I made Quiche!

We are really scraping the barrel with one day until Payday.

But we had some bits and pieces in the fridge festering away.

We had butter (35p) and flour (10p) so I bunged a roughly 50/50 mixture in the food processor until it was like breadcrumbs, added water and...pastry! It would make Mrs Patmore wince I expect, but it wasn't too bad.

 

 

 

10 minutes of blind baking later, I added an onion chopped and fried (12p) , a handful of frozen spinach from the freezer (defrosted) (8p) and half a block of feta, shoved in the freezer to save it going off months ago (60p). Four eggs went in - the most expensive ingredient (£1). Oh, and a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley from a plant I have in a pot in the garden - still hanging on, but past its best.

 

 

 

 

The carrot (6p) and half the leftover cabbage (17p) along with 1/2 a red onion (5p) went in the processor too, and with a blob of wholegrain mustard and mayo (30p) served as coleslaw.

So satisfying to make a really tasty lunch out of leftovers, for a grand total of £2.85 and which took about 30 minutes (ahh, lovely food processor). Given we will get four portions out of it, that is a bargainous 71p each meal.



Introducing No-Spend November

Over November I will be focussing really hard to making a difference to my bank balance and my spending habits. It will be 'No-Spend November'!

I have set out some 'rules' that I will be following below. Here we go!

1. Set a food budget - and stick to it.

This is going to involve meal planning and very judicious shopping. It includes all consumable household items - food, cleaning products, dogfood etc.

My food budget for the month is £100 (each - there are two of us in my household).


2. Set a 'pocket money' budget, and stick to it.

This pocket money is for unforeseeable incidentals that cannot be avoided, such as having to buy stamps to send something important, transport costs if you are a bus user, money for parking, carrier bags, library fines, prescriptions, that kind of thing. We are talking loose change here, not anything significant.

My 'pocket money' budget for the month will be £20.


  3. Declare my exceptions and reduce them as much as possible.

For example:

• I have to get my hair cut some time in November. I have to look smart for meeting clients and have a long fringe, so if it gets too long, I can't see! But where I would once have been in the salon for two hours having a full colour, cut and blow dry, this time I will be queuing up outside Supercuts for a dry trim!

• Vets Bills. Aside from emergencies obviously, my dog has to have her vaccinations this month.

 

•  My one indulgence is under £5 - Country Living Christmas edition. I have been looking forward to this all year! And I savour every page over the month's weekend breakfasts.

• Petrol - unavoidable if you commute. You've got to get to work, or this frugality thing kind of backfires!

• Treats - if you are lucky enough to have generous people in your life, make the most of it! For example, my LB loves Bond, so has offered to take me to see it at the cinema. Who am I to argue?

4.  Write it down!

Each week I will be making a record of my spending down to every last penny - and sharing it! Hopefully the shame of public humiliation will be the motivation I need to stick with it.


I will keep you posted as to how I get on every week.

Here goes!

Another Debt Bites the Dust

Well, I am pleased to say that the frugality continues this week. Not only have I not spent anything, I have even chipped away at some of the debt.

 

I recently dabbled with the Cambridge Diet. When I came off it, I still had a week’s worth of food replacement sachets left. I can’t see myself clambering back on the wagon any time soon, so I put these on ebay.

 

 

 

Lo and behold, within two hours, someone had bought them at £35! I am so pleased with this, as they would only be going out of date in the cupboard otherwise and I probably would have thrown them away. Gotta love ebay!

So, I have paid off the outstanding balance on my La Redoute home shopping account, and it stands at £0.  I do love LaRedoute for their unusual styles, but it is ‘fast fashion’ and unfortunately the quality is lacking. While I am focussing on frugality I will be buying my clothes from charity shops or buying quality pieces much less often.

 

It is just too tempting to have access to buy-now-pay-later credit like this, so I wrote to La Redoute and asked them to close my account for good, while the willpower lasted.

Also, as I logged on (forgetting my password, as you do) and going through the rigmarole of resetting it, it occurred to me that I don’t need this extra hassle – it is a pain in the arse to have multiple cards/loans/debts hanging around – I have at least five such arrangements at the moment. One little missed payment and you risk incurring expensive charges.  I am not very organised at the best of times. Why add a personal admin burden to an already busy life?

So part of the plan is to simplify things back to how they used to be, simple and not stressful  – a bank account, and one credit card with a zero balance for emergencies.

 

Dark, Dark Monday

Well, it is the first 'dark night' of the year since British Summer Time ended and Daylight Savings Time began. For the first time, we left the office in the pitch black.

It has been really nippy too, for the first time this year. So tonight's dinner needed to be frugal and hearty.

We had four sausages left in the fridge from the weekend (the Lovely Boyf does enjoy a sausage sandwich as a weekend treat). In the light of my recent frugaldom, and the news about processed meat, I wanted these to go as far as possible.

