From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Baileys_Babe

I put my free items in separately from my main shop sometimes first, other times second. On other occasions if that day's shop has triggered a freebie and I won't be back in store before it has timed out I will do the same as @rtandon27 take my shop to the car and then pop back in for the freebie.

Greying_Pilgrim

Thanks for all the advice re MrL's app. It's super helpful, and you can bet that if you were all in MrL when I was shopping, you'd see a crazy auld wumman, talking to herself, placing an item on the belt, then a divider, then an item, then a divider…… 🤣

Re the 'updating', my experience yesterday was that it didn't update immediately, however I didn't specifically check, as I didn't think I had spent enough to trigger a new 'freebie'. It appeared to update as I opened the app up again at home (and could, therefore have changed whilst I was still in the carpark - although the wifi at our stores is dire). In this instance, it wasn't an issue, but yes, for sure in future I shall be looking much sooner after my shop if a coupon/offer is on the cusp of being available.

Lemony spinach hotpot, dhal and rice was for tea last night. I was going to make a soup from Derek Sarno's vegan book, but whilst i had plenty of tatties, I had forgotten that I didn't, in fact, have any sweetcorn left - and given it was - in essence - a tattie/sweetcorn soup, it was a bit of a non-starter. So I raided the freezer, and thankfully came up with some l/o's and boiled up some basmati.

A clothes wash is on, as we have nice weather predicted.

Not too sure what will be for tea tonight, but it is likely to be on a salad plate vibe.

Ta for popping by and helping.

Greying X

kayannie

I think you'll find that the MrL app will be very useful. In my opinion (for what it's worth!), it's the most useful of any of the loyalty schemes. The free veg item even includes the large bag of potatoes which costs just under £4 if I remember correctly. Having said that, the last time I had those, the quality wasn't too good.

KAx

Greying_Pilgrim

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81981137#Comment_81981137

I've found with those bags - which on balance aren't any worse than some 'farm shop/gate' bagged tatties I've bought - the key is to take note of which variety is in the bag (no mean feat to manhandle them to find the label, as they ain't light). They do differ wildly, and the tatties alter accordingly. Also, for me, the 'mesh' at the back causes a problem, as they go green/sprout, despite my efforts to house them in a darkened cupboard etc. So yes, a bit hit and miss, but no worse (in my limited experience), that other suppliers. The baby tatties (which unfortunately I didn't bother logging which variety they were supposed to be), that came in last week's green box turned out lovely. They cooked well (par-boiling), and made lovely "wedges". You can bet if I'd bought them (from anywhere), specifically for that purpose, they've have not been as good 🤣

If MrL give me targetted offers - even if overall there are less of them - that give me some form of discount on stuff I actually buy, then the app will immediately become better than any other loyalty card I have. At the moment MrS seem to be doing their best to lose me as a customer, which is a shame, as there are some products I prefer getting from there, and I will happily buy eg their milk/carrots/onions/baked beans/cheese etc, if I'm already in store.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good evening MFW'rs

No money spent today. 2 loads of washing are out on the line - including a towel wash, so I'm chuffed with that.

Tea was a salad bowl. I was nattering over on VintageHistorian's thread (sorry VH!), about recipes/salads/food (I know, how so very unlike me…… 😉), and LadysummerIsle mentioned a warm salad, not dependent on lettuce leaves, nor cucumber, nor tomato for that matter, so I figured I would have a bash at it. Although I did buy some butter beans yesterday, notionally they are for May, and I figured I would use cannellini beans instead. The salad also used roasted carrots - so I used some of the baby carrots that FF sell, and I 'roasted' then in the SC whilst I did some tatties too. It worked, the carrots were sweet, but shrivelled to virtually nowt, so with hindsight, i would have roasted all that I had, and run them through the salad. I did a quick pickle of a red onion as my 'onion' in the salad - I think you can use roasted onion too. It's a lovely recipe, and one that I'll keep/use again - especially as 'roasting' carrots in the SC works so well. They were like tiny sweets or sultanas 😁 I did do a little vinagrette, just oil, vinegar and S&P - which again, worked well, and brought everything together. I did boiled brown rice (buffs halo……), and a salad from Leon Book 4 which is called 'Mackerel skies salad'. In the recipe book it uses smoked mackerel - which I leave out, but it's essentially a beetroot coleslaw, but i didn't have any white cabbage. So I improvised, as I did have an iceberg lettuce from last weeks green box. It worked! I was so pleased. I don't routinely buy iceberg lettuce, but as it was in the box, I wanted to use it. I also made a tomato salad (tommies from the green box in a vinagrette and add some basil), and I made a recipe from JO's Eat yo'self healthy cook book which was called 'smash' salad. I didn't 'smash' the ingredients - I know that is a thing. I also used parsnip rather than the carrot in the recipe, as there was carrot in the mackerel skies salad and Ladysummerisle's salad. It worked better than I thought, and I did add in some lemon juice which helped to 'cook' the parsnip (sliced thinly). In hindsight, it would have worked better with a ripe pear, over the apple that I did use (as per recipe), but i didn't have one. I also didn't put feta in this recipe, as there was feta in Ladysummerisle's salad.

Clockwise from top: tomato salad, smash salad, Ladysummerisle's bean & Feta salad, Mackerel Skies salad (Leon bk 4), and brown rice.

