From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

mumtoomany

Morning Greying. I too agree about the prices rising far too quickly. Until a year or so ago, I could feed two people on around a pound a day, with the addition of home grown and home reared food. Now I'm spending around £120 per month. A small part of this is me being a little more relaxed with the food budget, our income has doubled since this time last year, (when it was around £700 per month), but mostly due to prices increasing. Keep up the good work. 

Probably preaching to the converted, but I used to walk with reluctant children and now with reluctant grandchildren, we played the thesaurus game. Start with an adjective, say old, then in turn you have to find a synonym. 

Spent the morning planting pea seedlings, seed potatoes to go in after lunch, hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

Greying_Pilgrim

mumtoomany said:

Morning Greying. I too agree about the prices rising far too quickly. Until a year or so ago, I could feed two people on around a pound a day, with the addition of home grown and home reared food. Now I'm spending around £120 per month. A small part of this is me being a little more relaxed with the food budget, our income has doubled since this time last year, (when it was around £700 per month), but mostly due to prices increasing. Keep up the good work.

**Sigh**  Does anyone else just want to move in with mumtoomany and feel nurtured, nourished and loved???  Heavens, I'd accept a berth in with the piggly wigglies, I bet I'd be in clover! 😁

Your budgeting skills are just astonishing mumtoomany, and whilst you (and dadtoomany) work very hard to put that HG and home reared food onto your table, and spend time to do it, it does illustrate just how hard it's getting, if you are finding such a difference.

HG peas (and broad beans), yuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmm 😁  

Thanks for popping in, I love reading all about your gardening and farming adventures.  And it goes without saying I remain green with envy about your local grocers 😁👍

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Yum!  Just made a pan of Carrot, Fennel seed and lentil soup (Sabrina Ghayour) for lunch.  You'll have to work out whether I added in any swede or not.......... 😉  Such a good soup, and my sort of ingredients.  Clean plates, no leftovers 😁  I don't blitz the soup at all - no need, the red lentils cook down, and I dice the veg quite small.   I did add "fresh" (frozen) coriander to my version.

Greying X

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim said:

RT - I am sorry, i didn't respond to your post yesterday.  Is your target £1 - now £1.50, for your main 'cooked' meal and is it per person?  or is it for what you eat 3x a day?  I know what you mean about the price of a 'staples' shop.  It always seems like my MrL shop is just staples each week, I never seem to buy much "cream" or added extras.  By the time you've got the 'bread, milk & butter' type purchases, you've spent a chunk of money.  

Still, at least we're all trying, and we're supporting each other as we try to navigate our way.  Certainly for me, that support means the world.

Greying X

Haha - not to worry my dear - I figured we had cross-posted & left it at that 😉

The target referred to is for our main cooked (evening meal) which mostly makes 4 servings to be fair, as it's cheaper than cooking only 2 servings,  The extras go into packed lunch usually stored in the freezer or are left in the fridge if they will be eaten up soon.  I used to proudly be able to say that the cost worked out to £1 per portion for each 'cook' (so about 4 total for ingredients), but now with everything creeping up is usually works out to on average 1.50 a head or 6 for ingredients.  The only way to keep those costs down is the yellow sticker or 0li0 route,

As an aside - BF & lunch are included in our staples costing rather than the main meal - pimped up porridge or something with eggs in the morning, and leftovers or soup or a veg heavy wrap for lunch.  So overall it used to cost about 5 a day to feed both of us simple home-cooked meals.  Now it's at least a third more, so about 7.50 a day, and that is taking into account the bargains & stock-cupboard ingredients, if we bought everything at full price, I'm sure that would be 10 a day! So the pre-pandemic budget of 35 pounds a week, 152 a month or 1820 a year has now gone up to 53 a week, 228 a month or 2730 a year!

Oddly when I refer to a monthly staples shop, that also includes household goods such as sponges, soap, loo roll, etc. but again we used to be able to do that for 50 tops, and and yesterday was up at 77! (Wine is a separate budget entirely which OH funds himself as I don't partake more than once or twice a year & that is when the bottle has been gifted! - He now does surveys to cover this each month as his favorite bottle has more than doubled in price!)

Thanks for enquiring GP, as that working out was really an eye-opener to the horror of the reality of inflation!

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim said:

Yum!  Just made a pan of Carrot, Fennel seed and lentil soup (Sabrina Ghayour) for lunch.  You'll have to work out whether I added in any swede or not.......... 😉  Such a good soup, and my sort of ingredients.  Clean plates, no leftovers 😁  I don't blitz the soup at all - no need, the red lentils cook down, and I dice the veg quite small.   I did add "fresh" (frozen) coriander to my version.

