Marching into May, packed lunches all the way ! Join the frugaleers for frugal tips and friendly chat .

[QuiteCleanBandit]

New thread

mammy
I have to admit feeling pretty frought with all the relatives problems recently .This was reflected a bit in my food spending so loving all the frugal lunch chat and Im firmly back on it !
DC has just announced they will be away until tuesday so have put half a loaf in the freezer as the 2 of us wont eat it

Interesting reading of others going through similar feelings regarding time for themselves. I posted these images in my IG yesterday along with pictures of the beautiful countryside I went for a walk in. Dd had her horse riding lesson, one hour. Ds stayed home with H, I went for a walk and then read for remaining time, other weeks I've cross stitched, when I'm feeling more energetic I will run for this hour. These are my hobbies, much forgotten about in recent years except for running. I watch Emmerdale but not consistently when it suits me and the occasional bit of Netflix.

When I first started using ynab I allowed €5 for weekly lunch from deli counter, after a few months I realised what this was costing and switched it to once per month we're lucky to have a grill, toaster, sandwich toaster and microwave at work. This week my lunches were open toasted ham cheese and tomato sandwich/Tuna prepackaged sandwich/open toasted bagel with Brie and relish and salad/ prepacked kale,carrot and almond salad with avocado and grated cheddar. Other weeks it's leftovers or poached eggs or couscous with some veg and chicken or beans on toast

I used to make soup & take to work but my blender isn't blending it to my liking so I'm not doing that at the moment. I'm waiting for a decent discount code on Littlewoods to buy a soup maker.

Opposite culture at my work to lifelong, we only have 30 mins for lunch, shop is two miles away, really shortens your lunch break if you go out.

Tayto Matilda looked epic, saw some pics on Instagram too. Sometimes the treat of a roll from shop for dc is a worthwhile expense

Today's spends
€1.60 newspaper
€12 ds haircut (H was meant to take him during the week, didn't happen)
€2 slot machine sweets
€2 shopping centre ride (both bribes to get haircut and behave while doing so, and he did incredibly well)
€3 printing photos, something I don't do enough of 12 5x7s for this price. I only wanted too but it was min price €3
Grocery shop approx €150 used a €15 off €155 spend code but spent our weekly budget anyhow freebie was 60 fairy non bio pods and chocolate for chocolate orange cheesecake I'm making today.

£11 aldi, £1.50 sains, £1.40 morrisons. All food for the next three days.
£5 body brush for cellulite 🍊.

Looking at making my own ginger and garlic paste so I can use it in curries. I’ll freeze it in the ice cube tray like I did for my homemade creamed coconut.

Homebase sell a grow your own root ginger kit. It’s a piece of ginger like you’d buy in the supermarket in a small bag of compost. £2.50 🤔 I reckon you could buy that for about 60p in the supermarket.

quiet thanks for the new thread.
Wolf Nigella it isn't... I have got the get out the door routine down to 31 minutes. Lunch prep takes no more than 4 of those minutes. Any longer and it is burnt toast being eaten on the bus. I save time by using mayo houmous or a relish instead of butter ...saves about a minute. Buttering bread takes longer than you would think. Add random green leaf thing and filling pre prepped the night before. Put it on a wrap or interesting bread....the half baked baguettes are good in that they can cope with being squashed in the bottom of a bag and don't suffer if they are cooked the night before.

I have done some more on the garden and cleaned the windows and kitchen morning but it is now threatening to rain so I have declared this afternoon idle about and possibly make a planting plan time. I would do more housework but I got home to find it all done.... The brittle peace has thawed.

Although I may fill some sketchbook space... Choices.

I got big packs of frozen ginger /garlic paste in cubes in the world foods section of a supermarket (cant remember which one)
40 for just over £1 (cant remember exactly) but I still havent run out !

Fluffy it annoys me when I see things like that. When you choose your ginger get one with lots of nodes on and nice and plump.... The Asian supermarket might be better as their ginger is loads fresher than the stuff from the supermarket.
The other thing that is really easy is lemon grass.... Choose stems that have a generous bit under the base of the last leaf. Pop the stem in a glass of water. When it starts to root transfer to a pot and trim to about 2-3 cm. Keep well watered and warm. It does grow quite tall.... Think of it as a grass indoor plant and make a feature of it.

£63 Aldi

Meal plan:

(In no particular order)
Jackets with tuna and salad
Gammon with macaroni cheese
Fresh stuffed pasta
Pizza and
Nuggets and chips
Lamb kebabs with giant couscous and feta salad
Chicken sausage pasta
Pasta bolognese x 2
Coconut, lime and chilli chicken with something maybe normal couscous

So that's ten meals which is pretty good I think.

I might go spinning later, haven't been in ages though and the price has gone up

Frozen would be much cheaper but I can’t risk having sulphite preservatives because I’ll get a horrendous rash on my face. Rice Krispy size hives.

So I’ll make my own 😔

I’m looking at buying glass jars in the range for all my spices, you can buy pre printed labels on eBay for them. My spice collection is getting ridiculous. I miss takeaway curries.

£27 riding and £14.99 catfood. I’m annoyed as thought catfaces biscuits were on a subscribe and save. But for some reason I skipped this month.

Riding did me good I think - fresh air!! Although am completely absolutely exhausted now. Pony was superbly springy and jumped really well. Yay!

