New year frugalling commences. Save those pennies for January

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New Fred.

Unescorted

Corn beef hash. Tin corn beef. Tin potatoes. Worcestershire sauce (not essential). Tin beans. Or eggs

Mexican bake. Pack fajitas. Tin black beans. Tin tomatoes. Pack fajita spice mix. Make it nicer with cheese/sour cream and/or peppers.

Sausage and red rice. Mattesons smoked pork sausage. Rice. Tin tomatos. Cajun or similar seasoning - chilli powder or hot sauce would sub. Make it nicer with onions and or peppers.

Baked risotto. Rice. Tinned toms. Jar roasted peppers (not essential). Stock. Onion if possible

Eat Well For Less! Felt quite emotional at the beginning. I can’t imagine going through that.

Recipes looked quite nice.

Onion granules/powder though. I’ve never tried. What else would you use it in? I’m never sure with these things if it’s actually worth me having (bearing in mind I don’t get to cook much at the moment).

Meatloaf - Pack of mince. Pack of paxo. Stock. If possible bacon but not necessary

I thought exactly the same Lane about both the onion powder and feeling emotional! Some of the recipes did look nice though.

Me three!!

Made me laugh that he bought different ketchups for different foods!

Evening everyone
A bit spendy today , l went into Wilkos and M&S and it was fatal.
Bought lovely red felt cushions with cream woollen bobbles on down to 2.40 from 6 and a sheep cushion l have been coveting for ages, for a present for my sil birthday or me down to 4. I also bought several buckets of vegan sweeties for 50p £35
In M&S l bought a bracelet , 2 prs of earrings for DD1 birthday and a lovely necklace for Mum's birthday all half price spend £15 . I resisited an Orla Kiely handbag in TKMaxx Hopefully nothing tomorrow though fingers crossed

We do delivery because we found people weren't turning up in case they were seen by their neighbours. People can ring us and the call takers will ask if they have any preferences - but they are different people to the shelf stackers and social media peeps. We are losing call takers / delivery people because they are overwhelmed by the choice & need to make a meaningful meal from random ingredients. To take the stress off them we ( shelf stackers / SM peeps) make up packs - we email lists of what we have and they ask what is needed. If that can be a meal pack / menu list then it makes it easier for them. As goods inwards we know exactly what is there and what needs to be used. Most food banks have the luxury of people using it like a supermarket, we have the luxury of being able to ask of what we need.

I use onion granules a lot - I use them in home made meatballs. Adds a really nice flavour - different to fresh onion but adds umami (I use fresh onion in the sauce where I can sweat it properly but find it doesn’t cook so well in the meatballs themselves - you get ‘bits’ of onions and the DC refuse them ).

Not seen EWFL yet, got that to look forward to.

Unescorted can you give examples of the kind of less common ingredients you need to incorporate?

Unescorted that's a good way to think about it. I've made it to 24 hrs smoke free. Even went out and stood with the smokers at lunchtime and wasn't tempted at all.

I've had a spendy day
£240 for childminder
£3.99 for FreePrints. I print 45 pics from my phone every month because I do like to have actual copies for albums and the dc love looking through them.
£27.18 in Morrison's. went through when we got home and worked out how much we'd spent on just chucking extras in the basket £11.38. Need to stop this and just stick to what's on the list.

Have made my lunch for tomorrow so no spends there but I might treat myself to a Costa because I don't have my car and I can't be bothered to carry my empty coffee cup round with me all day if I take one from home.

That’s interesting sea thanks. Totally get you about the fresh onion in meatballs. I don’t put it in burgers for the same reason.

NSD for me. Went to the pub with DH (to talk about plans for housework, home ed etc. Such romance 🙄) but he paid. He also got a small top up shop including some printer paper and a water bottle for DD.

I have been frugal and planned some batch cooking for the next few days - bolognese and tomato pasta sauce - and we will have set days each week for those (club nights mainly). I’m hoping that will be enough planning to take some pressure off but not restrictive enough that I get bored 😂

I will also make a chilli for DH and I to have for lunches, and next time Heck sausages are on offer I’ll stock up and make a tomato stew. They are gluten free (DH is coeliac) and work really well in it. I tried a different type last time and they went all grainy and horrible.

Also been frugal and packed a little snack box for Cagletini tomorrow - she normally doesn’t have time for breakfast before the regular playgroup we go to and I end up in Coop. This is the kind of stuff I really fail at usually. I have had a lovely steel water bottle too but only just got back in the habit of taking it everywhere! 🤦‍♀️ Better late than never though right?

