Tasty white mush

It's slow cooker weather, so today I thought I'd make a rice pudding. Never done one before, but how hard could it be? Checked a few recipes, got a vague idea of timings and proportions so off I went.

I chucked in 1 mug of rice (just Tesco value stuff), 3 mugs semi skimmed milk, half mug demerara sugar and about a tsp of vanilla extract. Slapped it on low and went out. Came back 4 hours later to find it was cooked, and tasted awesome, but was pretty much so solid it needed a knife and fork to eat it. The child still enjoyed t, and as she's currently alleging famine every couple of hours, having this should hopefully fill her up a bit longer than usual.

Got 6 portions from it, costing approx 15p per bowl. Bargain.

There'll always be lentils

I'm currently trying to use everything up in the cupboards, and so lentils will be featuring heavily. Which is good, because I do enjoy a lentil.

So today was garlic lentils with rice and sprouts. Shitty photo, but you get the idea.

The red lentils were done in the slow cooker with a carton of passata, masses of crushed garlic, one chopped onion, about 6 chunks of frozen spinach, two handfuls of frozen mixed peppers and a paprika flavour pot. Can't be bothered working out costings, but I got 6 portions from it, so probably around 25p a portion, if that. The child hates it, but hey ho, all the more for me. Two portions are in the fridge, 3 in the freezer, so it'll be appearing regularly over the next few weeks.

Pasta fakeanara

I am trying not to shop this month for anything but the essentials. Although quite how one defines essentials is obviously up for debate. Anyway, it's led to some unusual meals, some awful ones and a hell of a lot of cup a soups that were hiding at the back of the cupboard. Occasionally, there's also been an absolute delight. One such lovely meal was a carbonara inspired pasta. I didn't have any eggs, so did a bit of improvising and came up with a really, really enjoyable dish. The child wants to have it again, so it was clearly a hit.

Not the prettiest dish, but who cares if it tastes good?

I chopped up some cooking bacon, friend it til it was crisp(ish). Put it to one side, then sauteed a small onion and 2 garlic cloves in the bacon fat. When soft, added a tablespoon of gluten free flour, stirred through and then added milk to make a thickish white sauce. Once cooked, chucked in a couple of handfuls of parmesan, added the bacon back in and served with gf pasta.

Costings:
200g gf pasta - 48p
200g cooking bacon - 20p
1 small onion - 6p
2 cloves of garlic - 10p
300 ml milk - 13p
About 100g parmesan - free, as it was donated by a friend.
Tablespoon of gf flour - 3p

Total cost £1.00 exactly. Made 3 portions, and obviously if you don't have a shitty health issue then the pasta would be way cheaper.

Aubergine pasta

I rarely meal plan, and I am assured by the various money saving blogs and forums that meal planning will turn my financial life around. We also don't eat to any set pattern, the way my mam seemed to - there'd be a roast on Mondays, a Findus crispy pancake and beans on Tuesday, sausages for Wednesday etc. and the pattern never changed throughout my childhood. Instead I buy what looks nice and is cheap and then just keep track of what needs using up by when.

Today's ingredient of choice was a rather sad looking aubergine, bought when they were 29 p in Lidl last week.

 So, veggie pasta sauce was made with:

1 small onion - 5p
2 cloves garlic - 5p
1 stick celery - 1p (from a reduced price pack)
Half aubergine, diced- 15p
4 lumps frozen spinach - 15p
1 can tesco value chopped tomatoes - 31p
1 paprika flavour pot - 13p (from approved foods)
Splash  olive oil - 5p

200g gluten free pasta - 48p.

Obviously if you're not a stupid coeliac then you can use way cheaper pasta.

Anyway, soften the onion, garlic and celery in a little bit of oil. When they're soft, add the aubergine, spinach lumps, tomatoes and parika doodad. Cook for as long as it takes the pasta to cook.

Serve an appropriate sized portion, thinking you'll have got enough leftover for tomorrow lunch, then decide to scoff it all anyway.

Makes 2 greedy person portions at 69p each.

Working 9 - 5, what a way to make a living

The good thing about having a job is getting money for being a librarian (which is the best job in the world). The bad thing about it is the serious lack of time it leaves me with.

Trying to keep track of what I spend to the penny whilst working full time just isn't happening for me right now, and that's fine. I'm still watching the spends, just not analysing them to the nth degree.

So yes, not spending much, but nor am I doing anything exciting. Actually that's not true. I'm cleaning the house (which in itself isn't exciting), but whilst sorting out the eldest's bedroom now he's gone back to uni I found a pack of fags with two left in. Free nicotine! Hurrah!