Home Now. Dh has taken the oven out. No replacement as yet.

fluffy I have ginger growing in the greenhouse. I bought a juicy fat bit in lidl (about 30p) and planted it. Kept moist and it was shooting within a month. I repotted it recently and the roots are thick and white atm, so hopefully will swell into tubers this year. Pintrest has all the info you need.

Some sweet peas arrived, so dd3 and I potted some of them up into a long trug (is that the word? Sounds wrong) with all the baby strawberries from last years plants. We also potted up the small strawberry pot with the actual strawberry plants from last year. It was full of grass and nettles, and a hanging basket.

Then we planted out all the peas and beans, sticks and net up, and a little cloche made from tubing and plastic sheeting (recycled from chickens old coop), so I could copiously slug pellet. Job done. Left overs for lunch.

Dropped dd1 and she is DofE-ing now. I am resisting the urge to text her. I think she'll have a blast, and has a nice group of friends (all boys). Oddly 4/6 of them are from the toddler group we used to go to. 20 miles from the school, stopped going when dd1 was 4. Just seems so coincidental that out of a 10 class year group, she found 3 close friends from kids she didn't know she already knew!

£30 on petrol, and 35p on matches in case no-one else brought any to light the stoves. She actually laughed and gave me a 'look' when I told her not to muck about with them.

This talk of lunches and meal plans inspired me to actually cook lunch today and make extra for later.

Need more tubs with lids - meanwhile recycling readymeal trays.

Fluffy
I did this some years ago. ,and because I got totally fed up looking for spices in the cupboard and having to pull them all out until I found the one I wanted I bought jars that would fit in a kitchen drawer! . Labels on lids, 'filed' alphabetically .. Revelation! No more 'spice rage' '.. ok so it is a bit anal

I grew lemon grass from a supermarket it also.. I must say though that if you but seed garlic rather than try and grow on supermarket stuff you do get much better results.. . You can buy seed garlic from lots of places and also the garlic farm I linked to above.. 'Solent Wight' is a good one to grow,.

I have also grown Horseradish from a tuber in a pot .. Never grow horseradish direct in the ground unless you want it to take over!

sorry the link was on the last thread! here it is again seed garlic

Lautrec wight is also good. but its really too late to plant any for this year now if you want a decent crop

I love sweet peas!!

Wilkos and home sense are good for pots in all shapes and sizes for lunches.

£6.70 spin class I forgot my seat cushion though 😭

Hello! I am at home all day and still not managing such good lunches as you workers - I had better lunches when I was working as I planned ahead. Now I just get to lunchtime and eat crap. Must try much harder! Also not doing great on the ‘me time’ at the moment. Though I’m usually a knitter I’ve lost my mojo.

I’ve been doing housework all day so far - mostly sorting the clean laundry mountain /washing towels /changing beds. And soaking stains out of DS’s brand new logo school shirts . Fourth load of washing is in. Spare room still looks pretty messy but you can, at least, see the bed now. Which is lucky as my sister is staying here tonight

Ocado is coming later £99. Meal plan is:

Sat - pasta, meatballs and roast tomato and pepper sauce
Sun- sea bass, cous cous and broccoli
M - Harissa chicken, rice and spinach
Tu- sausage cabbage beans thing
W- salmon laksa
Th- beef goulash soup, garlic bread
Fr- freezer dive

I am going to see dad tomorrow and tbh I’m dreading it. Mum has finally opened up a bit and told us that she was very upset yesterday - she went to visit dad and he’d been really dosed up because of pain etc and he was basically in a stupor. Swaying and slurring. I think she was terribly upset to see him like that. They are tinkering with his meds again but tbh the pain is really bad so I don’t think it’s possible for us not to notice any change in him now . Its awful, you kind of lose the person bit by bit before they’re really gone. Granny is also deteriorating but they’re moving her from her care home, which isn’t really set up for acute nursing, to a hospice. So at least she’ll be better looked after. I’m really glad as I didn’t really get a good feeling from her care home.

DD continues to be a ray of sunshine. She’s properly learned to say ‘Mwah’ now and so blows me a lot of kisses! DS is also being very lovely this week. He’s got his first ever school trip next week which I think will be hard all round (he will be confused and upset by the break from routine) so I’m a little apprehensive about that... I’m expecting a call to go and retrieve him at some point. But on the plus side I get to make him a packed lunch in cute little bag with rockets on that I bought two years ago if I can find it in the spare room of doom . He’ll be impressed with that. Lunch police say no cake, sweets or crisps though. Fair enough day to day but a bit mean for a school trip I think. Especially to a forest where they’ll be running around like loons. Not sure whether I’ll get away with flapjack...

seacow ah sure you’ll be fine with flapjack. It’s mostly oats right?!

I just did my second stage ASD test, which was all multiple choice questions. Dh filled in the independent witness forms and says that for all the questions he wanted to check a box that said "I'm more like that than she is."

I like the idea of growing lemongrass, I might have a go at that, I’m pretty useless in the greenfingered department though

My lemon grass plant all from one stick from the supermarket.. However its taken about 5years to get like this . so its not really that productive . Its in the conservatory in winter outside in summer..

Its looking a bit sorry for itself after the dull winter but It will look a lot better and grow like mad in the summer..

Thats a 12" pot BTW

That seems like good growth from one stick

31.50 for takeaway from bloody expensive takeaway place ds is refusing to eat because he is sad and I asked him what would encourage him to eat... expensive child

Fluffy I get itchy with sulphites.
Went to freezer to take pic for you. 100% garlic and no additives or preservatives.
DH confirmed from Morrisons

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