First it was Meat ... Now it's Fish

Last Friday I posted all about our Musclefood delivery and the meat that we bought to stock the freezer for Alan's meals (see here) ...  this week's bulk purchase for the freezer is fish.

In Tesco one day last week I noticed the end of one of the chiller cabinets was absolutely full of sides of salmon at the reduced price of £7.50, instead of the normal £15.  After checking all the other fresh salmon prices I bought two.  In the cinema half an hour later I thought about this and decided to nip back to get two more thinking that they would last us a long time at this brilliant price.  By the time my film had finished and I had driven the three minutes back to Tesco the fridge had been stripped bare ... as had lots of other shelves, it seems the Christmas buying frenzy is already upon us.

But never mind I had my two safely in the boot of the car  :-)

They have now been sliced into meal sized portions.

Although a couple were slightly over the recommended 100g of meat or fish allowance for a meal.

Each portion was wrapped in Easy-leave, so it would be safe in the freezer and separate from the pieces next to it.

I just weighed every now and then to keep me on track, especially as the fish changed shape towards the tail end.

Once both sides had been portioned out and wrapped I put them into a freezer proof box and added the label off one of the packs.

Then I decided to write on the label how many portions I had started with and the cost per portion, because as much as I think I'm going to remember I never do.

A Tesco single plain salmon fillet is currently on sale at £2.35 for 130g.  So I think my portions at just 83p each are an absolute bargain, and with 18 slices now nestled in the freezer Alan will have a fish dish every now and then at a much lower cost than usual.

Sue xx

Mondays Fridge Soup

At the end of last week we had to call to Tesco late in the evening and for once we were lucky enough to grab a few bargains, it's pretty rare these days that we are there when the yellow stickers are out in force ... well to be honest we've just not been shopping that much recently, only going to the shops for absolute necessities. 

Anyway this morning I set about using the veggies up, they had survived the weekend very well in the drawer of the fridge, but I wanted to use them up before they got any unhappier!!

I emptied out the rest of the fridge drawer too ... 

... put back the few things that were in really good condition.

Then I got out the 'bits and bobs' bag from the freezer, I save all trimmings and stalks from the cauliflowers and broccoli for just such occasions.

Then it was time to fish out the 'flavour enhancers', some Approved Foods bouillon powder ...

... and one or two other additions.

I always find the more variety of flavours you put in the richer and deeper the taste of the finished product, and anyway I like to play.  So I chopped and diced and got everything simmering away nicely for a while and then decided it looked a bit wishy washy ...

... so I added a good squirt of tomato puree and a couple of teaspoon of Turmeric.

It looked much better !!

After a couple of hours in the bottom oven of the Aga I whizzed it up with my stick blender and had a good bowl full for my lunch ... for tasting purposes of course.

And then the rest was cooled ready to go into the freezer, with one small bowl put into the fridge for tomorrows lunch.

I had already dealt with the bargain pack of ham as soon as we got home, you don't leave meat lying around for too long.  First it was dried off slightly on kitchen paper ...

... then split into four usable portions.

Before being placed in a zip lock bag and popped into the freezer.

As you can see I am still determined to make full use of everything we buy or grow and watch our pennies and I'm gearing up for next year ... when the purse strings will once again be pulled in very tightly.

Sue xx

Another Harvest of Bramleys

We went out with the apple picker yesterday and managed in five minutes to get this little lot, a total of 8 kgs of lovely Bramleys.    Which according to mysupermarket.co.uk would have cost us an average of £1.75 a kilo, which means our five minutes of fun with the apple picker stick thingy saved us a grand total of £14.

We had lots of fun because the trees are tall and the apples are still firmly attached, and the only way to get them down was with the pole at full stretch and whacking the apples with the end of it.  Meaning of course, that the person doing the picking up of the apples off the grass had to duck and dive to get out of the way of these falling missiles.

I'll be processing them later today into some more jars of chunky apple sauce, which can be used for pies, crumbles etc throughout next year and a few Apple Turnovers to pop into the freezer, as I have a packet of pastry in the fridge that needs using up.

Over the weekend we had a couple of salady style meals and instead of serving them with 'normal' mayonnaise I decided to pep things up a bit with some garlic mayo.  Totally cheaty and easy to do with a squirt of  garlic paste stirred into normal mayonnaise

We also on occasion have 'chilli mayonnaise' by adding a squirt of  Sweet Chilli Sauce.  Mayonnaise can also be mixed with tomato ketchup to make 'Marie Rose' sauce, just mix it to taste.

