Time for a catch up!

I've been mega busy lately and need to update this more often!
The "Use it or Lose it" challenge is going well, I'm finding more and more creative ways to use up leftovers!
The other day, I cooked a large joint of pork in the slow cooker, then cut it into 4 pieces.
2 of them went into ziploc bags in the freezer for another day, but one was sliced and served with gravy, boiled potatoes and onion rings (yum), and the other one was made into an experimental dish I will call Spicy Pork and Creamy Potato Casserole...

I chopped a clove of garlic and put it in the slow cooker. Added 2 cans of chopped tomatoes, and some leftover Pepperami and chopped bacon I had lying in the fridge. Left to bubble away for about 4 hours.
Meanwhile, I made a basic white sauce (butter, flour and milk) and added one clove of garlic, minced.
I shredded up the portion of cooked pork and added it to the tomato sauce, then poured this mixture into a casserole dish.
I sliced the leftover boiled potatoes from the night before and arranged them on top of the pork mixture.
Poured over the creamy garlic sauce, topped with grated pizza cheese and baked in the oven for 20 minutes.
It was delicious!

Mmmm, dinner!

My stir fry was a total success! Really delicious.

It was basically just leftover fridge veggies cut small and stir fried over a high heat, with lots of garlic, ginger and chillies added. near the end, I chucked in some dark soy sauce and stirred in some plain boiled rice...

Today's dinner used up the last of my cherry tomatoes. I put them in the slow cooker with a chopped onion, minced garlic, sliced mushrooms, tinned tomatoes, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

It smelled lovely, bubbling away all day long. I served it with some ricotta filled tortelinni from the freezer;

I also had a part baked baguette that needed using, so I mixed together some minced garlic and dried herbs with some soft butter, then spred at at intervals in the baguette and baked it, yum!

On top of this, I had a HUGE watermelon in the fridge, and the end of a big box of strawberries which were looking a bit sad. I blitzed both in the blender, and added 6 mini tubs of yoghurt which had a use by date of tomorrow!

This was really delicious, and made from things I wouldn't have thought twice about throwing out before! We got three tall glasses of smoothie and filled 3 ice lolly moulds, too. I'm feeling very virtuous!

There's always a new way to save...

Okay, so I've got my "official" savings of £21 a week, and hopefully the bank should start to look healthier with the amount I *won't* be spending on food we don't need. Where else can I make savings?
We usually have a takeaway on a friday (and often another night, too). It costs us £20 and we've agreed to stop doing that for the time being. Instead of letting that £20 a week disappear on something else, I'll take it out anyway and put it into a sealed pot.
I also want to stop buying lottery tickets. I've been spending £5 a week for 14 years, and never won anything. That's a LOT of wasted money.
My husband, ever the optimist, doesn't want to completely give up the chance to win, so I will put £4 a week into a sealed pot and spend £1 on a lucky dip. Well, you never know...

Use it or lose it

Well, I started my new savings plan a few weeks back, putting £21 a week into a savings account. That's easy, I don't even notice it! Because I do it all online, I'm really just moving numbers from one part of the screen to the other.
Time for a bigger challenge! One of our biggest money leaks is buying food. We live very close to a large supermarket, and it's too easy to just pop in for one or two things, which, as we all know, somehow ends up being £20 or more.
I have made sure that my cupboards and freezer are well stocked (hell, they're always well stocked!), and have set myself a budget of £50 a week. I will take the cash out on a thursday and only spend it on absolute essentials, or total bargains.
I think a big deal breaker here is food wastage. If I can make sure that I use absolutely every morsel of food I buy, and throw nothing good away, it should help to keep me from buying new food needlessly.
With that in mind, I have been very frugal this weekend!
On thursday, I made pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes and mozzarella, very yummy.
On friday, I unearthed a bag of sprouting potatoes, over a week past their sell by date. did I throw them out? NOOOOOOO!
I trimmed off all the sprouty bits, cut the tatties into wedges and roasted them in the oven. They were delicious! Pah! Sell by dates? I laugh in your general direction!
I also used up the end of some old cheddar in the fridge by making a pot of macaroni cheese, it never goes wrong, does it?
On saturday we were at a BBQ, so i didn't need to use our food, but we did have a pineapple that needed using ASAP, so when we got home, I pan fried pineapple slices and made a lovely syrup of sugar, butter and Malibu. It was great!
Today, I needed to use the last of the soft fruit that was looking a bit wrinkly, so breakfast was blueberry pancakes. I also made smoothies with blueberries and strawberries and froze the leftovers into ice lollies, which the kids had for pudding this evening.
A lot of the veg in the fridge went into a stir fry at teatime, which was lovely. We still have a lot of carrots and onions, and some broccoli to use, so I reckon tomorrow's lunch could be soup of some description.
Oh, and we have some leftover stir fry in the fridge. Normally I'd just chuck it, but not now! I might have to spend a pound or so on some filo pastry, to wrap the leftovers into spring rolls for dinner tomorrow.
Don't worry, I'll find a use for the leftover filo pastry...

Somebody Cares, again!

Well, just four short years ago I was at probably the richest (money wise) that I've ever been. We'd just sold our first house, making a profit of £30k, and we had a choice. Pay it off the new mortgage or go spending crazy. Well, it would have been rude not to...

We bought our dream sofa. It was the kind of silly purchase that, if we'd had to pay it in installments, wouldn't have seemed worth it. We kind of knew it was destined to get wrecked - it was fabric for a start, and we had a 2 year old boy who was ripe for wrecking stuff.

Four years later, it was completely ruined. We'd added an even messier daughter and a large, hairy, gallumphing dog to the mix by now, so the sofa had to go.

Heartbreaking, isn't it? We proudly handed over more than £3500 for this sofa, and it just got completely ruined. Having said that, it has taught us a valuable, albeit expensive lesson. Buy what is practical for your family's needs, not just what looks good.

So, if was off to Somebody Cares again! I found a gorgeous sofa and armchair, and bought it for the bargain price of £75, including delivery!

Isn't it beautiful? They even took away my old sofa, so hopefully someone will get some use from it!

I'm becoming so addicted to buying seconhand furniture, I may never buy a brand new item again...

The new savings plan

I am going to Florida in just over 15 months. I know, it's crazy to book a holiday when we are broke, but we need something to look forward to!
Anyway, I was doing some chore charts for the kids and decided that their reward for getting all their ticks for the day would be 50p in a piggybank.
I then figured out that if I save 50p per day for each child, and £1 per day for myself and for my husband, we will have £1383 by the time we go away!
I know we are skint, but I'm sure we could save a total of £3 per day pretty painlessly if we just cut back on non essentials. I've already decided to stop playing the lottery, so that will be saved, too.

Ooh, and now that I've got my sewing machine set up, I plan to

a) make stuff to sell (little stuffed animals, recycled hanbags, etc...)
b) learn to alter clothes and do this for money
c) reconstruct clothes so i don't have to buy new ones

On top of this, I have applied for 2 jobs, will hopefully be getting a small living allowance from college, and plan to start listing stuff on ebay.

As Del boy said - this time next year, we'll be millionaires!

Somebody Cares, part 2

I have a really small bedroom, and I needed somewhere to set up my sewing machine, so I set off to the Somebody Cares sale in search of an old table.






I found this little beauty...

Absolute bargain - solid pine, 5' tall desk with high shelf and 3 drawers, and a pull out desk thingy at the bottom. Total cost?

£25!

This is what it looks like now...

I am so pleased with it! I *may* eventually sand and paint it, as pine isn't really our thing, but for the moment it's great as it is!