Seven Different Ways I Have Saved Money This Past Week

1.  Making one meal go further.

Alan was feeling exhausted after working with at the bungalow all last week, so we splurged and had a chip shop tea to round the week off.  It was just too much for me, so I saved half of my fish and chip meal for the next night.  It warmed up beautifully in the Remoska, but it's always a shock to see how much fat comes out of fish and chips when it's reheated.  😮

Enough to put you off getting it again?  No not really, once in a while it's perfectly okay to have a little treat, especially when it actually lasts over two meals.

2.  Using up sad looking vegetables.

I've been using up the contents of my fridge this week, so the tail end of carrots, celery and onion were roasted together, to make us a sort of carrot wellington.  It's on the menu every week at Mum's care home and we have always said that we should give it a go.

Once cooked it was all wrapped in some homemade pastry and cooked until beautifully golden brown.

  Unfortunately, my camera has been playing silly b*ggers recently and deleting random photos, especially the last one in each series I take ... so my gorgeous pastry extravaganza has now vanished into our stomachs and the ether.

I thought I had  gone mad so I did test it out, and yes out of a set of three photos, the last one vanished!!

I am now double checking and taking duplicate where needed ... another money saving thing as I really don't want to have to buy another camera.

3.  Making good use of free food.

I had half a sachet of a 'freebie' tomato ketchup, so I found a burger in the freezer and made sure I used it all up.  It might have been free, but even so I wasn't going to waste half of it.

4.  Using what I already had open.

I wanted a bit of sweetcorn to add to my tuna salad sandwich mix, so rather than open a full can I stood at the worktop and picked some out of the frozen mixed vegetables.

5.  Shopping Lists

A letter came for me with a blank A4 sheet of paper added for some reason.  As I was just about to write out my shopping list, I turned it into six shopping list sized pieces of paper and used one straight away.

6.  Replacement for breadcrumbs.

There were a lot of Weetabix crumbs left in the tin last time I refilled it, so I tipped them all into a jar ready to add to banana and walnut muffins ... I forgot to do that.  So instead I thought I would try them as breadcrumbs to coat two mashed potato and tuna fishcakes.

It worked a treat, and surprisingly didn't taste too much of Weetabix.

7.  Free guilt-laden napkins.

On Sunday when we were getting our motorway services lunch on the way back from seeing Mum, I headed back to the table before Alan, telling him that I would get the napkins.  I had forgotten that he is a bit deaf in one ear at the moment and he didn't hear me ... so he too picked up some napkins.  I felt guilty but there's no way to push them back into the dispenser, so instead I will make good use of them at home.

Just seven of the ways I can think of that I have saved us a little bit of money this week.  Of course there are probably many more, but so many things are done without even noticing yourself do them after a lifetime of watching the pennies.

What have you done recently that helped out your budget in some way?

Sue xx

Filling Up Spaces, and Shrinking by the Week

 

I called round to the bungalow with Alan's lunch on Monday, to find that he had been busy filling up the space in my bedroom with the stud walls for the en-suite.  It completely changes the look of the room now.

It actually feels smaller than it appears in this photo and will feel smaller still once the plasterboard goes up and the whole bungalow is plastered in a couple of weeks.  

As a reader mentioned the other day, we are shrinking by the week.  At the beginning the bungalow was 880sq ft or 83 square metres, I think we will have to have a re-measure once all the walls are completed as all the exterior walls will have come inwards by around 4" due to the insulation.

After having a lunch break with Alan, I headed for home to do some more filling of space.

I managed to get some roasted vegetables, pasta and peas and some stewed apple in orange juice, made up to fill that empty shelf in the fridge.  I also took a tub of grated Christmas cheese out of the freezer and opened a jar of pesto to have with some of the pasta for my tea.

It's nice to see it looking a bit healthier in there again with things to give me inspiration for this weeks meals.

Sue xx

Shopping, Using Up the Bits ... and Perfection

 

We went to Aldi on Saturday, as is now becoming a ritual to start the weekend off.  We have a coffee in Booths and then get over to Aldi nice and early before the masses arrive.  Although to be fair our Aldi seems even busier on a Sunday!

I mostly bought just what I needed, which this week was Weetabix, orange juice and paracetamols, but I was obviously influenced by a talk that I went to last week on inflammation and osteoporosis.  Where we were reminded how important it is for many ailments, especially those that include any sort of inflammation to 'eat the rainbow'.

Well I managed to get four colours of the rainbow ... now I just have to eat them more regularly.  😄🌈

My receipt for posterity ... and to celebrate that I am managing to get to the end of my pension-less days by the skin of my teeth.

