Making the Most of ......

Making the most of everything means that nothing can be allowed to go to waste.  So when we got back late on Sunday evening after a long day of property viewing and I found a very sorry for itself pot of parsley on the kitchen windowsill, (oops I had forgotten to give it enough water to ride out a day in full sunlight) I gave it a good drink.  When 24 hours later this hadn't done the trick for all the plant, although the middle section had perked up a bit, I decided to give it a 'crop'.

 

 

So yesterday all the good bits were snipped off and open frozen, then decanted into a tub in the freezer, the rest was snipped into a bowl for the chickens and then the pot of stalks was given a good watering and left in the sunshine for an hour or so.  Now it's back on the kitchen windowsill and already this morning there is signs of life in the form of tiny leaves reappearing.

 

So a second crop of Parsley coming up :-)

 

 

This was the main fridge last week ...

 

...and this is it now.

 

Still lots of fresh things left thank goodness, but lots more space.

 

Worktop before ...

 

... worktop after.

 

I simply combined the sliced Pineapple with crushed meringues and topped with some cream and a sprinkling of the flake pieces from the jar, this made us both desserts for two nights over the Bank holiday weekend.  All gone now and room for all my electrical gadgets to sit handily ready for use without entirely clogging up the worktop.

 

 

Small fridge before ...

 

 

 

... and small fridge after.

 

It's like playing spot the difference!!

 

I'm only showing the areas that show the most obvious difference each week at the moment,  you would barely notice the difference in the chest freezer or cupboards and I guess it will be like this for a week or so.

 

Off to the greenhouse now to get some more seeds in trays, I have to have fresh stuff growing all through the season with as few gaps as possible if we are to see this £2 House Keeping Challenge through.

 

Sue xx

Filling the Freezer!!

 

In this process of using up the foods we have, before buying anymore you'd expect the freezer to be emptying, but during this first week of my challenge it's proving quite the opposite.

 

I decided to concentrate on using up food from the fridge and the worktops this week, to get food that that would go off either used or stored in a better way before it could, and to get food that is lying around the place looking messy gone and the surfaces clear.

 

 

Carrots from the fridge were washed, chopped and open frozen before being tipped into boxes.

 



 

Likewise two oranges that were in a gift hamper were washed and sliced and then open frozen in half slices.

 

 

Deliciously juicy, but we just don't eat oranges very often ...

 

 

... but in a long cool drink they are gorgeous. 

 

These two slices didn't fit in the box when I came to box them up, so I used them straight away :-)

 

 

A joint of beef that was in the fridge, has been cooked, half of it was used for one evening meal for Lovely Hubby and more slices from that half were taken cold with salad to work the next day, all the trimmings were given to the dogs for their tea that night.

  

 

After chilling the other half overnight in the fridge to make for easier for slicing, it was thinly sliced and about two thirds of it put into tubs with gravy. 

 

 

Once frozen the bags were tied up and both popped into one tub and clearly labelled, they too are now in the freezer, the basis for two more meals.  The other third of the thinly sliced meat was again taken with salad for lunch for LH 

 

So one small joint of beef has made the basis for five meals for LH and one extremely tasty tea for the dogs.

 

So now added to the freezer are -

 

Two boxes sliced carrots

 

One box of sliced oranges

 

One tub of sliced Roast beef in gravy.

 

 

No wonder it's looking so full even after a good sort out and stocktake.  I have now written down everything that is in there (almost getting frostbite in the process) and I'm going to do another inventory so I can see how long this should last us and make the best possible use of what we have.

 

I'm trying my best NOT to spend ANY money on food this week AT ALL.

 

Pictures of the rapidly emptying fridge will be put up tomorrow.

 

Sue xx

 

Food on Credit - My Story

 

 

Yesterday breaking our journey for a coffee at the motorway services we watched on the huge tv screen this news report.

 

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/struggling-families-using-loans-buy-122016096.html

 

We watched with incredulity and sadness and then we started chatting about it. 

 

I bet lots of these families buying their weekly shopping on the credit card or on borrowed money are doing so with a home stuffed full to the brim with modern technology.  I bet their kids have their own flat screen televisions, I bet they and their children all have mobile phones that are either on contracts or topped up on a regular basis.  I bet there are games consoles lying around the home unused and unplayed with as the next 'latest thing' has come along.  I wouldn't be surprised to see stacks of Dvds, watched once and then left either lying around gathering dust or on placed shelves never to be watched again.

