Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Spendywendywoo

@foxgloves, great update! Well done on another book - was it interesting? I'm always looking for recommendations. Great saving with the cat food too!

I love the concept of 'home care hour' and have implemented it myself recently. I set a timer at the weekend of 90 minutes to clean deeper than I normally do and it worked, though I ended up doing nearly 2 hours as I wanted to get ahead for this week with work being busy. We pay so much into our homes through mortgages or running costs, plus it sounds better than cleaning, for sure. 

I've always wanted to bake my own bread.... I made homemade wraps using greek yog and flour the other week, perhaps that's a stepping stone to rolls, or even a loaf - who knows. How long does a loaf last if not frozen?

Right, back to work after an early lunch due to meetings... have a great day

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - I agree - putting things away for presents gradually certainly spreads costs & allows one to make good use of year-round bargainaceousness.

@teapot2 - Yes, I also much prefer loyalty card points rather than slightly cheaper prices on products I may not even buy.

@Spendywendywoo - I make most of our bread  - I gave up on bread maker machines as 2 well-reviewed ones we used to own both developed the same fault & stopped working so I just use the dough hook on my stand mixer. How long does it last? Not long if you share a house with Mr F! It's difficult to say, actually, as can depend on humidity, heat, & of course whether you want it for sandwiches a couple of days after baking it or for toast. It certainly doesn't have the preservatives that the processed stuff does. As a very rough guide, I'd use it fresh for sarnies for the first couple of days, then for toast. Any that does hang around long enough to go stale is zizzed up for breadcrumbs & frozen for topping cauliflower cheese or anything requiring them. I also make sourdough loaves & find it lasts a little longer than yeasted.
Re books. The best ones I have read since beginning my 100 books in 2025 challenge are the first & second titles in the 'Sister Bells Trilogy' by Lars Mytting (translated from Norwegian). Unfortunately I now have to wait for Book 3 as it isn't published until May! Never mind, something to which I shall look forward. Current title is the latest by Jonathan Coe & next audiobook will be Mick Herron's latest, which does make some reference to a character or two from the 'Slow Horses' series, but is a stand-alone novel.
F  

foxgloves

Hello Tuesday Savers,
Busy day which rather surprised me as I had an awful night - Mr F slept even worse than I did & he gave up & got up at 4.45am! Neither of us are good sleepers. I do feel tired now.....anyway, the day has not been without generally budget-friendly efforts:
*Baked onion & rosemary/seasalt-topped foccaccia-type thingy.
*Zero effort meal tonight as have defrosted the last of the Chilean pork & beans I batch cooked last month & will serve it with wedges of the above bread. Great to be supplying so many meals from the freezers atm as Mr F wants to defrost them this weekend.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast. 
*Home care hour - I'd intended to take the vacuum brush to the kitchen kickboards which are letting down all the cleaning & sorting I've been doing recently, but I've deferred that to tomorrow as decided to get on with various random jobs to get stuff that's been sitting around awaiting attention for a while & is now annoying me. Refilled a few pantry jars which has made a little more space, also refilled our salt pig & made up new batches of both tandoori & fajhita spice mixes, as we had run out of both. Then I made a start on mending some oven gloves which like all of their brethren look perfect on the pretty side but have worn into holes on the business side. I have successfully patched one inner mitt with a piece of strong cotton canvas type fabric from my stash & pinned & sewn most of its pair. I shall finish it off tonight. The alternative was throwing them away when most of the fabric & padding is perfectly OK & dipping into our House & Garden Savings Pot to buy new. Not a big spend, I know, but not in the spirit of Project Surbiton, so let's hear it for a bit of make-do & mend!
*Took a basket of useful salvaged stuff down to the shed ready for use - a big pile of plant labels cut from plastic notebook dividers & spread tubs, a few more additions for my stash of big jars for bottling, yoghurt pots for potting on plant babies, food packaging trays for sowing seeds, that kind of thing.
*Sunny afternoon so I did get a garden hour. Spent most of it clearing a tangled border, cutting down tall-stemmed things I left for winter seedheads, etc,. Still loads to do, but I can see that there are plenty of plant freebies being uncovered.....foxgloves, sweet rocket for starters, but doubtless more as I cut back last year's spent growth further.
*Spotted some decent-looking cuttings material on several verbena bonariensis plants as I was cutting them down. Prepared some of these side-shoots & they are now in a bottle of water to see if any of them fancy taking root & providing me with some more freebies. 
*Might aim to knit a bit more of my 2nd sock tonight, but tbh, I feel so tired after last night's continual waking, I shall probably fall asleep in front of the TV. Ah well, tomorrow is another day & I may spring out of bed feeling as bushy-tailed as a naughty Spring squirrel!
Enjoy your evenings, all.
F x

KajiKita

I applaud your oven glove restoration efforts. My dad had a pair that he really liked because they were longer than most. I’m not sure if it is the warp or the weft that had failed but the net effect that resulted was that the palms had long strands that were catching on handles and creating a risk. For some reason I decided I could fix them …. I bought some thick cotton thread and basically sewed the thick remaining strands of oven glove fabric down into the layer below. My dad was delighted (and unusually, impressed) and they went on for at least another decade 😉😊

Well done for getting outside for an hour. Hopefully that dose of fresh air will set you up for a better night’s sleep tonight 😊

KK

Spendywendywoo

@foxgloves, yes the processed ingredients is the reason why I have started to look at home baking tbh. Thank you for the insight. A loaf lasts around 2/3 days in this house with my two lol. 

Thanks re the book update too, I shall have a look at the titles you have mentioned.

Lovely that you got a sunny afternoon too  

Baileys_Babe

The OH makes our bread by hand, the last loaf was made Thursday afternoon, I enjoyed a couple of slices toasted today, it was only toasted as I decided I fancied sardines on toast not because the bread was at the stage it needed to be. We keep our bread in a bread crock and our kitchen is on the cool side.

The recipe we use is:
2 teaspoons of yeast
60ml oil (we use rapeseed oil)
150g strong white flour 
600g strong wholemeal flour
450 ml warm water
2 teaspoons of salt

1) combine all of the ingredients 
2) knead for at least 10 minutes 
3) place the dough in the tin and leave to rise until doubled in size, this takes 60 - 90 minutes usually 
4) bake in a preheated oven 200°c for 35 minutes 
5) turn out of the tin onto a cooling rack
6) allow the loaf to fully cool before storing 

When we don't want use a tin at step three we form the dough into a rough rectangle and place it on a baking tray and then continue as above.

Twolabsandacat

I have been thinking about your project surbition FG and found myself musing over our pots!  We have lots of pots for lots of things, but I am becoming more aware of our vet pot, due to having a lovely old girl, who up until now has always been a picture of health....good genes I think.  Sadly, I am not sure for how much longer though.  Also, the home and garden pot which I always seem to neglect for some reason.  Thanks for helping me to refocus 

foxgloves

@KajiKita - Our mended oven gloves show it's perfectly possible to keep things going for a good bit longer, don't they?

@Twolabsandacat - Yes, everyday Savings Pots are there for just that kind of reason.....the idea being to plan for perfectly foreseeable expenses & pets defo fall into that category, don't they? Insurance for our younger cat costs more than for our older one because Ash has asthma. 

foxgloves

@Baileys_Babe - Is that the 'Doris Grant' loaf which only requires a single proving? Mine is smaller as I use 300g wholemeal to 200g white but it's a decent size for the two of us as I bake rolls quite regularly too. I alternate a yeasted loaf with a sourdough one usually, but it depends how I feel on the day (like everything else!)
F

foxgloves

Ohhhh, I've just lost my entire post. Grrrr!