I really can’t complain about our living costs. Since we started along this path of “quasi-sustainability”, our food expenses have dropped dramatically. Paradoxically, we’re eating better than ever before, with very little pre-prepared or heavily processed food in our daily diet.
It’s tough economic times though, so we’ve again reassessed to see where we can save a bit of money without feeling like we’re depriving ourselves. We’ve already made lots of big changes, but there’s still room for a bit of tinkering. These things won’t save us a fortune, but it’s surprising how quickly it all adds up!
Homemade pasta
As I mentioned in a previous post, we used to struggle with homemade pasta. So much so that until recently, we’ve always purchased it from our mate Joe at Peppe’s Pasta, at $7.50 per 500g. Now that we have our trusty Ottolenghi recipe down pat, we’ll be making this at home. And since our girls are reliably laying five eggs a day at the moment, the pasta will only cost us $1.20 per 500g!
Homegrown lettuce
Everyone talks about how wonderful it is to have homegrown herbs, but I’ve only just realised how fabulous it is to grow lettuce! It’s ready to harvest within a matter of weeks, and I go out every morning and pull a few leaves off for the boys’ lunches. If you have room for a small herb garden, even if it’s in pots, I’d recommend you plant a little lettuce as well. If nothing else, it might convince the kids to eat their greens!
No more pinenuts
I love pinenuts, but they’ve recently become prohibitively expensive – good quality ones from Lebanon or Spain are between $60-$100/kg. I now happily substitute slivered almonds, which are a tiny $12/kg from Harkola. There’s always a bag hidden in the fridge somewhere.
No more packaged dips
Not that we were buying many, but it’s so easy to make dips at home that we really don’t need to spend money on them anymore. In addition, the commercial versions tend to have a lot more oil and salt than our homemade ones. We make our own hommus, taramasalata, roasted beetroot dip and nasturtium pesto – more than enough variety to fill a nibbles tray.
Aldi
Friends, if you’re not buying at least some of your groceries from Aldi, then you’re probably spending more money than you need to. I know we certainly were. I think the notion that Aldi products are inferior is a misconception – they may not always be better than what you can buy at Woolies or Coles (although sometimes they are), but they’re usually comparable in quality. And they’re almost always cheaper! Aldi also have a great organic range, with items you won’t find in other supermarkets.
Emergency meals = no more takeaway
I once read somewhere – I think it was in Shirley Conran’s Superwoman – that one of the best ways to reduce stress in the kitchen is to have a list of emergency meals written down. These need to be easy to prep and preferably quick to cook, with minimal washing up. It was suggested that the list be taped to the inside of a cupboard, where it could be referred to whenever exhaustion might otherwise drive you to pick up the telephone and order $60 worth of takeaway. Our list includes dishes like baked bean toasted sandwiches, risotto and survival soup. Our boys adore them all!
If you have any money saving tips, please share them with us. Every little bit helps!
. . . . .
Previous Frugal Living posts:
- Frugal Living #1: Bread and Milk
- Frugal Living #2: Waste with Angst
- Frugal Living #3: Time = Money
- Frugal Living #4: Freezers
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
There is a great forum in the UK which has enormous sections dedicated to money saving tips It’s the baby of a journalist called Martin Lewis and it has a huge readership and consequently an enormous pool of information. Here’s a link to it, obviously a lot of the finance stuff is uk specific but it’s worth having a rummage there.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/ Do you have a similar one in Oz?
The fridge was bare just now, so I found half an onion, a bit of ancient red pepper, picked some sage (thinking vaguely of your sage pasta dish) and some bolting lettuce, cooked them all up, and plopped them on some pasta with cheese. Yum. Now making a meat loaf, inspired by the sole courgette I found in the fridge xx
Jo, welcome back! I know you were only gone for a couple of days, but I missed you? Hehe…is that possible when I’m in Aus and you’re in the UK?