DH loved it, as did I. LG was in a funk, so they said they didn't like any of it 🙄 I had done them a baked potato rather than rice, and they did, at least, eat that up, and nibble bits of the bean & feta salad, and some of the mackerel skies salad - along with some seeds and other bits.

One more meal to conjour up before the month end. And hopefully I can stay out of the shops, as I only have 5p of April's budget left 😱 At least we can have baked tatties for tea tomorrow, as I cooked those today.

I can't think of anything else MSE that I've achieved, so I'm off to VH's thread to thank Ladysummerisle for such a fab recipe.

Greying X

beanielou

Just to make you laugh. I burnt a baked potato yesterday. The shame. I was looking forward to it too. In my defence they were very small.

Greying_Pilgrim

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81981955#Comment_81981955

Oh beanie - it's easy to do - I've lost count of the one's I've over-miked and there's a solid lump for a base/inside the tattie ☹️

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

A lovely blue-skyed, sunny start with us.

I need to pop into Greying Town to do some banking today.

I forgot to mention, with last night's tea, I had hoped to put avocado on top, or even make an avocado dressing. I had the 'dubious' avocado that I had got in last week's green box from MrL. It was supposed to be a large 'ready to eat' fruit. However, as I mentioned, it was rock hard. I left it on the side, and whilst it appeared to soften slightly, the colour of the outer skin of the avocado led me to believe it was probably a dud. I was right. When I cut it open, there was a ring of black (is it some sort of avocado virus or something?) and the inner bit and around the stone was a weird white - not even pale green - white. So that went straight into the compost. It was slightly niggling, as the avocado had pushed me to select that box (although I've had great use of the contents, so for sure I am not complaining), but that is the luck of the draw with the boxes. And it's not like you don't sometimes have icky produce that you've bought yourself, or had delivered and paid full whack for. Cooking with the green box contents is akin to 'ready steady cook', and sometimes you get a feast, and sometimes you don't. I accept that. Hopefully the 2 avocados that were in this week's box will yield something edible for me 😁

Gosh, I can't believe we're at the end of April. Doesn't seem 5 minutes since it started. We've packed a lot in with having the Easter hols. It was enjoyable, a little stressy at times, but we've certainly made some memories. Onwards and upwards!

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

The day has just got better, and better weatherwise. We're very blessed. The clothes line is full. I've done some of DH's workwear, and some of his 'DiY/tatting about at home clothes. They, naturally, will be dirty/dusty again within 5 seconds flat - probably at the weekend, but y'know, I tried.

Nature notes today concern the spotting of not one, but a pair of treecreepers! I was walking along and happened to look at a rather large cedar tree (don't ask me what sort - but it does have very large, decorative cones). As I looked, I realised that there was a bird, on the trunk, in profile and the way it was on the bark, I thought it was a treecreeper (wrong colour for a nuthatch, although similar stance/clutch). So I was watching this bird as it was hopping about this tree, marvelling at how good it's camouflage was, when I happened to turn and noticed another bird flit to the cedar behind. I moved very slowly (yes, I did get stared at by other pavement users), and discovered that it too was a tree creeper. The second bird then flew to the first, and they appeared to be checking out the tree trunk together. Absolutely wonderful and a lovely 3 or 4 minutes spent seeing something that I don't routinely see 😁 Especially not a pair,

I did the money moving around, and we're solvent and there is money in the right places to pay the bills for May (YAY! - who says budgeting is boring, it buys peace of mind each month).

I popped into M&$ to see if there were any brown bag bananas (there weren't), but I did pick up a YS'd bag of red onions for 66p. Slightly cheaper than MrL's PoTW last week, but also, we're heading into salad making season, and most of the time, I prefer to use red onions for salads. As I won't break into the bag until May at least, I have added the spend to my May grocery budget, and updated my siggie figgie and the May GC thread.

As I had finished what I needed to do in Greying Town, I opted to go to the library over the chazzers. I had a rustle through the cook book section. It's been highly thinned to what it used to be (and hopefully that just means books have been distributed to other libraries), but there was very little to tempt me. By the time you'd discarded the 'celebrittee' chefs for having too many ingredients, or processes that lasted over 3 days, and the recipes that used highly seasonal, highly scarce; nuts, berries, seeds, leaves and funghi, there wasn't alot left. I have come away with one of Rukmini Iyer's books tho, so maybe I'll get some new curry inspo.

I had the last bit of the JO's 'smash' salad for lunch. I have another recipe that uses parsnips in a salad - I think it is a M0r0 recipe (poss. from their cookbook casa m0r0), but one thing that I've noted from using parsnips in place of carrots in the Jaymee recipe, is that they taste stunning by day 2. I realise that using apple (or pear), makes it difficult to keep the salad attractive (depending on how much red beetroot you use, I suppose), and I think the addition of lemon is vital, but taste wise, it was really good today. You really wouldn't immediately think you were eating parsnip.

Line drying, watching nature TV, eating leftovers; go me and my frugal ways………. 🤣🤣🤣🤪

Greying X

KajiKita

Don't knock your frugal ways 😊 You are so skilled, adept and adaptable at it I honestly think you could be a 'fluencer at it!

Btw, did I miss an update on Mr GP? I know he had his scan and there was nothing much gleaned from that, but what was / is the next step(s)? (Please do let him know that an MSE'r was asking after him if that would help 'motivate' required action … 😉)

KK