As I went to the fridge to put my new purchases away I realised just how much progress I had made eating up all the little tubs of leftovers last week.  So, as I always do, I moved the last couple of things off this shelf and gave it a good wipe down.  Cleaning the fridge one shelf at a time is so much easier than having to hoick everything out and do the whole thing all at once, with it beeping at me like a crazy guinea pig.

This week I think I will concentrate more on the bits and pieces in the freezer, of which there are many little bags, tubs and half packets.  I want to batch cook some more meals and all the tiddly bits are just taking up too much space.

While I was peeking in there to see what I had, I spied the blueberries left over from our final Riverford order.  So as I had a very ripe banana glaring at me from the side, it just had to be a batch of Blueberry and Banana muffins*.

I used my usual method of weighing the eggs and then adding the same weight in flour, fat and sugar and as luck would have it, I had the exact amount of flour left in the jar to be able to stick to this criteria.

Perfection. 

Sue xx

*There are no photos of the finished muffins ... we ate them all. 😁

Pies ... and Dates

 

One minute I was looking in the fridge for an egg to make myself a fried egg on toast for my lunch, and the next I was making pies.

I do that sort of thing a lot, it's as though I have a brain that tells me to do something else other than what I actually have planned.  Hey, brain just who do you think you are, who's in charge here ... and where is my fried egg? 😐

Instead I stood looking at all the little tubs of leftovers in the fridge and the roll of ready made pastry that was well out of date, and decided to add them all together and make pies.

The potatoes were actually boiled and in lovely big pieces, but I warmed them up for a few seconds in the microwave, mashed them up with a fork and added in some of the onion chopped into small pieces, and all of the cheese in that tub ... plus a little bit more for good measure.

As I was cutting out the pastry circles I realised that there wasn't going to be the usual perfect fit for my four bases and lids, then I remembered Angela mentioning quite a while ago that the pastry pack sizes were now smaller ... shrinkflation at it's invisible best.  

  Happily though I just about managed to roll out all the scraps to make a circle that just about covered the fourth pie.  No little pastry 'chef's perk' of a couple of jam tarts for me then from now on.  Unless I make my own pastry, which of course I should do.

They are very tasty.

 I had one for my lunch straight out of the oven, I gave one to Alan when he got back from the bungalow after a days work, and the other two are temporarily living in the fridge.  I don't think they are going to make it to the freezer though, they are far too delicious.

Someone asked me the other day if I was still writing the dates on any long term foods that I buy for the cupboard.  The answer, as you can see from this weeks photo is yes.  😊

Sue xx

Gadgets ... and Simple Meals

 

I claimed the soup maker back from Alan a few months back, he wasn't using it at all ... the level of dust on top was amazing.  😄

He regularly makes soup but he makes a humungous pot full at a time, and he loves it so thick and unblended that his Granny would be proud.  She used to say that a good soup was one that the wooden spoon stood up in the middle of pan all by itself.  His soups are just like that.  I like mine in smaller quantities, blended and liquid enough that you can dunk your bread easily and even occasionally drink it out of a mug, and the soup maker is very easily controllable for all these things.

We've had this particular gadget for well over ten years now, we bought it when we had an Aga and wanted to be able to turn it off in warmer weather if necessary.  So we cooked with our gadgets anytime that the Aga was off.  We used the soup maker, the Remoska, the microwave, the rice cooker and the toaster, sometimes gadgets are very handy and it's always good to find the ones that work best for your needs isn't it ... as long as you have the space to store them when they are not in use.  I still use all those mentioned.

Anyway, with all this chilly weather the soup maker has been in weekly use, it makes me three good meal sized portions at a time, I usually have a couple over two or three days and pop one into the freezer for future use.

Other simple meals, not done in the soup maker, have been simple noodle dishes to make good use of bits and bobs from the vegetable drawer in the fridge.

And a really simple red kidney bean, cumin and onion mixture served with brown rice, using the rice cooker.

It's good over the years to whittle away at any gadgets that you might have bought and rarely used ... my brief foray into having an air fryer springs to mind ... but when you have limited space everything that you have really does have to earn it's keep.

I would say out of all my gadgets, my Remoska* is the one I would choose if I could only have one ... what would yours be?

Sue xx

*Gosh they are expensive now though, but currently on special offer.

My Diary ... and a Warming 'Mince Mix'

 

For many years I kept a diary, a large A4 page to a view one usually.  I quite enjoyed the start of the year filling in of all the names and addresses, some personal information and any things that I needed to pull forward from one year to the next.  

