From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Greying_Pilgrim

Morning!

Humdinger - I'd rather not do detail if you don't mind, primarily because there has never been a masterplan, we always seem to be 'reacting' rather than setting off from the front foot, and although I wouldn't cast myself as renegade, I'm not really into following convention/the herd.  We've had some luck, we've had some misfortune.  DH and I are in some ways alike, and in some ways very different.  I was brought up in rural, make do & mend poverty, he was brought up in a striving household that sought to have 'all the shiney things to keep up with the Smiths, Joneses, Browns, Fortescue-McWilliams' etc etc.......  We're both practical, but DH is much more of a 'doer', but very often my 'stop and think this through' trait helps direct endeavour, and stops the waste of time/energy/money.  I learnt a long time ago that "stuff" doesn't make you happy and in the end, weighs you down, whereas DH craves more stuff, comfort and luxury.  DH likes to get from A to B, I prefer to wander.......... We're united in our belief that our best ever creation was LG.......

Greying X

kayannie

GP - Just chipping in on the subject of baking without eggs. I sometimes make a date & walnut cake which was a war time recipe passed on to me by my m.i.l. This uses a teaspoon of bicarb of soda stirred into a cup of very hot water as an egg substitute. I find it useful when I'm baking for a vegan but have not tried it in other recipes.
KA

Greying_Pilgrim

Thanks kayannie, I always write down 'egg-free' recipes if I think we will like them/use them, as there are times when there's more month than money, or you can't go shopping for some reason.  The cake recipe that I based yesterday's pudding on was from 'Eat Well, Spend Less' by Sarah Flower.  I will keep it as a 'pudding' recipe, but also intend to try it out at some point to see how it 'cakes'.  I should imagine that it will be suitable for freezing in slices, as otherwise, might the lack of egg means it dries out quicker?? 🤔 I normally freeze cake in slices anyway - otherwise we munch it all! 🤣

Just waiting for the wash to complete, then once I've pegged out, I'm off to the shops.  

Greying X

rtandon27

We also store cake slices in the freezer. Usually banana bread or some other loaf type creation. OH moans that my baking is too healthy as it often has carrot or parsnip or courgette in it, but is happy to scoff a slice when it is proffered.  He does say it tastes better with thick cream or custard but as we never have either in the house, I'm not sure what he's basing this assessment on.

redofromstart

rtandon27 said:

He does say it tastes better with thick cream or custard but as we never have either in the house, I'm not sure what he's basing this assessment on.

Wishful thinking maybe ?

in_need_of_direction

Doesn’t everything dessert based taste better with cream and/or custard?

Greying_Pilgrim

Right, scores on the doors.  I am glad I chose to take the car to MrL, as.......... there were green boxes!  I can't remember the last time there were green boxes, with contents that were worth consideration.  I had to make a quick decision - a bag of oven chips, or a green box?  As there were salad potatoes in the box I was considering, I figured we could have new potato 'chips' or potato salad with our burgers slated for tomorrow's tea, plus have all the other items to use in the box - versus - oven chips with tomorrow's tea and some leftover in the freezer.  So it became a no-brainer and I chose a box.  They were all pretty much of a muchness, but it's all useful stuff a mix of fruit and veg, including blood oranges - which I know aren't everyone's jam, but it makes a change.  

I bought;  a green box, 4 pints of milk and a packet of wholemeal baps.  I spent £3.44 in MrL.  And we have all meals covered for today and tomorrow.  I have spent - in total for February £99.63 in cash and £40.50 in store vouchers (MrT and MrS) - so I suppose £140.13/£140.50, on groceries.  We've not eaten out, or had any takeaways this month - so £140.13, plus freezer/cupboard contents constitutes what we've eaten/will eat.  The couple of half-term picnics/taking a sandwich for a walk instances, all used food from the cupboard or used home made things, although we got treated to some cafe cake too.  

I'm pretty impressed with that - I didn't think it could be done, especially with getting off to a bit of a poor start in MrT.  I've had no green boxes (prior to today) and only some YS'd help, although most items were max 50% off - not that I'm complaining, but no '10p end of the trading day wonders' fell into my basket this month. We did receive a couple of useful items from the food waste diversion programme too. 

LG would probably say there was a bit too much curry......  but at least they were different types - we didn't have constant potato curry, or carrot curry or swede curry - although I was tempted to ride that train...... 🤣  We've certainly not starved, and we've still eaten the rainbow, maybe not every single meal, of every single day, but there's been variety.  

It's not sustainable, because the freezers are now virtually empty.  But I've been able to encourage LG to accept fruit for school, rather than rely on bought (allegedly, apparently)"healthy" snacks - which is something that I'd really like to continue.  We've relied more on soup, but a) LG is far more comfortable eating a wide variety of soups these days and b) t'as been the weather for it!  I've been nudged to try recipes/ideas to stretch ingredients a little further and it's worked 😁 and the "saved" grocery budget money from February can stay in the windows pot, which has nearly doubled the works bonus that DH received.  WIN! 😁

Greying X

themadvix

Well done GP - that's a very impressive result!

ETA: Blood oranges are my favourite 🤤

kayannie

Well done on your February grocery spend and on getting a green box! The funny thing is that I too got a box yesterday & it's only the 2nd one this year, (both on a Wednesday) but it had a good variety of fruit & veg including (blood oranges!). The downside was that I'd not taken the car but gone on the bus with my quite large shopping trolley & had other shopping too. I had a good workout when I got off the bus with a heavy trolley to drag up a very steep hill home!
KA

EssexHebridean

What Vix said about the blood oranges!! (Even if they DO tend to dribble bright red juice down your chin!) 

Great result on the shopping front Greying - I need to do a proper add up of where we're at - I've not managed to add as much to the pot this month as last I don't think, but we are certainly still in credit!