Making the Most of What You Have

 

After the last post I had so many comments and emails saying that you were doing exactly the same as me,  spending money to save money.  I'm pleased that I'm not the only one, but occasionally I feel we fall into the trap of spending vouchers because we have them!!  The questions we should ask ourselves are:  "Would I have spent the money I did, if I had not been lured into the supermarkets by the vouchers that they sent me?", or "Am I going shopping today just because I have a voucher?".

 

 I don't know about you, but in my case some of the time I think I am playing right into their hands, spending my hard earned cash on what they want me to buy!!

 

But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, what I am going to do is to make the most of the food I have bought so it last me the longest time possible and makes us as many tasty meals as possible, so I can keep away from the shops for as long as possible.  I need to keep myself accountable which is something I do most of the time of course, but it's easy to stray if you don't keep yourself in check.  So I am going to use the Blog for the whole of 'Stoptober' to keep myself accountable, plan my meals from what I have and give myself a strict budget for any food I have to buy.

 

 I intend to give myself a budget of just £10 a week for any fresh food shopping we need to keep us eating healthily.  I will put £10 into my purse on Wednesday 1st and then another one on each Wednesday throughout October.  At the end of the month whatever cash is left over will be added to the Sealed Pot, which this year is being used for our Christmas Fund.

 

So what did I do with the foods destined for the freezer from the last shop (with vouchers) I did?

 

 

I worked out how much they had cost me each just in case I want to price out meals, and then wrapped them individually and placed them in a big freezerproof box.

 

I did similar with the Garlic Breads, so that we can get one slice out as a time if we want to.  It's always good to open these packs before you freeze them as the breads tend to be stuck together with all the handling they have had from warehouse to supermarket to home etc.

 

The Southern Fried Chicken portions were also individually wrapped, priced and put into a tub.  I'm glad I bought two packs of these as one pack had one thigh and six drumsticks .... and the other had one drumstick and six thighs!!

 

All neatly poortioned and wrapped and ready for the freezer.

 

And because I have most of my foods like this in big boxes the freezer is looking pretty full.  Now if I can't make this lot last for at least month there is something very wrong with me!!

 

We only have guests twice this month so I should be able to cater for us (and them) very successfully.  I will put a couple of cartons of milk in there after I have been into Llandudno later today ... but that is all the shopping I am getting.

 

Stopober cannot come soon enough for me  :-)

 

*** *** *** *** ***

 

I apologise for any mistakes on my Blog, or on comments I may leave on any of your blogs over the next few days, but I am having to do all my computer work on my little laptop as our main computer has been taken very poorly and is at the computer doctors (hopefully) being made better!!

 

To add to my technology woes, this morning for the first time since we lived here I have no phone signal, so I can't phone anyone either.  Ohh woe is me ;-)

 

*** *** *** *** ***

 

Sue xx

It's Not Going So Well This Time

 

It's not going so well this time my No Spend/Low Spend September  :-(

 

I went out the other day to get some sparkling water and cordials from Tesco .... and somehow managed to buy this little lot.  The huge packs of pasta were on offer at £2 for either the bags of Penne or the packs of spaghetti and I was tempted to stock up.  This little, or not so little, lot will last us for quite a long time, and of course when I cook it I always do a bit too much and let the dogs have some in their dinner, they love it too.

 

My only defence is that it is mostly all stuff that we were running out of, but at a pinch I guess I could have rode out the month and kept to the challenge a little bit more.

 

 

Some of the haul is destined for the freezer and will be repackaged so we get the best possible use and value from it, so it's not really the end of the world, but disappointing when I wanted to keep the spending minimal.  This came to just over £57 after coupons and discounts.

 

 

Then I went to M&S to get some supplies to use up my £5 off a £25 spend voucher.  Lovely Hubby said we should use it to restock the freezer with some chicken, so that was mainly what I bought with a couple of other treaty things being thrown in to bring up the spend to the right amount.  I was very lucky that their chicken products were on offer at 25% off.

