Sorry, I’ve been “in absentia” of late! Greetings from (today at least!) sunny Edinburgh!
Still endeavouring to live the “Fresh & Frugal” lifestyle, this has become even more of a challenge since my temp booking came to an end a few weeks ago and there hasn’t been a great deal (for that read pretty much none!) going on on the employement front. So I’ve been forcibly tasked to really stretch everything to the limit in order to attempt to make ends meet.
The first thing I’ve done is to start to really “use things up” that I’ve had festering in the cupboard and freezer. All too often before I’d buy things thinking they would be “useful to keep in” but then never really used them. This is very common I think – how many of us can genuinely say ”I’ve nothing in the cupboard/freezer”?? So my mission is to actually have bare cupboards/freezer before I replace anything – the only thing I will allow myself to buy is tins of tomatoes that are a cheap way of making a multitude of main dishes/sauces/soups and generally useful for “juzzing” things up. This has meant actually doing a full audit of said cupboards & freezer. In itself, this process threw up a few surprises…things I had forgotten buying and things I actually didn’t even remember buying! Let’s just say I have a lot of rice/noodles/quinoa!
So the deal is now that I use things up here and try to only buy things like bread, milk, veggies etc. And the challenge with that also is to look, and by this I mean really look, at what I need and what is the best value. Nine times out of ten, this will be the local produce in terms of fruit and veg. Also particularly cheap can be the ethnic supermarkets I’ve found and I’m lucky to have a few on my doorstep. I’ve found myself comparing everything – so I’ll not only look online etc for special offers before I leave the house for the shops but actually in the shop, I will compare the prices/weights of, for example, all varieties of tomatoes before I make my selection. It’s a lot of effort but necessary at this point in time. I’ve had to abandon my veggie box as, although a bargain at £10 per box, I need to be even more frugal than this and can’t risk anything going off! I buy probably every few days, in order to combat this.
You’ll be pleased to know that my sprouting is going excellently and providing a pretty much constant supply of sprouting goodies! Alfalfa this week and I have the next lot in there germinating as I type this – should be ready Tuesday or Wednesday.
This week I have decided to log everything that I spend on food and have challenged myself to have as cheap a week as I possibly can. I start tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it goes!