Well done on the quitting we3 that’s amazing!

Yesterday petrol and 2.50 on leeks and onions. No pet expenses. Yah. Gutters are getting. Replaced today. Spendy and boring

Well done on quitting smoking.

Yes lane, better late than never.

Oh food bank meal pack as such a good idea. I'm rubbish at chucking food together so will watch.

Need to watch ewfl but will most likely be the weekend

£20 stables and £11 something top up shop

NSD yesterday, but today I need dog food and hand soap. Hoping for a LSD.
I’ve got a few days off, so I am sorting out a meal plan and cleaning the house :)

I’d like to join.

No spend since Sunday apart from petrol and using cash left over to buy some reduced end of the day groceries to put in freezer.

Want a new (not new new) car but dont want to get into debt/ pcp for it so need to save.

Also want holiday this year as had none last year but again don’t want debt.

If I can get through 2020 with those done and no other debt then target will be to start regularly saving as I dont apart from my pension.

Long term would like to pay off mortgage in 10 years.

Off to London today to see an old friend - we are going to a musical she has cheap tickets for and having dinner before. Tomorrow have a meeting with divorce lawyer - will be expensive but necessary! Hoping everything will be finalised by March/April at latest.
I have another old friend staying this weekend so need to clean the house but currently unable to motivate myself off the sofa.... also need batteries for the scales as I am supposed to be on a health and fitness drive but can’t weigh myself at the moment, which is probably a good thing after Christmas excess

@We3kingsoforientareandabump love that idea of printing off photos, may have to steal it!

Curls you get 45 free every month from freeprints and pay 3.99 delivery. Snapfish are cheap too. It's so easy to do there's an app and it takes about 1min.

I go through and delete them off my phone once printed as well to save space because I have about 5000 photos sitting on my phone 🙈

That's a really good idea to use onion granules in things like meatballs. I agree the dcs don't really like the lumps of undercooked onion!

Should be another nsd today.

My DH looked for a tin of soup yesterday. He found a tin . Cream of chicken , Waitrose 7 yrs Ood 🙄🤪
Cue him going through all the tins and thankfully it was the only one . Thing is l can remember buying that tin 🙄🤪 l don't know why except it's stuck in my memory 🙄
Was l keeping it for posterity? 😄😂
Also l don't know if l would have looked at the date on it before using if it were me🤔
I wonder if it would have been alright?
Cough is relentless swigging Benylin from the bottle now cheers 🥂🍻 l have bought my own bottle truly delicious 😁😋🤪
Hoping for a nsd today have a great bargainous day everyone 😀

I'd like to join in. I've been reading since the thread started and have dipped in and out of previous threads. I've put off joining in as like a pp I'm still smoking and I know how ridiculous that is whilst trying to save money.

I've got a vape but I dont really like it. Went a whole day without a cigarette last week but also didnt use the vape enough and as a result I was a horrible cranky witch.

Trying to declutter and clean the house this week which is throwing up temptation to buy nice new things, particularly storage. Hoping for a NSD today as I've no plans to go out!

Yesterday was Yo Sushi £13.85 and a bus fare. It was delicious. I'm not going to feel bad about it.

Today is food shopping, just a few things we need (I do a fair bit of pickling) but my very frugal veg box arrives tomorrow and we have a freezer full of odds and ends so that's my January focus.

Mrs when I was cleaning my freezer out I found potato scones that expired in 2016 and I thought how have they slipped through the net as I’ve cleaned it lots of times in that time. I too wondered if they would have tasted ok as they looked fine. I am a bit obsessed by use by dates and ridiculous as it is I won’t use anything that has expired.

Ended up spending another £3.60 on chips from the chippy yesterday to brighten up our mismatched freezer dinner. They were amazing so well worth it.

EWFL brought a lump to my throat last night. They had come through such a lot for such a young family.

Need bread and milk today but other than that no spends planned.

Well it was going to be a low spend day today as we need bread and milk buuuuut I was watching TV and saw a rather nice sewing item I had to have and bought it 🙄🙄. I really need not to watch the buying channels as I’m £11.80 lighter 😕

Food delivery £40
£3 Tesco
£2.5k overpayment to mortgage account

Will be £50 to window cleaner, who has fixed the leaking gutter. And now it has just poured with rain so great timing.

Still chipping away at writing my assignment. But getting there slowly.

£2.99 for some thank you for DD2 to write to her friends

I think one of her parents friends must hate us. They bought her a microphone. It is so loud! It’s currently hidden away 😬