 

All this and possibly more languishing at home and they are out flexing the plastic to buy food.  Whether it be ready meals, as they have never really got into cooking or haven't been taught how to prepare from scratch, or food that they make from scratch because the ready meal budget went out of the window when the credit card was down to it's last few hundred pounds of available credit and panic set in.

 

Well sometimes you simply have to decide to call it a day. 

 

Now this isn't the sort of Blog that tells you all about how to set your finances in order there are much better sites that can do that for you.  But this is my Blog.  The blog of someone who has been there and done that, wore the t shirt to prove it, until it fell to rags and there simply wasn't a penny left on the credit card to buy me a new one.

 

We ended up in this trap,  buying our weekly food on credit cards.   At first we had used them for furniture we thought we 'had to have' to keep our house looking nice like our friends and neighbours, then it was treats we 'thought we deserved' and then finally because of paying back all our available cash to meet the minimum payments on cards we ended up buying food to keep ourselves alive.  Bad decisions, we were young and this was what we thought everyone else was doing so we did too.

 

Then one day I woke up and smelt the roses, they were dead in the vase that was bought with the credit card and it's friends, that were put on the consolidation loan that we paid off regularly for a few months and improved our credit rating so well that we were offered another credit card, and then we began the cycle all over again only now we had a consolidation loan and the credit cards.

 

Those were the darkest and most dismal days of my life, I brought my boys up through all this and then we reached the end.  A marriage that fell apart, both left with debt, equal shares I was never one to shirk responsibility,  only I took my share and began the slow process of paying it all back. 

 

And I did every single penny. 

 

Nothing was replaced that wasn't absolutely vital, everything that was unneeded (and in some cases still being paid for on those blasted credit cards and loans) was sold,  the bills were put in order of priority, the first and most important one being to keep a roof over mine and my sons heads, rent, council tax, electricity etc.  Money over after allowing for the direct debits was budgeted to within a penny.  Enough food to keep us alive, we did without 'treats' for a while unless yellow stickered treats fell into our laps or family gave us hampers of goodies or gifts at Christmas and birthdays. 

 

Bit by bit, penny by penny, pound by pound the debts went down.  I snowballed payments from one debt onto others as they were payed off, until by the time I had met Lovely Hubby I was clear.  Clear of all debt and breathing freely again.  My previous marital home had been sold (I was bought out by my ex believe it or not who kept up with his life in debt),  and the cash I got payed off the final few debts and got me a deposit on a small house, paid for the work that needed doing to it and got me a second hand car.

 

This time I could really stop and smell the roses, bought on yellow stickered offer at the supermarket and placed in the 10p 'Next' vase bought from the car boot sale.  The food we ate from the charity shop plates was even more tasty for being cooked from scratch from end of day bargains,  my son waited until Christmas or his birthday to get a new game for his games console and then got super canny and used the brilliant 'trade in' scheme that the computer game shop used for games.  Trading in the ones he no longer played for the one his mates raved about and were the 'must' have games of the moment.

 

 

We had less - but we lived more.

 

 

We cooked together, we talked, we watched television in the same room, until Christmas and the need for way too much sport for his poor Mum to ever to be able to sit through, brought him his own television for his own room.

 

 

We managed and it was good.

 

 

 

 

So my advice, for what it's worth.  If you are one of these families struggling to pay for your food on credit, and I sincerely hope you are not, take the first steps to change things NOW.

 

 

Cut up the credit cards, if that is not possible or seems just too scary take an empty icecream tub fill it full of water and drop your credit cards in there.  Place the whole thing at the back of the freezer and forget about it for as long as you can.  If you have the urge to spend it on unnecessary things by the time your brick has thawed you might have lost some of that urge!!

 

 

Look around your home for things you don't use, don't need, don't like.  Sell them, at car boot sales, on Ebay, on Amazon, to your friends, to your family, at the end of your driveway but get rid of what you don't need.  Use that cash to live on for the next few weeks and make minimum payments on all of your debts but one, that one chuck every last penny at until it's gone.  (You can choose either the lowest amount first to give yourself a psycological boost, or do as I did and start on the one with the highest interest.)  Whichever way you do it once this first debt is paid off move onto the next one, paying it's minimum payment PLUS all the money that you had been paying off the first debt,every month until that one vanishes too,  keep going this way until you are free.

