Marching into a miserly march with the mumsnet frugaleers

[Fluffycloudland77]

Newbies, helpful tips & lurkers always welcome.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1600030-Small-money-saving-habits-petty-even

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1543785-your-top-tips-for-money-saving-and-a-more-frugal-life

Red lentil or canneleni (sp) and leek. I freeze leftover peas & boiled potatoes and add them rather than waste them.

If you chill the juices out of the chicken & scrape the fat off you can add it to soup.

Thanks. How do you chill the juices out of chicken?

I usually boil up the carcass, then add carrots, leeks and celery and dome bouillon powder, then blend it down and add in the cut up left over chicken. But I fancy a change sometimes. I don't eat beans though - sets off my IBS

Sorry hit send too soon.

Thanks for the meal plans they are great. I'm going to try the chickpea thing it sounds gorgeous and so simple.

I was really pleased with my frugal meal tonight. We had some left over veg and roast potatoes. I added about quarter of a huge packet of ham off cuts from Aldi (£1.69 for a massive pack so about 40p worth), 2 rashers of bacon on their use by date (would normally throw them out ) and 3 leeks (aldi super six for 69p) then added a sachet of cheese sauce mix (3 for £1 so about 33p) and half a pint of milk (?25p) plus a lump of dried up cheese I found a t the back of the fridge I'd previously have thrown out. I cooked it all over a low heat in a casserole for about 40 minutes. DD and DS cleared their plates, dd had seconds and I've got enough left to freeze for another family meal :).

In the past I'd have thrown out the left overs the bacon and the cheese so effectively £1.67 for 2 family meals!

I cook chicken in the slow cooker, when I've lifted it out I tip all the liquid into a Pyrex jug & chill it in the fridge.

Spotty I've been trying to look at where our extra spends are that take us over the £75-85 that others seem to manage with similar sized families to us (I always stalk the 'how much do you spend on food shopping' type threads). I reckon our extra comes from:

• DH buying 'fun' fruit (i.e. grapes, kiwi fruit etc) when he does the shop, about one week in four
• biscuits and chocolate bars
• pitta bread/muffins etc - I am going back to making these again, I used and it's not hard
• cereal - we eat lots and I am sure porridge or toast would be a cheaper breakfast (we have porridge a few times a week, but generally cereal 3-4 days)
• butter - I love butter . Have started buying marg for baking though, and mixing it 50/50
• free range chicken instead of sad chicken
• mozarella/parma ham/avocadoes/sun dried tomatoes - I treat myself to that lot about every third food shop, and it only does me a couple of lunches
• nappies and wipes - cannot wait until DC2 is potty trained. Am determined to keep DC3 in cloth longer that I managed with DC1 or 2 (about 2 yrs with DC1, 18 months with DC2)
• Sainsburys top ups of the things I love but can't get at Lidl - risotto rice, jumbo porridge oats, spices, herbs, always seems to be at least a tenners worth of stuff.

We do 90% of our shop at lidl/aldi, but I still feel we could do it cheaper!

kazza you asked for a recipe for banana flapjacks, I'll try to link but it doesn't always work because of me being in forrin land.

pennysrecipes.com/6/banana-breakfast-cereal-bars

recipe is called Penny's banana cereal bars, just in case the link don't link.

NSD

I've tried getting my grocery bill down but since DH realised his problem is wheat it's been more expensive. And we have 4 dogs. And 2 preteens. And I do DD's packed lunches. And now in school they go for lunch at 2pm so need considerably more substantial snacks for their morning break. And DH keeps inviting people over or out without thinking about the budget first.

It's me against the world, basically.

School is still closed so DDs will be home tomorrow too.

Thanks for the welcome everyone.

Yes, I know how it built up. We bought a stupidly large house, DH took a pay cut due to the recession and lost his medical insurance and DH has no idea how much things cost. I pointed out that in 3 years I have paid over £18k for DD2 to go to nursery 2 days a week. It is lower now she has her EYF, but still £250 a month, plus £200 for after school club. DH will pick up kids. I'd like DD2 to stay at nursery, but she has another 18 months till she starts school. That is £4.5k. I'm going to see if they can do a shorter day, term time only to maximise her free hours and minimise additional fees. Perhaps 8.30 to 3 on a Friday? Maybe that would count as 2 sessions? I'll speak to the manager about options.

