Monthly Archives: August 2010

Didn’t she do well?

Budgeting

Today I did my ‘big shop’ and I spent £31.11 and I now I have basis of most meals for two weeks. I just make everything go a very long way and I always buy the ‘value/basics’ range in which ever supermarket I use. It’s not proven to be any less nutritious and I promise you I can make anything taste good. So here is a delve into my uber-frugal world of food and making everything go a very long way.

To start with I stock take and look at what I can do with what I already have. I already have: 2 battered pieces of Pollock, 2 packs of sausages, 4 pork steaks, 3 salmon fillets. I have the basis of six meals there and will make: fish/chips and mushy peas, sausages with onion gravy, mash and veg, sausages and veggie casserole with spicy cous cous, sweet and sour pork and veggie rice, roast pork steaks with apple jelly, roast potatoes, veg and gravy, steamed salmon with cous cous and veggies. I’m going back to work on Thursday and will have much less time so I need to be stocked up and ready so I don’t have to shop.
Even though there is just the two of us at home, I still buy the family size multi-pack deals of meat - all the supermarkets are doing this now. You just pick the packs you like. They had lamb steaks and beef burgers but I always choose the best value and that which gives you the most of what you pay for.
I then divide the meat up into bags in the portion size that we’ll eat, DB eat one third more than me, so 250g of minced beef means 100g for me and 150g for him. Those are small portions, but we eat a lot of veg with our meal and three quarters of our plate will be vegetables; healthy and frugal.

I then bag everything and freeze if until I want it.
As I said, I always buy the value range and 2 kilos of chicken portions (there are ten quarters in the bag) were £2.79 so 27p per portion, I use it for casserole, pie, stew etc and it goes a very long way, I’ll even serve it as roast chicken portions if I have a large family meal to cook for.
We look at a fresh chicken as a real treat! We usually get three meals plus stock from one of them, or I can use it to feed six people for Sunday roast.
I also bulk out my budget with frozen veggies, they are just as nutritious, easy and extremely economical. The stir fry mix is especially good, the jars of sweet and sour sauce are only 30p and I have half a bag of quorn in the freezer so dinner will be quick, easy, cheap and very tasty.
So here is my menu planning for the next two weeks, I will pick and choose each day, what we fancy and I will also cook a bulk of this on Saturday ready to eat throughout the next busy week.

Breakfast - Porridge with homemade jam/toast and homemade jams/jellies/

Lunch - sandwiches, usually tuna/mayo or cheese with homemade chutney - or left overs in a Tupperware tub to reheat at work.

Snacks - homemade cakes, bakewell tart, carrot sticks

Dinners: 1- fish/chips and mushy peas, 2- sausage with onion gravy, mash and veg, 3- sausage and veggie casserole with spicy cous cous, 3 -sweet and sour pork and veggie rice, 5 -roast pork steaks with apple jelly, roast potatoes, veg and gravy. 6. steamed/grilled salmon cous cous and veggies. 7 Roast chicken, stuffing, roast spuds, veg gravy. 8. Chicken pie and veg. 9 Cottage pie and veg. 10 Lasagne and salad. 11. Spaghetti Bolognaise. 12. Pork cooked with cider and cream, with mashed potatoes and gravy. 13 Chicken casserole with veggie rice. 14. Cog au vin with roast potatoes and veggies………………….there’s plenty more besides and hopefully I can stretch out what I have even further.

‘Afters’: black berry and apple crumble and custard (I bought lots of the sachets of instant custard which are 9p a sachet and it’s more than enough for 2), I have enough blackberries in the freezer to keep us going for weeks on end.

I also have plenty of ingredients for veggie options if we get sick of meat, plenty of ingredients for cakes, biscuits and snacks and plenty of simple alternatives such as baked beans if we just want to eat them with toast. Including the ingredients we have in the house already, such as flour, UHT milk/cream then our total food spend for the two of us for most weeks is £20; which includes pet food, cleaning products and toiletries.
I feel like a frugal warrior preparing for battle and make sure I’m stocked up with the basics so I never need to pop the shops because that’s when it’s easy to let the budget slip out of control.
I also made sure I’m taken care of, I’ve scraped every last scrap of moisturiser out of the pot I have and I’m trying the version I found in Tesco today, which is similar to the product I usually buy from Lidl or Aldi; it smells wonderful and it’s one of the few toiletries that I can’t make myself. It cost £1.99 and as I saved £1.64 on the multi-buy offer today- I consider it a treat for 35p

Squeezing in a little bit more!