After all why have lots of different flavours of mayonnaise opened in your fridge at once when you can simply have one jar of mayo and use the condiments in your storecupboard to pep things up from time to time.

Buying any of these variations ready made will cost you more than the total sum of doing it yourself and you don't take up extra space, or risk things going out of date in the fridge.  

I simply buy whatever Hellmann's mayonnaise is on offer at the time, sometimes it's the squirty bottles but it's usually I try to stock up with the big jars which are so much easier to get every last little bit out of ... and of course I get the jar to keep for preserving. 

Of course I could make my own mayo, but with all the busyness of harvesting and preserving that has been going on here just lately I have completely gotten out of the habit of doing it.  Although it doesn't take long, just a couple of minutes to gather together your ingredients and then whizz up for 10 seconds with a stick blender .... if you follow the recipe that is on my 'Recipes I Use Regularly' page at the top of the blog.

Sue xx

My Ten Top Tips

I had an email asking me for my ten top tips for saving money (thanks B), and asking me if I really write about things I do or do I write about things I think I should do .... you little unbeliever B!!

Firstly YES I do write about things I do,

 Everything I write about here on my blog happens, sometimes once, sometimes a few times and sometimes, well mostly in the case of saving money, filling the freezer, cooking and day to day living over and over and over again.

So make yourself a cup of coffee, settle comfortably in your chair and read on .....

My Ten Top Tips ... That I Use or Have Used

ONE  For example tubes of hand cream are ALWAYS cut open and the cut off bit used a lid until ALL of the product is on my hands.

Containers are upended and drained, every last little drop into our main bottles or into the new one just purchased.  I have just worked out that we have had this pump top action large bottle of shampoo since 2008, filled and re-filled over and over again, but it still works so it will continue to live in the bathroom in daily use.

We pay for the packaging and the product inside it so it makes sense to get our moneys worth out of everything we buy.

TWO  Potatoes are dealt with as and when I buy them.  If I buy a full bag, because sometimes a bag is cheaper than buying just a couple of baking potatoes, I will use them for the week they are at their freshest and then I will process the rest and put them into the freezer.

These wedges were frozen raw and were eaten quite quickly (place on a baking tray, sprinkle with salt, pepper or a bit of paprika and roast in the oven for 35-40 minutes or so turning once during cooking).  But if they are to live in the freezer for any length of time I prefer them blanched and then frozen if I have the time.  To do this put them in a pan, pour over boiling water, boil for just a few minutes, five does the trick if they are chunky) and then strain them, put into a bowl of chilled water, dry and then open freeze.  If you have blanched your spuds you can reduce the cooking time by about 10 minutes.

I freeze chunky homemade chips, wedges, potato croquets, roasts, mash and potato soup.

THREE  Rubber gloves, 

I'm right handed so my right hand rubber glove tends to wear out first, rather than throw away a perfectly good left hand glove, I save it and then when the next right hand glove is no longer fit for purpose I turn one of my pair of left hand gloves inside out ... et voila ... a right hand glove.

Of course you can recycle rubber gloves even further and cut up the redundant holey gloves into gardening ties or elastic bands of various sizes by chopping them up with scissors, you get small elastic bands from the fingers and thumb and larger ones from the wrist section.  

When I have two leaking right hand gloves that I don't need to cut into bands I simply use them as a slightly more waterproof layer over cotton gardening gloves on days when I have to weed but the mud would make my normal gardening gloves wet within minutes.  (I hate soil down my nails so I always garden with gloves on.)

As a final resort I use them as a good whoosh maker for a garden bonfire, a dry rubber glove placed in with some twigs and paper will act as a brilliant firelighter.

FOUR  Open freezing lemons , limes or oranges is a brilliant way to get your moneys worth from those bargain nets of fruit.  They nearly always contain more than you actually need and by doing this you have a tub of ready to drop in your drink lemons, limes or orange slices. They flavour and chill your drink at the same time, if you like to start the day with a lemon slice in hot water, they cool the water down just enough to be able to drink it straight away.  And they are obviously very handy in the summer when it's Pimms season :-)

FIVE  Bread crusts never get thrown away in this house.  Quickly whizzed in the food processor with a handful of herbs they are ready for action whenever we need a topping for a Macaroni Cheese or a coating for chicken portions, fish or a veggie alternative.  Simply whizz and tip into a freezer proof bag or box.  They are usable straight from the freezer and stay free flowing.

