Frugal Friends Facing Forward with Fortitude

[Happierwithouthim]

Here's a friendly space for new and existing frugal friends.

We have all different types of incomes and lifestyles but with a common goal of making the best of the money we have.

Many of us have experiences of becoming debt free or being in difficulty with money for one reason or another so there's no need for embarrassment, just join in, post as little or as often as you wish.

Some record daily spends, some record only spends that are unplanned, some don't record spends at all, the choice is yours!

I've changed from Festive to 2024 on the thread.

Veggie is fine but DH is not keen on smooth carrot/squash type soups as too ‘watery’

This carrot soup is far from watery and it's a method worth trying out a couple of times. I emphasise that most people only do the first part of this recipe (not the bit with the carrot juice, carotene butter etc.).

The effect of pressure cooking in butter and baking soda is remarkable. NB: I use a lot less baking soda and this still works but I'm super sensitive to the taste of soda and normally have to adjust it in baking so I can't taste it (it takes like soap or a hefty dose of washing soda to me).

The notes on the recipe are essential (except for coring the carrots although it's worth doing it a couple of times to see if you can tell the difference). They give ideas for serving it so it's a very flexible recipe. You can serve it with extra stock, added vegetables and pulses. This soup is an interesting method and they have recommendations for other combinations you can try.

https://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/caramelized-carrot-soup-no-centrifuge-necessary/

I have made some vegetable soups in the past and always found them to be disappointing due to being 'watery'. I found a recipe which suggested adding half a cup of rice towards the end of the cooking time which soaks up the excess water. I've tried it with small pasta shapes like macaroni which works too.

@HalfWomanHalfChocolate https://www.chileanfoodandgarden.com/chilean-winter-bean-soup-or-porotos-con-riendas/
I'm not one though to be bound by recipe. Add or takeaway as per your one taste - for example replace squash with potato.

Bean soups are filling and hearty - they can easily be meaty or vegetarian, and seasoned spicy, herby, or plain.

Spends
£39

Ins
+£2

Did a big shop today, £70 in Asda, but gave my neighbour a lift and she treated me to coffee and a cake, so I wont have anything else for lunch. I did a weeks shopping but I think I can stretch it to 10 days with some careful planning.

Even though I still have cheese in the fridge from christmas, and a couple of dinners still to go on the meal plan, It wasn't a super frugal shop because I got some beer for DH, some mini trifles and stocked up on a soup I can't get anywhere else. DH really likes it, and Its useful to have some tins of soup in for when only one of us wants to eat lunch, like today.

Planning a macaroni cheese with crusty bread and a little salad for dinner.

We had a chicken crown for dinner last night, with what meat was left on the carcass I made coronation chicken salad for lunch - peppers/scallions/mango chutney/sultanas/curry powder/low fat mayonnaise & baked a parbaked roll in the airfryer, I was going to go to deli counter for lunch on my first day back, but this saved me from it. There's enough left for Monday's lunch too.

Spends so far today
Milk €2.95

Horribly spendy couple of days...

Wasn't organised enough to take packed lunch to work yesterday so spent £7.00 in canteen. Then spent another £7.00 in supermarket on way home as was collecting an order (household stuff bought with gift vouchers).

Today:
Cleaner £50
Dental hygienist £69
Lunch with DC as last day of school hols & bored ~£16
Weekly Aldi shop £62 (much better than last week and includes some store cupboard items for baking which will last months)
That should be it for today I hope.

Total spend for 2 days: £211?

@HalfWomanHalfChocolate throw all but 100g of it away. Mix the remaining with 100g of flour and 100 g of water. Then leave the starter uncovered in a dusty place. The next day do the same but with 80g. Keep repeating and it should start bubbling away after 5-7 days. If it doesn't it is because your hose is too clean.

Or if you prefer DM me and I will post you some of mine.

Hose = house.....

TGIF!

Do others list their partner's spending if they share finances? OH forgot their lunch and the spend yesterday was their deposit for a meal tonight

Spends(?)
£8

Bit speedy today- 38 in sainsburys but that included alcohol free drinks to see me through the month.

booked a theatre ticket for later in the year: the cheapest ticket was only 8 less than the seat I really like, so I felt it was worth the difference.

and booked a hair appointment for next week.

vets bill from the joint account, but I’m not counting those.

happy new year, frugaleers!

Unescorted - is that really true about sourdough starters preferring a dusty house? So if I visited the kitchens of the bakery where I buy mine, would I find a Little Shop of Horrors style bubbling vat in a grubby corner somewhere?

Half - Laksa soup is delicious, and very flexible - can be veggie, or add tofu/chicken/fish, and the noodles should stop it being 'watery'. I chuck a couple of handfuls of red lentils into lots of soup recipes - they sort of vanish into the broth, but thicken it. Borscht?

Spending wise, a mixed picture here. Food is very frugal - we have lots of Christmas stuff still left, and my big shop before Christmas included extra pasta, rice, tins, etc. We are eating the 'Christmas' ham at the moment, which I only cooked on Wednesday. Christmas toasties tonight, in front of Rye Lane, which DS has never seen, and which is on Disney+ - DH got a sneaky month, so we could rewatch The Bear and have some cheap ents during January. Still got two chickens and some pigs and mince pies in the freezer, with left over cassoulet frozen. Am going to use up citrus fruit in an ice-cream recipe from Nigel Slater this weekend.

However, our house insurance has gone up horribly. And I'm bracing myself for a quote from our bathroom fitter - after having extra house guests over the new year, I realise we really need to upgrade our plumbing, and do a proper refurb of our top floor shower room. So 2024 likely to start spenny.