Greying X

Yum - that recipe looks good - I may have to sneak it into our meal plan for the week!

redofromstart

Yes that soup looks interesting - thank you for sharing. Do you use the sesame oil? I have fennel seeds but not the oil 

Greying_Pilgrim

RT - yes, I always like to "look" at what i do again, as it does at the very least confirm you're doing things right, or can't do any better.  Although I appreciate that your analysis has opened a can of worms re inflationary impacts for your household  😬 - sorry!

redo - sorry, have been off gallivanting this morn, so have only just seen your question.  I think I am right in saying the sesame oil was used to 'dress' the soup at the end on top of the labneh, so totally optional imho.  Veg oil is mentioned higher up the ingredients list, so I assume (and did it myself) you fry off the onions/ginger/veg in that and the sesame oil is purely for dressing.  Not got my recipe card directly in front of me, but I think I'm giving the correct info.

Been swimming this morning with chums and we benefitted from an unexpected offer of 'adults pay, kids go free', which was a saving not to be sniffed at, and very welcome 😁 My chum is on the same wavelength with MSing, and so we all took and enjoyed a pack up lunch! 😁  So we had very good VFM for today's activity - which you can't always claim when participating in children's holiday activities!

All the key energy and household DD's have now gone out (for this half of the month) and everything is sort of on an even keel.  I am wondering whether the energy DD will cover this month's useage - if the CH stays off for much of the next 3 weeks, we might just squeak under.

I need to compile my shopping list as I plan to go food shopping tomorrow.  We're low on several things - although clearly not carrots, swede, potatoes, cabbage........... 'tis like being in MrMcGregor's garden! 🤣

I've not given any thought to what's for tea yet.  We were so full from soup yesterday, we ended up having sangers for tea!  Not a problem when you're on your holibobs really.  

Right, need to check the cozzies and towels have washed, rinsed and spun.  Might be worth popping them on the line for a while - the breeze is quite good.  

Ta for popping by.  Appreciated.

Greying X

Cheery_Daff

Glad you had a lovely MSE activity this morning Greying! Although if you're now even considering putting washing on the line, your weather is clearly far less vile than ours is currently!

Greying_Pilgrim

Cheery_Daff said:

Glad you had a lovely MSE activity this morning Greying! Although if you're now even considering putting washing on the line, your weather is clearly far less vile than ours is currently!

We've got very strong, cold wind at the mo. Cheery, very overcast and gloomy, but currently it is dry.  The stuff may only dry because it's all lightweight.  I don't suppose it will be bone dry, because it's so cold out, but a little better to come back in the house, and might not need to switch the de-humidifier on, so every little helps.  

I've just been checking the weather for the weekend, and it's forecast to be stormy again - really makes planning a pain, as I'm minded not to travel, and then the storm doesn't come to fruition 🙁  Not sure what to do for the best.  Although I did check the mEt office site too, not just the beebeecee this time.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

So shopping is done.

I have spent a whopping total of £39.48.  Most was in MrL for the 'normal' shop.  I then went to MrS and picked up some kimchi that was on n*ctar price.  I love kimchi (and yes, I know you can make your own - I've never been brave enough to try), but hadn't been able to consider it at the price it has now gone to (esp in c00p)  Anyway, I had spotted the price a while back before i got my card, and decided to indulge today.  i have got the beetroot version to try.  I know I like the 'conventional' one, and I like beetroot, so maybe a marriage made in heaven?  I did also buy some of those small, round, red wax coated cheeses aimed at children.  We don't have them often, but the card price was 9p less than they are in MrL (and I'm not sure if there are 10 in the MrL pack - there are 12 in the MrS), so I thought a treat was in order.  They won't be scoffed at every meal.  I also had cause to go to the metropolitan town across the way, so called into the huge MrT and got some YS's bread rolls 2 x 6 wholemeal for 30p and a pack of 'luxury' hot x buns for 52p.  

DH is looking after LG today.  We had to have 'words' as he gets so focused on jobs he wants to achieve, that he forgets that the small person needs/likes his company and wants to do stuff together whilst they are off school 🙄  I shouldn't have to explain this stuff, but it had got to the point of silliness.  DH is a great dad to our child, but he does get siloed in his thinking - plus didn't have a brilliant role model in his own family.  And of course all our peers had their kids at the "proper" time, so he's no one to model 'great dad' behaviour in real-time (although he doesn't really need to 'see' it - he knows what to do, just needs to do it.........)

We ended up having lentil bobotie (out of the freezer) for tea last night, with baked tatties for DH and I and rice for LG, I also shredded up the last of the (Easter) cabbage and steamed that.  Clean plates all round.  The tatties were the MrS Easter offering ones, and although they weren't baking pot. size, I baked them and they tasted of potato - which is not quite as nonsense a statement as it sounds, and it made a nice change.

The swimming gear dried really well yesterday, I left it out until the early evening.  So that is ready to put away today.  

Can't think of owt else MSE at the mo.  Ta for popping in.  Appreciated.  Greatly.

Greying X