I mixed these four sausages (£2.00) with some leftover mushrooms (80p), an onion (30p) garlic (6p), tin of mixed beans (60p), chopped tomatoes (50p), pasta (60p) and olive oil, which I had used to soak some sun dried tomatoes which were a gift (20p). We had a tiny lump of leftover cheese in the freezer, so that went on top, as did some basil from a plant that has been going for months!

 

So, the total cost was £5.06. There was enough for four portions - so that is lunch sorted tomorrow - at £1.26 per portion. Bargain! It felt like the right sort of dinner to be eating on a dark, dark night.

 

The only problem with this kind of budget dinner (which is mainly carbs) is that it isn't great for my waistline. This is something I have encountered in previous frugal phases - pounds accumulate on the scales, as well as in the bank. I will work on devising some cheap and healthy dinners.

 

It is really hard to study on nights like this - I am tired after a hard day and  just want to slob in front of the TV on the nice, warm sofa. But, I am super-busy at the moment and I need to get as much done during the week as I can.

So I have resorted to a technique that seems to work - I make a deal with myself that if I do just one hour of study, I can have the rest of the night off to spend as I please. I set my iphone timer and I DO NOT MOVE until an hour has passed - even stopping the clock to go to the loo!

 

Sometimes time just flies, and before I know it I am stuck in. That did not happen tonight - I checked every five minutes and the time dragged. But I am pleased to say I did it. Now don't mind me, I'm off for a Lidl Hot Chocolate and Eastenders!

 

 

 

Have a good evening.

 

 

 

 

Frugality Makes a Return

I have come around to the view recently, that I need to rein in my spending - a lot.

I am lucky to have a good job which is well paid. But I am 34 with nothing at all (financially speaking) to show for it - although I would argue that the money I have spent on travel and pursuing hobbies shows on the inside!

But really, it is ridiculous to work as hard as I do during the week and yet to have no financial security. What's the point?

I suppose it depends on what you want in life.

So, I asked myself the question - what do I want? What is success for me?

My gut spoke. It said: Wilderness - I want to live in the countryside, so that I am surrounded by nature. Preferably in a solid little house with character. Security: I want to make somewhere my home, and I want to be financially secure enough not to be worrying about having to move if I don't want to. Space: I want to be able to live the lifestyle that is important to me - growing my own food and with a greenhouse of my own so that I can propagate my own plants. Not self-sufficient, but...ish.

This one would do fine!

...with one of these please.

In fact, my own greenhouse has always been high up on my list of priorities! Something in my soul needs this connection to the natural world and I really feel the lack of it, living without a garden (to speak of). It isn't very ambitious I know - I wish my life's dream was more altruistic, grand and honourable than my own greenhouse, but it is just the person I am.

At the moment, with no real assets, this isn't ever going to happen. I will be forever renting at this rate, which means I am very unlikely to ever have a garden and greenhouse that is truly mine. Also, in the last six months I have managed to run up debts of £2,500 on credit cards (stupid! why!?) which need paying off. 

So from now on, I will be focussing on ways to save money and appreciate a slower pace of life. Autumn is a good time for this, I think. Everyone slows down a bit, there are less social occasions (Christmas excepted of course) and it is OK to just rest, spend nights in front of the fire or the new season's TV and take things easy. There is so much beauty all around to enjoy for free. Also, I have plenty of university work to keep me occupied - every second of my spare time if I let it!

So without further ado, I have done a few frugal things this weekend:

We kicked off the weekend with homemade pizza, instead of a takeaway. This came to about £1.50 each. Bargain!

It's all about the hairy fish! I love anchovies on my pizza.

 I sold some unwanted clothes on ebay, including a beautiful Ted Baker dress I bought for a wedding earlier this year (credit cards!) and am unlikely ever to wear again. I always find it is amazing, ebay - you don't think your used clothes are worth anything, but there is always someone, somewhere who wants them. I raised over £100! 

With this, I paid £100 off pesky Credit Card number 1. About £250 left on that one now. I have plans to sell my old iphone as well, to chip away a little more of the outstanding balance. Very satisfying paying such a good chunk off!

Normally by this point of the month, I have run out of cash and resort to the demon credit cards for the last week. Not this time! We get paid on Thursday, and I am determined not to spend a penny until then. So, I took stock of the fridge and have 'cooked ahead' for the week.

I made some seasonal Pumpkin and Apple Breakfast Muffins by adapting this recipe - I substituted sugar for honey and half stewed apple to the pumpkin, to use up what we had. They don't rise like proper muffins, as they have so much moisture. But they are filling and taste amazing!



And I have a pot of Leek and Stilton soup bubbling away on the Stanley to take for lunches. I try and avoid bread during the week, so we will probably have this with some oatcakes. I am also making a fish pie using some white fish we have had languishing in the freezer for weeks.