If you don't have any herbs a few young, washed Dandelion leaves will work just as well for a touch of green freshness.

SIX  Buying supermarket basic lines.

Sometimes you can save money buy finding which of the supermarket basics your family will like. We have found that not all are good for our tastes ..... the beans swim in too much juice for us, the jars of pasta or curry sauce are too sweet tasting for me, I have lost my sweet tooth completely, but we do like the bran-flakes, the pasta is as good as many that cost three times the price and as for the custard, those 15p packets of custard powder in Tesco are so very, very tasty and turn a piece of slightly stale chocolate cake into a pudding fit for my man any night of the week.

SEVEN  Grow your own.

If you have a garden, or a yard with tubs and troughs, you can pretty much keep yourself fed with salad stuff throughout the warmer months, if you have acres of space or polytunnels you can feed your family and then some.  You could do what I do and sell your surplus at car boot sales and then use the money you make to buy next years seeds when the garden centres reduce them to 50p a pack in September.  Once you've done it the first year you are literally eating for free the next :-)

But what if you have none of that ..... a balcony or a window sill (inside or out) can still save you money.  Just buying yourself a packet of cress seeds for a pound or so can save you from having to buy a tub a week from the supermarket and you can grown these pretty much all year round.  So 52 tubs of cress from Tesco (priced this morning) would cost you £12.48 over the course of a year.  Not a lot, but when you start to add to your window sill and buy yourself a Chilli plant for a couple of pounds and then save yourself 60p a week for fresh chillies  (£31,20 for the year) it all starts to add up.

If you do have a small space to grow one successional crop make it salad leaves.  For the price of a couple of packs of seeds you can have fresh mixed leaves all through the Summer and beyond.  At an average price of one pound a bag, and saying you usually buy two packs of ready washed leaves a week, over the course of the Summer you could save yourself at least £50.

Talking of car boot sales brings me to tip number EIGHT

Sell what you don't want.  Whether it is surplus veggies, old clothes, clothes the children have grown out of, books and magazines you have read, furniture you have no room for or things you have Marie Kondo'ed from your house.  Sell all the things you no longer use or want.

If you have never done a car boot sale before visit the one you think you might sell at.  Check that it has toilets if it is an all day affair, talk to stall holders to see how successful they are when they sell there, find out what time it is best to arrive and how much it is going to cost you for your pitch, and then plan when you will go and sell your stuff.

Pack everything into boxes or directly into the car boot if you have a small car.  Remembering to put your table (or ground sheet if you don't have a table) into the car last so it can come out first ready for setting up.  Get everything ready the night before, so come the ridiculously early setting off time, you can quickly make a flask and grab the packed lunch or wedges of cake from the fridge to stop you spending your newly earnt money on over priced refreshments and then simply get in the car and set off.  

If  you simply cannot resist the smell of the bacon butties wafting over from the hot food vendors and you have to have one, make that your breakfast and then eat your pack-up for lunch to save you cooking when you get home.

NINE  Save your pennies.  They add up they really do.

  Make it a habit when you get home to empty your purse or your pockets of any coins you don't want to be carrying around.  I put anything less than a 50p coin into our Sealed Pot and it's emptied once a year just before Christmas.  

But if you don't want to save your pennies spend them!!  Start paying with the right money sometimes rather than just handing over a note and accumulating yet more change.

But the thing is treat the pennies and small change as though it is real money ... because it is and it's your real money earned by you, so make it work for you in a way of your choosing!!

TEN  Don't spend!!

This follows on neatly from the last one.  A lot of people email and ask me what is the first way to get debt free and this is it,  STOP SPENDING YOUR MONEY !!

If you don't need something to survive ..... don't buy it.  

Start leaving money at home when you go out to walk the dogs or pick children up from school.  If you fancy a coffee after you've walked the dogs .... wait until you get home, sit down and enjoy it and put the £2.50 it would have cost you to buy one into your debt repayment pot.   If you know the children will want sweets after school, you can honestly say "sorry I've got no money on me, lets go home and see what we've got there".  Let them raid the fruit bowl or the biscuit tin instead and save yourself pounds each week, put £1 a day everyday that you do this into your debt repayment pot too.  They will soon get in the habit of doing this instead.  

At the end of a week put the money in the pot into the bank and pay it immediately off  the debt you are tackling first.

Use money you would have normally spent on unnecessary things to pay down your debts and start snowballing.  I did this and it worked for me.  One extra pound paid off a debt is one pound you will not be paying interest on for the next few months or years.

