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

[QuiteCleanBandit]

New thread

..failed link sorry, HG service Engineer

its cheaper on amazon because of delivery cost s.. but all HG cleaning products are really good and well worth it . (also Astonish products )

lonely Cumbria is my second home. I am up there once a week at least for work. Have you managed to direct sow outside yet?. I went to put peas and beans in this morning but it just seems too cold. I don't have any indoor growing space. I am concentrating on the expensive to buy / "have to buy in a bag so go off before I eat them all because no other fecker will eat them" / tasteless when bought from the supermarket but not too difficult..salad leaves, herbs, tomatoes, fennel, sprouting broccoli, squash, celeriac, radishes, beetroot for the leaf.

Love they were a bit sharp on usedto's thread. A lot of the posts had a very Victorian tone to them.... The deserving and undeserving poor view. Frankly it doesn't matter what people have spent money on in the past...it is perfectly simple to give advice for the future without the morality judgement or competitive pity parties.

laska hopefully they are just being a bit slow. I know ours can say it will be days and weeks later they go "suprise!" Could he consider temping? I have had a couple permanent jobs offered on the back of a temporary position. It might also mean he is able to sustain his tenancy.

Un thats a good Idea! ( ithink we have been stuck in 'proper job or bust ' mode and he ceratinly has skills now he didnt when he was previously unemployed ( hes been working in Council tax !) .. I will put that to him..

Yes, ye to 'Victorian' attitudes on some other threads! (you wont find any of that here *usedto and Mumming - welcome BTW!)..
Ive just been reading a 'inheritance disappointment ' thread and my god, the posters there are really laying into the poor OP for daring to suggest that maybe its pretty unfair situation ..(even though of course she cant change ot)

Welcome usedto and mummingainteasy

I've folded laundry, put on and out a wash, cleaned out henhouse and boiler ash tray which was overful so took twice as long and destroyed my clothes. It's 15 deg so I'm off out for a walk/run now. Dc are gone with H to his friends house.

Still can't find my bank card for joint account

Laska fingers crossed for your ds
Lonely your dd will be fine & be having so much fun that she's not even thinking of you.
Love topup shops are the work of the devil aren't they

.. but them we've has criticism here for actually not being poor enough! ( i.e spending money on more than just Gruts, soap and firewood ..(... Gruts relevant if any of you know your Ivor Cutler!)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/2270347-Frugal-January-everyone-welcome. Some chat links are dead and the Tesco orchard is gone now.

For the newbies. A few weeks of superscrimping can focus what you really need to spend on.

Welcome UsedTo and Mumming

Welcome newbies.

It's so cold we've had to turn one of the heaters back on. I'm under a blanket but still frozen. Dd is being a dick today and I'm really not in the mood.

Hi, I have eyed your thread for a while now, some great hints. I’ve spent the afternoon making curry paste, we have curry once a week and have made six batches which are in the freezer. I used fresh turmeric so my hands are all yellow!
Also made a raw beetroot and apple salad, this will be used for my lunches. Also baked a coffee and walnut cake to take to work to thank my new colleagues for their patience with me! I’ve just started a new full-time job which is a bit of a shock to the system after 9 years part-time so meal planning is going to be a priority. This is what I have planned for this week:
Tonight roast chicken with roasties, Yorkshire’s and veg etc
Monday: burritos with left over roast chicken
Tuesday: veg stir fry with noodles
Wednesday: chicken curry
Thursday: shepherd’s pie (cooked up a load of mince yesterday) not sure what I’ll have (don’t eat red meat) plus I will be home late
Friday: takeaway, we have a great grilled chicken place literally on our doorstep
Saturday: enchiladas with chicken

Em I hope your last day of maternity leave is a good one.. ! It must feel a bit scary.. (or a blessed relief?!! )

Welcome Curly

I haven't costed the curry paste but it's not much & if you buy the spices in the 100g bags in Asda or Morrisons it must be cheaper. Maybe I should freeze mine in special ice cube trays. Then I could just chuck however many tablespoons into the base sauce. I'm stealing your idea there Curly.

£2.50 on cat food.

If you want takeaway recipes "the takeaway secret" is the book to get. You can probably get a PDF version for free. I got mine second hand off amazon. It's the book that taught me how to do rice. I used to buy microwave rice

Sorry mumming missed you there. Welcome and to you too curly ... Can you post your curry paste recipe pleeeeeease. Mine are all a bit meh.

Laska when I was first on this thread we were right down to copper up territory. Each and every month it was a struggle and there were times I wasn't sure that we had enough food for the month. The support I got from here was amazing. I still use the fakeaway recipes (including the sweet & sour pork and fried rice which I think is one of yours) half the washing powder, make dh freeze when he works from home, very rarely buy my lunch, use the library and have an encyclopedic mental recipe collection so I can make a meal from the end of month fridge scrapings. Most importantly I have developed a mindset that questions every single thing I buy. That means we have more money for the things that we really enjoy. Along the way I have developed a skill set I never thought about - dressmaking, meat curing, bookmaking (good for gifts😉) flower arranging aka making a £2 bunch of flowers look expensive, foraging, cheese making, pickling, brewing, knitting,....and now Vege gardening (thanks lonely). Frugaling has been so much more than not spending.

Lots of lovely welcomes, thank you. Hmmm, the other thread, there was a point where I felt like deleting it - it wasnt AIBU so I didn't expect to be told to get a grip because we have been spending on Sky/BT/Netflix. Firm but fair was what I was hoping and to be honest, mostly did get and so I'm glad I didn't delete because on the whole, everyone has been really nice. And so many people in very similar circumstances so that actually helped (admitting the amount of debt was a big deal). And there have been some really great tips. Really helpful.