Also, spending money I didn't have on frivolities and then burying my head in the sand.

DS is glad he can now stop swimming and karate lessons that DH insisted had to continue, DD is sad, but I have promised to review it if the money situation improves.

Had a telephone interview today for new job within my firm. Unlikely to be more money in the short term, but probably more chance of progression. The new boss asked for me to do the job, but wasn't sure I'd want to move specialities. Now she just has to get approval to employ me on my current package. We get on well, she wants me, her boss wants things to go smoothly, my current boss thinks the job is perfect for me even though it will make his life harder.

NSD for me today, had soup and a roll (that I left in my drawer for tomorrow) for lunch, another soup ready for tomorrow. Will need diesel, but that goes on my expenses.

New job would also give me more autonomy, chancetyo work at home one day a week (but flexible), reducing need for child care.

possiblyorange our shopping is usually 70-85 quid a week. We buy everything from Ocado except for fresh fruit and veg, which we get from Morrisons. Also top-ups are from Morrisions as well. They are pretty good for deals on fresh fruit and veg (although probably not as good as Aldi) but as an example £1 for 4 avocados at the moment.

We do buy branded stuff and free range chicken etc but we eat a lot of essential/value range too. It's a balance we are willing to live with. It's nice to feel eating premium ice cream is "luxury" and we all need a bit of luxury in our lives, don't we. . Besides, the ice cream is discounted at the moment so total bargain.

Wow this thread is moving fast. Its great the amount of support there is here.

We do cereal or toast for breakfast on weekdays and then at weekends we sometimes have treats: bacon or sausage butties, eggs on toast or home made muffins, pancakes etc
The dc have school dinners while we have sandwiches, soup or leftovers from the night before
For evening meals we have a roast most Sundays which is usually a cheap cut that will provide us with an extra 1 or 2 leftovers meals. We have pasta on our busy nights when time is short and I batch cook curry, chilli, bolognese etc and freeze so we always have standby options.
I meal plan but am always prepared to adapt so that nothing gets wasted and always try to have chips, fish fingers and aldi battered fish in for those nights when we just cannot be bothered!
Tonight we had a fab quick tea, pasta mixed with some chopped fried streaky bacon,peppers, sweetcorn, broccoli with half a Boursin cheese (£1.15)mixed in.
I love home cooking but even I find it a bind at the moment sometimes but it is definitely paying dividends.

adorabell my SIL's mum is celiac. She often makes lentil bread. I asked her for the recipie recently as I thougt it would be something different and she sent me a link to this page. I haven't tried it yet but you may find it worth a go for a change

Thanks AdoraBell.

mercedes
have you looked into this?

www.ceacard.co.uk/

Thank you lists, will have a look Tomorrow when I'm less tired.

Kazza you're welcome.

Audit Great news on the job, fingers crossed for you. I don't think I'd dare work out what our childcare has cost us over the past 18 months! Actually I can't stop the mental arithmetic, and it's in the region of £29,000.

Cadbury how the heck do you manage that on £70-85? How many people? If I do a single shop anywhere other than Lidl/Aldi it's more like £130 a week. I have realised I am fairly crap at using up store cupboard stuff though - I determined I was going to clear the freezer and store cupboard in Feb and although the cupboard is a little emptier, the freezer was fuller at the end of the month than the beginning thanks to lots of bulk cooking . Maybe that will pay off this month in the shape of a lower food bill though - I have also just realised we have four (four pint) bottles of milk in the freezer, and normally at this stage in the week we are down to the last one.

eBay running total is up to £53, which is pretty much what I was expecting for everything once finished, and only two things have actually finished already (the rest are over the course of the week and weekend) so I'm pleased.

Only spending today should be some dried fruit for hospital bag and posting of eBay items.

Our freezer hardly has anything in it. There's nothing we could survive on for even a day!

