July Frugal thread, Just chatting and saving.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Everyone welcome.

Hi too and welcome.

Welcome too

Nsd.

Welcome too

Been getting DD sorted at Pony Club camp, putting up a tent in the rain was fun... as was bathing the pony....!

Okay, I have a meal plan for the week too. I am liking the Abel and Cole delivery so far, as I can plan.

Monday - Pasta with steamed chard and anchovies.
Tuesday - Pasta with pesto, mushroom and chicken (the chicken is for DH, a meat fan)
Wednesday - Lamb and spinach curry
Thursday - Cheesy pasta bake with chorizo and peas.
Friday - Smoked mackerel risotto with greens.

Having a pasta based week it seems

And I need to use up some eggs, I have loads.

Welcome, too :)

I think I might end up doing a plan for the batch cooking, and then be sort of flexible in terms of what we eat and when. I always rebel against plans - so I think if I just have a load of nice meals/parts of meals in the freezer I can just decide in the morning what to defrost?

(DH does similar with batch cooking fails - always makes a big risotto with a view to taking the rest to work the next day... always finishes the lot :o)

Welcome too

Went to do the weekly shop today and spent less than £30. It hardly looked like I had anything in my trolley but we still have loads in the cupboards. We might need to do a top up shop later in the week, but hopefully won't need much. Bought some frozen spinach for first time as I'm sure it's more economical than fresh. Did very well at sticking to my list!

Tonight we're having giant veggie sausage roll (sausage mix, spinach and onion mixed together and rolled inside a puff pastry sheet) with veg and gravy. No mash because I forgot to buy spuds at the shop

Have loosely planned a few meals for the rest of the week, nothing rigid as we won't stick to it, but can choose from:

Green lentil, mushroom and rice pilaf
Red lentil dahl with spinach
Veggie fry up (sausage, egg, mushrooms, tomatoes)
Pasta with tomato sauce & garlic bread
Macaroni cheese (DH on this one)

So a good selection just my lunches to sort out really!

I find batch cooking backfires as well, I thought I had done pretty well this week as remembered to get some Bolognese out of the freezer but then put it in the fridge and promptly forgot all about it I am also prone to rebelling against meal planning!

The problem is I have to wait till about 4pm and see what I fancy vs what I have in the flat I realise this is rubbish. Today I had to chuck a fair bit of food that had gone over which I know is down in part to poor planning.

Ho hum.

I think planning loosely really does work better. It's maybe not quite as frugal but I find if we have say 6-8 meals to choose from then we actually will stick to it.

But then we don't eat meat at home so a lot of our meals might be bean-based and rely on dry or tinned ingredients. It means it's easier to swap and change around. I suppose if you had, say, pork chops that needed eating it might be different.

I also try and make four portions of something rather than two. DH always takes one to work the next day then, and it means I can either have the other one for lunch or put it in the freezer.

Yep, same here girlie - I have been saying to myself for months that I really really need to do this, as the amount of food we end up chucking is genuinely embarrassing. And we are eating far too much at MacDonalds etc.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one whose intentions so often fall by the wayside! But this time I've got DH involved in the planning (rather than forgetting til he's gone to bed) so hopefully we can just manage it this time. Also it's only really one week out of four - the batch cooking week - where we need to stick to a plan to avoid waste. The other 3 I think we could be more spontaneous because the food will already be there.

Well that was the most expensive camping trip ever! Thought it would be a cheap break and we'd cook all our meals on our new stove and maybe have one trip somewhere. Hadn't counted on it being quite so wet though and ended up in lots of cafes having coffee to warm up and bit! Then we got fish and chips for tea as we couldn't face standing out in the rain trying to cook. Went to a fabulous children's farm that was £9 each (but free for DD) plus spent £1 on goat food and bought lunch. Came home with a tonne of wet and filthy washing. So far the washing machine has been on 3 times plus the dryer once and we had to put the heating on for an hour as we were all so damp and cold! Oh and we found a craft beer shop that had some really unusual beers - DH and I are both enthusiasts. Needless to say we came away from there £18 worse off too! On the plus side the campsite was lovely and we had a great time despite the weather, especially DD she is completely exhausted from running round the site making friends with every man and his dog!
I really hope the weather is going to improve as I can't afford all these wet weather activities. DD is still too small for things like baking. I bought her some crayons in the pound shop but they will only interest her for a few minutes then it's onto the next thing!
Welcome to all the newcomers btw! It's taken me ages to catch up on the thread, you've all been busy!

Hi too and other newcomers!

Spendy day. I am like a pp who said that they'd manage several nsds or lsds as you are at work and then come the weekend and all hell breaks loose!

Water stones was £30+ as got a present for a friend, 3 other books for us. If kids weren't around it would have just been that one book. But it's the weekend. I don't really see my kids during the week! Well maybe could have shopped online. Sigh.

£20 at monsoon. Again £13 for new trousers for me (slowly getting rid of my size 8s. Sadly.) and £7 for dd's friend's birthday present.

£9 at Claire's accessories. 3 for 2 - another present for another little girl's birthday and one freebie for dd.

£10 for sticker labels online. I get 90 though. Have lasted many washes. Just new stuff to label.

£8 for more footner type things to smoothen my foot soles!!

Glad it's work tomorrow in that no spend will happen. 2 more weeks of work then break. Can't wait. don't want to wake up!

Pointless I know what you mean about beer, one of dh's cousins got us into wheat beer from germany/austria.

I cant drink normal beer or lager now. It just tastes awful.

It's usually American craft beers that tempt me, I even have favourite hops! We occasionally make home brew which is much cheaper but results are hit and miss. A couple of people I know make amazing home brew and wine.
Just realised that when DH put the heating on earlier he pressed "continuous" instead of "extra hour" the house is boiling and I am fuming about the waste of money. At least the washing is drying!

Bloody hell, shopping is over £100 already and I just realised we haven't even got to lunch stuff for the week yet. Mind you we did say everyone could choose a box of cereal so that's £7 gone on 3 boxes

This cooking lark better work! :o

Sympathies with the intolerances BTW. DH is coeliac, that's bad enough, so we are lucky that's the only food issue in the house. Well, DD is convinced she's allergic to Skips but I don't really count that :o

Ah, is it a recent diagnosis then? It's hard to get used to it at first. DH and his DD were diagnosed coeliac at the same time (age 38 and 8), took some getting used to but yes it does get a lot easier once you're accustomed to it! Eating out is the only real issue now as there's a big variation in staff knowledge, but at least a lot of the info is online now too so we often check beforehand.

Bit of a spendy weekend.

Clothes for DDs, much needed, £100 roughly
Lunch with stepson, £55 - that was 5 of us
I spent £20 on sunblock and odd bits
DH Spent 700 fucking pounds on a new phone because he can't Get crédito for a contract. One of the perils of having lived over seas.

Then Today he got petróleo and I paíd £12 for snacks and coffee on the motor way. We'd been up To London for a family weekend.

Just done an on line shop, £113. This week we need to get school uniform for the DDs, if we have any money left after DH's new phone. FFS.

Hello Too and welcome.

On another note, I am really not getting used to this £20 minimum spend on Amazon. I really want to spend a measly £3 (from my entertainment budget) on a DVD I'm desperate for but can't stretch to the rest at the moment.

Adora £700 on a phone! Bloody hell. That's twice what we paid for our new laptop and that included Office subscription too

Yay Collie! Fantastic. That gives me hope :o