Then I started finding that process tedious and slightly ridiculous so I reverted to my old, old way of a personal organiser.  It had been vital to have one of these when I managed two shops in two different towns and needed lots of information about both at my fingertips as I travelled between each of them numerous times a week.

For the past six years now I have just purchased a new 'diary section' for my organiser and all the other pages stay the same.  The names, addresses and phone numbers, the banking pages, the Christmas lists and birthday pages.  It also means that once I slip the new section in, I can put the previous years into the plastic bag the new one came in and my history takes up very little space in the drawer of my sideboard.

My old A4 diaries made a spectacular little bonfire before we moved house from Wales.  😀

Today has been bitterly cold so I kept myself busy in the kitchen making a 'mince mix' from store cupboard items.  Nothing complicated, just a bit of chopping then a lot of slow simmering to let the flavours develop.

It might not look much, but it tastes delicious.

Hopefully it will be nice and warming for Alan when he gets home later.  He's been out in the frosty, snowy weather helping the builder demolish the garage at the bungalow, ready for it being rebuilt next week.  He must be chilled to the bone.  I gave him firm instructions to take a break and either call home, which he hasn't done, or go to Booths for a fresh cup of coffee and a warm through.

I was going to turn the mix into the base for a Shepherdess Pie, but after being reminded in yesterdays comments that I have a couple of part-baked 'cook at home' baguettes waiting to be used, I might just serve it with one of those each for dunking and scooping purposes.

Sue xx

Shopping for My Daily Bread

 

I didn't really need to shop at all this week.  

True I was a bit low on bread or so I thought, I knew there were buns in the freezer.  I had totally forgotten that there was also a loaf purchased just before Christmas, so when I went to put the new one into the freezer ready for use as and when needed, one slice at a time, I found the older one. 

 I somehow managed to squeeze the new one in too ... the freezer is very full.  😐

I have a budget for the first half of this year of £10 a week for shopping, including food and toiletries etc. and a spare £10 each month to make a large purchase if needed, so a total of £50 a month as it were, with any change leftover at the end of the month being carried forwards.

I do also have an emergency 'pot', but I'll post about that another day. 💰

And while I didn't really need to shop for any food this week, I thought I would get myself some flour while we were in Booths for Alan's now seemingly regular Saturday morning bacon butty.  I have been itching to get back to making my own bread, possibly because I seem to have been watching lots of people making their own on various social media platforms.  I also watched a YouTube video about all the additives in so many of the breads we eat, including the seemingly healthy baked in-store loaves.

I think I have been influenced!!  😄

But there's something very satisfying about bread made with just flour, yeast, oil, water and salt isn't there.  So I now have all that I need to get back to my bread making roots.  

Anyway, even if I am going to be making some bread of my own, I did want a sliced loaf in the freezer for any toast emergencies that may arise.  So now I have two.  😁

 I was determined not to waste anything of the loaf currently in use.  I had eaten the last two slices for breakfast before we went to  Booths, so when we got back I crumbled up the two crusts of the loaf by hand and popped them into a tub for the freezer.  They will come in handy for coating something or adding to homemade burgers.

Alan purposefully said yes to a tomato ketchup to go with his bacon bun, even though he knew he wasn't going to use it.  I quizzed him about that and we had a really interesting conversation about the prices of café food and the things that are built into the prices that you pay.  We both agreed that anything that is usually offered i.e. sauces with buns or hot food, and sugars with coffees etc are most definitely included in the price you pay, and we should continue to say 'yes please' when asked.  But if they are not offered, we will not ask for things that we know we won't be using in the café at the time.

Doing this will continue to help me out over the course of this years extra frugality, but also salve my conscience twinges about taking too much.

Sue xx

Blogmas Day Twenty Three - Charity Shop Purchases and Homemade Goodies

 

I called to two of my favourite charity shops while I was in town last week.  One day I was in town to visit the dentist and called to the Age Concern shop and the other I was in town with Alan and nipped into the local Children's Hospice shop.

In both I got a book and a little something that caught my eye.  It's Christmas time and it's a nice way to support any charity, something for me, something for them and a 'please put the change in the donation pot'.

I definitely felt more charitable towards them than the dentist did towards me!! 

At home after putting away the new shopping that I showed on yesterday's post, I used the last of my old bananas to make a batch of Banana and Walnut cakes.  Half each for me and Alan and nothing gone to waste.

To make a bit of space in the freezer I also took out all the lemon ends and apple cores and made a little batch of Compost Heap Jelly.  Two of the little jars were then labelled ready to go into Alan's stocking.