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

My favourite things are not any of the twee crap gubbins that Julie Andrews sings about. I like fags, wine and diet coke. Right now I'm not having any of them and it's making me a little grumpy. However, I'm trusting that at the end of the month I'll see a real difference in my wallet.  For now, I'm going to keep stropping around the house and drinking endless cups of tea to try and cope with this self-induced state of misery.

Spent £23.03 today on the weekly shop at Lidl

September spending totals so far:

Food, cleaning products, toiletries - £23.98
Entertainment - £0
Dog - £82.63
Extra Transport - £10

Shepherdess Pie

Today I have been cooking, which is something I do like doing and when I've not got much money I actually like it more, as it feels more of a challenge.

Today I've made shepherdess pie, which is vegan. My prices are low due to most stuff being bought reduced price or having it donated from a chum with an allotment (thanks Fran!)

2 sticks celery - 2p
1 red onion - free
1 large carrot - 5p
1 pepper (I used 3 left over bits of red, yellow and green) - free
150g red lentils - 35p
1 can value chopped tomatoes - 31p
Paprika flavour pot - 13p
Drizzle olive oil - 5p
750g potatoes - 30p

Total cost: £1.21

Dice the veggies and soften them in olive oil, chuck in lentils, tomatoes, paprika thingummy and add boiling water. Cook til the lentils are done. At the same time boil the taters, mash them and wait til the lentils are done. Assemble the pies, chuck them in the freezer and feel smug that you've made 6 portions at 21p each.

No pixtures, as it was too dark to get any decent ones.

Didn't spend anything today.

September spending totals so far:

Food, cleaning products, toiletries - £0.95
Entertainment - £0
Dog - £82.63
Transport - £10

Free food

When I was first diagnosed coeliac I was given a load of info about dietary restrictions, requirements and nutrition. Included in the gubbins was info about how to claim free gluten free products. I dug the leaflets out a few days ago, filled in my details and got my first free box of stuff today!

The idea is that having tried the various products, you can then request those you need/want/like on prescription. I've worked out that it's probably not worth me getting anything on prescription as I have to pay for mine (and the system for getting GF stuff is a tad complicated), but that's no reason not to claim the freebies.

In the box there is:

Box of all purpose flour
Box of high fibre flour
Box of fusilli
2 x pizza bases
Loaf of seeded bread
Loaf of high fibre bread
Tiny bag of cornflakes
Box of fibre flakes
4 pack of part baked high fibre rolls

Seems there is a belief that coeliacs need extra fibre.

Spends today were 95p on milk.

September spending totals so far:

Food, cleaning products, toiletries - £0.95
Entertainment - £0
Dog - £82.63
Transport - £10

Birthday Barnacle

It's the woofster's 6th birthday today! Or more specifically, it's the day we picked to celebrate his birthday on, as we don't know when he was born. He was abandoned, having been quite badly treated, and the kennels he ended up in guestimated his age at about 18 months when we adopted him, so we chose 1st September as his birthday.

Anyway, he needed a new harness as his old one was fraying very badly, so we wandered over to Pets at Home and bought him a new one. It cost £23, which seems like a lot, but it's good quality and should last several years at least.

The boy in his fancy new harness, looking quite sorry for himself

Barney has, however, been a bit off colour the last few days. Earlier in the year he was very ill to the point it was touch and go for a while, so I tend to be a bit cautious with him when he's sick. We went to the vets this afternoon and apparently he has a virus. Due to his health history the vet said there was no point in waiting to see if he got better naturally, so he's on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories. So he'd getting better which is good, but I'm distinctly poorer which is bad.

Today I've spent £23 on the dog harness and £59.63 on vet's bills. And a tenner on petrol, as I needed to borrow the car to get the child to her friend's house, then take the dog to the vets, then collect child. Fricking expensive day.

Tea has been some soup and crackers, washed down with council pop.

So I was thinking about how to categorise my spending totals this month. I may add to the list as the month goes on, but I think this is a good start:

September spending totals so far:

Food, cleaning products, toiletries - £0
Entertainment - £0
Dog - £82.63
Transport - £10

Payday!

It;s finally payday! So I celebrated by going to town on the bus and putting money in my savings account. I also bought the dog his birthday present (a filled hoof from the market, costing a bargainous 50p).


So today I have spent:

£0.50 - dog treat
£5.20 - Bus fare for two people

And I have banked £210.

Tea is pizza and salad - costing worked out at 72p for two, due to the base and toppings being either ys or free. Is it sad to price up meals so precisely?!

Soup

Like any good poor person, I make soup. I'm not that evangelical about, in the way that some frugal bloggers seem to be, but I like soup and it's cheap, so I'll make some every now and again.