Thanks for the link, I’ll have a look. We do have something similar here called Simply Savings, but you have to pay to join, so I never have. They do send out a nice free newsletter though.. :)
I have found that trading services and talents can save a lot of money, as well.
I will trade several loaves of bread for a couple of pounds of organic garlic- or homemade notecards for calligraphy.
My niece has traded photography sessions for massages.
It is amazing the things you can trade for when you start thinking creatively! I once traded several dozen chocolate cookies for a bottle of home made mead for a Midsummer’s Day party.
Heidi, great suggestion, thank you! I’ve never been particularly good at trading, will have to try harder.. :)
What a great article. I really need to try the tip of pasting some emergency meals to the inside of my cupboard. I get to a point, some days, that I just don’t have the energy.
I wish there was a way to make bread dough and freeze it, so that I could have fresh baked bread any time I wanted… :)
We save money by using lots of beans and not much meat. I also like to make big batches of soup and freeze leftovers (for emergencies).
Speaking of dips – I like to make yogurt based dips – lower calories than sour cream and (I think) tastier.
Sasha, thanks! The emergency meals list saved us again last night – we were so shattered that I just couldn’t think of anything to cook for dinner. Instead of takeaway (my hand was literally on the phone), we had a risotto made with sausage and mushrooms, and it was done and tidied away before any takeaway delivery would have made it here.
You can make bread and parbake it, so that you can finish baking it later. Richard Bertinet’s book Dough has some suggestions for this, and Joanna wrote a post about this as well here.
We love beans and soups, but my house of carnivores demands a meat feed on a regular basis. Feeding teenage boys is like feeding a wolf pack. :)
lol about the teenagers.
I’ll look into parbaking… thanks!
Hi Sasha,
I love the ‘bread in 5 minutes a day’ dough pioneered by Zoe and Jeff. You make a dough which can last up to 2 weeks in the fridge, doesn’t require kneading in stage 1 and makes delicious bread. See link http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/
Some great ideas here. I really must get better at finding the energy to make my own dips! I, too, love Aldi and do most of my weekly shopping there. I think the other misconseption about Aldi is that it’s foreign! Whereas, in fact, almost all of their stock is Australian made and grown.
Have you had a look at cheapskates.com.au?
They have a premium membership which you have to pay for but they also have a free membership where you get weekly emails. Some good tips there too!
I’ve only recently discovered your blog and I’m looking forward to having the time to read through the archives!!
Cheers,
Emma
Emma, thanks for dropping by! I’ll check out cheapskates now..
I always have a freezer full of meat. I find it is a great incentive to reach for that instead of takeaway. If I remove some in the morning to defrost, I know it has to be used that night or be wasted, and that is not an option! I shop around for bargins and marked down stock. I got a whole fantastic scotch fillet for $8.99 kg yesterday. Once sliced and frozen, it’s only 6minutes away from being dinner!
1. Walnuts are a good pinenut substitute at times.
2. If ‘food miles’ are an interest, keep an eye on country of origin with ALDI products.
Pine nuts are hideously expensive aren’t they. I found some Tasmanian pesticide free walnuts at the markets last week and was very happy. Cheaper than the regular ones and not imported.
I think our biggest cost cutter these days is not going overboard with lots of ingredients. Food doesn’t need 20 ingredients in it all the time, especially when you are after something quick and easy.
Pasta cooked up with a couple of ingredients and a drizzle of olive oil- super easy…and you could be still deciding what to get on the take out menu in the time that its cooked.
Hi Celia
Thanks for the package (ecofleece) that arrived on my door step on Sunday afternoon (along with two STARVING children). My email to you bounced back so I just wanted to say thanks and sorry I didn’t get to pick it up in person (we have just come out the other side of a three week, germ-infested exile).
PS – I recently went to Harkola for the first time. It was amazing! There is also a Turkish supermarket very close to Harkola which is also fabulous. Not sure what it’s called.