 

 

Freedom is wonderful - Freedom is priceless.

 

I hope this helps someone, somewhere.

 

*** *** ***

 

 

Now I'm off out to plant some lettuces, even at the supermaket you can't get 400 lettuces for 50p (the cost of my packet of seeds), but don't panic I'm only really planting about 30 of them :-)

If all 30 of them are ready at the same time I will sell half of them at a car boot sale and that will mean that once again my lettuces for this year will have made me a profit!!

Free food, not food on credit  - that's my path now.

 

Sue xx

 

The Year of Less - Project 333 - Review of Season 1

 

 

At the end of last year I joined in with Project 333, (read more about it HERE) and I can honestly say it's been brilliant. It makes day to day dressing so easy, and when Lovely Hubby surprises me (which is not very often ... he knows that's a very dangerous thing to do) with a meal or a day out getting ready to go takes me no time at all. There's not much to think about when there are only a few items in the wardrobe that are earmarked as suitable for 'special occasions' the fact they aren't reserved for special occasions at all, but they are available for me to wear whenever I want to, is great as there simply aren't any pieces that languish at the back of the wardrobe.

 

This morning in amongst the Blogs that landed in my emails I went on a voyage of discovery and found this http://dailyconnoisseur.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/ten-item-wardrobe-questions-week-off.html a brilliant piece about having only 10 core items in your wardrobe, which is essentially the same, as you can have extras to fill out your 10 core pieces. We can all do this sort of thing but in the way that suits us.

 

Well I'm a bit late but it's time for me to re-jig my Project 333 items,  I have worn the last lot since December last year when I began, owing to the rather chilly freezing weather we've had up until this week there has been no need to switch to a lighter weight wardrobe as I was still mostly in jumpers.  But now with a hint of Spring finally in the air I do feel the need to get some lighter things out and into action.

 

So how did my first round of Project 333 go?  Well here is a little reflect back on the actual clothes.

 

Most of the clothes got worn and worn and turned out to be just right for me and my life, they will go forward to be worn again when the weather turns Autumnal later this year. A couple didn't get worn at all and a few won't be joining in another round and here they are and the reasons.

 

 

Check M&S Shirt with a silver stripe running through.

 

This shirt not worn at all. 

 

How do I know, well at the start I hung everything in the wardrobe with the hangers facing the opposite way to how I normally have them.  Putting things back after wearing or washing I hung them my normal way.  This hanger is still facing the wrong way!!  This shirt may stay for this round of 333.

 

 

 Orange M&S Jumper

This was worn once!!

 

I don't know why I bought it (except that it is in Lovely Hubby's favourite colour), it has a round neck, I prefer jumpers with a vee, it has three quarter length sleeves, something I feel uncomfortable in, I can wear long sleeves pushed up but not 3/4, a bit weird that.  SO it was sold at the last car boot and some of the cost re-couped.

 

 

Green T Shirt

 

Worn once and then relegated to work-wear. 

 

It was too baggy and just felt 'wrong'.  When you have so few clothes available to you everything has to feel 'right'.

 

Brown cords. 

 

I don't know why I included these, maybe because they looked suitable 'wintery', maybe because they were a 'Next' bargain for just £1 at a car boot sale, maybe I thought they would be warm.  But I didn't wear them out once, I put them on to wear but they were just once again 'wrong'.  I've decided I don't like cords ....full stop.  They are on the car boot rail for next time.

 

M&S Blue Jeans

 

Bought from a charity shop a few years ago for £3.99, I most definitely got my money's worth, they fell apart last week, luckily when I got home after a day out!

 

 

Green Next Jumper

 

Bought new at the start of Autumn, never worn.  I lived in the cream version that I had bought at the same time.  This will be the basis for next Winters round of Project 333.  Still a brand new cardigan :-)

 

 

Next Jumper

 

Bought new at the same time as the cardigans, worn so many times, but now almost worn out so this will go forward into next years workwear.

