Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

System

hmm, just noticed that maybe im not such an intelligent 'cretaure' after all....

sophiesmum_2

My kefir grains arrived this morning and are now safely tucked up in a litre of milk and working on turning it into quark(soft very low fat cheese) for me:D We love quark, had lots of it on German /Austrian holidays and love it with sweet or savoury things.You can get it over here now but it is over 50p for a small tub and prefer to make my own anyway - hope it works out okay:rolleyes:

Agree with everyone else about food prices, things have been increasing by large amounts recently. I am still working on my project to see what items I would need to be self sufficient in food for 6 months.
We have a large floor to ceiling storage cupboard in our hall which i am thinking of converting to a pantry/store. between that and the freezer i reckon i could do it, with maybe just a little input of fresh fruit and veg, until veggie plot starts paying back. We now use uht milk so that would have to be stored too but could also introduce some dried milk to bulk it out. I don't use much tinned food, mostly tinned tomatoes, baked beans and sometimes kidney beans, chick peas and lentils for when you don't have time to soak them, oh and the occasional tin of fruit in juice or tuna.
Most of the stores would be dried goods, flours, rices, pastas, pulses, herbs,stock cubes,salt, sugar,custard powder,jelly, dried fruit, oats, tea,coffee etc.
The freezer would have to hold, meat, fish and quorn ready to make into batch cooking and return to freezer for future use.
I am toying with the idea of spending a large amount on stocking up in bulk and seeing if I can last 6 months. Say £400 This is for 3/4 adults.
But we do eat 2 meals a week with the oldies for free too.
I already make jam, marmalade,pickles, chutney,yoghurt, bread,cakes,sausages, and batch cook. It would mean using basic ingredients and making as much of the stuff we eat as possible, but i reckon it could work. We have basically been living out of stores since january with just little top ups so it shouldn't be too hard.
Anyone feel like joining me????

looby-loo_2

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
Why don't men just get it??

I shopped at the weekend. I bought a weeks worth of food. And other bits. I spent less than £40
He called in to the supermarket (where I never go) 'for a few bits' and spent £33!!!

4 x organic loaves @ x 91p - when my home made bread is sitting on the side and he had it for breakfast and said it was really good

3 x butter @ 97p - when he WATCHED me make 350g of butter on Sunday which again he agree was lovely (cost me £1)

Carrot cake @ £1.31 - when he watched me take afruit loaf (his favorite) and chocolate cake out of the oven on Sunday. (He bought it because he though I liked it, well yes, I like all cake but how much can I eat!)

Haddock filletes @ 4.98 - ate for his lunch - when I had cooked a ham at the weekend for lunches this week

F/Range eggs @ 2.92 - when I told him I got them from the farm shop (in fact I helped the farmer collect them) for £1.40

Tissues 2 @ 3.07 - when I buy shop brand same for 1.88

And he recons he's going to retire next summer 'cos we can live quite cheaply now' :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I left the house at 7.30 am and got home at 6.15. Normal day for me. Then I cooked from scratch for DD2 and DS2 to save a couple of quid

Marru

Well I haven't adopted a Jumble-Bee but I can now tell that I have THREE NEW MEN IN MY LIFE!!!! :j And they are all gorgeous!!

My rats are here! I don't know how two girls ended up being three boys but never mind. The lady from the rescue kindly brought them here today with all kinds of accessories (until I can get my own that I have ordered) and food and I signed the papers and forgot to ask how much she wants. Oh well I can always send a donation cheque to the rescue. I better win lots of money on Thursday to keep this addiction of mine going. When I moved here in the beginning of September it was me, my DD and that old labrador. Then it was two Piggy girls, then foster labrador boy, then two Piggy boys and now three rat boys. (I think that the nice, animal mad, rhubarb cruble baking man needs to be vet to cope with all this madness.)

The downside of all the excitement was that DD ended up going to bed 1.5 h late kicking and screaming but she has settled now and so are my new boys. All sound asleep when my Piggies are busy munching their hay. I better go and figure out what to have for supper. I was going to boil some potatoes but it is now too late for that. I guess it is an omelette again.


Marru

PS Looby-Loo, we were posting at the same time so missed your message earlier. OUCH!! Can't you just give him a pocket money so he can't do quite that much damage?

System

sophiesmum i am too disorganised/lacking in storage space to join you, but i would love to find out about how you cope with it!
i love the idea

Janey51

Jumble-bee..looking good and becoming even more tempting ;)DH has new shed of generous proportions which may be able to accomodate a smallish jumble-bee. But must be able to show interest in various kinds of tools (interest does not necessarily have to be genuine)
Do jumble-bees cast hair? Do they lie quietly with computer/laptop/books or do they chew things?
Would they be prepared to chase sheep out of garden if needed?

Janey51

Oh Looby I fear your DH is genetically related to mine. Never ever ever entrust members of this clan with money greater in value than 20p or disastrous frugal busting consequences will result :rotfl:

System

maybe everyone should replace frugalbusting OHs with pet jumble-bees?

Janey - interest in tools could be faked (as long as jumble-bees are not sharing the shed with them!), hair is cast, but they have a natural habit of removing drain hair - kirby grips tend to be shed all over the place through, they tend not to chew things, but they can be quite messy, and they could be trained to chase sheep via a training method involving lots of treats and titbits

MrDT

sophiesmum wrote: »

Most of the stores would be dried goods, flours, rices, pastas, pulses, herbs,stock cubes,salt, sugar,custard powder,jelly, dried fruit, oats, tea,coffee etc.

Hi sophiesmum, just wondering how exactly you'd store the flour etc in the cupboard. Just in the bag? I think I'm a bit too cautious with rice, flour, oats etc, I'd rather throw some unused stuff out and buy a new bag after a while incase some nasty weevil type things have started living in there. Am I being completely idiotic?

Do you have to store dry stuff in airtight plastic tubs or something? Or am I worrying about nothing? I usually buy little packs that I will use in a short time because I don't like a pack to be open too long before eating, but I know this costs me FAR more in the long run. I know people used to keep food all year long before the days of supermarkets and plastic tubs and preservatives and so on, so I suppose there must be a way of keeping stuff fresh and safe for aaaaages. I guess airtight tubs would do the trick, but I have no space in the kitchen as it stands, nevermind adding cumbersome tubs to the equation! Thanks

nyk - I'm really glad I quit smoking now, thanks for the maths lesson Part of me wishes I used to smoke more now though so the saving would be higher lol twisted logic or what? :rotfl: I was only a part timer, but I reckon kicking my 80 a week habit has saved me over a grand in the last year :money:Saved even more cutting down on alcohol, but I have no intention of ever 'quitting' alcohol

sophiesmum_2

Hi Mr DT.
The cupboard is very cool and dry so ideal storage conditions but I will be using plastic lidded storage crates for stuff like bags of flour,sugar etc.
Grains and pulses are easy to store and last ages. Most of the weevils and stuff come with your flour anyway and originate right back at the flour milling and storage stages.I never have a problem using up bags of stuff as i batch cook large amounts of pulses etc and make my own bread daily so 2 x3lb bags of flour only last a week.:D

If you have any weevils they are easy to see, you don't need to throw things out just in case:eek: