Cooking from Scratch Saves Money!

Wow I was really surprised this month! My grocery bill was far less!

In the midst of all my trying to get organised I have been keeping a note of all the money we spend over the last few months, trying to see where it vanishes to! 

Now I have started cooking meals from scratch. No packet food. Just basic ingredients which don't contain any additives. 


Since last year I have been trying to cut down on the salt I consume. 14 months ago my blood pressure was too high and my doctor wanted me to take medicine. I refused and told her I wanted to wait first and corrected my diet. Now a year later my blood pressure is constantly in the normal range. It was possibly just the stressful time I was going through. 

However the thing is that I started reading labels on the things I was buying to cook. Reading labels on cans gives surprising results: canned beans contain both salt and sugar?! I now buy dried beans, soak them overnight and cook them in my slowcooker......yummy and so much cheaper! Win win! 

So many additives and colourants! So much added salt and sugar! 
When I can tomatoes there are only tomatoes in the jar. They keep fine. Why do manufacturers need to add salt and sugar to those? Maybe they think it tastes better? I know my home made ones taste far nicer.

Obviously as I stopped buying prepackaged foods and bought just the basics, my shopping list became so much shorter! I didn't think I was buying many in the first place but it seems I was! As I added up the money spent on food in October it was far less than what I spent in July! 

The nice thing is that I am not spending more time cooking than I did before, if anything less!
 As I prepare a meal I freeze at least one serving so I can use it when I don't have time. That way I always have something ready to cook.
My slowcooker is a great way to prepare tasty food with a minimum of effort and my dearly loved pressure cooker is always handy! 
Now it has become colder I will be making bread again as I did last winter. That should bring a great saving as well.

My family is now eating better. Healthier and more tasty food while actually saving money! 

What suggestions do you have for saving money while still producing tasty family meals?

A place for everything and everything in its place.

Getting the house organized is so difficult. It is very easy to become overwhelmed and just give up!
I keep telling myself that it is important to remember that the house didn't get in a mess in just a day, and I don't have a magic wand to instantly get it tidy. (Wish!)
Slowly and surely is the way to go, gradually getting to grips with it.

"A place for everything and everything in its place."

Yes sure, if you have a place to put it! The problem is when there is nowhere for things to go. That is when decluttering becomes essential.

I have been trying to set myself some goals. This time it was my bedside cabinet. It was piled high with books and general clutter.
I removed all the books and put them back on the book shelves. I put several balls of yarn away and other odds and ends that had no right to be there.

I then cleaned out the two drawers: so full of underwear that it was almost impossible to open and close them! I spent a full 20 minutes checking pantyhose and discarding all the ones with snags or holes. My usual repurposing instinct made me want to save them to make flowers or use as stuffing, but I resisted and threw them out. There will be plenty more before I ever get round to making anything anyway!

Everything that didn't fit was trashed.
I swept behind and under the bed while I was there and dusted and polished. I was happy.

DH then so very nicely commented that I had been upstairs for two hours and that the dishes were still to wash! He had been "busy" watching television. Men don't wash dishes!!

Thank goodness my youngest DD isn't a hoarder. (The photos are of her bedroom with no warning!)

She went through all her clothes before going back to school today.
She has grown so we filled two big plastic bags with clothes to go to those in need. As there is nowhere to donate them in the village, my older DD will give them to her local church in town.

With so many boatloads of people arriving daily on our coasts there is a real need for clothes. Sad to have to say there are also children and young teens among the refugees.

I need to go through other clothes that have been saved here. My son had a lot of shirts he no longer uses so I will have a washing and ironing spree and send those as well. It seemed a shame to discard them when they were almost new so I kept them. Just as well, now a use has arrived. Decluttering for a good cause!

I am not looking forward to ironing all those shirts, Since my DH retired and my DS left home, I rarely iron now unless it is really necessary. I am saving on energy for the good of the environment! Lol! That is my excuse anyway and I am sticking to it!

Today's mission is to go upon the top floor and sort those shirts out!

What is your mission for today?

9 ways to save money on grocery bills.

Well in my last post I mentioned that there have been a lot of bills recently and that I need to cut expenses. I decided to to do some online research. Something I have been doing frequently recently looking for thrifty ideas and lifestyles. 
So Pinterest here I came. So many different things pinned with 5,10, 15 or whatever ideas to save money. Well let me tell you folks I just hate clicking on those to find it takes me to the blog and then that the article is only a list of links to posts by other people on their blogs! Originality Guys! 

I know it is only right to give credit where credit is due, but please I want to know what the author thinks of these ideas. What works for them. What they don't agree with! 

Often the various links given have all more or less the same sort of advice. Inevitable as there are only so many ways we can reduce things such as grocery bills. 

What is very obvious to me is what I have already started doing and that is planning ahead and not doing impulse buying. In my case I have been guilty of being maybe busy knitting and just not planning ahead so at the last moment I don't even know what I shall cook!
 I also buy ingredients with the best intentions and then never get around to making the meal. Then it gets to the expiry date and that is sheer waste! Organization that is the key! So here I will make a list of my own with what I need to do to economise based on my experience in the past few months.

1: Organization!
Do a meal plan. Not a rigid day by day thing but an idea of meals for the month, or at least a week. Maybe I will make pizza on Wednesday instead of Saturday or do a roast on Tuesday! You get what I mean. The important thing is to have the ingredients available.

2: Make a shopping list! 
Work out the ingredients I need beforehand! I always seem to forget something!  My DH calls me a "chittara scordata" (Scordare is a way of saying forget and a guitar that is scordata needs tuning for those who are curious!) His way of saying I am always forgetting things! (As if he remembers them!)
Stick to the shopping list without impulse purchases.

3: Cook meals from scratch. This one I am doing fairly well on. I rarely used package foods anyway. 

4: Avoid using canned foods. I must take the time to cook beans, chickpeas, lentils myself instead of just opening a can. Again that goes with planning ahead but I can also freeze them ready cooked if I have freezer space.

5: Take the meat out of the freezer and cook the stuff!
We actually have our own beef and although it is tough it has a great flavour. I always forget to remove it in time and that means I have to substitute something else, often canned meat! One of the best things I have bought is a thing to grind raw meat. The cuts that were too tough cook beautifully as polpette or hamburgers! 

6: Avoid buying soft drinks.
I have stopped drinking any kind of alcoholic drinks and don't buy them, but lemon or peach tea, lemonade etc can be costly and are also bad for us. Drinking water is better. I should also start making tea in the summer again and letting it cool instead of buying all those bottles. Less plastic to recycle that way as well!

7: Check expiry dates and use things up! Mozzarella cheese that is you I am looking at! I always forget. I should freeze it before it expires. Organization!

8: Cut down on buying ice cream! 
Really one of the biggest things this month! It has been so hot and ice cream seemed the only thing nice to eat. I actually have 2 ice cream makers! Get them out girl and make some. I would even know what goes into it! Lol! Also make some lemon granita. We have our own lemons and I never make the stuff!

9: Use up leftovers.
Waste not want not. That is what I was taught as a child and I really need to remember again. Left over food can be served up as ingredients in other dishes.
Too much gets just thrown out otherwise.


Well that is it for now. I will stop at 9 because it is a number I like!  When the weather gets cooler I will start baking bread again and maybe some cakes. I will continue trying to find other ways to save on food bills while still producing good food to eat. Actually the meals will probably be far better than usual!
Recipe books here I come! 

What other suggestions do you have? 

When your output exceeds income...

When your output exceeds your income , then your upkeep will be your downfall.

This is sound advice and is also almost a copy of something Charles Dickens wrote in David Copperfield :

'My other piece of advice, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and - and in short you are for ever floored. As I am!'

Micawber is known for asserting his faith that "something will turn up". His name has become synonymous with someone who lives in hopeful expectation. This has formed the basis for the Micawber Principle, based upon his observation.

A Micawber is defined as "one who is poor but lives in optimistic expectation of better fortune"

Although Mr Micawber's story is not the way I want to end up! Better to be more practical!

You may be wondering where all this rambling is leading to. In recent months it seems that our financial output exceeds the income every single time! Bills bills and more bills! 

Every month there is something extra to pay. This time there were my DD's school books. Nearly 500 euro! I did, albeit reluctantly, take her old ones to see if I could sell them. Only 3 were still in use and I received the great sum of 20 euro for new condition books! Most of those she needs this year are new adoptions so weren't available secondhand either. 

I really need to sit down and take a good hard look at our expenditure. 

I started this month by writing down every single thing we have bought. I need to know where the money is going and where I can cut spending.

I have also written down all the meals from this month and am trying to work out a meal plan for September. I hope to be able to make a grocery list with just the essentials. I will try to cut food waste to a minimum. This is something I had already been trying to do. 

By trying to walk a greener path I have already made several changes to my lifestyle. Now I need to take this further in order to decrease spending. Water bills are always high here so "turn off that tap" is a must do. Electricity costs so washer loads must be run when there is a full load. Too often I do a half load because I hate having dirty washing lying around. I line dry my clothes and have stopped ironing un-necessary things. Saves money and time!

In the summer I almost never use the oven as it is so hot. When the weather cools I will go back to baking bread again.

The phone and internet is one fixed monthly amount so no problems with that for now. I use a prepaid card for rare international calls to family. With national ones I could talk all day if I liked!

So hard to find other ways to cut spending. I rarely buy clothes unless really necessary. We don't go out for meals. We don't smoke or drink.
 From this month's spending the only thing I can see we could have cut down on was buying icecream!

I will be scouring the web looking for ideas. I need to tip those scales back the other way.

In what ways do you save money? Any thrifty suggestions?