 

I even bought a ready meal, I know, something I don't very often do.  It was reduced and very, very tasty when I ate it after unpacking the shopping, an easy option for once.  Thinking back I honestly can't remember when I bought a ready meal !!  All the time I was eating it though I was thinking I could have made four times this amount for the price.  It was supposed to feed two, but just about fed me with some brown rice!

 

It total at the two shops I spent just over £80 on the food, and then the next day I went out with Mum and ended up spending money on a couple of new shirts for Winter ..... so not a No Spend OR Low Spend couple of days at all. 

 

 I really MUST do better.  In fact I think I will have a completely NO SPEND October.  The only way is to completely go cold turkey and keep out of the shops.  I'll have to dust off those blinkers again and wear them to dash into the shop to buy milk for Lovely Hubbys coffee and THAT will be it.

 

How are you doing, I bet you're doing so much better than me.

 

Sue xx

 

 

 

 

Using Things Up - No Spend/Low Spend September

 

It's still going on, this No Spend/Low Spend September!!

 

I haven't posted too much about it because I have just been plodding away.  There has been some spending, using up vouchers before their date was up, but buying things that will sit happily in the freezer while I slowly and steadily plow my way through the contents of the fridge.  After I had done this I was a bit miffed with myself,  mainly because I had been tempted to spend by vouchers, but £15 in total of free food was just not to be sniffed at (3 x £5 M&S vouchers) and Lovely Hubby told me to just go for it.

 

Now although the freezer is looking full, the fridge is looking a bit sparser, and when I put some just purchased salady things in the bottom drawer I found half a white cabbage, I dread to think how old it was, but slicing off the cut edge revealed it was absolutely perfect.  So a couple of carrots and a single onion pushed through the food processor with it turned it into a big bowl of coleslaw mix.

 

The chickens got the scraps, so no wastage at all - something I love.

 

And it was all tipped into a bowl onto a piece of kitchen roll, which absorbs the moisture and then feeds it back to the cut veggies as they need it.  Once covered with a piece of clingfilm it went back into the fridge and over the course of the next three days provided a salady crunch to all our meals.  Sometimes served mixed into some mayonnaise with a sprinkle of salted peanuts and a couple of slices of apple, and sometimes with some french dressing.

 

I do the same with bought bags of salad leaves, after opening I tuck in a piece of slightly dampened kitchen roll (just wet your hand under the cold tap and flick the drops water onto the paper) and make sure you exclude all the air from the bag before you put it back into your salad drawer.  This bag of leaves is still in use a week after opening and are still nice and firm.

 

Lunch yesterday.  Homemade Cheesy Coleslaw on a bed of Iceberg Lettuce and Mixed Leaves, with a couple of cherry tomatoes for a pop of colour.

 

 

Some of my bargain purchases, the veggies and salmon are all tucked into the freezer.  I have another plan for October that includes virtually NO spending in housekeeping AT ALL so they will be needed then.

 

I'll be back tomorrow to show you what we did on Sunday of our busy weekend, I thought you would want a breather from our working weekend list of jobs, hence the foody post .... I know I do :-)

 

Sue xx

Our Changing Landscape and ..... Ooops, Another Spend Day

 

Our landscape is changing quite rapidly at the moment. 

 

The trees we planted earlier this year and looking strong and healthy, but at the moment it is the poly tunnel and net tunnel frames that are dominating the field and causing lots of neighbours to congratulate us on the amount of work we have achieved in the year since we bought this plot of Welsh hillside.

 

Yes, it was a year to the day on the 13th September that we got the keys to our forever home.  The first three months were spent travelling backwards and forwards between our rented house in Berkshire and our new home here, while we decorated throughout the house and got it all ready to move into.

 

 

Then the outdoor work started and it will be on-going for a long time, while we set up our full growing area.  The tunnels will not be covered, unfortunately, until the building work on the new garage and workshop is done and the driveway reorganised and tarmacked as we do not want to risk the polythene or net being damaged by any of the large machinery that will be on site.  But hopefully early in the new year they will be completed and I will be completely back in action planting the food for next year.