And remember .....

I had another email asking me about the lack of foodie/shopping  posts recently ... that is simply because I have not been shopping on a regular basis.  We have been eating our way through the freezers and cupboards since January and we still have lots to use up, I'm sure you would be totally fed up if you saw pictures of our purchases over the past few weeks.  Apart from last week, which was party week, the shopping has consisted of milk, bread, salad things and fruit and vegetables.

I am hoping that soon there will be posts about growing and eating our own foods, but in the meantime we will continue to plough our way through the chest freezer, one thing is sure that once we reach the bottom it will be unplugged and not restocked until we have enough of our own harvested crops to go in there.

Sue xx

Almost Blowing the Budget

I had a £4 off a £40 shop coupon courtesy of Lovely Hubby, who when he buys fuel at Sainsbugs always foregoes the ease of the 'Pay at Pump' and instead goes inside the shop to pay ... just on the off chance a coupon will spew forth from the till.

It did, and I tucked the coupon into my purse.  As I needed fuel when I got to the supermarket I thought I wonder if this will work for me too.  So I went into the shop to pay and lo and behold I got another coupon, this time £6 off a £60 shop.  Now I thought long and hard about what I could possibly need that would make me spend £60 and I went in to the shop open minded about what I would buy.

( I only found out recently that as long as you spend the amount of the highest offer voucher, all the others will be accepted at the same time.  So in this instance I got a total of £10 off my £62.45 shop and double Nectar points on the whole amount as I had a coupon for those as well.)

I had a small shopping list of grapes, milk, soft cheese and coffee, all things we really needed but other than that nothing that would bring my total even close to that magic £60.  Then on my way round store I spotted the things that were on offer, and it turned out I could buy a new fitted sheet for our bed at half price, ours has gone uncomfortably bobbly and worn, shower gels and toothpaste of our favourite brands were all less than half price, so I stocked up for the next six months, and new dog collars for the pooches in my life just shouted out at me from the shelf.

I have to keep some spares in the house as Rosy is apt, every now and then, to leave hers down a rabbit hole.  So if you ever see a wild bunny wearing a red and white spotty collar you will know it popped out of a rabbit hole in our neck of the woods and picked up Rosy's while making a snappy exit!!   ;-)

Oh, and I have to confess to a new jumper for me ... well it look so good on the mannequin in the doorway and looked so incredibly cosy.  

Sainsbugs customer 'tempt them in the doorway' technique 1  -   Sue  nil

Looking at the food part of my purchases I thought I had blown my budget, after all I had only £37.81 left of my Mini Challenge budget, available to spend and on the drive home with two exhausted dogs snoring away on the back seat of the car (we had stopped off for a walk in Rhos on Sea and walked a lot further than usual, hence our being in Sainsbugs neck of the woods) I was wording in my head today's blog post.  Title ..... 'Blown the Budget', text about how I could not resist the tasty bargains that I had found and sorry but the challenge was over a lot sooner than expected.

Well to my utter delight after taking away all the non food items I was stunned to see just the above things left on the worktop, virtually all included in my Capsule Kitchen (not the Ryvita crackers) and all just coming under the available allowance.

So I spent ££36.53 and I have remaining £1.28.

Not a lot is it, but with my 47p T*sco coupon I should just about be able to last another week, if I just buy milk and a couple of bananas next week.

As is my way the breaded fish portions were individually wrapped and added to my 'fish box' in the freezer, reminding me that I have yet to make my freezer inventory.  Something I think is vital now that I have just about ran out of money and it will be nice to have a list showing exactly what is in there to save me standing with the lid open wondering what to cook.

This picture reminds that someone asked did I know of any freezer labels that didn't peel off and lose themselves in the depths of the deep freeze, leaving you with lots of boxes and packs of unidentifiable freezer objects.  Why not do as I do and simply snip off the part of the label on the food packet that describes the contents and pop it in the box or bag with the food you are freezing. 

 Sometimes I write on the label what each item has cost me for budgeting purposes, but after buying these particular fish portions constantly for a while now, I know for a fact that they come out at 83p each.  Which makes for a nice cheap tea when combined with either a leafy salad or a few chips and garden peas.

'Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves' ..... a good mantra for me to keep in mind with only £1.28 left to spend  :-)

Sue xx

Keeping Up Appearances

 

I had a lovely email last night from someone who wishes to remain anonymous, who was in a bit of a quandary.  She needs to start living more economically, indeed really frugally but does not want to advertise the fact to friends and family.... could I help?

