Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

KajiKita

Awesome as ever 😊

I agree about the earrings btw. I don't sell stuff online (apart from a few household bits on FBMP- which reminds me, I have a butler's sink to get rid of!) and bronze earrings wouldn't strike me as being worth the hassle either.

KK

MillQueen

That sounds like you had a very productive day. Satisfying and inspiring. I am just stopping by to say hello, as I joined this week, so it is very nice to meet you.

Makingabobor2

Which survey site pays in £5 coffee vouchers?

ziggy2407

Hi @foxgloves and everyone

I'm back but mainly lurking as life is grim and need a bit of normality - missing you and the "small things" gang

foxgloves

@Dakota_Rose - Yes, once the LBM has struck, it has to become a way of life so that our actions help, rather than hinder the progress we want to make.

@MillQueen - Hello & welcome!

@Makingabobor2 - £5 coffee shop e-vouchers are one of the rewards you can get with your Ips*s survey points. Just cashed out my 3rd one. There is a lot more choice of rewards than previously.

@ziggy2407 - Feel free to lurk - sorry to hear things are so difficult at the moment. Sending my best wishes & Soot, who has just rocked up at the side of my desk sends a purr.

foxgloves

Hello Friday Frugalistas,

I managed to get a section of our front courtyard swept last night before it got too dark. It will need another go because although the roofers did clean up before they left, it was raining hard & was difficult to sweep effectively. I felt ridiculously pleased even to get the wheelie bins back in the right place! Intended to carry on with some outdoor activity today, but it is raining so apart from a quick trot to the postbox to post a letter & some stuff I've decluttered to my sister, it has been indoor activities. Apart from all the usual household running stuff which I do during the day, I am also targeting annoying items of clutter, which if dealt with, could be put away or chucked. So far I have removed a scrappy recipe which I pinned to the fridge months ago ready to test & actually made up a batch - a red lentil hummus recipe. It seems perfectly nice, though I think it could take a bit more cayenne pepper. Shall try some on toast for lunch & see what Mr F thinks of it later. That will decide whether it gets copied into my recipe notebook or joins other scrap paper in the recycling bin.

And another test. Have had 2 different grout/anti-mould cleaners hanging about on standby to test on a small area of affected tiles in a hard-to-reach corner of our bathroom. Am sick of seeing the bottles standing there! Have tested the 1st one - some improvement, but could do better (sounds like some of my school reports) & the 2nd one is currently doing its work waiting for me to assess the results.

More items of clutter - a sock & pile of scrap paper & sachet of catnip I got out to make a free kicker-toy for the cats……then just left it. I will make it today - it's an idea I saw on FB. The last one they had cost £6, which isn't a lot, but it lasted barely a couple of weeks as they loved savaging it so much, they clawed open the seams, then again, after I'd done a re-stitch. Let's see how a free one goes!

Also intend to finish unpicking the pretty tent curtain from last weekend's salvage to convert it into a free summery table runner.

Another use-it-up meal tonight as the leftover pastry I froze a couple of week ago should be enough to make another quiche.

Oh, that's reminded me I meant to get back to @KajiKita (& anyone else who was wondering) about why we think doing monthly meal planning seems to help with grocery budget overspends…..will do a follow-on post.

F x

foxgloves

@KajiKita & anyone else interested in meal planning - I have just finished our February Master meal plan this morning, so have been pondering your question about why I think planning monthly is improving the overspends we were getting while we were doing weekly plans. We are definitely seeing more underspends now & in fact we have started another virtual pot labelled 'Grocery Budget Underspends' so that in future, this money doesn't just get re-absorbed into the general budget, but can remain ring-fenced for food when we see a good offer or for pantry re-stock items.

I start the monthly plan by writing a list of all the dates in my notebook to enable me to come up with the right amount of meals. I start with weekends, which are usually Mr F's cooking days (along with Weds, as he really likes cooking too). He often likes to do a roast dinner - a joint, a chicken, a ham so once those are written in, I know that the following Mondays & Tuesdays will be be something using up the leftovers, so that fills in those days. Then I add in any new recipes or things I particularly want to cook & Mr F will sometimes say things like, "Oh can you put that quorn curry on the list, as I fancy making it", for example, or he might suddenly decide he wants to make a cauliflower cheese. Then we both chip in with ideas using what we've got in the freezer, Mr F is endlessly doing freezer tetris so always seems to know what is lurking in its icy depths. So that fills in several more days on the plan. Then we fill in the simple stuff - things like pesto pasta, fish, chicken pieces & we always include a couple of jacket potato nights where we can have whatever we fancy for a topping as long as it's something we've got in. We always leave 2 or 3 nights blank because there will invariably be something which needs using or a really good offer might present itself while we are shopping.

My thinking is that because I am looking to fill in 28 to 31 days on a monthly list instead of just 7, that there is a psychological effect of thinking 'this is a LOT of meals' so I am probably looking to be more creative in terms of using what we already have in stock or can make with minimal additional purchases only. I think I would also have to credit our local market butcher who has such competitive deals that we are spending a lot less on meat than when we bought it from the supermarket. We are also very keen on 'cook once, eat twice' which is highly suitable for a 2-person household when most recipes serve 4. When Mr F is cooking at the weekend, he sometimes makes 2 things & we would eat the 1st one on Saturday & Monday & the other one on Sunday & Tuesday. That fills 4 days on the meal plan without even trying. And I do batch cook every so often - more when we are harvesting our home grown veg & have gluts of things, but they do last in the freezer so over the past few months we have been eating up quite a lot of those, as well as my post-Christmas turkey batch cooks which again, cuts down on supermarket shopping lists. So while I am not sure I can come up with a definitive answer to your question, I found it interesting to think about, & think it is mostly the fact that compiling a plan of around 30 meals instead of 7 takes more time, so I probably do make more effort, plan more meaningfully, & this has been paying off in terms of seeing some welcome small underspends.

F x

Makingabobor2

That's a really good explanation FG and makes so much sense. I tend to only do 1 to 2 weeks at a times, so think I will try and do 4 weeks if I can, as my budget period is 4 weekly.

joedenise

I do monthly meal plans and have done for a number of years. It started when I was working and I've been retired for about 15 years, so that I knew exactly what to get out of the freezer each day so there wasn't a mad panic when we got home to think about what to eat.

I actually meal plan all 3 meals a day and I find it makes life so much easier to know what to eat each day. It's never set in stone as things always crop up so meals just remain in the freezer or if it's something which is going to be cooked then the ingredients can either stay in the fridge or frozen depending on what it is.

I can't imagine not planning like this!

rtandon27

We do meal plans one week at at time, I find the consistency of a weekly overview makes me think about which days we have time to cook and which days we are relying on warming up freezer meals. also gives both of us the opportunity to see if appetites or tastes have changed as in any given week, one or the other of us goes off something or the other.