Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Suffolk_lass

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81987894#Comment_81987894

Yes, me too. And Mum would cycle into the nearby town where there was a market at 4pm to buy the end of day leftovers at vastly reduced prices. She still (at 96) tells the tale of buying a single rib of beef roasting joint from the butcher who quipped it would make a good sized sandwich for my Dad. She retorted that it was going to do roast for four on Sunday, cold with mash on Monday, and the rest would be minced with bread and onion and marmite or an oxo cube to have on Tuesday. 12 portions (albeit 6 were children's) from a single rib joint. The butcher was firmly put in his place and subsequently offered her bits and pieces (that he was going to give his dog!) that she shamelessly accepted telling him she would use it to feed us children!

rtandon27

Haha - I too have fond memories of my Gran stretching the Sunday roast over 3-4 days for 6-8 of us! Gran had the appetite of a bird so I'd count it as 3 small portions and 4-5 regular portions for each meal. Then again our meals also consisted of lots of veg and starch to round out the protein portions! …and the transformation from roast to soup over the week was absolutely incredible. I always looked forward to the day where it was minced and stuffed into mash for croquettes the fine art of home-making really tootook skill!

badmemory

I remember being taken into the butchers when rationing was still on (1952 maybe). Smile at the butcher, what wasn't said was & protect me from his advances. I had to go but my sister wasn't allowed because she was always miserable.

foxgloves

I regularly get 3 days of meals & usually a lunch from a roast (only the 2 of us here though), but honestly, some of these women who came before us, they had really lived through hard times & really knew how to make ingredients stretch. Even when I was at school studying for my O-level in Food & Nutrition (which obviously included cookery practical), which was 1978 to 1980, the textbook amounts for meat per person were 4oz for things like steak, pork, chicken, etc, & 2oz for mince! That seems tiny now, doesn't it? I think UK post-war/rationing era portion sizes were subsequently influenced by American-size portions, from fast food, etc. I can't imagine Mr F being satisfied being presented with a plate bearing a 4oz steak, that's for sure. Mince was (& still is, I suppose) seen as very economical because basing it on 2oz per portion, lots of other things would be added, such as for a cottage pie, which makes sure it adds up to a sum of more than its parts.

I remember that if my Nana had been particularly frugal with her baking…..ie sausage rolls, my Grandad would comment that 'one bite (pronounced 'boite' as he had a broad Suffolk accent) & yer up to it and another boite an' yer past it'. If it was something like a jam tart with stingy levels of filling, his comment would be "She're woiped the knoife on it'. Dear old Grandad, such a lovely man & quietly funny.

My Great Nana was one of 12 children on ag lab/fishing smack wages & one of her sisters used to feed the family on sparrow pie. I still have that Great Great Aunty's big salting crock & often wonder what it contained back in the day.

foxgloves

And onto today's budget-friendly activity:

I have done nothing in the garden whatsoever as it has felt chilly, we've had on & off showers & I felt that the little plants I intended to plant out would probably prefer to venture forth on a warmer day.

*Cleared the ironing pile (as in DID IT, not cleared it conveniently away out of sight!) Very boring indeed but nice to have fresh outfits to wear. Decided to save a dress I'd kind of ear-marked for the bin for gardening gear. I can get pretty muddy so it seemed the frugal thing to do.

*Did a few budget updates which got overlooked yesterday.

*Did a few surveys & got rid of a wodge of emails while I had my laptop open. I am only very rarely tempted to buy anything from promotional emails but I still like to see what the offers are from shops that I like.

*Did a new up-to-date freezer list. Now why did we need to do that? Cue the tale of Mr F's visit to our local market butcher this morning…….

*…..He primarily visited to select some of the £20 deal packs for stocking up our freezer, which he did & commented that we really do need to get there early in future as there was lots more choice. We are always up & about early, but as a market trader, the butcher starts serving at 7am & the locals are really cottoning onto this. He also bought a whole pork loin for £20 which we've had before & we know can be divided up to make a LOT of meals. So £40 spent there in total & when he got home, our kitchen turned into a butcher's counter as he decided it made sense to divide everything up into the quantities/portion sizes we need before freezing & it is true that there is less chance of waste that way. So he got on with that while I considered the best use of the pork loin. Decided on cutting it up for a large roasting joint, from which we will get other knock-on meals, enough for making pulled pork & some for Chilean pork & beans, which is another slow cooker recipe I like to cook now & again. And there was still enough for 2 decent-sized pork steaks for another meal. Well, with the 5 packs for £20 offer too, we badly needed a new freezer list as knowledge is power in all things, is it not, including food planning/budgets? So with him calling out, me writing down & Soot 'helping' by starting an astonishingly loud & persistent lunch pester, we made a new list & were amazed by how many meals are now contained within. Have already done this month's master meal plan but left a few gaps for some of the items on the special deal, but we now have sufficient meat to take us well into the summer. With the supermarket shopping list too (even though we had already spent that £40 on meat) we came in only £8.80 over this week's target grocery spend. I'm really pleased with that because we are going to need very little in the way of food next week, just topping up the usual fresh stuff, eggs, yoghurt, etc.

Well, he was so pleased with himself coming home with that bargainaceous haul - you'd have thought he'd gone out clad only in mammoth skins & wielding a club before dragging it all back to the cave!

Just going to have the quickest trot down to the greenhouse to make sure nothing is desperate for water, then I am going to find some warm socks. I keep putting my slippers away for summer, the getting them out again…..I'm not really a chilly mortal but I can't bear cold feet. Good job I have plenty of hand-knitted socks!

Aiming for an early start in the garden tomorrow morning if it is dry.

F x

Sun_Addict

Well done to Mr F coming back with his haul of bargains. I bet he’s got an epic man stew planned with some of that 😆