April Austerity - Last Leg

I still had quite a few bits and pieces left yesterday, so they all went in the slow cooker: mince turkey, a pepper, a courgette, ¾ of a red onion, the tin of red kidney beans, the jar of Everyday Value pasta sauce and some vegetable stock and mixed herbs.  I made four portions and I think it  was about 90p a portion.  With the free pasta from the Orchard Programme and left over broccoli, this was a pretty tasty dish, with plenty left over!

I needed bread and found this in Tosca.  Several days later, it's still fine in the kitchen - absolutely fine!  It does make you wonder why one loaf lasts and lasts and then another one is green and gross within a couple of days.

Anyway, tomorrow I can come off the 'diet'.  Will I?  Well, yes and no.  I am certainly going to keep my shopping costs down, but I am looking forward to having some 'nicer' extras backin my  diet.  And then there is the small matter of the Food Bank shop.  I've saved approximately £60 this month and Tosca have oblidged by sending me a £10 voucher, for a £70 spend.  Ahhhh, they must have been missing me ;p

So you know what I am going to do...I'll put my shop in full price at £70, wait for it to drop half price, add £1 delivery and then deduct the £10 voucher.  £70 for £26.  I think that will make quite a nice donation :D

April Austerity - Testing Times

I assume you know that feeling when you try to do something and nothing goes right?  Well, after the concerns that I could be diabetic, I thought I ought to get my finger-pricker kit out again.  I last had to keep an eye on my blood sugar in 2007 when I was being drip fed a truck load of steroids.  I found my monitor.  The battery was flat.  I bought the batteries; the test strips were out of date.  I bought new test strips; the insert was missing.. AARRGGHHHH.

Well, finally today, I had all the working parts together and after eating less than healthily I thought I ought to see what was going on: 5.8. That's fine.  What's happened?  I have no idea.  For the last seven years my blood sugar has been ok in the morning and then climbed steadily throughout the day, to return to the morning. So why, ¾ the way through the day is it suddenly normal?  My suspicion is that my diet has changed slightly.

I'm eating more regularly, because you have too when resources have to be counted out.  I've definitely reduced the amount of fruit that I used to eat.  My starch intake has increased, as I am eating rice, bread, or pasta with most of my meals.  My junk food consumption has dropped; well, sort of...  I made scones twice and I've eaten flapjack...then there was the Easter Egg from Carla.  Yes, that lasted 3 days.  Ooops.  I'm eating less veg.   Then, about ten days ago, the potatoes ran out (I finished my supply, they didn't charge out of the front door).  I've always been a bit suspicious that potato was my arch enemy when it came to my blood sugar.  I'll have to run a bit of an experiment, after this one is over.  

T minus four days and counting.

What if the reduced fund diet is the thing that has sorted out my blood sugar?  Hmmm, Harefield said that I'd be unlikely to make any difference to my blood sugar, because of the medication that I take. I guess I shouldn't get too excited about one reading.  I bet the monitor is faulty...

April Austerity - Lifetime Lettuce

I saw an article on good 'ol Facebook about growing lettuce without the need for mucky things like soil, digging and seeds.  Basically you shove the base of the lettuce in some water, stick it on a window ledge, change the water daily and wait for the lettuce to grow.  In keeping with the month, I thought it may be a good way to save a little bit of cash; apparently you can expect to achieve 5-6 'lettuces' from one!  This is the first one at about three days.

This is about a week into the lettuce growing experiment.  The second one has just been 'planted' today.  If this actually works, I'll be buying one of those mini plastic greenhouses for the garden and regrowing lots of lettuce, spring onions and having a go at cabbages etc!

Owing to the truckload of lettuce and milk that Tosca sent me in error, I made scones - carrot, courgette, cheese and herb.  They are rather yummy, if I may say so myself and rather economical.  I know, I should post the recipes, but I am essay writing at the moment, so this is what you're getting for now!

Dinner and lunch underneath were a lot more exciting than some of the meals I've eaten this month; with a lot of  extras I haven't had to make a choice between lettuce and cucumber, or deciding whether I save the last inch of carrot for another meal.  I wish Tosca would muck up so spectacularly more often!

Houmous wraps with carrot, lettuce, cucumber, courgette and tomato!  Nice :D

April Austerity - Tales of Tosca!