 

Well of course there are all the basics, that I've no doubt you have read on here and many other Blogs before - stocktake your cupboards, menu plan, shop with a list and a non-hungry tummy, it's surprising the difference to your trolley if you don't fancy eating half the items on the shelves, and it's so much easier to resist temptation if you completely avoid the crisp and sweet aisles.

 

Buy just what you need and if you can pay in cash .... handing over your hard earned money is  a good way to stop the bank account dwindling at an alarming rate.  If it scares you the thought of doing this and potentially not having enough at the checkout then have your debit card tucked way down in the bottom of your bag but only use it if you really have to.  Don't shop for food with a credit card unless you can pay the full amount off each and every month.  It's no good shopping for value products and then paying whopping amounts of interest on your credit card every month.

 

 

A good start is to immediately switch to buying the own labels. the basic ranges and the value products that most supermarkets are now selling, ...and so that your family and friends don't know you have done this, a brilliant way to disguise the fact, is to display your cooking ingredients in glass jars.

 

Do you recognise the jar this dried milk powder has just gone into - yes it's a washed out coffee jar.  Start saving all your empty glass jars for this purpose.  You really don't have to go out and buy lots of expensive jars and also look in boxes at car boot sales you can get some lovely storage jars for not much money.

 

Don't forget to label under your jars, or on the front if you have some nice labels or you can cut out the wording from the pack the food came out of without giving the game away.  At first you may only have a few jars but eventually you may end up with lots of similar looking products and if anyone else cooks in your kitchen it could make for some confusion without the labels ;-)

 

You can either store your jars in the cupboard ...

 

... or on full display, as I do. 

 

Even I can't remember which jars have full price branded goods in them and which have bargain or value range products.

 

It works with even the tiniest things, this was a little sample coffee jar just begging to be re-used.

I decided to add in the dregs of my Parsley jar to the value Mixed Herbs ...

... and then I got a bit more carried away, well I mean in most cases Mixed Herbs can be any herbs and as I'm a pretty basic cook I very rarely use specifics and find that most things are interchangeable.  And to make it a win, win situation I now have one jar on the shelf instead of four ... I love simplicity :-)

 

 

 

Sometimes refilling your usual boxes with a value product can work well. Either buy the value ones and gradually add to the branded, giving the box a good shake to mix them up, this will get everyone in the family used to the new taste without them noticing too much ...

 

... or simply refill the empty box with the bag of value flakes and if anyone comments that they don't taste as nice, simply agree and say "yes, we must eat these up quickly so I can go and buy a new pack" ... you can guarantee that by the time the box is emptied and refilled with more Value flakes everyone will simply be used to the taste of the new flakes and won't complain anymore.  It also works with Rice Crispies and Frosties ....  my boys lived through this change with little complaint.

 

Once your box gets tatty surprise the family with lovely new plastic storage boxes, you can get them cheaply at shops like Home Bargains or B and M or again watch out for them at car boot sales.  Once you have these you can smuggle in the Value cereals and fill them up over and over.
 

 

And if you think the top picture looked pretty with the dried herbs in front of their fresh counterparts, this is what usually sits there and YES this too is not what it seems.  The hand-cream in the jar is not what is on the label.  It's actually full of lots of emptied out free hotel sachets and bottles picked up my Lovely Hubby when he has to stay away on business.

 

It's good too to start reading some of the Blogs on my sidebar in particular Elaine's over at 'Mortgage Free in Three', Jane over at Frugal Queen and Jack's at A Girl Called Jack  all have lots of recipes using good wholesome but cheap foods that you can find by typing your request into the 'Search' boxes and on Jacks you can actually type in the ingredient you have and specific recipes containing it will come up for you.
 

And Jack and Elaine both have books out that will really help you make every bit of your now reduced money go further and yet still fill up plates and hungry tummies.  Make sure you don't waste any food either, another brilliant book that I would recommend asking for as a birthday present is The Leftovers Handbook by Suzy Bowler of Sudden Lunch blog fame.  Even little tiny bits of left over food can be saved and turned into whole new meals and this book is full of brilliant ideas all listed alphabetically so they are easy to find.  You could always email Frugal Queen and ask for her Feed a Family of 4 for £40 meal planner too which is a brilliant tool for planning your months menu.

 

I hope these few ideas have helped a little and if you would like any more tips please let me know.
 

Sue xx