Spending sparingly in early Spring - frugal friendly folk gather round.

[Justanothermile]

New 'fred

^Ggreen* as in a recipe to make the starter. That is really easy … so long as you aren't too house proud. Just mix about 100g of plain flour with 100of water ....leave on the bench uncovered. Next day add 50gflour and 50ml water with 100g of goo, repeat this 2nd stage for another 5-6 days until you see it bubbling. That is your starter. to refresh add 100g of starter, 100g flour and 100ml of water ..leave overnight. To check it is ready take a teaspoon of the levan and see if it floats in water. If not leave for another couple of hours. Then make your dough.

Your starter should breathe (bubble up and settle back down) each time you feed it. It can left for a month or so in the fridge without doing anything. when you need it feed it a couple of nights running so it looks pillowy.

this method does not work if you have an overly clean house... yeast is knocking about in the dust.

Ahhh, that will be why the one time we had a starter, it actually escaped the jar and made off horror-movie style. Dp and kenwood are my bead makers. He makes epic pizza dough with olive oil in it, and amazing bread.

If any of you want a giggle and use pintrest, make some "30 minute dinner rolls" ... the weirdest sweet bread ever! Even my dc thought they should be pudding!

I made dd3 a Guinea pig pouch from the hood of her old onsie tonight, using some demin too. Then spent £30 in amazon on a couple of extra bits. I always do this.

Ooh, I’d be interested in the Portuguese bread recipe if you’re willing to share?

I daren’t get into sourdough bread as I love it and bread is a food I have to pretty much steer clear of at the moment as I need to lose weight. Also daren't buy a bread maker though it would be really handy for kids’ pizza dough.

Have been too knackered to post for a couple of days (my long work days). Yesterday was lsd, just £2.80’for 2 cups of tea from the canteen. I need to join the milk kitty and start making my own... awkward though with nowhere to leave things like mugs and my decaf teabags (I hotdesk, no desk of my own). Similar spend today at work though I also bought for a colleague. WFH tomorrow.

I’ve had a cold and now have an annoying dry cough. Dd woke up at 12.30am last night and wouldn’t go back to sleep - she was wide awake and asking to go downstairs. Very unlike her indeed, I hope it was a one off. Anyway, she went down about 2am but I couldn’t get back to sleep as my cough kept me awake... so I had maybe 2 hours sleep. Knackered and woke up with an eye infection. Oh, hang on, that was £7.50 for the eye drops. And after work I went on a safari round East London looking for plain flour, which has sold out completely on my local high st (thanks to pancake mania) so I had to drive to Waitrose. Sigh. £1.35. Proud I didn’t buy anything else (in Waitrose too!)

I’ve just made 30 giant confetti cookies for school tomorrow (the PTA is running a pyjama party with bedtime stories as part of book week and all the kids get milk and cookies made by volunteers.) I’m still up as I’m waiting for them to cool 😬

Seriously dead on my feet now!

Confetti cookies sound fab Christmas! Do you have a recipe for them?

Sorry to hear that you're so tired though. I spent last night sleeping on the floor of the DC's room - by the time I went up to bed they'd both crawled into ours, and between them and DP there was no room for me! Still, I made myself a little nest and it was quite comfy really.

I've made this bread before, which turned out well:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10121/bread-in-four-easy-steps

Thought the DC would enjoy making it but no, they got bored. Sigh! We have to avoid bread a bit here too though as it's so easy to eat loads and both DP and myself have a few lb's to lose.

May have to be a super frugal weekend for us as DP's large payment still hasn't arrived, and without it we will be struggling to pay the mortgage I've done my big Iceland shop so we'll have plenty to eat, but other activities will have to be kept to a minimum. There's an art & craft group the DC like to go to which is £7 each - we'll see if we can justify that.....

Spends today: £74.86 Iceland + £1.35 (sweets at the shop for DC!). Total Lent spend = £92.20

Will post the recipe in a bit as struggling with client's copy for website at the mo (I love content writing!). It is a great recipe and the bread lasts for ages. I have one for broa de milho as well which is a corn bread, which is lovely but very filling it can also double up as a weapon as very heavy!

I've promised DS that we can do butterfly cakes this weekend amongst other baking as he loves his sweet treats.

Today will be spendy as I have to get weekend shopping but I'm trying to plan meals around what we already have. Work will be fairly light today as waiting for quite a few clients to respond with info for their jobs or feedback so going to crack on to get cleaning and planning aspects of stuff done so the weekend is clear for some meaningful organising ahead of a spring clean.

I'm reading the No Spend Year and it's interesting that one of the key elements she highlights regarding overspending is lack of organisation. I tend to end up spending more for sure when I'm disorganised and don't plan, so I'm going to try to break that habit for sure.

Ruby, it's when those payments that you're expecting don't arrive that it really throws everything into jeopardy doesn't it? We had that after Christmas with one DH was expecting and myself, we were literally down to less than £50 in bank accounts for a while, I never want to be like that again.

My webinar was really good and I've bought the book that the lady has written to digest at leisure, it was very revealing about how we think about money - needless to say I'm not in the 'rich' mindset!