 

 

Cream 'Tu' Jumper

 

Worn a few times, but then it got baggy and felt much too big.  When  I was on holiday with Suky, the Pug she was cold at night (I did seem to pick the week with the most extreme cold weather conditions), so I tucked her up in her bed with this, she loved cuddling into it for a few weeks and then it went in the bin.

 

 

 These accessories were all a brilliant success but I wore the woolly scarf to bits and I had to sadly throw it away last  week, it was unrepairable :-(

 

 

 

These were all brilliant successes and, apart from the woolly scarf, will all be used next Autumn.

 

 

The shoes and boots were all good choices and have survived well enough to be brought back into action another time.

 

 

 

And this is the star of the show.

 

Worn more than any other item of clothing, when out and about, when cold in the house, worn with all the other items underneath, it seemed to match everything and cosy up every outfit.  The colour made my heart sing and my skin light up in the most flattering way.  I felt good in it, and that to me is everything.  It has washed and washed and still looks new.  If possible I need to find a lightweight Summer equivalent, as this has a thick fleecy lining and I feel would be too warm for all but the coldest of summer evenings.

 

I love it.  The star of my wardrobe. 

In fact if I had to choose a single outfit to wear for ever it would be this, a long sleeved V neck jumper, my surviving pair of jeans and my boots.

 

So today with the sun seeming to be hiding away, I intend to get stuck in to the summer weight clothes that have been packed away and do my second round of Project 333.  It shouldn't be as hard or as time consuming as the first round because I had the major sort out then, this time there is simply one rail of clothes in the spare room and a suitcase of T shirts and really Summery things to go through.  Most things that do not make the chosen 33 will be sold at our next car boot sale or a couple of favourites may be kept as spares.  Because as I have learnt through this process when you wear your clothes over and over some do wear out.  I actually like this, to wear something out means you have truly had your moneys worth out of it and that sits well with me.

 

Sue xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographing the Food

 

Well I went all round the house, mostly in the kitchen thank goodness, just a box of crisps found lurking (as crisps do) in the spare room, photographing all the food we have in stock and it is now all logged for posterity on the 'From Full to Empty - 2013' page at the top of the Blog (or use this LINK) to get you whizzed straight there.

 

 

The only things that slipped through the net were two bananas, languishing, turning that yucky shade of mottled brown that makes me NOT want to eat them (they go too sweet for me when they're like this), so I wondered what I could do with them.  In the past I've chopped them up and used them in THIS, but I didn't have quite all the ingredients and anyway we're trying to be healthy!!  SO I remembered reading about making 'Choc Ices' from bananas and thought I'd give it a go.

 

 

Simply chop bananas in half, dip into melted chocolate (dark in my case that's all I had) and then pop into the freezer.  It worked, like a dream.  It makes the most wonderful 'choc ice' you could wish for and strangely enough the bananas don't taste that much like bananas they taste like icecream!!

 

Try not to be tempted to dip whole bananas into your chocolate, half is just enough as a nice pud or treat, they are very rich tasting.

 

Of course I didn't use up all of the chocolate, so I quickly put my thinking cap on before it set hard again and decided to chuck in some Brazil nuts to make chocolate covered Brazil Nuts, that worked too and yet there was still the bowl covered in delightfully melted chocolate.

 

 

 

 

So remembering back to the boys being little and the Rice Crispie cakes we used to make whenever we could I tipped a few spoonful of my posh Dorset Cereal in, et voila, the poshest rice crispie cakes in the world - with a Cherry on Top!!

 

I'm wasting NOTHING during this challenge.  So the fact that I managed to make FOUR desserts and a dishful of nibbles out of  two bananas that were past their best and a few storecupboard things is brilliant :-)

 

Today I want to re-organise the big chest freezer (and maybe the small one as well) and try to do an inventory so I can see just how much meat, veg etc we have in stock.  If I do I will put revised pictures after repacking on the stand alone page to keep it bang up to date.  Wish me luck, it's a frozen minefield in there!

 

Sue xx

Chicken Friendships

 

Yesterday I said a sad farewell to my Gorgeous Girl.

 

She was the last of our second batch of 20 rescued free rangers, a truly scrawny chicken who was given her name in the most ironic fashion, she was the scrawniest, scruffiest of the bunch when we picked them up from the farm that was going out of business.