 

And why is 'Ooops, Another Spend Day', well this book landed on my doormat yesterday, pre-ordered and totally forgotten about.  Luckily I had money in my PayPal account due to selling some clothes and a handbag on Ebay recently (part of my push to carry on decluttering) so it was paid for from those funds.  So no cash out of my purse .....

 

... and what looks like a very good book to read through.

 

Hugh is my new bedtime reading, and very tasty he it is too.

 

Sue xx

Planting - Low Spend Day

 

Although this is No Spend/Low Spend September some spending just has to be done.

 

In order to keep us in garlic for next year the cloves have to be planted now, so yesterday saw me sat on the bench in the sunshine separating out all the individual cloves of garlic from the bulbs, counting as I went ....

 

..... and then on my hands and knees planting all 71 of them out into the middle raised bed.  A whole bed full of yummy Garlic.

 

And nearby is a whole bed of Leeks.

 

If you look closely you can just about see them.  Eighty Five leeks in total, enough to keep us going for a while.

 

I was watched whilst I worked by two little doggies enjoying the sunshine. 

 

Suky the Pug was fast asleep at the bottom of the hill and Rosy was running around in the woods chasing rabbits, but these two need a bit more supervision so they are tethered when I'm working on the hillside alone just so I can get on with what I'm doing and not have to worry about them and the road.

 

 

So it might have been a 'Spend Day' but it was most certainly a 'Low Spend Day' when you consider that the heads of Garlic (if they all come up) will cost me just over 8p each and the leeks will cost me just under 12p each.

 

It's good to get my hands in the soil again, I was worrying my green fingers would have gone rusty ;-)

 

Sue xx

My 23p Gourmet Pizza

 

Determined not to spend at all yesterday I rummaged through the freezer just before teatime and came across the boring little pizza above.  It cost me just 23p as a 'reduced to clear' bargain way back in May, bought during my '365 Days - £365' challenge.

 

But I couldn't just eat it like that now could I  ;-)

 

 

So two tubs of recently grated cheese were pulled from the fridge, a couple of teaspoons worth of Pesto was discovered lurking at the bottom of it's jar and I used a couple of the gorgeous Sundried Tomatoes gifted to us by Sarah on her recent visit as well as a few leaves plucked from the Basil plant on the kitchen window sill.

 

There ... now doesn't that look better!!

 

It tasted divine, so my 23p bargain pizza with odds and sods from around the kitchen made for a wonderful tea last night.  Yummy, yummy, yummy pizza in my tummy :-)

 

Sue xx

Indiana Jones and the Blackberry Picking Sweet Potato

 

Every time I pick Blackberries I'm reminded of the Indiana Jones films where invariably the baddie ends up dangling over a hole, on a cliff face or in some other perilous situation that requires both his or her hands to extricate them from it, and without fail they hold on to the treasure and plummet to their sure and certain death.

 

It's just the same with Blackberry picking .... only the dropped fruit doesn't scream as it vanishes to land with a thud on the soil beyond the fence and just out of safe reach to re-acquire it.  I know now you've think I've totally lost it .... yep, my brain works in strange and wonderful ways remembering everything I've watched, seen or read about and putting it into different contexts.

 

But next time you're Blackberry picking and you have one purple stained hand full of luscious juicy blackberries, drop them into the basket or bag you are carrying before you reach for that huge juicy specimen that is a full stretch away, that way you will get to keep all your treasures and all your Blackberries will end up in your basket and not lie on the ground waiting hopefully for a little creature to discover it before it rots away.

 

 

In other news ..... the No Spend/Low Spend September is going well, we had a couple of days amnesty while we took ourselves on a mini break to Anglesey, but saying that, the only thing we actually spent any money on was food and drink, and the only 'souvenir' we bought back were three matching hooks that we have wanted for the spare bedroom for a while, discovered quite by chance in a lovely little arty crafty shop in Beaumaris. 

