Have a fabulous frugal February with the fantastic frugaleers

[northender]

As we filled the old thread, thought I'd start a new one for February.

Evening all. 40p on a can of diet coke and 4.50 on nappies.

helenagrace sorry to hear you're stressed. Hopefully your dh's second interview will result in a job.

NSD. Tomorrow in London for work so all claims.

Oh helena sorry you've not had any better news yet, fingers crossed for you and dh.
Dh's birthday has gone well without huge spends. It's a long story but I stuck exactly to the present plan, practical needs like a hat, gloves, a belt and then a couple of CDs for a bit of fun. I ended up buying the CDs from HMV where they were cheaper than online anywhere and when the man put them through the till it came up as 15 pounds rather than 15.98 so I was pleased. I managed to get something else a pound cheaper than marked too so felt quite happy with that.

We had a lovely meal out using the voucher dh had been sent for a free main course. He had a roast lamb meal which would have been 15.75. I had a 2 course lunch for 10 pounds so with a couple of drinks we only spent 17 and felt spoilt. I've just signed up for their mailing list which will give me a 10 pound voucher which I am going to use to take my mum out for a 2 course lunch for Mothers Day.

I've been paid today so I've shuffled money around to avoid overdraft interest charges. Will now do a check and see how much we've reduced our debt by since the start of the year.

Sorry for all the prices written long hand but our salvaged keyboard doesn't have a £ key. As you can see I've now figured out how to do it!!

My friend came over and knocked my wing mirror off. The new one.

Oh Amber that's a pain.

Spent £50 on top up and extras like veet wax and ready roasted chicken as our gas was playing up. Looks like it's the gas tap, we have to have it within easy reach - 1 metre or less from the hob at a height suitable to just reach out and switch it off, because of earthquakes. It seems to have worked loose in the 5 years we've been here. Gets turned on and off each time we cook. I don't know if it's safe so we want the gas bods to take a look. I digress, also spent £3 on coffee and cake because after having lunch at 4pm I was still hungry when I arrived at the supermarket.

Still counting off the days to the new month here...it gets worse...sent DH shopping yesterday as he's been moaning about lack of healthy food in the house (we have lots of freezer stodge, crisps and chocolates left over from my mum visiting - see upthread; she's a food-hoarding sugar-pusher!) and as much as I'd love to have an abundance of healthy choices every day I feel like we should eat what's there first anyway! he spent £60 on not quite sure what...well, we do have a lovely organic chicken ready for chicken salad tomorrow night. I would never splash out on this so it will be a real treat.

How do you keep frugal and healthy? I wouldn't go as far as buying a mahoosive lasagne from Iceland (the usual example of low earners eating crap) but I do find myself limiting our range of fruit and veg as it can be so expensive. So some days there is only a choice of an apple in the lunch box and a side of veg with dinner. I look enviously at colleagues lunch boxes who have vegetable crudités or salad every day!

About Mother's Day gift - Aldi have rose plants for £1.99. Think I might pot one up for each of the nannys.

Aldi's a sixty mile round trip for us what about lidl do they have Mother's Day flowers?

Wrt to healthy food I'm afraid we're the same. This week we have grapes, strawberries and bananas. Once they're gone they're gone will only replenish the bananas. Frozen veg is a good way to go I think. It's harder in the summer as I love salad but it goes off so quickly and is £££ for nice ones.

I'm going to need to be so, so frugal in March. So frugal. Will need lots of help :( I'm finding it really difficult, tbh. Keep craving takeaways, which I never ever have when I have the option!

Amber will your friend pay for your wing mirror? I'm a sucker for take away too nachos always cures my craving though as it's really quick and satisfying!

You can get frozen berries, smart price ones are very cheap or aldi do frozen blueberries.

If you have a market they are super cheap for veg or farm shops. If you have a sunny windowsill you could start off some living salad leaves.

Lidl will do Mother's Day flowers.

