No spend January?

[corinewmoon]

After he festive blowout and considering ive got some big bills in January, (MOT, car tax, insurance) I have decided to try a no frivlous spending month. There is nothing i really need to buy, (apart from new school jumper and coat for DS) .
So I will be taking my lunch to work every day,
I will avoid costas,
and i will limit my self to one bottle of wine per week
I will aim to spend £200.00 on food shop for the month
I will not go for leisurely stroll to the shops during my lunch break.

Any one else want to join in. ?

I bought a yogurt maker for £17 about 15 years ago from Lakeland... not sure if they make one anymore. You put a tablespoon of plain yogurt, 500ml UHT semi-skimmed milk, stir it, and put it into the yogurt maker for 8 hours. I like to do that overnight.

HOWEVER, if you do not have a yogurt maker, fill a thermos with boiling hot water, tip it out and then put the tablespoon of yogurt, a bit of the UHT milk and shake together, add the rest of the UHT milk. Put the cap on tightly, leave 8 hours. Yogurt, the old-fashioned, hippie way. I find once you have plain yogurt on hand, you can make a lot more curries, or put fruit in it (even tinned, or a dollop of jam) for breakfast. Add a sliced banana and you're on to a good, healthy treat....

One healthy, cheap tip is to swap out recipes that use bread, pasta and rice and try to use more cous cous, bulgar, chickpeas and lentils. You can get a nice big bag of gram flour at any Indian grocery store. Mix it with a little water to get a sticky dough, add finely chopped onions and a teaspoon of turmeric, cumin and garam masala, fry in a pan of oil. Bhajis! My toddler loves them. Chickpea flour/gram flour has protein in it, so I like to make these and put in diced carrots and peas as well. He's getting 3 veg and loves it.

Hmmm... bhajis...

Am having a shitty day. Stop me ordering pizza.

Spend a tenner on food and DH paid his guitar tutor. Nothing else bought.

I have ordered from Ocado for delivery on Sunday but will edit the order.

We are drinking left over cava tonight in the name of thriftiness (rather than buying white wine)[hmmm]

*spent

Kinky D
Instead of Pizza takeaway

Pita bread half, tomato paste, veg/ham/whatever, grated cheese. Under the grill.

Much healthier and much cheaper than the sh* coming outta da HUT and will hit the spot, it will. Throw back a wine with it and you'll be cruisin'.

step away from the phone visualised what the money will buy you in feb

Bad

Bought myself some flowers £4 lillies so I could bin the dying ponsietta and not get depressed re no spend Jan.

A £2 bunch of Lidl daffs for the kitchen kind of fell in too.

Oops ordered dd Ivy & Bean box set £11 from Book Depository as she's on a role,loving them and they're fab. They're American and the library don't have them.Bad mummy,kid's books are my downfall.

Good

Went to get a party bday present and remembered I had something nice to regift so saved £5.

Bought a huge £1 chive plant from Lidl(they last for ages),will make my Sainsbo saves creamcheese sandwiches a tad more interesting.

Made the kids have packed lunches from Xmas left overs(saved £6 on school dinners)but wasn't popular.

We're eating up the fishfingers in the freezer tonight for tea.Pack of 12 between 5,will be eating a lot of chips,peas and salad too!!!!!

DD needed a notebook for piano,found her an old one I had and ripped the used pages out.

Will be drinking up the Crabbies tonight but could kill a white wine.

Composted the Book People catalogue that came today,would have ordered but stopped myself.

Altogether,I've kind of broke even-sort of.

The latest bread is ... FANTASTIC! We are all scoffing it down hot out the breadmaker as I type, and ruining our supper (Sweet and Sour Pork, by the way - Sainsbo recipe with ancient pack of pork cubes from darkest recesses of the freezer).

mrsheffley I have thrown out my Ikea, Argos and Tesco direct catalogues. We don't need anything. Just got to try not to go to the websites too. I'm pretty sure you can request not to be sent a catalogue by The Book People.

Even better than pitta bread pizza, make some white bread dough, roll it out and put it into a large baking tray, put passata or strained tinned chopped tomatoes on top, drizzle with a bit of olive oil, top with grated cheese and any of the following: herbs, sliced mushrooms, onion, olives, chopped ham. Fantastic!