 A bit of charity, a bit of frugality and a lot of satisfaction.  

Sue xx

Chickpea, Quinoa and Turmeric Curry

 

Over the past couple of weeks I have been eating through all the bought-in components of meals and almost 'ready meal' style things in the freezer ... garlic Kyiv's, fish portions and the like ... so I have now made some space to be able to make up batches of the meals that I want to eat on a regular basis.  

The first one that I chose to cook up was a batch of Deliciously Ella's Chickpea, Quinoa and Turmeric Curry.  It's a recipe that I've used for years and is always a favourite. It also made a good dent in my stash of out of date tins in the top cupboard.

I added another tin of potatoes to the mix after taking the photo as I do like the potatoes in this curry, and using up the tins meant that I didn't have to do the peeling, chopping and cooking potatoes part of the recipe to start me off.  😀

It's a really simple recipe, and once everything is in the pan it can just be left to it's own devices while you get on with something else.  I do add the chickpeas right at the start of cooking, not later like the recipe suggests, as I like them to get a bit softer, and I also use frozen pellets of spinach to cut costs a bit.

It makes a huge pan full of curry, so I had one portion straight away, cooking enough rice for another meal after this one.

Once the curry was completely cooled I made up a 'homemade ready meal' with the rest of the rice to pop into the fridge, and portioned the rest of the curry out between four takeaway style containers which all went into the freezer.

Now I'm pondering on the next batch of ready meals ... I think it will be a lentil Bolognese style mix.  This could be eaten on pasta, on a baked potato or used as the base for a shepherds pie.   Having some tasty home-cooked meals all ready to go will make for easy cooking evenings when we have to get busy with new home renovations in the coming months.  While I don't mind an occasional 'real' takeaway, this will really help to keep costs down.

Sue xx

Butter Chicken Cooking Sauce ... Used at Last!!

I have had a sachet of Butter Chicken Cooking Sauce in my store cupboard for such a long time, so this week I decided that it was time to make use of it, and in the process use a couple of tins from the cupboard too.  So I added a tin of carrots (they were only 18 months out of date 😄) and a tin of chickpeas. 

It looked a bit sad with no flashes of green, so I added a big handful of mixed vegetables from the freezer, I should have added a couple of spinach pellets too but I didn't think of that until I was eating it much later.

Once it was all cooked together I decided to whizz it up with my stick blender into a nice thick curry sauce.  I do like smooth sauces and smooth soups, I'm not one for lots of things floating in a sauce, although Alan is.

It made five perfect sized portions for me.  I wasn't in the mood for rice by the time I had made the sauce and washed all the pots, so I had it with a lovely fresh roll ... with perhaps a bit too much spread, but it was delicious.

I put two of the remaining portions into the fridge and the other two into the freezer, so that I didn't need to rush to eat them.

I still didn't fancy rice the next day, so I decided to make some Curry Pasties with one of the pots of curry from the fridge.  I chopped all the potatoes into quarters and stirred them into the curry sauce, diluting it slightly as it had thickened up.  The ready rolled pastry was from the freezer, and originally from Mum's bungalow when we shared out her frozen foods between us and my brother.

Tip of the Day 1 - Roll your ready rolled pasty out a little bit thinner, it always cooks and tastes so much better.

Tip of the Day 2 -  Roll it out between the paper it came on and a liner from a cereal packet, that way you don't have to add any additional flour, which would make it tougher.

Tip of the Day 3 - Cook your pastry products on the same paper that the pastry came wrapped in.  It saves you using baking parchment or having a messy tray to wash.

I managed to make four pasties, one of them split open so I ate it straight away, before I had even taken a photo, I should have remembered the photo though it actually looked quite nice with all the filling visible.  I then gave two of the pasties to Alan for his tea and ate the other one myself ... two meals half an hour apart ... why not!!

I had the tiniest portion that just wouldn't it into the pasties so I saved it ...

... and had it on a piece of buttered toast for my lunch the next day.

It was surprisingly tasty this way.

The other portion of curry sauce was eaten nice and simply with a portion of Basmati rice and peas, and was very filling.  Sadly, there is no photo of this either ... gosh I've been a bad blogger this week ... but I'm sure you can imagine it.  😄

One pouch of Butter Chicken Sauce, which I rate really highly in terms of flavour, ingredients and price ... and lots of lovely meals made from it.  Also, in finding that link above I have just discovered that it is currently on offer in Sainsbury's, so I think I will have to stock up on a few of them if I can.

Sue xx