Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Suffolk_lass

joedenise said:

I tend to peel, cut into biggish pieces and then par boil before spraying with oil and then open freezing until solid, bagged up, ready for roasting.  Have done the same with parsnips as well.  Usually when I get them in TGTG bags after I've already bought some!

I read this and was thinking, "pinecones?!" - re-reading I think you mean carrots, or avocados lol

Tescodealqueen

I was introduced to King Crimson by my first husband, the cover of the album scared me to death but I loved the music( surprisingly I thought). Well done to Mr Foxgloves on his bargaining. The album went with my first husband 40 years ago and not many people I know are fans. 

Though we saw Toyah Wilcox who is married to Robert Fripp, a founder member of the band and who is working with her these days. You have raised a few memories this morning.

2Scratters

Yesterday we both sat down and got DH to move his contribution of money to the house coffers. Every month he makes me laugh at how he makes comments about much he has to pay up. We do 50/50 I really should go back to him just handing over all his money. I'm trying to teach him about budgeting and complains how much he needs to put aside for his van and bike. He has clearly led a royal life with me 
Getting to the bottom of the fridge contents so it can be given a full clean. It gets done in dribs and drabs.

Cooked a full proper sized chicken yesterday one meal down. Have been doing a meal plan to UU OOD mostly mixed spice packets for various dishes. We are getting there very slowly reducing stock probably by only 1 a week on average. Today will be stripping down of the chicken for other meals making sure those packets get involved. I'm sure to have some "just in case" assistance with 2 four legged friends sat by my feet and offers of  giving the plate a pre wash 
I need to get more organised in the kitchen planning to save even more pennies and make more nice to do time. 
Tall freezer needs a stock take as the last time it was done was back in February!
I am now heading onto half pay due to my time off work and need to be smarter by putting stuff into action,' its not like I haven't learned anything over the years. 

2 Scratters xx

joedenise

Suffolk_lass said:

joedenise said:

I tend to peel, cut into biggish pieces and then par boil before spraying with oil and then open freezing until solid, bagged up, ready for roasting.  Have done the same with parsnips as well.  Usually when I get them in TGTG bags after I've already bought some!

I read this and was thinking, "pinecones?!" - re-reading I think you mean carrots, or avocados lol

Sorry I meant carrots!

foxgloves

@Tescodealqueen - Yes, he was well pleased with his King Crimson stash........even more pleased when he realised that his PA survey earnings for this month once he cashes out tomorrow, will be sufficient to cover the cost.
@2Scratters - It's definitely worth having a blitz on 'Use-it-ups' to stretch the grocery budget. I need to ensure ours stretches a bit further over November, because it's a 5-week shopping month for us, plus we front-loaded it a bit this week to take advantage of that amazing meat offer at our local butcher. Have just informed Mr F that we will need to be keeping to target spends every week to ensure we don't begin December with a grocery budget deficit, which will of course, then have to come off something else. We do have plenty of food in stock & I am defo up for doing a bit of batch cooking, which will help.
F

foxgloves

Hello Monday Money Savers,
It's been a fairly standard Monday for me, except for having Mr F at home, as he is putting in some little bursts of annual leave, to get it all used up by the deadline.
Today's budget-helping positives:
*Managed to get all of this week's laundry into a single load. Too showery for pegging out, but as it's just one load, it shouldn't take too long on the heated airer, esp as I have the dehumidifier running too. 
*Free exercise & fresh air in the garden. Mr F cleared a raised bed & planted the garlic. I carried on clearing the borders. As usual for this time of year, I am finding various self-sown freebies which are of a good size - foxgloves, verbena bonariensis & hollyhocks today, so have been replanting as I went along.
*Two late but decent windfall pears were taken in & added to my lunch.
*Sorted yesterday's roast pork leftovers. It has stretched a good way.....£10 pork shoulder....it did us a roast dinner last night & I've divvied up the leftovers for hot pork cobs & apple sauce with herb & garlic roast squash tonight, sweet & sour pork stir-fry & noodles tomorrow, a microwaveable mug of leftover roast dinner for Mr F's work lunch on Weds & the remaining chunk was diced & frozen as I can make pork hash with that at some point, which I like served with a hot sauce & sweetcorn. So 9 portions at £1-11 each. 
*Did my regular Monday morning budget updates, which involved moving funds to cover a few Christmas presents. Postie brought the item I ordered for my sis-in-law, which was on sale at £20 when I first decided to buy it, but had been reduced to £12, inc. p&p when I actually got round to ordering it, so that was a saving.
*Entered a competition.
*Did a couple of surveys.
And that, I think is everything......Oh hang on, no, I was going to mention the tromboncino squash we grew this year. First year we'd tried them & as we already grow plenty of courgettes, I just grew a single plant & said I would report back. They are, as I expected, very like courgettes (although they look much more fun & exotic) except that only the bulbous end really has much in the way of seeds, so the main part of the fruit is kind of more solid & less watery. We found that they stir-fried really well, without releasing as much liquid as standard courgettes (especially the large ones) seem to do. I read somewhere that tromboncino are in a similar plant family to butternut squash & that if they are left to ripen on the plant later in the season, their skins turn a similar colour to butternut & the flavour mellows to more of what we think of as more of a winter squash flavour. So I tried this out but leaving a large fruit on the plant to ripen right through to squash colour, rather than picking it at the green 'courgette' stage. We tried it the other night, sliced & stir-fried with garlic & sweetcorn & it's true that it was much more like a butternut-type in terms of flavour & texture. We grew our plant up the metal archway leading into our veggie plot, as they are climbers & we've decided we will grow an extra plant (at least) next year as this year's trial plant was very easy & trouble-free. I think with these plus the Guatemalan blue squash which I grow from saved seed each year, I wouldn't bother trying to grow actual butternuts again, as after one decent year, all successive attempts failed to produce useable fruits. 
Right, it's already dark outside, so time to get the curtains drawn & settle down with my library book. Mr F says he is sorting out the hot pork cobs, so that's fine by me!
F x

milann

Mmmm……enjoy the hot pork cobs. I bought a big piece of pork with crackling at weekend and cut it on half so have 2 lots of roast pork to look forward to 😁

EssexHebridean

I'd been considering what we could do about growing the tromboncino squashes too - our old next door neighbours at the flat grew them (using a fabulous frame system that they erected for them to climb over which meant they could grow above their ordinary courgettes- very ingenious!) so thank you for the useful info about them! Just need to work out some form of ingenious frame of our own, now! 

We are also on a mission to make November a low spend month on groceries - I want to see how much I can salvage from the budget to bolster the money available to spend on christmas food, for a start - there is the turkey to pay for (not cheap!) and I will also want to both make room in the budget and the freezer for several of the really nice hams that are available at a good price around such seasons of the year and can be used to provide such a lot of meals. The more I can save on general spending this month, the more there will be in the budget to subsidise such things! 

themadvix

I'd like to grow my squashes upwards at the allotment next year too - I think a sturdy frame will be required, but it will free up a lot of space!

Blackcats

Another one who is going to tighten up the November food budget.  I need to accurately track my grocery spends because I've ended October with a surplus which isn't because I've done well but because I haven't recorded spends properly.  

I also have way too much in the freezer - I know this because a frozen loaf launched itself at me yesterday and attempted to break a toe or two.