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

Brambling

It seems even the Spanish are saying they can't afford olive oil at the moment! it's due to two years of drought in Spain causing shortages.  It seems Spain usually produces something like 70% of the olive oil sold in Europe and nearly half world wide, so don't expect it to get any cheaper this year it's also the reason I nearly cried when I dropped a full bottle and smashed it recently 

I save the good olive oil for dressings and use rape seed oil to cook these days but TBH i try to use as little oil when cooking as possible 

Pennypincin

My composters get anything compostable, teabags, fruit/veg peelings or cores.
In the food waste caddy it's mainly egg shells with the bare minimum food waste.
It's not very often I waste food, especially nowadays, if I do it's minimal.
My budget, like many, is too tight to waste food.
I'm finding it shocking how much everything is costing and going up.

Katiehound

and have you noticed news reports that prices are dropping?

Not sure where they are looking / shopping.
Just about everything I buy has either 'crept' up or 'leapt' up and it doesn't seem to be stopping , nevermind coming down!! Another false news story??

annieb64

Our food waste bin just contains vegetable peelings, apple and pear cores, egg shells, tea bags and bones. I have noticed that our general  waste and and our recycling seem to be less than most of the neighbours but suspect it is because I have the time to shop in the market, farm shop, refill van etc so our food comes with less packaging.
I take soft plastics back to the supermarket and one of the local churches collects things like cheese and biscuit wrappers

YorksLass

Earlier this year I went through my food cupboards and made a list of everything that had passed its BB date or was getting near to it.  I've slowly worked my way through the list and have just a few items left to tackle.

A small amount of cocoa powder - enough to make a chocolate cake
2 gravy pots -  will do for 2 beef casseroles
A packet of white sauce mix - will use for parsley or cheese sauce with fish
Half a packet of chicken and leek casserole mix - for a chicken & mushroom casserole (haven't got any leeks)
A small packet  of pearl barley - will be used up over the winter in stews or soups
Half a box of suet - dumplings to go with the stews

This has been such a useful exercise (things used up and not wasted as well as money saved) I think I'll do it again in the New Year.

In January I joined the 23 in 2023 challenge and, whilst not all my aims were successful, I did shave 23p per day off the grocery budget.  Not a great amount I know, but I now have £83.95 saved in a jar.  This, along with whatever food leftovers there may be from Xmas, will more than pay for January's groceries.

Another success was using up a lot of my yarn stash.  Over the year I've knitted two scarves, a very large sofa throw and 8 adult's jumpers/cardigans.  There are also another half a dozen waiting to be sewn up  (not my favourite part of the job) and another two on the needles.  The stash has obviously been much reduced!  In 2024 I'll be attempting to do the same with my fabric stash.

Coffeekup

YoungBlueEyes said:

I've been thinking of asking this for ages - what ends up in your food waste bin? Or on compost heap or whatever? 

Mine is about the same week after week. Banana/orange peel, apple/pear cores, olive stones, tea bags, seeds and green top bits of peppers, the very ends of cucumbers, veg scrapings. Like that.

Same for me along with coffee grounds (if I have any), unwanted cardboard and non shiny paper from mail and envelopes.
I used to put bread on but I leave that out for the birds now.

Elisheba

Regarding food waste bins, it said in my Council newsletter that they are being made compulsory for every council within the next few years. My council were not very happy about it as they said they had run a food waste service in the noughties and it had proven very expensive to run. Some councils do them though, so there must be ways of making them cost effective.

Elisheba

MingVase said:

 Many thanks for all welcomes and tea need to catch up now. I was shocked this last few weeks by the price rises in Sainsbugs. I get an online order every Sunday and can see the prices going up almost daily -  the olive oil I get used to be £6.75... then £6.95.....on Monday it was £7 .... and last night when I was checking the order for delivery tomorrow, it's £7.15 Multiply that over the whole shop and it's no wonder people are toiling.

I've read there is an olive oil shortage this winter due to the droughts over the summer in Spain, Greece etc. So olive oil is going to shoot up massively in price. I tend to use rape seed oil these days as it has a higher boiling point and less food miles, so hopefully it doesn't jump up as well in sympathy 🙄

weenancyinAmerica

Some products really never expire even if they have a date of "best use before" on them. Cocoa powder is one of them. So is honey, rice, and white granulated sugar. There is probably a list available of these so you don't have to worry about them.

London_1

Wow it seems lots of you are like minded like myself and eat the stuff you buy. I am working my way through not only my freezer stuff but my tinned bits as well. My council doesn’t actually do a food waste scheme which is just as well as they would get very little from me. 🤣

My egg shells crunch up, and put round the flower beds/potted plants to deter slugs. I have a small bag the sort you get for dogs poo, and into that goes banana skins(wrapped in old used foil) so they don’t niff, then put in the bag, tea bags, if I’m doing my hanging baskets in the spring I line the bottom with them as the hold the water which is handy then I don’t need to use so much water in them win-win 🤣

 Otherwise they too go in the little bag, veg peelings ( not many of those as I scrub spuds and carrot skins rather than peel unless they’re a bit sprouts or bendy then they get peeled.

Chunky broccoli stems get wrapped and frozen to dice up when I’m making a casserole. It’s green veg after all and edible if slow cooked with the meat.

The recycling bag is usually full and our local council do give out bags to put your recycling stuff in for free. I suppose it takes me at least 7-10 days to fill the little poo bag up and because I live about 4 minutes walk from my local shopping precinct

I ask the guy who empties the rubbish bin if it was ok to deposit the bag in the bin and he said yes no problem at all, as when I told him what waste there was he was quite impressed.

 I don’t think I’ve had a black bag of rubbish to put out for several years since I knew how little I had. I used to drop it off in DDs rubbish bin when I went there as I’m almost zero waste.

Like YorksGirl (I think we are sisters from a different mister 🤣) I too hate to bin anything that’s edible.

 Tonight I wasn’t sure what to have to eat so rummaged and found I had one sweet potato of a reasonable size left in the  veg box so I had that baked with a small left over amount of chicken curry that was in a little dish in the freezer, pudding was a slice of warmed up sponge cake with a dollop of ice cream on it so an odds and ends meal but it used up a bit more from my stocks.

 I’ve now had 9 NDS since the start of the month and only have a small list of things to buy on Monday for food shopping. Living from the bits from the freezer and cupboards is definitely working well for me this month, plus having a bit of a nasty cold means I’m keeping indoors and away from the Christmas crowds 👍 but getting a good bit of knitting done, plus decluttering as well so again win-win   JackieO xx