I bought a pack of soup mix veg for 13p, and it's got carrots, swede, onions, potatoes and parsley in it. Chucked it in a pan with 125g of yellow split peas (14p), a paprika stockpot (13p from approved foods a while ago). Cover with 2 litres of water, bring to the boil, simmer til the split peas are tender. Normally I'd blitz a soup in the blender, but as I've only got one working electrical socket in the kitchen I'm leaving the soup chunky. Got 5 portions out of it, so each bowl of soup costs 8p.

Tastes acceptable, but at that price there's no complaints from anyone. They know better than to risk objecting to whatever food is put in front of them. No photos, cause it's not a particularly pretty looking soup.

Another no spend today, so that's all good.

Walkies and blackberries

Today has been a no spend day. First thing in the morning I needed to return my Dad's car to him, so decided that rather than getting the bus home we'd walk back. We took the dog up with us and walked home through several parks and woods. Got back after an hour and a half and had an exhausted and happy dog and an exhausted and only mildly grumpy 12 year old.

After a nap we then went blackberry picking. Turns out the local brambles haven't been cut back at all since last year, so whilst there's masses of berries there weren't that many that were easy to get to. As such we're going to go tomorrow, armed with secateurs and we'll add to the 500g we managed to pick today.

Tea was cauliflower rice with tomatoes, salad and a chicken kiev for the girl and a chicken breast for me. Everything was reduced price, so total cost for the two meals was 73p. Which is good.

So no pennies spent today. Hurrah and huzzah and all that.

YS Rampage!

Whenever I have access to Grandad Badger's car, I like to go to my nearest big Tescos just when they're doing the end of day reductions and pick up the yellow stickered gubbins. Today I had the car and no food, so at 3:30pm me and the girl hit up the aisles.

We bought loads of salady bits, masses of sandwich meat, 6 pizza bases, loads of bread, a few desserts, some gluten free bagels all reduced to 90% off the original price. I also picked up a few essentials at full price and paid £17.54 for the lot. If we'd paid full price it would have been £81.42. Obviously I wouldn't buy this kind of stuff normally (A quid for a pot of cauliflower couscous? I don't bloody think so), but it makes meal planning more fun and helps ring the changes. So for tonight's tea I had 2 stuffed peppers (23p) and some salad leaves (3p) and a pack of cherry tomatoes (7p). The girl had half a pack of cooked chicken (10p) in a giant bap (free, donated to us by Gdawg Badger). Afters was a chocolate pot for me (2p), the girl had a strawberry sundae (10p)

So my tea cost 35p and the girl's was 20p.

Today's total spend £17.54

Skint badger

My house needs rewiring as a matter of urgency. This means I need money. I have no money, so therefore this blog is going to be about me saving money, and documenting my misery and self-sacrifices along the way. I'm trying to save £1000 over the next 3 months.

Let's see how long I keep this up for...

Soup for breakfast

I'm coeliac and am supposed to be as close to dairy free as possible, and this makes eating trixy. One meal that has proved trixier than all the others is breakfast, as I refuse to pay loads for gluten free cereals and soy milk and want to just eat 'normal' foods. As such, I have decided that I am going to experiment with soup for breakfast. I'm normally in a rush in the morning, so I shall grab a portion from my big batch and take it to work with me to eat when I get there. We shall see how this goes.

In the slow cooker right now there is:

The remains of some celery that is limp and lacklustre
3 small onions
A couple of large handfuls of red lentils
One tin value chopped tomatoes
One tin coconut milk
4 small chillies found in the freezer that are bastardy hot
1 chicken stock pot

I shall leave it on low overnight and in the morning I shall wake to delightful breakfast soup that is gluten and dairy free. And even if it's not delightful I'l still have to eat it, cause I'm poor right now and can't afford a supermarket trip.

New Year, New Blog

As it's the 1st January, it seemed the ideal time to create a new blog. Expect complaining, irregular posting and general grumpiness.

I've been very clear about NY resolutions this year, in that I don't intend to make any. It always seems that as soon as I declare I will do something, I promptly fail. So instead, this year I'd just like to be better. I'd like to take better care of my health, as I'm still just getting to grips with being diagnosed coeliac and really need to work on getting my gut healthy again. I'd like to be better at my job (although as I'm already an awesome librarian, this one might be trixy). I'd like to be better with money and be able to save properly. I'd definitely like to be better at looking after the garden, but the fear of snails and slugs makes this one bloody hard.

So generally, this blog is just about the little things I'm doing to improve my life. And obviously angry rants too.