do with the fridge/freezer in the kitchen, after all there are only 2 of us so should be easily doable.

At the time (2009-18) we ate 50% vegi and the frozen produce saved us a lot of money by not having to buy so the cost of freezing & producing was negated by that saving. Plus there was a limit to how much chutney/ jam we could eat.

TheBanker

littlemoney said:

With regards to washing, I have house clothes and going out clothes. The house clothes can be worn longer before washing. If I am going out I change into something I know is clean, once home I change back to house clothes. The going out clothes are aired and worn again the next time I go out. They become house clothes after several trips out. This has reduced washing machine to every two weeks, with an hand wash if needed between.

This is similar to what I've started doing since spending a few days each week working from home. I tend to wear a clean shirt to the office, but will wear it again on a WFH day unless I was particularly hot/sweaty. And my Working at Home clothes get worn a few times - they are washed when they feel like they need a wash, rather than automatically going in the laundry basket when I get undressed at night time. I've got a collection of 'worn once but not dirty' things in my bedroom - previously they'd have all gone into the washer. The reduction in laundry is quite something and there will be additional savings from less water and detergent. Not to mention the time saved!

When I was a kid, we always wore clothes several times. Only under ware was changed daily (and I think that might even have been re-used sometimes!). This trend of washing everything after one wear seems to be a modern fad. I was quite surprised by a single (as in lives alone) friend who washes every other day. I have no idea why someone would want to do that, even if cost wasn't an issue!

Mind you, when I was a kid we only had a bath once a week, and that wasn't always in clean bath water!

TheBanker

I've had a smart meter for a month, so now I know what my average daily energy usage is, all be it during a summer month. And I know what I use on a work from home day, a work in the office day, a day of no work and when the house is empty because I'm away.

I've set myself the challenge of making sure my average daily usage each week is lower than the previous week. This will be a challenge as I'm already quite careful, and obviously the nights are getting dark earlier. I will probably only last with this challenge until the end of September.

So, today I have:
- Working from home, so re-worn clothes that I wore last week, and not bothered having a shower (it's electric so really expensive)
- Got dressed early so I could open the curtains to take advantage of daylight instead of having lights on
- Been really careful when boiling the kettle for my coffee, not to boil too much water
- Been really careful to shut the fridge door while putting milk in my coffee and on my cereal rather than leaving it open
- Re-filled the kettle after use (with one cup!) so the next drink is boiling from room temperature rather than from cold water temperature
- Re-used my coffee cup. I have a terrible habit of leaving it in the living room and then using a clean one to make the next cup. So I end up with a dishwasher full of coffee cups. If I'm more careful I may save one dishwasher cycle a week.

I imagine these are things most posters on this thread do as a matter of routine, but I've never really been in a position where I've had to think this carefully about energy use. I've never been reckless but electricity's always just been something that can be used when required.

My other 'saving' comes from making a big lasagne yesterday. Cost minimised by using more veg than meat, and I now have five portions which can be heated in the microwave rather than having to use the oven to make dinner. 

And finally I found an M&S gift card from Christmas which had about £3 left - I'd used most of it earlier in the summer to buy t-shirts. So I got some bread and and cheese to provide this week's lunches. M&S is obviously not the cheapest place to buy these things but the gift card balance made them almost free.