Lots of cleaning today, and rewarded myself with £5 worth of daffodils from Lidl. Most of the decs down, except one string of fairy lights, will get packed away tomorrow. I am doing a bit of a declutter as I go: have today binned an old pair of trainers, trousers and a frying pan.

Just been through the freezer and made a list of everything in it. DH suggested (another) picky tea from the Iceland selection bought in for Christmas - so that is cooking now. Still enough for another 2-4 meals like that (as long as we are not greedy!! 😋There's a few single non-dairy items for GS but otherwise the potential for some 14-20 meals depending on if we make some of them go for two meals. Only one ice pole and a pack two mini roulades for dessert and four kinds of veg. Still have stuff like bacon and cheese in the fridge along with the last of salad bits which could do a prawn cocktail.
Bet that doesn't keep us out of the shops for too long fresh stuff has or will run out!! 😉

@BigSkies2022 to start them you colonise the flour water mix with wild yeast. Best source of yeast is the dust - at the risk of putting you off sourdough bread .... skin flakes. Once they get going you can clean. Different starters have different yeast mixes depending on your personal yeastyness. Some are more vigorous than others and they have different flavour profiles. Mine is almost unkillable - it is left for months at the back of the fridge between refreshing and is really vigorous. Dough proving is in the fridge to slow it down.

Good shopping today £124. That was with a £12 off coupon from Tesco and my 10% Clubcard plus discount so I got quite a lot of stuff eg big box of daz. Also £39 at butchers which included a gammon and 2lbs of rump steak for £10.
DP has had confirmation that his additional teaching work is going ahead (it looked dubious for a bit). Phew. That will make us quite comfortable but also help to soak up expenses like the insurance hikes a few of you have mentioned - mine is due on Feb/ March for house and 2 cars and if DS1 has passed his test by then he will be an expensive new driver.

Spends from last few days
Wednesday
£64.99 printer (and got another six months free of instant ink which I wasn’t expecting as I assumed it was for new accounts only, bonus!)
£20.05 travel
£32.97 cinema tickets (watched Wonka with some friends and our kids, loved it!)
£34.19 cinema food/snacks/dinner with friends after
Thursday
£10 contribution to friend’s birthday present
Friday
£4.25 bus fares
£6.64 pub with colleague

No spends last 2 days . Also won 250 on premium bonds. Saw you on that thread @Wolfcub . Did you say you were chucked out? Didn’t realise that. Wondered where you had gone. Anyway nice to see you back. I have name changed to tie into dry January

Using up the celeriac in a frittata, and a skordalia dip. Keeping the cooking water to make a veg soup with other bits and bobs hanging around in the fridge.

Yesterday £78 Sainsbury’s on non meal stuff ie snacks and drinks and teen food.
milk bill for Christmas is £12 extra so £43. Will pay that this weekend.

gym, housework, pony and baking planned today.

Excellent win on the premium bonds @Wineisnottheanswer.

Good use of fridge use up items @Sandytoxic

Happy days re DH and the teaching @marthasmum

Will spend a little today, friends coming over for supper. It was a last minute arrangement so I making a quick lasagna, and will need the ingredients. Cheaper than a takeout and we've still lots of Christmas cheese and sweet items for any deserts.

Menu plan

Lasagne and salad.
Nut roast dinner.
Salmon and Greek roast veg with feta.
Pumpkin, kale leek and cannellini bean lasagne
Shakshuka
Veggie tagine
Veggie shepherds pie.

Great news on pb win
and secured teaching

have a lovely evening need. I love lasagna.

Morning lovely people.
Today is a day of cleaning. DS wants the house clean and tidy for when his gf comes for her first visit. He is alive ..... Just. Wish him luck for the rest of the day.

Planned spends
Not many..... But there are some. Food based but I haven't got a shopping list yet.

Morning

£29 butchers currently making bacon and egg sandwiches for the ungrateful teen who is about to cost me £70 in driving lesson for the day

Morning you lot are very chatty!

Love the soup talk, I have some carrots and parsnips to use up so going to try and make soup out of them. When I had covid I had a craving for tomato and pepper soup which was delicious, I roughly chop up a red onion, some garlic, a few peppers and tomatoes and roast in the oven with a small amount of oil for about 20 mins. Blitz it all and add a stock cube and ta da!

This also makes a decent tomato sauce for pasta (add a bit of tomato purée and some dried herbs.)

I need to try and get on the healthy eating wagon as have eaten so much rubbish over Christmas.

So recent spends £20 take away New Year's Eve which was delicious.

£40 going out for dinner for my mums bday (that included my dinner and half my mums dinner - my brother paid for the other half) it was really nice to treat her and she loved having my brother and I to herself for an evening.

£7 on a few bits and lunch on Thursday as I managed to forget my packed lunch.

I have £400 ish left for the month, need to do a food shop and fill the car up but it could be worse.

Popping into town today, need to take back a couple of things that didn't fit/dd didn't like but shouldn't be too spendy....

I had great plans for today:-

Get petrol

Get shopping in supermarket

Get fish in fishmonger

Go to Credit Union and lodge savings for holiday

Drop off bag of books in second hand shop

I only woke at 10 which means I only managed to tick off the first two items on my list.

The fishmonger closed at 12 so I missed it.

The Credit Union closed at 1 so I missed it.

The charity shop closed at 2.

I'm about to drive to another fishmonger further away - apparently it's open until 5. I have all the ingredients for a stuffed fish dish (minus the fish) so I don't want them going to waste.

I'm going to cook dinner and then chill in front of an open fire. Everything else on my list can wait until tomorrow.

Been to town
£4 parking
£30 new bra for dd
£7 leggings for me

I'm pricing up what it would cost to take dd to Paris this year as part of her 18th bday celebrations. Flights are cheap and hotel not too bad so think I can do it which is exciting 😊 would be looking to go next September which gives me time to save spending money.