Budgeting

I didn’t think I had anything to write about today; we’ve simply worked around the house; which may not be every one’s idea of fun for a bank holiday Monday, but we spent it together.

What a day! We’ve ‘put the garden to bed’. We’ve had a massive chop, slash, compost and shred day. We’ve stacked and moved logs. We’ve learnt how to split logs………….. and have decided to hire a log splitter and have a noisy generator driven day of compressed splitting and stacking. My patio is bare again as the veggies have been picked, pickled or just eaten. All that remains is my mini-green house full of chilli peppers and as yet, I have not decided what to do with them. Some will go into chutney and some have an undecided fate.

We’ve cleaned the car, swept the drive, scrubbed the deck and patio and slept in the sun.

Today is budget day where we look ahead at possible expenses and start to make extra cuts from our budget to accommodate them. It’s now I start to get ready for the January cost of taxing the car, as well as the possible repairs which may not be covered under warranty (it’s making a worrying noise! and is off to the garage on Wednesday). Our slim budget means we just have to go short of anything ‘nice’ when we have expenses to meet. But, we’ll worry about that on Wednesday.

The good news is that we made an extra £65 on eBay this week, which will go towards something we need. It’s been a busy but good end to a fantastic summer holiday.

Frugal gifts for the financially challenged.

frugal gifts

We’re off to Princetown on Dartmoor to visit friends, to walk on Dartmoor and then stay for supper. It’s always nice to take gifts and luckily I have an abundance at home. So I took some of my homemade soap decorated with lavender from my garden.
Some homemade chutney, one of the friends in particular loves green tomato chutney.

I picked more damsons this morning and will take a couple of pounds as the lady of the house is a fine jam maker and I’m sure she will do something interesting with the damsons. Being frugal does not mean an end to generosity and it’s lovely to have so much that I can take.

Cooking with leftovers

frugal food

I’ve had half a bag of spinach rattling around my freezer for months and I’ve finally got round to using it up. I love spinach and feta pie. I have no idea what shape it’s supposed to be, or if the contents are to be layered or mixed up together. So here is how I made it.

First make flaky/puff pastry. Instead of the half fat to flour ratio that you would use for shortcrust, with flaky/puff you use 3/4 fat to flour. I used 8 oz of plain flour and 6 oz of fat (2 marg and 4 of solid vegetable fat) I rubbed in 2 oz marg into the sifted flour, to which I added a sprinkle of salt. I then added cubes of the vegetable fat. I added cold water until I had the right consistency and then chilled the pastry. When you roll it out, the pockets of fat create the layers, you don’t need to keep rolling and adding fat in the way you would for a croissant. Another really simple method can be found on HERE > ON DELIA ONLINE.

To make the filling I used a tablespoon of olive oil, four small onions out of the garden and three cloves of garlic, all chopped and fried gently until soft. I then poured in the frozen spinach, which was a bit watery and seemed like too little, so I grated three carrots and added those too. I cooked them through. I added a really good dash of grated nutmeg, which is wonderful with spinach as well as a good handful of chopped parsley from the garden. Those two ingredients really give it some flavour.

I then crumbled a lump of feta(not actually feta - Lidl sells Greek style cheese and it’s 85p for a block and just as good as the Greek version) cheese (I have made this before by crumbling smoked tofu for vegetarians) into two beaten eggs. I then mixed everything together, so the egg would start to cook through in the hot spinach.

I rolled out a shape big enough for the base of my ‘pie’ covered it with the filling and covered the rest. I have no idea what the edge should look like, so in true Cornish maid style - I crimped it like a pasty. I baked it until golden.
When cooked it has a firm texture and the pastry was light and crumbly. We had half for lunch with salad and we’ll have half with some cooked veggies (more beans from the garden) for supper.
It’s got to be one of the world’s simplest pie recipes and much cheaper to make yourself than by buying filo pastry, which is in the Greek recipe of Spanakotyropita, which the recipe is based on. It’s certainly a good way to use spinach and I think any grated cheese would do, or even cottage cheese if you had nothing else. I used to buy flaky pastry as I thought it was difficult to make, but I think it’s even easier than shortcrust.

