Frugal Living 2011 - the preparation stage

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

Ooo let me know how you get on! Looking at the picture made my tummy rumble. :D

It's bubbling away on the stove at the moment. It smells amazing! I'm going to do some costings later and figure out how much it cost per portion. I'm going to freeze some of it for lunches when I go back to work next week.

Minestrone costings

Onions 20p (Bought three for 59p, used one)
Carrots 15p (Bought bag of carrots for 39p, used less than half a bag)
Celery 49p
Cabbage 59p
Garlic 10p approx (Used three cloves)
Tinned tomatoes 66p (Used two tins and they were 3 for £1)
Potatoes 30p (Bag was 90p, I used four large ones)
Stock cubes 4p (4 x value ones used for 2L of stock)
Cannellini beans 88p (2 tins)
Tomato puree 20p (ish?!)

I make that a total of £3.61 which has made about 5L of soup. I think that should be enough for 10-12 portions if served with bread which makes it around 30p per portion if I can make it stretch to 12 portions (Mr Fresian eats like a horse!!)

It's really nice too, I'd recommend you try the recipe

Hi everyone

mum came in today having been to B&Q she got 40 assorted gift bows for 50p :j as people were looking at this i thought it worth a mention

wishing everyone a happy christmas

keep safe and warm :beer:

Thanks NualaBuala for your encouraging words are they always welcomed when you are feeling a bit low as I am at the moment. My LOL (live out lover) of ten years told me a few weeks ago it was all over and yes, I knew something was up but didn't think it was this. :mad: Anyway I'm a big girl now and I will survive ( breaks into song) in fact when things like this happen I get a bit bl**dy minded and even more determined to cope....but at least I can tell you all on here. Rant over now thanks and back to the serious matter in hand, frugal living.

Kerfuffle I liked your idea of a fixed and flexible list for my budget I think I will have a go at that then perhaps it will help me to keep a bit focused on what can be worked on to reduce my expenses. This year for some reason I've got a bit mixed up and not given as much attention to the total amounts as I should have.

blondemuppet I understand what you mean about things we all do as normal that maybe others will see as a new idea. I read what L_the-L said about reducing her food wastage and one thing I do is to buy the economical size of veg and freeze the unused ones for later especially when its something like sprouts that seem to go a bit manky if not used straight away.

I'm planning to get to bed a bit earlier also as it will help to keep my oil usage down but having just noticed the time its obvious that once more I failed, so goodnight all.

Oh that's really hard (((((EFC))))) but clearly you have bucketloads of moxie. Take extra-special care of yourself and we are all here for you whenever you need us. Break-ups are so hard and I find people often encourage you to a) treat yourself by overspending b) treat yourself by overeating c) treat yourself by overdrinking d) treat yourself by going on the rebound. So if you can find a frugal and healthy way of taking good care of yourself I think you could make a fortune from writing a self-help book!

Hmmm, not sure if Cheryl has planted subliminal messages in this thread but running comes to mind as something that would tick the frugal and healthy feelgood boxes.