 

The Sweet Potato in the picture was discovered in the cupboard hiding with a couple of it's comrades, I bought them weeks ago and they are only just getting used.  Another reason why I want to stop this over stocking of food!!  And do you know ..... my sweet tooth has gone so much that these are now almost too sweet for me to eat.  I had to salt and pepper it to death to make it edible, I think it's back to normal spuds for me!!

 

Sue xx

Views and Poses - No Spend Day

 

The view from the office window has changed dramatically. 

 

The long coarse grasses that filled the field opposite have been cut, turned and baled over the course  last few dry, sunny days.  It is a flood plain and this particular field is not suitable for grazing even the hardiest of animals on so it is cut once a year, and I think it could be used for animal bedding or something similar.

 

It's nice to see it looking tidy instead of wild and rough, and I guess cutting it at this time of year means it will have time to grow long enough to be able to soak up all the excess water that runs off the hills around us during Autumn and Winter.

 

 

And after struggling yesterday to get the dogs to pose for me, I caught Suky having a quiet moment ....

 

.... one call of her name and she gave me the loveliest shot.

 

My gorgeous girl :-)

 

Sue xx



Holes - No Spend Day

 

 

Saturday saw the arrival once again of Lovely Hubby's mate with his 'little digger', I have no idea of it's real name (and I can't remember his either)  !!

 

 

He had come to help Lovely Hubby excavate holes to check for drainage in key places.

 

We are having a rain water harvesting system put on and around the new garage and workshop which will catch all rain that falls on the roofs and channel it into a huge storage tank.  This will be my main supply of water for the polytunnel, which will contain plants that will need watering all year round, and for the net tunnel and raised beds in dry spells.

 

 Obviously here in Wales we have a lot of rain and there will be times when the tank will need to overflow.  It is not allowed to overflow and run down the hill onto the road for safety reasons, so it will be diverted to a stone filled soak-away under the roadway next to the polytunnel which leads to the paddock.

 

So holes were dug ......

 

... in a couple of places ....

 

 

... buckets of water were poured into them.

 

And two grown men stood and watched while the water slowly drained away timing it exactly.  The measurements of these holes will be scaled up and the ability of the roadway to absorb enough water to ensure that none of it ends up on the main road will be decided.

 

Who'd have thought things would have to be so exact for permission to catch rain water!!

 

While the man with the digger was here, holes were also dug to check the depth of soft earth before we reach impenetrable ground rock ready for the foundations for the retaining wall and garage. 

 

Lots of holes .....

 

 

 

... all over the bloody place!!

 

And then he filled them in and went away.

 

 

 

This is Lovely Hubby's idea of a perfect Blog post!!

 

What do you think?

 

Sue xx

Crumbles - No Spend Day

 

Lots of lovely crumbles, one for tonight and three for the freezer and a tub of crumble topping mix for the future.

 



I started out to make some crumble mix to put in the freezer because I had spotted that the block of baking butter that was in the fridge was nearing it's 'use by' date.  Then I decided that while I had the crumble there and there were windfall apples lying on the grass at the back of the house, and I knew there were some lovely blackberries just begging to be picked in the woodland near the big wood store .... I may as well set to and make some crumbles.

 



 

The crumble mix ready for the freezer before I decided to use some of it.

 

Half an hour later four crumbles big enough for two people.

 

A couple of tablespoons of crumble mix on the top of each and they were as you see in the top picture.  Three ready for the freezer and one went into the fridge ready to pop in the oven while our tea was cooking.  Totally yummy, even more so because the fruit was free and the crumble mix ingredients ..... SR flour, baking butter, a couple of tablespoons of sugar and the same of Muesli and ground almonds ... were all ready sat in my cupboards.

 

 

Now they are neatly sat in the freezer, taking up the space that we had already cleared this week by eating from the freezer and not from the supermarket.  The crumble mix was decanted from the large round tub to a smaller one, the less air you have between your product and the lid of it's container, the less frost develops and spoils the taste of your food.

 

Come back tomorrow for Lovely Hubby's idea of a good blog post, he's asked me to do it for posterity .... I apologise in advance!!     

 

Sue xx