Anyways - dinners this week There are 3 of us.

Tonight is a staple - we have it every week (not usually a Sunday, but very lazy tonight). One tin of tuna (btw us), large amount of mixed veg, and french fries. Salt & vingear and Asda tom sauce, in front of the telly, in pasta bowls so the bowl is really full. It's like 3 triangles of different food, but tasty and cheap.

Rest of the week will be:
-Roasted veg and rice (usually with an egg, both DH and DS love eggs)
-Home made spag bol
-Soup and pudding (I made a deep victoria sponge but don't put them together with jam. instead, I cut each layer in half to make 4 sponges, freeze them individually and take one out and have with custard on soup and pud night.
-Roasted veg and goats cheese on panini (i get a Gluten free one, 2 in a pack and we use one between us, so we get 2 dinners out of thisThe other breakstck will be for next week or used wth the soup).
-Tuna and Little Gem salad with red onion and egg. Topped with home made potato wedges (sooooo much nicer than shop bought. S&V or paprika to season and a little portion of sweet chillie sauce
-Pasta with a basic tom sauce.

Usually Friday we have some ice cream, go us! I'll make a banana loaf when the bananas are too ripe, slice and freeze that too, so there is always a carby treat somewhere in the house.

There are some seriously tasty dinners being made in this thread. I need to up my cooking skills I think

cag em and sea's weaning foods are truly amazing. They wouldn't look out of place on the expensive starters thread.

Usedto I haven't seen your thread but generally some people on mn can be unkind.

Do you bulk your bolognese our with lentils? A 500g pack lasts us two meals (4 of us) with enough for a really decent portion each.

Dinner tonight is lamb kebabs, flat breads, giant couscous and feta salad. Yum!

For my curry paste I toast and grind
8 teaspoons cumin seeds
4 tsp coriander seeds
4 tsp fenugreek seeds
4 tsp black mustard seeds
Then add 4 cloves garlic, bunch coriander stalks, handful chillis (red or green, depending on your preferred hotness) thumb of ginger, 25g fresh turmeric (or 1 tsp powder), salt about 4 tbsp tomato purée, and same of veg oil. Then blitz to a paste, I use one of those hand held ones. Add more tom purée if required.
I am fortunate to live really close to an Asian supermarket so the spices are very cheap. I reckon the paste is literally a few pence per batch. We usually have chicken curry but I love a veg one too.
Sometimes make a chana masala to go with it. Also very cheap.

Jack monroe does a banana bread. I use vegan recipes too for cakes or brownies. Sounds vile but tastes great. I'm using her kidney bean burgers next weekend, hopefully in home made pittas. Burgers are easier to eat in half a pitta.

I read your other thread. I think if you email sky's CEO and ask which bits you can drop from your service you'll get a dialogue going. I have heard cancelling Netflix sparks retention deals. Moneysavingexpert are really good at that sort of thing. The shy bairn gets nothing.

Welcome Curly, Mumming and Usedto.

I completely agree with the recommendations on HG products (and I’m taking that cheaper at amazon tip). Astonish are also good, they are local so I’m not sure if we get an extra bargain but they are £1 per product.

Unplanned spends today ds has grown out of all his school trousers and put the knees through a fair few (all reinforced knee pairs) so £30 on school shorts to see him through to the end of primary. I had a bit of an emotional moment as it’s the last school shorts I’ll ever buy. Also a card for ds’s friend
Had coffee and cake whilst waiting to pick ds up from contact £6 - need to watch myself, I’m coming home next time but I’m not sure that’ll actually be a saving on diesel

Thanks curly I need to stock up. Now it is quieter at work I can extend my lunchtime and whizz down to Longsight on the bus.

Fluffy, care to share your burger and pitta recipes? I love making bread

wreckedTangled I've not used lentils in the bolognaise - I just keep t hem for lentil soup. Can you taste them in the Bolg? I suppose it depends on how much you add. And there are some lovely people on MN, more nice than not thankfully

fluffy That's a good tip about the SKy. People always say they get great deals when they threaten to leave, we never have only an offer of adding in films or sport for much l ess than it should be for a few months. We've never been tempted but wonder what fab deals other people are getting that we don't. When you see it written down, it's a actually a disgusting amount to spend on Tv, really. Other than broadband which is kind of essential these days, freeview is probably enough (with Netflix thrown in)

Question: Do you need a landline for broadband? Looking at our BT account, we pay £18.99 for line rental, We never ever ever use it. We only get sales calls too. I assume it's needed to the streaming service?

UsedTo if you like sky programmes look at nowtv, much cheaper and no contract but you need to check you can get the programmes you want. There was a company recently that advertised that they were starting to do broadband contracts with no phone provision but I can’t rememvbrt who they were. I’d bet anything that Fluffy knows!

I add two tablespoons and you really can't taste them. The children love it and I feel good because they're getting extra protein.

Re landline you do need one for broadband but you can always take out your phone. You don't need a call package, I think you can definitely cut back on that (just read your thread). We pay £25/month for fibre broadband including line rental. It's only just gone in and we're really rural so don't get cheap offers like some places.

We got rid of sky and have now tv and Netflix. So much better!

Do you have a market nearby? We don't, if we did I would buy all my fruit and veg there, so much cheaper. As it is we use Aldi mainly and I find their fruit and veg great I think it varies store to store though.