Hey Cathy, no worries at all, glad you liked it. I didn’t know about the Turkish supermarket – where was it in relation to Harkola? Thanks.. :)
Hmm…not sure what I can add to that list. Living in a place where there aren’t many great takeaway or produce choices (and having high expectations of food) tends to save us from buying take away food more often…but I am not sure that it counts as an active frugal living approach! :)
I often add kidney beans or other lentils in with meat dishes I cook so that I use half or less of the quantity of meat I would normally need for us, the meat eaters feel like they are eating meat and I feel like we are eating less meat. And it costs a lot less. So a bit of a win-win situation.
I also buy the dried beans etc (although canned beans are a good emergency stand by in the pantry) – they are much cheaper as you can often buy a kilo bag for the same as the cost of one tin. They taste a lot better too….but require a bit of forward planning with soaking.
The other thing I do is look at the cut of meat. These days traditionally cheap cuts like lamb shanks are in fact priced at a premium. I can usually buy leg of lamb that has a lot more meat and enough for a couple of meals for the same price as four lamb shanks.
Thanks SG…it can be tricky navigating the butcher’s counter sometimes! We eat a lot of beans too – thankfully the boys love them! :)
Chef, that’s true, defrosting something in the morning does force your hand when it comes to dinner time.. :)
Lee, thanks for the tips. I don’t think it’s just Aldi, but really so many packaged goods in general which are made from imported foods. I think it’s impossible to buy locally grown cranberries, for example, and most peanuts are imported as well. As Emma pointed out above though, I’ve found some really great Oz produce at Aldi, including their organic honey which I waxed lyrical about here. We’ve also found a lot of Aldi grocery items to be very good – their dishwasher pellets work as well as the expensive Finish ones we used to buy, and their Napisan equivalent is great as well.
Brydie, great advice, thank you! As Thoreau said, “Simplify, simplify, simplify!” :)
I love your posts on frugal living. I don’t live in Australia, but most of them still make sense. The emergency meals idea is great. I think i’ll put my list up on the refrigerator. We’ve been spending USD20, on mediocre food no less, every time i don’t feel like cooking. Time to put an end to mindless spending there.
The quick meals i make are garbanzo beans with tomatoes and herbs, poached eggs in tomato gravy, bean stir fry, and garden veggie sandwiches, but i need to diversify a bit.
Aldi is inexpensive in the US too. I mostly buy baking supplies there. Everything gourmet or organic at Trader Joe’s. Come to think of it, Trader Joe’s isn’t pricey either.
Sandy, I really appreciate you taking the time to always leave comments – thank you!
Did you know Trader Joe’s is also owned by Aldi? :)
Oh, i love your blog Celia. I read very few, but the first one i check every day after emails is yours. I like that you write about unfussy everyday food. I didn’t know TJ was owned by Aldi! Two very good stores.
Sandy, thank you for the kind words. So glad you’re enjoying the blog – I write about what we eat, and it’s usually pretty simple fare! :)
I know it’s on a corner and it has a verandah out the front. I will have a look on the ‘interweb’ when I am at home (being at work gets in the way of so many important things!).
Also, there is a fantastic Persian supermarket in Top Ryde called Bahar (Church St). Have you been there?
Nooo…I didn’t know about that!! Thanks Cathy! Will have to check it out – please let me know when you’ve got the name of the Turkish supermarket..
Celia – I think you’ve brought out my “inner quasi-sustainable-living”; I love that you’re sharing your journey for those that think about this a lot (while we dash around at a million miles an hour) :)
Keeping things simple & shopping at places like Aldi has been my first step, as you say they have a good (great actually) organic range and recently I heard that Aldi stores have a policy of never having products in their store with artificial colourings & flavours, so for people with food sensitivities this is a great thing.
Anna, thank you! We’re probably too indulgent to be brutally frugal, but we do what we can, and it seems to make a difference. I think we can all find ways to save money without it feeling like we’re depriving ourselves overly!
An afterthought:
When our boys ask us for something we don’t believe we should buy, we never tell them that we can’t afford it. To be honest, we live in the first world, and it would be a lie to say we couldn’t afford their requests (they’re not asking for Porsches).
What we tell them instead is that we don’t choose to spend our money on those things. We believe this sends a powerful message to them – living within our means is about making choices. We choose to buy expensive Belgian chocolate; but we also choose to bake all our bread at home. Life is a balancing act, and sometimes I think the secret to contentment is realising that we don’t need to have it all.
Ok, a few ideas.
1. Make bread at home. Better tasting and no additives/preservatives.
2. Don’t buy desserts. It’s fun to make them at home.
3. Freeze 1 or 2 casseroles for busy days. Throw one in the oven for a quick meal.
4. Shop only once or twice a week. Make do with what you have when you run out of something.
5. Freeze seasonal fruit for smoothies, pies etc later.
6. Oatmeal is a great way to save money. With a little agave nectar or brown sugar, and a piece of fruit, breakfast is taken care of.
7. Buy oats, sugar, flour etc in bulk.
8. Make salad dressings at home.
9. Too much zucchini in your garden? Do veggie swaps with friends.
10. Think of new ways to cook with inexpensive food items. I now use carrots a lot more than before.
But the tip that worked best for our 2 member small family is to set a budget for the month and try to stay within it. Towards the end of the month we clean out the freezer/pantry and use up wilted veggies etc. The anticipation of good meals in the near future makes the experience tolerable. But we’re learning to be disciplined. Sometimes we save good stuff through the month for those last days. :)
Sandy, GREAT advice, thank you! Saving the best stuff for the end of the month is like leaving your pork crackling until last..hehe..
Have you ever made your own soap? It’s dead easy. A ten dollar tin of very ordinary olive oil will make more than enough for a year.
Frances, no I haven’t, but thank you for the suggestion! I’ve seen soap making recipes around, must look into them more closely.
I read recently that having a dog was the equivalent carbon footprint cost of running a 4×4 car annually. Given that I have two small dogs, (I reckon they add up to one 4 x4 – must have been an average dog) it first of all upset me that someone would put a family pet and a gas guzzler in the same context and then it made me think quite hard. We feed our dogs on a mixture of local (garden veg when we have it) and fresh cooked meat which we freeze and imported dry dog food from Canada. They eat between them 4 oz of protein per day, 4 oz of veg and then 2 oz each of the imported food. Not a huge amount. They cost more in pet insurance (vet bills are huge here, £25 just to walk a dog through the door) than anything else. Grooming costs, we used to do it ourselves, but never got faster at it, and one poodle takes us both the best part of a day to do. Does the pleasure of having a dog justify its running costs? We tried various ‘diets’ when we first had them, and at the end of the day you have to find something that doesn’t give them the runs. A young vet who we spoke to one time said that dogs digestions have evolved during the time they have been hanging out with humans, particularly the smaller breeds, so that they are better off with cooked/aka broken down food a lot of the time, which mimics the partially digested/rotted food they would once have eaten. I am not trying to start up the debate on what to feed your dogs here, there are loads of sites where people endlessly debate this – but the issue of pet ownership is an interesting one when considering choices….
Everything we do has a cost, Jo, be it having a pet, or having a house, or having children. I don’t know that any of us can really live completely carbon neutral lives. But, and I mean this semi-humorously, having a pet could reduce your footprint, because it means you’re far less likely to get on a plane, and air travel is one of the biggest source of carbon emissions… :)
I hadn’t looked at it like that! Thank you! :) I think I was throwing it up for food for thought really – yes, reduced air miles, (I haven’t flown anywhere for 7 plus years, reduced medical intervention for me, keeps me calm, healthy because I have to walk them…. I think I’ll hang on to Zeb and Lu for a bit then :)
Back to the household. Baking in tins! Deeply unfashionable, because to show our artisan side we like to free form loaves, but you get more tins in the oven than you do big round shapes…. so more fuel efficient…..
I agree, making things from scratch is a huge money saver. Even things like making mayonnaise, a huge jar is $10 or so now at the supermarket but it’s less, even when you use FR eggs and good oil. We also go to Aldi but find some things better and some things not as good (except for the electronic stuff, we don’t buy them from Aldi anymore :P )
Aaah, thanks for the tip, Lorraine. We’ve not bought any electrical goods from Aldi.. ;-)
What a fabulous post – thank you so much for sharing such great money saving ideas. I love the emergency meals list!
:-) Mandy
Fantastic post, Celia! I really enjoy scrounging around the garden gathering food for dinners and also seeing what I can make from scratch around the house. It’s so satisfying. That emergency list of meals sounds like a fabulous idea, one that I _really_ needed the other night!! Will definitely be doing that one, thanks. I’ve been trying to do my shopping fortnightly, and stocking up on things like tinned tomatoes, sugar, etc. It’s amazing how much less the grocery bill is by shopping this way! And another Aldi supporter here, too. :)
When I was a student in the UK, Aldi was my best friend. My friend swears by their shampoo but I haven’t been there in a couple of years and there’s one a bike ride away for me. I’ll have to go back.
And small things really do matter – the fact that in the summer I never have to buy mint is a joy, my back garden serves up enough for a pot of tea and more every day. Next year, I’m going to pot my mint and plant a variety of things, inspired by you and by the gardener at our daughters’ school who sent me a huge basket of veg, herbs and edible flowers which I’ve set about ‘preserving’ for the long haul.
In the last few weeks, I’ve began to bake lots of split pita bread, (Khubz ‘Arabee) which I keep in an airtight jar. The kids LOVE it for snack and I have ready bread shards to go into fattoush at the drop of a hat, or to go with a dip of olive oil and homemade za’atar. Delicious.
Thank you for the inspiration
Thanks Mandy! :)
Chris, I would never have thought it could be so satisfying eating things from the garden! But every time I break off a lettuce leaf, I feel a small burst of joy! :) I read a fantastic tip for people without space, and that was to grow stuff in polystyrene boxes. Apparently you can have a complete mini-garden in a box!
Oz, I’ve never attempted pita bread before! Will head to your blog to see if you’ve got a recipe..
Hi Celia. When I say pita bread, I don’t mean my homemade ones :-). These are thin Arabic unleavened breads that are also often called pita. They’re the base of Turkish pizzas and sharwamas.
my tomato seeds cost about 5 dollars. i have now picked well over 30 pounds from the garden. at whole foods, same variety goes for 4.99/lb. then there’s cucumbers, green beans, carrots, parsley root, leeks and all the herbs i needed all summer long. before i had a garden i bought bulk and preserved/canned/froze. i still buy meat and fish like this, every time i see a promotional price. last week pastured ground beef was $4/lb, so of course i bought several pounds, divided them into one-meal portions and froze them. no dressings, dips, baking mixes, pasta sauces or ketchup. i thought trying to be more sustainable and/or organic would cost me more, but in effect, to the dime, i spend 10 dollars more per week then before. part of it is, we’re more aware of how much we buy. if apples are 4 bucks instead of 99 cents, i’ll think twice before getting a bucket. we waste nothing this way. we eat more chicken and a lot more seafood than we used to. no more coldcuts. i still get prosciutto, of course, but that’s about it. that forces me to pack salads and leftovers instead of a big fat sandwich. that one is a particularly big saver for us.
i shopped aldi in germany and i was content, but here in us there’s just not the same standard. the one close to me is complete rubbish. trader joe’s might be owned by them, but it’s an entirely different story. i always imagined it was owned by a bunch of crackpot surfers from california, or a pack of equally intoxicated communal farmers from michigan. it’s just too cool to be owned by aldi! i rarely buy meat there, but i do get frozen wild-caught seafood and pantry stuff, coffee, milk, the occasional fruit. plus the people who work there are sooooo nice, and the store is clean and organized – none of which holds true for aldi.
pine nuts are crazy pricey here too. last week i got good macadamias that were cheaper!!