Oh Tosca, you are so inept!  I'll get back to that in a minute, but a quick update that this weeks austerity shop actually only came to £7.61 as they didn't bring the bread that I wanted, so I still have enough for some milk next week - but I won't need to buy any more of that because Tosca are total twits...

My shop this week - including stuff for next month's cupboard and the freezer - should have cost me £27.95.  It came to £21.95, because of my wombled voucher, plus a few other coupons that I had.  The delivery was 15 minutes late, so I rang and moaned - £3.50 refund.  Result.  Then just as I was unpacking the delivery driver pitched up again with some of my shopping - I didn't think anything of it, until I got everything out:

Two legs of lamb (free range - on deal + coupon:  I always get some lamb when going to see mum, as it's her favourite: that's the next two trips sorted then!)

Two pots of plain yogurt

Two lots of pate

Two lots of lettuce

Four pots of houmous 

Four lots of Philidelphia Cheese

Yes - they'd doubled up my order.  I rang them; I keep the stuff and I haven't been charged. That's £14.73 worth of free food.  Now I am waiting for my £5 vouher for spending over £20 and to see if I have any money back on their Price Promise.

So um...yes, in terms of this month, I have a truck load of milk and lettuce, two tubs of houmous and philly... I can't get anything else in my freezer and I'll be spending next to nothing next month too.  It's a shame they didn't double up on the tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, courgettes :D

My doubles - the others were already packed away.

I love Tosca!

April Austerity - Dog-tired Diary Entry

Well, what a wash out today has been, I don't just mean in terms of the weather!  I'm knackered, very stiff and rather sore and I've spent the day in bed, ignoring the April Austerity and eating what I fancied, out of the cupboard - not ideal, but hmmm..my exhaustion level overrides everything.  I am not sure what that is doing to my blood sugar; I'm waiting for the lancets to be delivered in the post.

On top of this, at the back of my mind is the fact that I have a half written essay that needs to be finished and another one that I have not even started; here I am writing this.  Never let it be said that I don't know how to delay the inevitable!  I'll be back on the austerity wagon tomorrow and hopefully also the essay one as well.

I've just put through an online shop for Tosca to deliver tomorrow evening.  I've a little over a week left now and I can't be doing with this back and forth to the shops.  Besides, if I can't get dressed, I don't think I should be going to Tosca - unless I'm just the female version of Arthur Dent looking for a decent cuppa?  

I can't begin to imagine how some people cope with 'this', when they are not well.  I do actually know a couple of other people with no-one around them, whose health is even worse than mine - well, that is kind of a given isn't it?  I have to say, this experiment terrifies me in terms of what *could be - say when my lungs fail.  Life is definitely a LOT easier when someone else brings your shopping over and you can chose to eat a carrot dipped in houmous, if you feel too tired to cook..  Mum's hopefully buying me a bar stool for my birthday, so I actually have something in the kitchen to sit upon when preparing stuff; it will certainly make days like this a bit easier.

I did spend over the £20 Tosca limit to pick up my £5 off another shop deal.  In amongst the shop is stuff like cat litter, cat treats and other bits and bobs and odds and sods for the end of the month.  For this month, there's more milk, veggies, some houmous and apples etc.  I had already spent 98p the other day getting butter to make the flapjack, so I was down to £9.25.  I think I am about £1 over budget, but I shall tot up the actual price when the goods get here.  Besides, if I hadn't actually put a shopping order in with them, they'd probably have sent round someone to see if I was ok, I've spent so little this month!

So, what have I learned this month?  

1) I really don't need to spend as much as I do on food; I could live perfectly healthily and happily on a bit less.  See point two.

2) I don't actually need a lot of the junk food that I nibble one - I nibble on it because it's nice, but I'm going to make an effort not to buy any more biscuits, or crisps.  It'll be better for me and I can bake 'healthy' versions of junk.  Actually shopping online stops me putting the junk in the trolley!

3) People don't seem to notice when I don't actually put all the sugar in my baking.  That's an interesting one, because we all like our scones and cream teas, but I've been regularly putting only ½ the amount required when baking without dried fruit and only ⅓ of the sugar required when dried fruit is added.  The flapjack and the chocolate brownies still seem to disappear just the same.