I was just about to suggest growing your own salad crop. You can use any sort of containers, buckets, margarine cartons that sort of thing. On your window will or soon, outdoors. If nothing else I do rocket as its v easy, slugs don't like it and its £££ to buy.
I havent used frozen veg but its recommended on lots of threads. Tinned fruit can also be cheap.
Keep going everybody,

Pay day yesterday so I did my online banking etc and added up all supermarket spend that went through for the last calendar month -£356 for 2 adults and 2 kids. I don't think that's too bad as it was averaging £450. Ive started getting a weekly asda delivery and only top up for milk. Hardly ever step foot in rip off tscos now.

I buy 2 x £1 apples, 2 x £1 easy peelers, 8 bananas, £1 punnet of plums atm. Grapes if we haven't eaten for a while (but dish them out as dp scoffs the lot with no regard to anyone else! ). We have a very large strawberry patch so don't often buy, we get sick of them in the end. Might try growing rocket but bit concerned I will be eating weeds instead (once had a mishap planting chives/grass??! )

Also bulking meat out with lentils/pulses is frugal and healthy. Even healthier and cheaper of course is using them instead of meat.

I agree north, if only I could persuade my family to like lentils! I made an amazing lentil stew yesterday, really cheap but filling and tasty as well as healthy. Can't wait to eat the rest for lunch today :o

Morrisons have sacks of Maris Piper potatoes - 12.5kg i think - for £2 usually £6.99. I don't know if that's all stores. And I notice that lidl have mince (500g pack) for £1 on Sat and Sun. That could be a cheap meal!

I am going to withdraw £70 for groceries each week and when it's gone it's gone. I shall leave my cards at home.

Lidl and Aldi both do really really cheap veg and fruit (we don't have a market nearby).

Really healthy meal: sheperds pie, made with mince bulked with lentils, mashed potato made with half potatoes / half cauliflower.

I cook up a huge batch and freeze 2 or 3.

Amberspyglass - very sorry to hear about the wing mirror - it's really soul-destroying to have to fork out for things like that when you are trying so hard to cut down :-( ..

My tips for frugal healthy eating:

• plan in advance so you throw less away/buy only what you need
• check out how much it costs to buy from independent shops - our corner shop is cheaper for mushrooms and peppers than ASDA
• eat like a toddler - I'm always reading you should look at what your little folk eat over a week rather than day to day to see if you're getting a varied diet. So if you end up having peanut butter on toast for lunch and pasta with cheese for tea, don't worry, unless that's what you have every day for a week
• be vegetarian as much as possible
• frozen fruit and veg, especially expensive/seasonal ones like: berries, sweetcorn, peas, broccoli and cauliflower. But don't go for too basic on peas or sweetcorn because they taste horrid!
• have a couple of standby cheap recipes; my best one is mushroom risotto - seriously cheap - or homemade pizzas (not buying pizza bases) pizza dough can be made in bulk and frozen in batches; use passata with herbs as the tomato sauce, go light on the cheese and heavy on the mushrooms, peppers and sweetcorn

Good ideas there freelancemama. like you said, eating seasonal fruit and veg is always going to be cheaper than buying stuff that has to be flown in.
I feel I have to defend basic peas, though! Chucked in a shepherds pie or something they're really ok!

Marmite spaghetti is another cheap meal (thanks, Nigella ).

55p on the daily mirror.

Nsd here.

Food shopping day Saturday and I think I will already have meat for five meals! So should be a nice cheap week

£5 on joining the Email a Prisoner scheme so I can contact my little brother... he's on remand for getting into a stupid drunken fight

Going to womble the paper in a minute for the Aldi voucher. NSD otherwise.

Great ideas about frugal healthy eating, thank you! I have plenty of space in our smallish garden to grow some salad - anything else easy to grow? I'm intrigued about frozen fruit - what do you do with it I've found it a bit sharp in the past so have probably ended up mixing with loads of ice-cream! I do have some of those lolly moulds but have never used them - could I make some kind of smoothie lolly?

Ooh about the potatos...I saw some in a farm shop recently, £6 for 25kg. Is this a good price? And if so, where/how do I store them so they keep fresh? Would take us a couple of months at least to get through a whole sack

£1.10 on 2 Daily Mirrors! Thanks for the heads up fluffycloudland.. I shall be timing my weekly shop to use up both vouchers...