Dana, you give me hope for our tomatoes – this is our first season of trying to grow them! Thanks for leaving such a great comment – lots of good advice there! :)
Sounds like Aldi is a little regional – it’s great here in Sydney, but maybe not everywhere in the world? Either way, it’s as you say, the thing to do is to watch what you buy and look for savings wherever you can find them, because it really is true that the little things add up! :)
We have given up pine nuts for slivered almonds too. Mostly though because it’s easy to get Australian grown almonds (i.e relatively more local)
Just bought my first kilo of good flour for bread. Will report back. And nearly fell over when we discovered TWO Aldi shops in our closest town in Burgundy. Didn’t think they existed in France. Sadly not in Paris!
Bee, that’s definitely the case – all the “cheaper” pinenuts are from China, and the more expensive ones from Spain and Lebanon! I actually think I’m starting to prefer the almonds.. :)
Anna, hooray! Look forward to seeing how it all goes. Sounds like you’re loving Burgundian life.. :)
I used to do Aldi…it was okay. And for the most part, quality was pretty good.
But I once bought an Aldi cereal–cannot remember which cereal it was supposed to knock off–and it. was. inedible.
I tried, I really did, but it was awful…That may have been the end of Aldi for me…and then I work on shopping more and more local and Aldi doesn’t seem to fit that profile for me. In fact, that they carry organic is news to me, since they did not when this happened…maybe I’d better check it out again…or not…not sure.
Barb, I guess you really do need to pick and choose. Aldi saves us a lot of money, but we’re fairly selective about what we buy there. Cranberry juice, salted peanuts, UHT milk, cleaners, but no fresh produce or meat, which we get at the markets and butchers. Over here in Oz, their organics range is quite large, but since they also own Trader Joe’s, perhaps in the US most of their organic stuff goes there instead?
You would like Cape Gooseberries, they are small and come wrapped so the fruit fly cannot get at them. Easy to grow, but put them on a fence or a frame or the fuit is hard to find. They make great jam and pies
Yes, there is an Aldi an hour and a half away from us here in New England. I haven’t been but my husband has, and I think he reviewed a list of the items they carry prior to going. He said he didn’t find them carrying any organic produce at all. It is true that TJ’s does carry a lot of excellently priced organics and it seems to be increasing its range of organic products all the time. Unfortunately, we don’t have one nearby at all, so we have to go when visiting family four hours away, or ask them to bring some to us.
Overall I find this issue a very interesting topic–eating healthy and especially organic food is so often framed as a privileged habit, but doing so should be accessible to everyone. Eating from raw materials (vs. packaged) is often much cheaper, but it’s time-consuming, and time is money (sometimes very literally; I work at home and get paid by the hour).
Cutting back on meat is an enormous money-saver; we eat almost none because my husband is vegetarian, and I can never believe the cost of meat (especially the local stuff) when I buy it. Also, this may vary for some, but I’ve saved a lot of money using a CSA this year. The food is cheaper, and I don’t go to the market nearly as often, which is an enormous cost-saver.
Also, I’m not usually a coupon-user but I do keep track of low prices for processed items and buy produce seasonally, and that makes a big dent in the bills.
Hi Laurel, thanks for stopping by! I actually think time is always money, and we all have to make a decision where we draw the line in the sand about what we buy processed and what we process at home. I wrote about that exact thing here! :)
I misspoke! Aldi didn’t carry organic *anything*, not just organic produce.
