Pause for Reflection

I've been reading Matthew Chapter 8 this week and it is full of instances of healing, some greatly longed for, some almost incidental but many of them based in faith. It made me think about light and spreading it in the world and how so many of the early saints were concerned with healing and spreading light just as described in Matthew.

One of those early saints was Saint Bride or Bridget of Ireland whose feast day falls on Candlemas, 2nd February which will be celebrated this week. Candlemas was traditionally the day when all the candles which would be used in church over the next year would be brought in and blessed. It was also the day when farmers would often light candles buried in the earth on their fields 'earth-candles' to remind them that light and warmth were returning to the earth after the winter solstice and soon it would be time to plant.

St Bride is the patron saint of the printed word and the big church in London, dedicated to journalism, is called St Bride's. Now so much of the printed word appears on the internet perhaps she should become the patron saint of blogging. I hope that all printed words will follow that example of healing and light brought by St Bride all those years ago.

Pet Sitting

Here a couple of cute guinea pigs, Ginger and Fluffy, who came home with us last weekend for a spot of pet sitting whilst they waited to be re-homed. If your family does not have pets or is wondering which one might be  a good fit then helping with re-homing can be the ideal way to find out.

The Shoestring family does not have pets just now as we are away from home for a long time during the day and that does not seem fair on a companion animal. However, we are fond of animals and doing a bit of pet sitting during the weekends or holidays is the ideal way to give Master Shoestring some insight into pet care. If we were to ever get a pet, it would definitely be from a re-homing charity. There are lots of pets looking for a new home and the charity will ensure that your new pet is a good fit for you. The animals will have been well-looked after and checked over by a vet and available for the cost of a donation to the charity or even free. This seems like a frugal win-win ! We enjoyed our time with Ginger and Fluffy and are looking forward to our next guests !

Saving Money by Buying in Bulk

We buy as many groceries as we can in bulk but always look at the unit price to check that this is a cost saving. For instance the corn oil can above was 10 pounds for 15 litres of oil, a considerable saving on the cost of buying 10 separate litre bottles of oil. However, you do have to have somewhere to store all your bulk purchases and I have found that with the more popular items you may also have to hide your stockpile as otherwise the family will eat it all in half the time. This is very true of chocolate, where I am usually behind Master Shoestring's ability to work out where I have hidden the stuff !

We have found that there are great deals to be had on bulk items in supermarkets now as they start to get larger and give discount warehouses such as Costco a run for their money. We did take out a Costco membership a few years ago and I'm still using the bulk herbs and vanilla essence which I got there but for us an annual membership did not make sense as it is a long way away and their prices on meat and vegetables and fruit were the same as we could find locally.

We also have quite a few ethnic grocers nearby so that also helps with bulk buying at low cost. Knowing exactly when a good deal is an unbeatable one relies on knowing the regular unit price of things you buy on a regular basis. For that you need to keep some sort of price record, I used to keep a book with all the standard prices in it but now I can use my supermarket online to keep up to date with pricing across all our local stores and only need to track prices from elsewhere, such as the local grocers. This is well worth doing as it also let's you take advantage of good online deals or tells you when you shouldn't !

There is another disadvantage to stockpiling in addition to eating through it too fast and that is eating though it too slowly, 2 years ago I had to throw out a lot of parsnips when I bought 2o pounds and we didn't eat through them fast enough and they went mouldy, I was cross with myself as had I realise earlier I could have frozen them ! So stockpile with care and keep a record of where everything is !

Do you stockpile groceries ?

How to feed your family for £5 a day

I have had a copy of this little cookbook since we were first married and all the measurements were still in imperial. It was updated and re-issued in 2012 and it is amazing to think that these budgeted recipes still enable you to do just what it says, feed a family of 2 adults and 2 children for 5 pounds a day.

As a new Mum and Wife one of the things I found helpful about the book is that it starts from the basics, what to have in your store cupboard and how to store it. How to make a shopping list and cost it, what to give people for breakfast instead of expensive cereal and milk. How to ensure everyone gets a balanced diet, where to shop to get the best deals. It was and still is much more that just a collection of thrifty recipes.