 

  Ironic then that she grew to be the most gorgeous girl in my eyes.

 

 

 

She strode around Chicken World forging friendships with so many of the other girls, never seeming to 'hang out' with any one chicken or group the most.  She melded herself into all our lives, both human and chicken.

 

For the last few weeks she has been going down that all too familiar path that chicken keepers and lovers will easily recognise, of keeping to herself that little bit more, relishing the little she ate and drank, making the most of any ray of sunshine that came her way and tucking herself up nice and early for a good long sleep every night.

 

 

 

We thought we were right on the verge of losing her the other week she slept away most of the day and seemed lethargic and not herself.  Then I picked up our little rescue battery hen, and Gorgeous Girl seemed to recognise a kindred spirit, although one she most definitely wanted to dominate. 

 

She rallied round magnificently, and yes they met without a fence in between them, as all the new girls have been running with the rest of the flock for over a week now.  They met, introduced themselves and decided that they could live together in harmony.  But there was no fight left in Gorgeous Girl anyway, she gradually started to wind down that clock of hers again.

 

Yesterday when I went over first thing, she had struggled to get out of the nesting box and had fallen.  When you see a chicken with her bum and leg in the air and face down you expect her to be dead, but when I picked her up she chirruped, that gentle sound that chickens do infrequently, mostly to their young, as if to say to me 'thank you for sparing my dignity'.  I cuddled her and set her down more comfortably in the nesting box, saying my goodbyes as I did.  I put the lid down and went about filling up the drinkers and feeders, and lo and behold five minutes later who should be slowly and very carefully walking her way down the ramp ...... my Gorgeous Girl.

 

She slowly walked over to the drinker where I was and sat herself down in the sunshine dipping her beak in the fresh cold water.  I got her a handful of corn and she tentatively pecked enjoying the tiniest meal of her life.  I left her there happy in the sunshine and went about my normal chores.

 

 

Gorgeous Girl with Poppy and Daisy

 

Why have I called this post 'Chicken Friendships', well for the last two weeks each night Gorgeous Girl has been sleeping in the nesting box and tucked up with her has been Poppy, one of our Lavender Pekin Bantams.  In the nesting box on the other side has been Daisy, Poppy's sister.  Normally all three of them would have slept on the roosting bars but with Gorgeous Girl obviously not too good on her feet when asleep it would appear her friends had decided to join her in the new sleeping arrangements.  I hadn't even realised they were friends!!

 

When I went back to the henhouse later yesterday morning, all three were sat in the nesting boxes, Daisy sat in her usual sleeping place but upright and alert, and Poppy cuddled up against the dead body of her friend.  I shooed Daisy out of the house and tried to do the same with Poppy, I don't like the other birds to see me removing their friends bodies, she was not for moving.   So I carefully lifted out the body of my Gorgeous Girl and instantly Poppy gave forth a sound I have never heard from a chicken before, a shriek of absolute heartfelt anguish, it breaks my heart just typing those words, almost as much as it had broken the heart of Poppy losing her friend.

 

Whether you are chicken or human to have known that bond, that link, that love is an amazing thing.

 

It's so nice to be reminded of the power of love, and the effect it and we can have on another when we take the time to share it.

 

Poppy and Daisy were on the roosting bars again last night tucked up with Newbie, our other Lavender Pekin and are now back running with their other friends and enjoying the sunshine this morning, but no doubt deep in their chickeny hearts and minds a little bit of love remains for their friend.

 

 

 

RIP Gorgeous Girl xx

 

 

Sue xx

The Year of Less - Less Food - From Full to Empty - May

 

 

The Year of Less - Less Food               Haha....who am I kidding!!

 

At the end of yesterdays post I put the words .... I have a confession to make and I shall have to stand up and admit it, well I have to ..... there's evidence I have the pictures :-)

 

This is not one of the pictures, this is my shopping from Monday after I had completed my budget for April on the £2 House Keeping Challenge page, don't worry I went back and confessed all, and worked out the new figures, it makes for a depressing read ...... or does it.

 

It would seem I've issued myself with a REAL challenge!

 

My confession is that although the budget has been tight, somehow with using the housekeeping budget, the coupons and recommendation fees etc I have once again built up the supplies in the freezer to epic proportions (well epic to me).