Sadly, I am on my first day of Weight Watchers (after cheapy subscription yesterday). No such luck as gorgeous home made pizza either .

I have been restrained. I had pasta (weighed) with vege sauce and olives (weighed) and quorn sausages (counted). The misery... and there's still such a massive chunk of amaretto-soaked Christmas cake sitting in the kitchen. And celebrations. And Roses. And nice Hotel Chocolat choccies.

Even better than pitta bread pizza, make some white bread dough, roll it out and put it into a large baking tray, put passata or strained tinned chopped tomatoes on top, drizzle with a bit of olive oil, top with grated cheese and any of the following: herbs, sliced mushrooms, onion, olives, chopped ham. Fantastic

I make homemade pizza and it works out at about 500 kcal for 4 slices...

My dough is 400g strong white bread flour, 1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 250 ml water, 1 7g sachet of yeast. Makes two 12 inch pizzas. Topping is (Napolina) pizza sauce, grated cheddar, pineapple chunks, pepper and mushroom. The kids have a garlic & cheese pizza or we freeze one.

Ok,so as I said yesterday,tonight we are supposed to be re starting our Friday night 'date nights'.I volunteered to cook. I worked a night shift last night and sooooooo can't be arsed don't have the energy to cook tonight. Haven't slept today so feeling pretty lazy tired now. The phone is yelling "pick me up!dial the number! " and I do have an 'emergency' £20 in the budget....does this count?

Aww, nooooo... don't have a takeaway... Do something fun like make pancakes! Or have chip butties!

And poor you, you've reminded me of when DH used to work nights and he'd be so tired at the weekend as he'd often stay up one day to spend time with us.

I got a reminder to spend in my gas & elec meter readings. We are currently massively in credit and our monthly direct debit is £10 a month (the minimum you can pay!). Anyway, we had a target to stick to on our usage until today and only went over ever so slightly so I hope that when the bill comes it will be okay. I am a bit worried that we'll end up messing this up and will now get a huge bill. But hey, we only paid a tenner a month for 6 months. Normally we would ask them to put the credit back in our account but with DH being made redundant it seemed like a good move.

reckoner I have searched thru my kitchen and I am creating a Thai green veg curry with rice noodles, wine we were given for Christmas and homemade microwave sponge pud! £20 saved! Putting the x box on tonight as well for a change to play some kinect sports games :) working nights is hard,but don't have to pay any childcare as my ds2 is in preschool (just does funded hours)every morning so I can usually sleep and ds1 is in school.that's a top money saving tip to avoid childcare costs! :)

morecoffee that sound really lovely (and much much nicer that chip butties lol). Enjoy!

Spent $5 last night on a hot sandwich and chips from deli as I worked overtime and then had to drive across town to drop something off. I'm pregnant and end up exhausted by 6pm and most likely would have eaten nothing had I not done so - chalk one up for a frivolous spend if you must Couldn't have packed something as didn't foresee either thing happening.

Today is my niece and nephew's 4th birthday but their Christmas present was pricey enough to count as both so nothin spent there. Will have party food and cake tonight so still don't have to go to the shops yet hooray!

Total spend January:
$5 = deli food purchase
$30 = necessary petrol for out of town appt

Another quick pizza idea is to buy toasting muffins. Toast the outsides after cutting and then spread passata and toppings of choice.

Mozarella (pre-grated) on top

Voila mini pizzas. DD's used to love doing this as a birthday party treat, with all the toppings in an assembly line & the kids making their own-messy but fun!

If you have Baguette or french bread going stale "French bread pizza " is fab.

Slice in half lengthways - spread with tomato puree and add mozzarella and spinach- top with cheddar cheese . DD fav- she would bite your arm off for this! and it stops waste - also good for slightly stale rolls.
Also have done with tomato, ham,olives and cheese .

bake it for 10-15 mins - forgot that bit !

No Friday night takeaway or glass of wine but will be worth it in the end!

This thread is great and has really inspired me to try and cut back more and also try and make some extra money. I've just sold an old phone to envirofone for £39, plus I did it via TopCashBack (which I saw recommended on another thread in Credit Crunch) so that earned me just over £1 . Also listed some stuff on ebay for the first time. This is sort of addictive isnt it?