At last, after endless calls to Vodafone my phone is emailing out, as well as in and here is my first blog post direct from phone by email. Now you can Read about super frugal depression style lemon peel soap.
http://msthurnell.posterous.com/the-frugal-life-and-lemon-soap
Hi Celia,
I’ve had a ‘frugal epiphany’ this year, thanks to my trusty old ‘Presbytarian Cook Book’. I’ve discovered that sour milk, cream, marscapone etc are fantastic for baking. (When I say sour I mean even getting to the separated ‘clumpy’ stage.) Not that this happens very often, because I only buy what I know we’ll use, but every so often it does. Sour cream, etc make great pancakes, muffins, cakes. I once had some very out of date marscapone, some very brown, slimy bananas and made the most amazingly light and airy muffins (with coconut for a bit of texture).
Some of these might have already been mentioned, but here are some links:
http://www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk/
http://www.changeworks.org.uk/kitchencanny/
Kitchen Canny has a facebook page with a lot of links to Scottish frugality sites!
I also remember hearing that the very old fashioned dessert, a fruit ‘fool’ was meant to use alcohol to mask the taste of ‘turning’ fruit. Which maybe accounts for the ‘fool’ part of the name. There are a few recipes on the web, some with alcohol some without.
I’ve had a list on the pantry door of meals for a few years now, though it’s more for inspiration and not all quick and easy. But my sure fire quick emergency meal is a pizza using very healthy flat bread (the healthier the better, like spelt) because the texture is so cardboardy a bit of olive oil and a 5 minute blast in the oven helps to crisp them up nicely. Then I just use plain passata with loads of seasoning and 2 or 3 toppings. Fresh basil or other herbs from the garden gives it that real quality taste. Sorted. You wouldn’t even need passata, a pesto would work just as well. I just make sure I have some flatbreads in the freezer.
Happy saving :-)
Irith, have I ever mentioned that I have a neighbour named Irith? hahahaha
Thanks for all the great ideas! We use old cream to make butter, but I’ve never had the nerve to let it go really off – must be brave next time!
Just stumbled across your blog and I’m hooked :) I love the frugal living ideas too- sadly I have no garden to grow any fruit/veg/herbs, I’m just starting to realise what a mistake it was to move into a garden-less flat!
Aldi is great in the UK too, their fruit and veg are far better quality than the major chain supermarkets and more than half the price.
I’m glad I’m not the only person to stock up on UHT milk :) it’s at least half the price and lasts FOREVER.
I always make a big pan of anything I’m cooking and freeze it in to individual portions in little sandwich bags. Pop a label on and hey presto! the original fast food, boil in the bag.
I’m a huge carnivore and eat minced beef at least twice a week, normally in either a bolognese sauce or chilli con carne. My best money saving tip? Next time you make a batch of bolognese sauce, add a good handful of porridge oats to the sauce once you have added your passata. You’ll have to simmer it for a while longer (I’ve found about 10 minutes extra normally does the trick). The oats soak up all the flavours of the sauce and make it last even longer as it’s more filling. Plus you can’t really tell that they’re there :) I now use less minced beef and I get more meals out of my sauces. Works a treat with chilli con carne too :)
Bonnie, that’s a GREAT tip, thank you! I’m feeding two teenage wolves, so stretching the meat out will help enormously. Thanks for stopping by! :)
Aldi definately! Too bad I live in Adelaide where there is no Aldi! In Germany I would do my shopping there and it was sooo cheap! Even cheaper than Australian Aldi I think! When I go to Sydney I get all excited about Aldi and go there just for fun…even though I can’t buy much to take back home with me on the plane;)
I’ve recently started making my own yogurt. I’m saving a lot fo money by doing that and a lot of waste – yes, I recycled the old tubs when I purchased yogurt but it is still using up resources to make the tubs in the first place.
Lettuce is a good idea! We have some rocket in our garden but it has gotten a bit too big for eating now:(
Nice blog you have here:)
Thanks for stopping by! Aldi is a treasure! Don’t worry about the rocket, it will all self-seed in a few weeks and you’ll have lovely new leaves to eat.. :)