4) I don't like cheap meat and I really, really don't like how animals are kept to make sure it is cheap.  Yes, I am a meat-eater.  No, this is not going to change.  But I do think that the animals have the right to be free-range - properly free range, with shelter and with healthcare that is appropriate for their needs.  'Free-range' isn't always what it is cracked up to be.

5) I really need to get through the stuff in my freezer that I had already prepared for another day; there's about £20 worth of cheese in there too!  I can think of a couple of people who would volunteer to help me eat that lot..

6) I don't drink much (I had half a bottle of Becks on New Years Eve) yet I really have fancied a glass of cold wine almost every evening.  How odd!

April Austerity - Frugal Flapjack

250g - Oats

125g - Butter

125g - Honey

75g - Sugar

Bake in the oven at 210 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  That's a 50% reduction in sugar and how I've been making flapjack for quite a while!  Let's see how the study group deal with this tomorrow...

It works out at about £1.20 for the flapjack and I've cut it into 12 slices.

If you want to know what you are normally eating at mine, in my recipe I usually throw in 125g of sultanas (raisins/apricot etc), 125g mixed nuts (sometimes seeds) 200g of ground almonds.

April Austerity - Swindled Sarnie

Ok, so I ought to 'fess up.  I had lunch out with a few friends today and it's not coming out of the remaining cash - I also bought to half price crusty wholemeal/seeded rolls from Tosca to go with some of *that* soup!  I think I will be grating carrot/courgette into it, to make it a little more interesting!  But, yes, this is where £45 falls down - well it's not the only place where it falls down.  So far, from what I can see,  this sort of diet is unsustainable long term because:

1) The diet is very basic.  Yes, I am getting veg and a small amount of fruit, but unless you are prepared/able to go back and forth to Tosca at 6.30pm+ to pick up the reduced stock, then you are not going to be seeing your 5 a day consistently enough - let alone your now 7 a day.  I'm not convinced that I am eating everything I need as far as vitamins, protein etc.

2) Where is the social interaction that we all need?  I've spent £8.24 today.  This is not a huge amount of money, yet this is the only time I shall be eating out this month.  Realistically, if I was eating on £45 a month and suddenly had £8 spare, the extra would go into stock cupboard staples: tins of tomato, beans, pulses, rice etc,  That means the chance of seeing other people is greatly reduced.  I'm social, I like having mugs of tea with friends, the occasional pub lunch, or dinner out.  I don't spend excessively, but today I feel guilty for having spent less than a tenner, to see people I haven't seen for months!

3) If you are prepared to trek back and forth for reduced stock, don't count on having the pick of the shop;  I'm eating whatever has been knocked down in price.  I'm lucky, I know how to cook and make a meal out of nothing.  Not everyone is in this position.  You also have to be prepared to hover.  I have hovered in Tosca, waiting to see if the bloke fussing about in the veg section, with the price gun was going to move something useful into the bargain bin.  Yes, he did! Avocado!

4) I am becoming increasingly tired as the month progresses, because of all the health issues stack against me.  I am giving serious consideration to home delivery next week - buy what I need and then add in a few extras for after the month, to make it worth the delivery charge.  Again, if you are on £45 and can't get to the shops, then chucking £3 on delivery seems crazy; I'd be ordering once a fortnight, to every three, but that's then £6 something a month out of the food budget!  It doesn't even take into account the fact that fruit and veg may be a bit iffy by day ten, of factor in that you may run out.

5) I am fed up of bulk cook food: 14 portions of soup, ok, so I am tweaking each bowlful, but it is basically the same thing.  I made a pasta, spinach, red pepper and cheese dinner.  I ate it for a three further meals.  I've had the same rice and vegetable salad - all 6 batches of it and the coleslaw lasted four meals as well.  

BORED BORED BORED BORED BORED BORED BORED BORED BORED BORED 

6) I'm 5ft tall - almost.  I still weigh about 46kg.  I'm at home 50% of the time.  I'm eating; I'm not hungry, but everything is being used up.  Heaven help you, if you had a physical job, were 6ft, or 10 stone.  

T Minus Two Weeks and Counting...

P.s. £6.54 + £5.09 (wombled voucher) = £11.63 - £1.40 = £10.23