Homemade cleaning products

frugal home

After reading Foster Mummy’s and The Troll family’s advice on home laundry soap making and as I had run out of ecover I decided to use some of my homemade soap to make laundry soap. I started off by just grating the soap and tried it in warmish water, which is all I wash my clothes in. It didn’t dissolve quickly enough so I blitzed it through the food processor with the washing soda (85p from Morrisons) I used an equal weight of washing soda with soap.
The result was a really fine soap powder, which is not dissimilar to Ecover’s own soap powder. I try to use natural products as I don’t want my home full of chemicals (it’s just a personal choice) but eco-products are expensive and you sometimes need to soak stains out in salt water as they don’t contain digestive enzymes. Nonetheless, the washing soda element of my homemade soap powder will certainly get rid of most of the dirt in our clothes.
I had also run out of furniture polish. I don’t use it very often as a damp cloth is all that is needed to get rid of the dust. However, I do like my retro 60’s dining suite (£80 bought from the Cornish Guardian’s classified and came home in the back of the car with the seats folded down) to have a sheen when I clean it. I mixed equal amounts of olive oil with lemon juice, then a liberal sprinkling of lemon essential oil. I only made a bit as the natural oils tend to lose their aroma and I will just mix a bit more when I need it. (BTW - 1 litre of olive oil is £3 in Asda - you could always use 99p sunflower oil but the thick olive oil seems best for getting a shine and no my dining room does not smell of salad dressing, but of the lemon oil.)

Following Foster Mummy’s advice (here is the link to her blog) I used my soap mixture to clean the floor. I just boiled the kettle, poured that into a bucket with a spoonful of the soap mixture and now my floors are wonderfully clean.

I’m pleased to report that the clothes were washed OK, the floors and wooden furniture are gleaming and hooray, it was a really sunny washday and all the bedding made it onto the line and onto the bed in one day.

Owl be seeing you!

Days out, Frugal fashion

A day out to be cheered up by Foster Mummy and Man Wonderful today. I’ve been totally spoilt! FM cooked the most delicious Dal and flat bread for lunch and then we went for a spot of charity shop shopping in the little nearby town of Plympton.

I read recently about a local man, who has pet owls and takes them for a walk every day. People talk to him about his owls and he and his owls are delightful I was mesmerised by them. I love birds, they always lift my spirits, even the finches all over the blackberry bushes are delightful. Here is the news article about Mr Russell….I feel as if I’ve met someone really special today! Another part of my spoilt rotten day!! Well I met the owl man and his owls today.

Owl Man: I feel famous

WALKING AGAIN: Russell Burt and a feathered friend

WALKING AGAIN: Russell Burt and a feathered friend

PLYMPTON’S “Owl Man” Russell Burt says the support he received during his dispute with Plymouth City Council has made him feel famous, writes Gayle McDonald.

The 74-year-old pensioner was banned from walking with his owls in Plympton after the council said they posed a health and safety risk to the public.

Readers of The Herald rallied behind Mr Burt, who has been walking his owls for nine years. The council has now said Mr Burt is allowed to walk with his owls in public.

Since the dispute, Mr Burt has received media attention from national papers, radio stations and magazines. He even heard about it when he was on holiday in Italy.

He says: “I feel famous. I didn’t realise how liked I was.

“I would like to thank The Herald and everyone who showed their support.”

Family friend Zoe Forsyth said all the attention had been quite a shock.

She added: “He’s just a little old man who likes to walk his owls.”

Mr Burt shows his owls at local care homes and events. He does not charge but accepts donations to Woodside Animal Welfare Trust.

He has seven owls including Ben, a Bengal eagle owl, and Spot, an African spotted eagle owl. FROM ‘THIS IS DEVON’ 24/08/10

Here I am with one of Mr Russell’s owls. I love English eccentricity, I knew a man in Fowey, when I lived there, who used to take half a dozen ferrets for a walk on leads to the British Legion for his pint every day! Long live individuality!!!
Plympton was a fabulous place to shop, with plenty of independent local retailers. I bought a couple of bags of local tomatoes.
I bought three tee shirts for £1 each and a long tunic style jumper for £2.95 from the Hospice shop and Woodside Animal Shelter shop. We also went to the local craft shop and I bought three balls of wool for £1.50. FM and I had a really good root around and we managed to buy everything we wanted off the sale rails in the charity shops. So my shopping splurge cost £7.50 and I think it was worth that to have lunch and be taken out by wonderful friends and meeting the owl man was just magic.

Great British Waste Menu

Uncategorized




Did you see it? on the telly box? A bunch of brilliant chefs went to Billingsgate and other markets and got the heads, feet, offal etc from the butchers, packets of food from skips (OOOOOOOOOOH! that makes me cross that supermarkets and shops throw the food away! Give it to the elderly or students, or young families! don’t throw it away!!!!) They also found fruit and veg that was perfectly good but about to be thrown away. They used their common sense and discretion and of course their talents and cooked the food. The menu was uncertain until they sourced the ingredients but they wanted to make the point that we should use this food up and not throw it away!

