Pocket Money Review - Its Bad

Folks, to get me through to the end of the month, I have the grand total of £13 ‘spending money’.

 

This is because of two things. Let me explain:

 

1.       My favourite festival of the year – in fact the high point of the summer, is this lovely music festival in the heart of Somerset. It is very un-commercial in that you can take your own food and drink quite happily and prices aren’t extortionate. I decided that I would forego everything else in July, and buy a ticket at a steep £73. However, this is two nights ‘away’ and need not cost a single penny once we are there – we will have the campervan, so can cook our own food and even keep our own beer cold! I think this is better ‘value’ than spending the £73 during July – probably in Charity shops, on craft supplies and things I can live without.

 

2.     I bought an Indian takeaway on Saturday night. I know, bad! Defence: Myself and the LB laboured for seven long hours in my parents garden on Saturday – they are allowing me to landscape it for them as a bit of a project. The idea being that it was good exercise, as well as doing something productive, and it certainly was heavy work. We spent the time stripping grass away, rolling it in to turf rolls and then lugging them off out of the way.  My gosh my legs are SO sore! My parents gave us £10 to put towards a takeaway as a thank you and I ‘topped it up’ as a reward for LB’s efforts. The total cost £20, so my contribution was £10. Really, I promise I was broken after all that toil in the heat, and really could only have managed scrambled eggs on toast as standing for longer than that to cook anything else would have killed me! I also know how much LB loves a curry, so it was a treat for him.

 

So, I am preparing for a bottom-clenchingly tight rest of July as I eek out £13. We don’t have anything much on the social calendar (that costs money) and food and dog sitting money is ring-fenced and reserved. I am going to have to quilt, read, run and garden away to keep busy and keep boredom at bay this month –once my poor legs have recovered, that is!

Raclette Night

On Friday, we fed my brother and his girlfriend. We may have gone to the pub once upon a time or out for a curry, but truth be told, I have always loved eating in – sitting around a table, drinking, playing cards and talking into the night, so it is no great frugal hardship. However, the meal did need to be frugal and ‘funky’. Does that make sense? Funky as in – I didn’t want to be serving meat and two veg. On Friday night, I want to eat something ‘fun’. Pizza was out as we served that the last time. Nothing for it – I dug out the Raclette.

 If you haven’t come across one of these before, they are the best! Basically, participants interact with their dinner and cook it themselves on a little tabletop cooker. Veg such as peppers and mushrooms, sausage or ham, chicken or prawns all get cooked on the top grill – each guest has a little wooden spatula.

Then, underneath are little saucepans in which you grill (pre-cooked) potatoes and melt cheese over the top. Admittedly, this is something more appropriate for winter, when sitting around a hotplate is a bit more comfortable than in the middle of summer. But we don’t have a BBQ (or a garden conducive to relaxing around a BBQ) so this will have to do.

Here is what I bought in Lidl for the purpose:

Courgettes £1.12

Potatoes £1.19
Mushrooms £0.89
Peppers £0.89
Ham  £4.64
Cheese £2.78

Total: £14.51 = £3.62 each.

Just chop and serve and let the guests do the rest! The cost is fairly reasonable I think for a main meal which will last at least an hour and a half as we alternately talk and eat.

But, we needed dessert as well. In keeping with the Swiss Alps theme, I am made a chocolate fondue for dessert.  Ingredients:

Bananas 40p

Pineapple 65p
Cream 79p
Choc £1.40
Mallows 99p

Total £4.23 = £1.05 each

Sorry there aren't any photos - it was quite a tipsy evening and I am afraid I forgot. To make the fondue I melted the chocolate in a bowl suspended over a pan of boiling water, then slowly added the cream and some oil, stirring it in thoroughly. I didn't bother keeping it warm at the table as it was gone before it could set hard again! We dipped pineapple, mallows and chopped bananas in it - lovely.

 

Total cost including a bottle of wine =  £22.74 for a two course meal for 4.  Realistically £23 is only two rounds at the pub – so from that perspective it was frugal.

However, I could have been really frugal if I had say, made a goats cheese tart with mixed salads for dinner, or a curry from scratch. I could have made a trifle or fruit and ice-cream for desert.  But it is Friday night and unfortunately time is at a premium – so no time to cook from scratch.

 

Allotment Happenings

The allotment is a lovely place to be at the moment. I try and get there in the evenings after work - the thought of it makes me grumpy after a long day, but once I am there I love it.

 

 

 

I had such a late start because of the wet spring and our late spring holiday, but things seem to be catching up. Apart from the potatoes -I dug one up and the new potatoes were the size of marbles, despite the flowers being open-usually a sign that they are ready for harvest. I think this is due to the dry spell, so I for one am doing a rain dance and hoping for a few downpours. I don't water potatoes as  there are too many and the tap is miles away from my plot.

 

 

 

 

 

I picked the last of the strawbs - almost a kilo! Far too many to consume in one week, so I have frozen 2/3 and plan to make either jam or strawberry fro-yo.

 

The dahlia's hung on over winter from last year - they are just for fun, and the way this beautiful salmon pink-yellow one catches the late evening sunshine is stunning.

 

The pumpkins, butternut squash and autumn squashes are growing away nicely. We made such good use of last years' squash - six very large ones did us all winter as we made squash and spinach curries, roast squash, squash and sage risotto and even mashed it with potatoes for a bit of a change. I may have more than 6 this year but they also keep weeds down, so that's fine with me.