Yesterday no spend but off today and will be spendy.

That's kind sneaky but I have nowhere to put it!

Food shopping and fuel today. I'm also going to go into homesense and buy a utensil stand I've seen as ours are driving my mad sat in the frying pan. It'll come out of my fuel budget because I don't need to use the full amount this week. It's my nans birthday next week so need to get her a card and dd has a party next weekend so need to do that too. It's never ending. Hoping all that can come out of the food budget.

Off to Crufts 😬

Other than some treats for DDog I really don't need to be buying anything as he needs his teeth doing next month and looking at £350 😬

Was slightly horrified to see that the parking was £16 but my friend pointed out that I could 'pre-book' it for £12 so did that last night. £4 for treats for DDog.

I'm guessing from your username you have Greyhounds??! Do you show?

Friday!! Not sure what the day holds...dp is going to pick up my pet shop order, and will build the hutch. I simply ran out of steam to do it yesterday.

I will make a good list to shop to on Saturday, as we have a lot in, and on auto pilot I will double up.

I'm going to try a rough meal plan but I'm so uninspired at the moment! Feel like just buying a load of freezer food

No showing although I did take DDog a couple of years ago to stand on the retired greyhound stand. He was in his element being fussed by the public all day

He's too old now alas so he's staying at home so that's £7 for the dog walker.

Ooo crafts how exciting.
Made an Aldi list for less than £20 of stuff. Must stick to list.

Hutch lonely. Have you added to your menagerie?

Nsd planned today unless I food shop but that will more than likely be tomorrow

Today will involve cleaning and washing in large quantities
Probably trip to choose new fridge freezer
Pint or two at the pub this evening, can only be out for an hour so it won’t be much

That's why I'm trying to offload the damn thing Wreck

Going to leave fuel until Monday as I'm going somewhere where it's cheap. Have 160 miles left so should be enough.

£20 homesense
£58 Aldi
£2 Lidl
£19 Tesco included a couple of Easter eggs

26 marks and Spencer’s mostly lunch today, hot cross buns and picnic stuff for Sunday

£85 fridge freezer replacement. Slightly annoyed by this. The direct replacement for my old one (paid for by insurance) has plastic rather than metal edges on the fittings sonis not quite as good so £30 for the next model upgrade (already £20 discount in store on that so could be worse) removal of old appliance which I was told verbally was covered and £35 to switch the sodding doors around.

I've read up to here.

Hugs to everyone going through tough times

€98.60 on two car seats for dc, as I want to cut down on time H spends in house and this will reduce it as we share carseats, had to be done at some stage anyhow just a pity it had to coincide with H reducing the money he puts into joint account by 40%
Text him to let him know that I purchased new seats for my car and that when they came he could keep their current ones, got a one word reply 'mighty', this irritated me no end because he could've purchased said carseats too.

FFS Eon have now passed our unpaid bill onto a debt collection agency... we are still waiting for the gas company to send proof that we didn’t have gas connected until after that was used ie it’s not our bill. So now have a worrying wait while they clearly don’t believe us. They didn’t even do meter readings since 2016

Yes, organisation is the key for saving money sporting

to your DH happier. It's like when they no longer see the kids as much, they stop costing money

I'm recovering from being mistaken for a 50 year old 😂 Someone with the same name as me has a 50th today at work. This under 30 something boy said I didn't look 50. I'm 35!!! I haven't yet seen him to give him a death stare

😂 love

and happy birthday

Been in meetings this morning so have had an early lunch. Figured no point in heading back to the office at 1140 only to head out for lunch at 12. So went early.

Had a mooch around the shops. Saw some nice things but haven’t bought as they won’t fit me yet.

Have made calls though. Wardrobes have arrived (the guy thinks - at least a delivery has come in so hopefully our bits are on there!) just have to wait for a fitting date.

Changed address with pension company.

Currently eating hula hoops and typing up meeting notes. Yay.

I’m dying for a Diet Coke. But gave up fizzy drinks for lent. 🥤

Oh no cag that's ridiculous! I would ring them ASAP.

Love 👵🏼

DH spent an hour on hold/talking to eon. Just got to wait for the gas company to send the letter showing when we moved in and hopefully it’ll be ok. Not doing my anxiety any favours though so I’m breaking out the propranolol again!

Just off shopping with mum. Basic clothing.

Happy birthday Love
Happier so angry for you, what a knob
Cag that’s really not on can you ask CAB to intervene or threaten them with the ombudsman

Fluffy would be proud, after a bit of internetting, a call to customer services and a highly inconvenient trip back to the store I had £50 of my £85 refunded.

I'm 50 love but my head age is 27!!!
Thanks for the starter recipe unescorted don't think it was super hygienic conditions in kitchen that stopped it working. Could've been the artic conditions. Going to try again.
What a nightmare cag, is there an ombudsman you can contact to complain?

Rough meal plan in no order:

Pizza
Lasagne
Jackets and beans
Veggie burgers and buns
Sausages
Kievs
Burritos

Have a mixture of new potatoes, chips, salad to serve up with things.