If you didn’t see it then you can do so here -CLICKETY HERE >> here’s the link to the i-player .

They didn’t need to make a TV programme and drag posh chefs out of their restaurants, they could have visited blog land. We’ve been making banquets out of things in tins, dried up carrots we’d forgotten at the bottom of the fridge, spuds that have sprouted and bananas that have gone black.

I have this principle. Ignore the date on packets!! Lift the lid - look! Can you see mould? No move to step 2. Sniff! Does it smell normal? If so move to step 3? Eat the flootin‘ stuff and don’t throw it away. We always keep dried goods in our cupboards and can conjure up a dip, a burger, a casserole from anything we have.

We know exactly what to do with pork knuckles, with offal (remember my faggots??? ) we know how to make fish stock from heads and tails, we mush up soft fruit into a cake and nothing gets wasted. I am quite happy to eat yogurt weeks past the sell by date if there’s nothing wrong with it; I’ve been known to give cereals a quick bake if they’ve gone soft or to add them to cakes too! As for the cheap pulses we have in the back of the cupboard, we can make soups, casseroles, dips, burgers…………….and on and one.

I’m glad the BBC didn’t send those lovely chefs round to my house to cook with waste as they wouldn’t have found any!!!

What do we go to work for?

Debt reduction




“Normal” is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, the car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it”

Ellen Goodman

Today is a bit crap to be honest. Its a crap cake, smothered in crap, with crap frosting, with whippy crap on top decorated with crap sprinkles. It’s raining, my car is making a funny noise which might indicate an imminent huge expense, it’s cold and I went to work yesterday (in my unpaid holiday) worked all day and today, I’ve worked all day again. I love teaching, but I don’ t like my 60 hour working week when I actually get paid for 32.5 hours! Nor do I like working in my holidays. I’ve read my own blog today and I’ve counted the sum of my days and they are good, nonetheless I want to work to live and not the other way round. I’m in the have no choice but to work bracket as I’ve determined my own future through my own choices and now I must pay…………for a while. Below is the dream I hang on to and I’m almost in a position to downsize and make that a reality.

I have to remember the plan; where I’m going and how I’m going to get there. My personal debts, will be non-existent in 2012 or sooner. I will have received two incremental pay rises and will be better off. Sell big house (economy may be better? or not!) buy tiny two down, with garden big enough to grow a few veggies, a couple of chickens and some where to dry the washing and pay off the mortgage by 2018! Who knows what I might do after I have paid off the mortgage - Oh I know!!!! I will work to do things I like doing instead of just surviving.
Sound familiar??

Now I really must stop moaning and get back to work!

A thing of beauty!

frugal food

As they say, you don’t measure taste with a spirit level. My pie is wonky but lovely. The apples are from my parent’s neighbour’s neighbour’s garden. A tree leans over the neighbours wall, the immediate neighbours were out…………….Dad was in and out of the garden like a Ninja and scooped up all of the apples off the lawn. By four o clock this afternoon, they were in a pie! and by seven o clock this evening they were safely tucked upside myself and Dearly Beloved! So, freeganism rules again! woohoo…………….and Dad! You’ve not lost your touch!

I’m just a scrubber!

frugal home


It’s the last week of my holiday and I’ve taken a break from craft and cooking today. I had some lovely friends around for lunch yesterday, who do not embrace my frugal ways and were vehement that they could not live without a tumble drier. I can………….because I watch the skies!

You have a stoop to your walk when you dry in the open. You glance sky wards and walk around your garden looking at the direction that the clouds take. You long for a breeze and get the washing out even if it’s not sunny if there’s a good breeze. I’ve washed all the washing today and dried it, in between the showers. I also iron shirts whilst slightly damp (I don’t use fabric conditioner as I like the starchiness) and then hang clothes on hangers in door ways to ‘finish’ if still slightly damp - plus the final ‘airing’ gives the house a clean laundry smell.

I’ve also enjoyed cleaning the house today. I’ve used my own soap, rubbed it over a scrubby sponge to clean the bath and sink, gone over the grimy bits with bicarbonate of soda, scrubbed the loo out with vinegar. Polished the wooden furniture with a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice. Cleaned all the work surfaces in the kitchen with a mixture of grated soap dissolved in hot water and a swish of vinegar to get rid of any grease.

I prop open every door and window on a blowy day and give the house a good blow through and I’ve dabbed essential oil on a damp cloth and put that in a sunny window so now the lemony smell has spread around the house.

It’s been a lovely day of scrubbing and cleaning and drying the washing out side.