 

And finally a vegetable harvest - the first of the broad beans, still small and sweet. These will be eaten as part of a meat and two veg meal, put in a risotto with goats cheese, probably blended into hummus if I get desperate and perhaps tossed with some pasta and mint.

I am keeping a record of how much money my allotment saves me this year (see the tab at the top of the page). So far I am still in a deficit, but hopefully now the courgettes are nearly ready and the runner beans are coming, it will start earning it's keep.

Yarn Along Wednesday - Knitting and Reading

This Wednesday I am joining in with Ginny at  Small Things and her 'Yarn Along'. It goes like this:

Two of my favourite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs.

A hopefully quick pair of socks - my first on double pointed needles - not going at all badly. All the while I am saving the pennies and perusing the market to find my next big sweater project. With the television constantly tuned to the world cup, the socks are keeping me sane.

The book I am relishing is 'Merivel' by Rose Tremain, about the trials and tribulations of a 17th Century Lord, but written in such an amusing and endearing way. Not a new one at all, but after discovering her by picking up a random book in a hostel in India, I am hooked and reading her back catalogue. Highly recommend it.

If you are a knitter and a reader, pop over to Ginny's lovely blog and join in the Yarn Along!

Just a bit of Willpower Goes a Long Way

Apologies for a not very scintillating post - I have been keeping my head down and getting on with things lately, so nothing ground-breaking to declare other than a minor burst of willpower this evening.

I made Fajitas - one of our favourite dinners and super quick during the week. A fajita kit (£1.29) Packet of Quorn (£1.50); packet of peppers (89p) packet of mushrooms (89p) and a courgette (40p) with 50g cheese (50p) makes a not particularly frugal dinner at £2.73 each for two of us. Ouch! I must admit I bought the ingredients without thinking and am shocked the whole lot came to more than £5 for one meal.

However, as we sat at the sofa, stuffed and loosening our waistbands a bit (isn't Quorn so filling!?) I looked at LB, the half filled bowl of fillings and the two remaining wraps and said 'shall we save it?'. We ummed and ahhed - and could easily have stuffed one last wrap in. However, this time we decided to show a little willpower, and save the rest for lunch tomorrow.

 

So, now we have a wrap and loads of Quorn/Veggie filling to have for lunch. This takes the price per portion to a more reasonable £1.36 each. Perhaps being frugal is really about a little willpower, most of the time - I can see how it would soon add up.

 

Its been a busy but no-spend weekend (work BBQ - free!) and busy start to the week. I am shattered so off to bed I go with my new library book.

Extremely Frugal Dinner

So, after my wobble on Monday, I had some frugal ground to make up.

I spent an hour and a half cooking, using up all of the ingredients I could to make way for tomorrow's shop (Thursday is my shopping day).

I had loads of veg left in the fridge - all going off. I fried up some onion (10p) garlic (5p) butternut squash (half - 40p) courgette (50p) and half a cabbage (35p) with oil (5p).

I made a cheese sauce with some leftover evaporated milk I had in the fridge, 1/2 pt milk (50p) and 150g cheddar (£1.50).

I had a few lasagne sheets (15p) and some pasta (1/3 pack 50p) and used these to make a pasta bake and a lasagne.

 

 

 

 

Which made enough for dinner...

 

Two main portions to freeze, and lunch for work the next day. Which works out at 68p per portion!

 

 

 

 

I like a good lunch for work, I feel anything but deprived and marvel at how little 68p buys you in Morrisons for lunch - you couldn't even buy a pork pie.

And, since I had three bendy old carrots and half of a white cabbage left, I grated these with an onion and added mayo to make some coleslaw to eat with the pasta bake. Lush!

 

And now I have a nice empty fridge, ready to be filled up with goodies from the shops tomorrow. The bi-weekly shop is working really well - I stuck to my £50 a week grocery shop budget easily last month and will be repeating it this month.

 

 

 

Frugal Slip Up!

Oh dear, I had a major wobble on Monday. For no reason at all (given that I ate home-made pizza just as recently as Friday) I had a massive pizza craving on Monday evening. On the way home, I wrestled with my demons and I am sorry to say, the demons won (ably assisted by a hungry boyfriend).

I am not going to even try and defend buying takeaway pizza when I had a fridge full of stuff to use up and am on a strict budget. I knew it was bad and did it anyway. It was buy-one-get-one-free night from our lovely local Italian take-away, so the whole dinner cost £11 for two.

I even had the gall to take a photo as I waited, composing my confession in my mind.

 

But, I have been saved! Thankfully, as I came home laden with steaming pizza, our campervan arrived home from Glastonbury, where it has been with a family friend for the week. Said very generous family friend insisted on giving us £200 for the favour. The universe delivered me!

 

So, we have put £189 in the savings account to pay for the next MOT, and I replenished my purse with £11. It is like the pizza never happened! This was a one off though - I won't let my willpower slip again. It was glorious pizza, and I saved a slice for breakfast - is that frugal? Just kidding.

 

 

While I am at it, here is my 'spending money' book so far this month:

 

Library  £8.50

Skirt in Charity Shop £4.50

Snacks at work  £2.20

Total £15.20

 

Not great, but not as good as it could have been. Time to get back on the plan!