living on a budget


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Pixie remember to ensure that you never cut basics such as healthy food, but rather cut out expensive take-aways and processed food.

Online banking is a good way to follow your money, because you see what goes onto and off your account, as it happens, my bank offered it to me a few years ago and it has stopped me going into the red more than once.

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She`ll go bleddy bonkers when she get home from work, recipe said put the casserole in 180 degrees, now its all over the bottom of the oven.

There was no real problem with obesity when I was a kid. My mum baked nearly every day - cakes, bread - the lot. By todays standards we should have been as fat as little pigs. But no. We cycled or

Yes but haven't you noticed although a certain faction of the "bad off" can't afford decent food etc they can afford fags, booze and sky tv on 60" 3D top of the range screens while their badly shod br

Here in Ontario we price match with flyers from the Thursday newspaper Walmart will match the flyers from any other store that makes for some good savings.Our milk comes in 1 litre plastic bags of three at a cost of $3.78 by the way a U.S. gallon is 3.78litres we paid 88cents for a loaf of bread today which comes from of all places Ohio.While at my mothers at Ravenshead at the local store Spar l got a loaf for 79p.At Morrisons close to closing in Sutton got lot's of great bargains lot's of stuff half price or less.Was hoping to get to Costco at Leicester but didn't make it maybe next time.

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I buy the 1% fat 4pint (i think) milk for £1 at co op. Their bread is around £1.60 but farm foods do two hovis for £1 n I'll freeze one and chuck the other in the bread bin. When it starts hitting its use by or going stale (not mouldy!) I make bread n butter pudding with it. Something my mum refused to feed me growing up, she thinks its revolting haha :) I buy all my fruit + veg loose, unless it actually is cheaper to buy in packaging at that time

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My favorite bread is Aldi Seeded white loaf at 99p.

But dont just pick up a loaf, always look for the longest dated tab, there can be three days difference of loaves on the shelves,

Dig to the back :)

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\snip\ & carbon free as my plot is only five minuets walk from our house.

Growing food locks up carbon anyway. Why are the powers-that-be making all the fuss about carbon though? Carbon levels in the atmosphere are at ar 150 miillion years low. Water vapour is the single biggest greenhouse gas.

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:biggrin: I quite enjoy the stimulus of 'living on a budget'; it sets me a challenge and also the imagination working. :biggrin:

Must say that I eat well and varied ......................

PS: Made some gorgeous fritters the other evening; let you into a secret: I used 'Jane Asher's Dumpling Mix' (from B&M, 19p) instead of the usual batter mix.

Verdict: truly delicious. :biggrin:

PPS: Now don't you all go mad and rush to B&M for the dumpling mix; save some for me! :ohmy:

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Travelling full time in our rv, we tend to live on a budget all the time, but thats not to say we do not eat well ! if anything we eat bettet than when we are back in home.

We shop at farmers markets where available, eat things in season.

A chicken gives us at least 3 meals, one roasted meal, one sandwiches next day and maybe one or two in a casserole or soup.

I fish so we eat a fair bit of that and its basicly free, or the cost of my bait. I get fresh water crayfish again free.

We buy whole fillet steak on special and slice and vacuum pack then freeze. I have just discovered hot smoked salmon steaks which are farmed in Tasmania and also very reasonable.

Last evening we had beef and mushroom casserole with dumplings and we will finish off today for lunch..

We are very lucky here as we can buy prawns and seafood direct from the fishermans co-ops at probably

40-50% less than the

shops.

Pasta and rice are cheap and my wife will make a curry or pasta bake, spagetti bolognais (cheap mince) the list goes on really.

Oh and we bake our own bread or pizza bases and bread rolls, which I cook in our Weber BBQ.

.

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:biggrin: I quite enjoy the stimulus of 'living on a budget'; it sets me a challenge and also the imagination working.

Every one has to live on a budget, I don't want to brag but I am retired on a good pension, and my wife is a university professor of international law, so we have a good income, but we still live on a budget.
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Quite right MeltonStilton !

Everyone lives on a budget, their own personal budget according to their means. It's just that some people's budget is bigger than others.

Like kids again....mine's bigger than yours...na na na na

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An interesting aspect of food in Oz is that the raw materials are very very cheap, but any processing of it costs big time. Take a loaf of gluten-free or reduced-wheat bread, typically about UKP 3.60 at the supermarket. I can buy everything to make my own from a flour wholesalers at a cost of 75p, stick it in my breadmaker and make a far more appetising loaf. Including the cost of electricity it wouldn't run to more than 85p a loaf.

I rarely eat out or buy take-aways. Prefering to prepare all of my meals from the basic unmolested ingredients. So whilst on a very tight budget I do eat very well. I am pushing seventy, and neighbours half my age constantly complain about the cost of food whilst rarely cooking anything for themselves. They are paying through the nose for other people to prepare ther meals.