I am pleased to say, this weekend I haven't spent a single penny! And how relaxing it has been. Last night was spent in front of the fire, with my little dog and LB, knitting to my hearts' content.

And yesterday, while the rain poured all day long I got down to some serious studying. I feel so much calmer when I know I am up to date. As it has gotten so dark, so early now that the clocks have gone back, I am happy to study into the night with a nice hot coffee.

So, it doesn't make for a very interesting blog, but it has been a very relaxing, happy and frugal weekend!

I hope yours was too.

Five Things Friday - 23/10/15

I am joining in with Amy for Five on Friday toady.

It's been a lovely week, which has gone in a flash. Beautiful autumn days and colours and a real feeling of seasonal change. Five things that made my week were:

1. The Last of the Summer Colour

I love the way that clever gardeners can extend the season like this. Late summer flowering perennials were still hanging on in this raised bed I spotted in Avebury last weekend. Dahlias, Verbena and Cosmos, still flowering their hearts out. It reminded me to plan for the whole season next year, if I plant any flowering plants at all. If you are smart about it you can have colour from May to October. So cheerful!

2. Turning On the Range

It's bliss! In our little rented cottage our central heating is powered by a lovely old Stanley Range, known affectionately as 'Mrs Stanley'. Well, she is a temperamental old bird, and no sooner had we turned her on to heat the house for a couple of hours (she also heats hot water as well as being used for cooking), she spluttered and gave up the ghost.

The joy of renting of course, is that we just call the landlord! She was fixed up again the next day and I have been revelling in the heat. But it isn't just that - it is the ritual that I love - pulling the right levers and switches, the roar of the burner starting and the soothing, low rumble. There is something much more romantic about a range than using an electric mini-oven/hob and the electric water heater, which we switched to in the summer.

Using the range means you have to have the heating on at the same time that you cook - and if you only want to do oven chips, it really isn't worth the expense of heating up the whole system, to get the oven hot enough to use. But in the winter when she is working anyway, it is great.

Another great thing is that shirts dry in a couple of hours from the residual heat!

3. Autumn Sunshine

You appreciate it so much more when you know it will soon be gone for the winter - this week has seen the most glorious, bright gold Autumn sunshine in Wiltshire.

 

Walking the dog - just LOOK at that sky!

 I even found five minutes to hang out some washing during a lunch break one day.

4. The Riot of Colour

Not a surprise - bloggers across the Northern Hemisphere over have done this much better than I can - but the autumn colours are so, so unbelievably beautiful this year. These photos were snapped in the village I live in. Acid green and that deep purple - a-mazing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. My Apple and Mint Jelly (and the return of roast dinners!)

 



 

 
Last year, a friend gave me a load of unwanted Bramley apples - she has done the same today! But I had almost forgotten, what with a house move in between, that last year I used them to make chutney, and this Apple and Mint jelly for lamb.

 

and with the return of the roast dinner - another autumnal pleasure, it felt really good to be using preserves I had ferreted away last year.

 

Sadly I don't think I have time (what with my degree and working full time) or enough spare jam-jars to make a lot of preserves this year. Who knows where we will be next year - hopefully better on both counts as preserving feels like such a natural human response to the shortening days, saving the bounty like squirrels burying their nuts!

 

Every week is a good week, when you can extract so much pleasure from the simple things :-)

 

Yarn Along 21st October 2015

Joining in with Ginny this week again for Yarn Along.

I am still working on my baby cardigan - front and back are now complete and I have moved onto the sleeves. It is a nice, easy pattern, which I can easily follow in front of the television without thinking too much.

I am reading Back to Sanity by Steve Taylor. I spotted it in a 'new age' bookshop in Avebury on a Sunday afternoon walk. It is funny how in life, when you need help, the Universe delivers! I have been feeling a little lost lately in terms of direction. I am conscious that I am consuming too much and not spending enough time looking after my soul, feeling a bit disconnected and unbalanced. I am confused about what I want out of life.

 

What appealed to me was a paragraph on the back cover:

 

"Why is it that so many human beings are filled with a restless discontent, and an insatiable desire for material goods, status and power?'

 

So far, its fascinating. According to Taylor, our restless minds (you know, the constant chatter when you close your eyes and try to switch off!) are basically driving us crazy - and we try to escape by distracting ourselves with anything that grabs our attention - the TV, radio, mobile phones...which makes us more miserable, because we fail to be present in our lives, and we miss out on so much.

 

Apparently, the key is to get to the point that you can live with yourself, alone. This week I have made a point of turning off the radio in the car or at other times when I would otherwise be silent - washing up, brushing my teeth etc. Mobiles have been banished to the landing at night. I will see whether it makes a difference to my outlook.