It's my Nan's birthday today so need to buy some flowers (nice ones, not from the garage!) and get a card.

We've estimated that by the time dd who is 3 goes to school and out of nursery, both kids would have cost us £100k, just in nursery fees. No clothes, food, nappies, swim classes.... Just nursery.

NSD on Monday and LSD yesterday. £2.55 in hospital cafe following my appointment (broken elbow now healed) as I had to wait for dh. An unfortunate £7.05 on milk and malt bread at the little shop. It would have been half the price anywhere else but I would have spent more on other things if I had gone to Tesco.

Our new ALDI opens tomorrow but I might wait until Friday as it will probably be very busy.

Some great ideas for frugal meals. I must get planning again. I will try Andora's banana bars at the weekend.

Three of us possiblyorange but DS and DP are not adventurous with food. They pretty much eat the same three foods on a rota system. I tend to offset their branded stuff with my cheap stuff (lentils, chickpeas, rice, lots of veg on offer). That is not a problem though because I love the food I eat. I only buy two chicken breasts a week and that's 2 meals for the three of us. Also, if I am cooking something specific, and have run out of an ingredient, I tend to get just the stuff eg 2 tomatoes - the Morrisons is on the way to school so it's not a big deal. I tend to buy dried pulses and beans and cook in the pressure cooker. Very cheap.

Yes to using up your freezer and cupboard goods. We regularly have communist weeks - I still remember the news footage of people queuing up to buy food in USSR and the supermarket shelves being empty. Our cupboards look that empty too.

I think going from a family of 3 to 4 (plus part time nanny) is what did for our food shopping bill really - DC1 is old enough to eat a proper sensible sized portion (he probably eats 3/4 of what I do at main meals, although I snack much more), and even DC2 (3yo) eats a reasonable amount. Lots of incentive to BF DC3 successfully - no way am I forking out for formula every week as well!

Well done Audit! Glad your dh is being supportive.

Creme, sorry to hear about your cat. Our very old cat had kidney probs too, not nice.

Spotty, I spend £55 a week for 5 of us - me, dh, dd1(7 yrs), dd2 (nearly 5) and ds (3). That is out of necessity though! Dh's work sector has taken a beating over the last few years, but things are looking up now. Thank god for Aldi, the freezer and the veg patch!

NSD again. Had coffee with a friend but went to her house instead of going out as we are both broke. Tackling the ironing for the rest of the day. Fun!

Spent too much

£7.50 in tesco on flowers, bread and cake
£12 something in between the lines on a birthday card and two Mother's Day cards

Happy birthday To Spotty's Nan

Thanks again for that link Lists, looks very interesting. Think I'll try chick peas (my autocorrect doesn't want To make that 1 word ) first as red lentils are bloody expensive here.

Audit, sorry, I thought I'd said Well done To you.

Anyway, Well done and I'm also glad DH is being supportive. I second the idea of setting up a SO into the savings account.

And make sure DH has reminders of How much things are costing in future. I have the same with my DH only on a much smaller scale, he keeps forgetting that food doesn't cost the same as it did 20 years ago. I occasionaly make up an excuse for him having the Get the week's shopping, including toiletries, washing powder etc. on his own. Or if we are together I "lose" my card in my tardis bag so he has To acknowledge the amount he's signing for.

Good luck and Congrats for the new Job.

Creme how's the cat Today?

DD's school will remain closed all week so at least I can plan the next few days instead of waiting for an update each day.

Well done audit I had 'the convetsation' back in the day with my parents after leaving university with lots of credit card debt. I probably would have ignored it for longer but I wanted to go to New Zealand for a year and had to have finances in order for my visa. Best awkward conversation I ever had, suitably told off and have tried to be careful with money ever since!

possibly I have fingers crossed you can get maternity. I had an awful worry when pregnant as I was in a new job after returning to uni for postgrad study. I think I had to work up to 3 days before my due date to qualify for MA.

adora I also send dh shopping sometimes to teach him the fist if things!

30 petrol and 10 on a book for dads birthday yesterday. NSD so far today.