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I rarely (never) eat out or buy take-aways. Prefering to prepare all of my meals from the basic unmolested ingredients. So whilst on a very tight budget I do eat very well. I am pushing seventy, and neighbours half my age constantly complain about the cost of food whilst rarely cooking anything for themselves. They are paying through the nose for other people to prepare ther meals.

That could have come out of my own mouth...including the age :laugh: I have a cooked meal or salad every day and lots of snacks,drinks and sandwiches in the evening at a fraction of what my neighbours spend. I reckon £3.50 a day.And that includes milk,tea,broken biscuits, etc.

Very rarely if the mood takes me I'll call in the chippie.

4 pork steaks from Farmfoods £2 (two meals with veg) Faggots 6 for £1.25 (three meals with veg) £1 liver from the butchers (2 meals with veg) £1 sausages from the butchers makes 8 large sausage rolls 50p of bruised apples off the market makes 2 big apple pies and apple sauce.

Cooked meat bits in 200gm packs £1.... makes a lot of sandwiches or the meat on a salad...some of these are excellent value if you avoid the Bernard Mathew type reconstituted rubbish.

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If you have a large enough freezer, buy in bulk... We freeze milk, in the plastic containers, I drain some off into another bottle to allow for expansion, freeze bread, no wastage then!! Been doing that for years, bread will dry out eventually, so just buy enough for a couple of weeks. Sliced bread can be taken out, the required number of slices taken, the rest returned to the freezer.

Buy butter when on special and freeze it, lasts for a couple of years in the freezer.

DON'T forget to mark stuff like that with date bought!!

Every so often, our "local" store has meat on special, the wife buys a load saving a bundle in money, I then cut the roasts up into portions big enough for the two of us, slice the steaks into smaller pieces, we aren't big meat eaters these days, and it's all wrapped in plastic wrap, put into plastic food bags, date marked and frozen.

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The farm up up the road has a little shop selling meat & veg: I was in there the other day & noticed the Cumberland sausages, they were £5 odd a pound, I had 3 for £2 & a few pence, very nice they was. I got some Cumberland sausages from Aldi for £1.05 a pound, they tasted just as good as the farm ones, I'll stock up on them next time I'm in Aldi..

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The farm up up the road has a little shop selling meat & veg: I was in there the other day & noticed the Cumberland sausages, they were £5 odd a pound, I had 3 for £2 & a few pence, very nice they was. I got some Cumberland sausages from Aldi for £1.05 a pound, they tasted just as good as the farm ones, I'll stock up on them next time I'm in Aldi..

Ha ha! Maybe the farm up the road bought their sausages from Aldi, and added a mark-up!

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Good Olde Worlde Farm shops...they're as bad as the retro sweet shops for price.Direct from the farm should be fair priced not another version of Harrods.Everything marked organic and double the price at my local shop...except the top of the range Range Rover he's got parked round the back.

I still reckon they buy eggs from the Co-op and dip 'em in feathers and chicken s*** so they can double the price. :rolleyes:

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I have my suspicion's about a certain grocery in Sherwood. Most of his stuff seems to be marked organic etc and I have seen him leaving a certain wholesalers with trollies full of fruit and veg.

Next time I see him I will take note of what's in his trolley and then after a couple of hours check his display, pics to the trading standards.

Colin

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Good Olde Worlde Farm shops...they're as bad as the retro sweet shops for price.Direct from the farm should be fair priced not another version of Harrods.Everything marked organic and double the price at my local shop...except the top of the range Range Rover he's got parked round the back.

I still reckon they buy eggs from the Co-op and dip 'em in feathers and chicken s*** so they can double the price. :rolleyes:

One way to tell "free range" eggs from battery hens, is yolk colour, pale to mid yellow is battery hens, dark yellow to almost orange are free range, they get their yolk colour from everything they eat, bugs lizards, mice, small birds, weeds, grass, seed and the farm yard dogs poop....Yeh they love dog poop!!!

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One way to tell "free range" eggs from battery hens, is yolk colour, pale to mid yellow is battery hens, dark yellow to almost orange are free range, they get their yolk colour from everything they eat, bugs lizards, mice, small birds, weeds, grass, seed and the farm yard dogs poop....Yeh they love dog poop!!!

Yes, weelllll........actually, I think I quite like pale yolks. In fact, from what you say the paler the better :sickly:

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There's no danger from them, I did try and take up all the dog before I let the birds out...Now daren't let them out anymore, just too many coyotes around now.

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Just been to Morrisons, 7 items at 9p, 10 items at 15p, 10 at 25p plus 3 rib eye and two pork steaks for £2.59p and a small joint of Beef for 99p !!

Should keep us going for a bit!

(Still managed to spend nearly 80 quid though !!)

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That's all the full price juice, milk, eggs, 4 different lots of ice cream, bacon , ham, etc etc etc that we also have to buy

(Don't tell anybody , but I have a strange penchant for Taramasalata and pita bread at the moment too !)

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