 

 

 

The £2 House Keeping tin at the start of April ......

 

 

 

... and then again this morning.

 

Ooops!!

 

 

I now have £106 to last me the rest of the year.

That is a weekly budget of £3.21.

 

So I decided as soon as I got home that I better get cracking and make the very best of everything I had just bought.  It all has to last me as long as possible.

 

 

 

I had done pretty well with my shop, it came to £35.81 which was a bit shocking as I went out for 10 bottles of Sparkling Water which would have set me back £1.70, but hey ho, it's done now.  (I did get the bottles by the way although they are not in that top picture, I always drop them straight into the utility room on my way in there's a lot of weight in a bag containing that many bottles of water).

 

As soon as I had unpacked and photographed the shopping (this is getting very habit forming) I set to to divide the bargains into freezable portions.  I had managed to get quite a few yellow stickered items including free range chicken pieces, salmon, cream, mini quiches and two packs of ten good quality sausages reduced from £4.50 a pack to just £2.50 (Lovely Hubbys favourites) so it was a good shop, just one I was not expecting to make.

 

Preparation

 

The sausages were all snipped apart and put onto trays for open freezing (I also kept the trays they came on, brilliant little trays for open freezing small amounts in the future and totally free). 

 

The chicken portions, thighs, breasts and legs, were all individually wrapped. 

 

The bread was opened and the slices loosened so they can be removed one slice at a time for toast etc, and then refastened. 

 

The bagels (reduced to £1 on offer) were all sliced in half so that we can take out exactly the number of slices we want at a time and pop them straight into the toaster on it's frozen bread setting, so much better than trying to slice through a frozen bagel and potentially losing a finger!!

 

 

 

It was when I came to put it all in the freezer that I realised just HOW MUCH FOOD WE HAD!

 

I was shocked, I suppose I should also be pleased with myself in that I have managed to build up these supplies whilst shopping on such a tight budget, but still!!

 

It's the actually going to the supermarket that tempts me into spending more than I should, so I need to stop going.  I read a brilliant quote yesterday on a Blog that I have just read from start right up to date over the last couple of days, read it for yourself it's called One Pound Per Day.   If you click on the 'Table of Contents' heading you can go right back to the beginning of his challenge, it makes for inspiring reading.  He's currently doing the  Live Below the Line challenge, which is how I found him, his original challenge was done last year for himself.  Anyway his quote was ...

 

‘The main product that supermarkets sell you is not food. It’s convenience.’

 

This is so true. 

 

Shopping for ready made items whether it be whole ready meals, bread, yogurt or even sausages is food bought in convenient form, just ready for us to cook, and it made me think even more of all the foods I have in stock and that I was still buying, even though it was much more occasionally.  Why for instance had I bought bread, I have enough flour and yeast in stock to make enough loaves for the entire year.  Yes it is my favourite bread and is sliced, but surely I can experiment and add seeds and things to my loaves and fish out my electric slicer and slice up a loaf to pop in the freezer in just the same way and for much less money.

 

And that was it, my inspiration for the next few months.  If I am able to I want to pull this paltry weekly average of just £3.21 up by NOT buying any foods for as long as possible.  I have even cancelled the milk from the milk man, we have some in the freezer that will last us for about two weeks or so and then it will come out of my normal shopping money, it's so much cheaper at the supermarket, unfortunately.

 

The New Rules of the Challenge

 

To use up as much food from our stock as possible before buying anything else.

 

Not to shop (even visit the shops) unless absolutely necessary.

 

Everything is to come out of the budget except pet foods.

 

Photograph the freezers and cupboards regularly and post photos on specific Blog page.

(I'm not sure whether this should be weekly or monthly what do you think?)

 

Make another stocktake list of all the foods in the freezers and keep it updated this time.

 

To menu plan where possible.

 

To look to myself for inspiration.

 

*** *** ***

 

 

I did start to photograph the foods in stock yesterday ......

 

..... and confused poor Suky completely. A Pug looks confused/worried/puzzled etc so easily!

 

You can almost read her mind "What is Mum up to now!!"

 

I will finish off today photographing every bit of food in the house and then the Challenge starts in earnest.  Just how much of that £106 will I have left by the end of this month?

 

Sue xx