Friday 15 March 2013

Frugal Friday

Having been prompted scared into tightening our belts and trying to save money, I have decided that once a week I am going to have a round up of things I have done to be frugal and to try and cut back whether good ideas or not!

So from today onwards, I am going to be doing a Frugal Friday post of my week. If anyone has any other ideas please, please do share them or what you are doing to try and save the pennies as I think I have a lot to learn!

Here is my list for this week:

  1. Did my weekly shop in Asda rather than Sainsburys - so far I did spend less
  2. I find I have to get things like bread and milk daily/every other day, so instead of taking my wallet, I just took enough money for milk and bread
  3. I sorted my freezer and have been really chuffed with what I have made from it
    • Monday - I had some left over rice which I made into a savoury rice with mushroom, peas and corn and a little seasoning and soy sauce and we had with some fish I had in
    • Tuesday - I found a large bag full of left over turkey and ham from New Years Day so defrosted it and made a rather nice turkey and ham pie, if I do say so myself, even t'husband ate it without complaint. I made the pastry myself as well.
    • with some diced lamb I made some kebabs, Mini Man doesn't like mushroom or pepper so I stuck chunks of carrot on his stick, looked odd but he didn't complain, I then did a homemade BBQ sauce and some wedges with these
    • Boys eat at Grannie and Grandad's on a Thursday so I used lots of veg in the fridge and did roasted veg tossed in olive oil, a little chilli, garlic and pepper which were lovely for us
    • I have defrosted some chicken for tonight - not sure what I will do with it yet!
    • So this week I have used only what I have had in my cupboards and freezer :)))
  4. I am just about to do next weeks shop on line using mysupermarket.com which compares the price of your shopping list at about 5 different supermarkets
  5. We have made the effort to walk to school a lot more this week
So I feel we have made a good start on tightening our belts, lets hope it continues

3 comments:

NewMumOnline said...

We're really tightening our belts here too x

Sarah Mac said...

Great start RP - got to admit I scour the reduced shelves for things I wouldn't normally buy at full price so we have some treats - I'll also buy a roasting joint of beef or something and cut it up to make a couple of meals (chilli beef and a casserole for instance) - by adding cheaper stuff like kidney beans and veg in season you can make 2 or 3 meals out of something that would normally only do one.

Sarah said...

I've been trying to be more savvy with my money too. I've started meal planning which has made a massive difference - I'm not throwing out as much food as previously. I normally shop at Sainsbury's or Tesco, but what I have done is go down a range - so if I had previously purchased a branded item, I will now choose own brand. If I use an own brand e.g Taste the Difference range, then I'll go down a range to standard range (that make sense? It was following a tip from a colleague). I put a lot of stuff on my credit card, but pay it off each month and the one I have gives me points which I can redeem as gift vouchers which I will then use to buy clothes/books/toys for the kids. I've been using my slow cooker and making roasts - so on one day I'll have a roast chicken, and then use the leftovers for chicken fried rice, or make a gammon joint, then use the leftovers for an omelette or soup. I made a massive pot of beef ragu today and I'm going to freeze some and then make some into chilli by adding spices and beans. I still have a long way to go though. Looking forward to seeing how you get on x