There are also sections about what is in season when and so should be cheaper in the shops and a set of weekly meal plans that stretch over 4 weeks so you can see exactly what you should be buying and how to use up something that is left over from a previous week. The author even has a section on planning for leftovers.

None of the recipes are complicated and they all work. The book is cheap to buy and although it does not contain any pictures to show the finished dishes the instructions are so clear that you have the feeling that the author has cooked each dish over and over again for her family so you have the confidence that your attempt will turn out just as it is supposed to.

I have given this book to students and young people setting out in life together and for anyone who does not need pictures I would thoroughly recommend it as a first cookbook.

Do you have a cookbook you recommend for beginners ?

Hanging Laundry

This might seem a strange thing to have a  post on but having watched our three children hanging up their wash, to begin with I think a little instruction can help things along.

Firstly, for indoor drying, get a rack that is big enough to take at least a third of a full wash and find a place to put it that has good ventilation, otherwise you will end up with a condensation problem. We use the sitting room as that is where the stove is and it has a vent in the wall to ventilate the room because of the stove, so damp air is removed from the room.

Then hang large items, such as trousers, from the hem to the neck, first, followed by smaller items, such as socks towards the centre and bottom of the rack. Smooth all the items out so they are hanging flat, not in bunches. This will help them dry quicker and also release creases so you do not have to do so much ironing ! I'm not keen on ironing. Shirts, jumpers and T shirts can be hung on hangers and hung high up in the room to utilise the warm air that rises. We have a door frame that is ideal for this purpose.

If you hang the laundry in the morning, it should be dry 24 hours later, but we do find that it takes longer if you hang more than 1 load indoors.

Outdoor drying is similar but uses lines and pegs to hold the clothing on to the lines. 

Do you line dry your clothes ?

Making Tortillas

We make all our own tortillas and much prefer them to shop-bought. For a long time I bought packets for ShoestringUSA and Miss Shoestring as they did not have medically necessary diets but then they started to complain that the homemade ones were better and why couldn't they have them too ! So know everyone eats homemade !

To make 4 you need 175g wholemeal flour, 2 tablespoons oil, 100ml water and some flour for rolling out.

Mix all the ingredients to a soft dough and divide into 4 pieces, roll out on a floured board.

Coat a heavy bottomed frying pan with oil and once it is hot fry the tortillas, you do not need to keep on adding oil as they will cook just fine in the hot pan and even get those nice authentic brown spots.

Ignore the odd shapes and enjoy with your favourite fillings !

Your Money or Your Life

At the start of our frugal journey I got a copy of this book out of the library and was not very impressed by it. It felt very American and fairly technical when what I wanted was information on how to cut the grocery bill and cook cheap meals ! For those things, the earlier two books in this series were much better, also The Tightwad Gazette which was mentioned in Comments last week.

However, over the last couple of years, when we have attempted to  get really serious about saving so we can spend our lives as we wish, I got the book out of the library again and this time decided to buy a copy and put it on the shelf for reference.

This book is all about the motivation to be frugal and thrifty and the key point is that when you spend money you are trading life energy for the item you are buying. So, for instance, if you buy a piece of clothing which costs the equivalent of 2 hours wages, are you really willing to trade 2 hours of your life for that piece of clothing or would you rather have the 2 hours ? I suppose because I am getting older and the realisation that they are only a fixed number of hours left might have made more receptive to the message than I was a few years ago !

The idea of thinking about how many hours of your life would you trade for a piece of material has really helped me to curb impulse spending. Miss Shoestring and I were in a big bookshop yesterday looking for a birthday present for Mr Shoestring, I had just a few pounds in my purse, Miss Shoestring was flexing her debit card  ! I knew that I was not supposed to buying anything as the next job was to tally up this month's spending so far on our spreadsheet. Then I saw the clearance section, everything 50p !

I wandered over, there were several nice books in the section, at least 3 that I could imagine myself buying, I started to read a few pages ! It would only cost a few pounds, I had enough cash ! Then I worked out that on my low wage it was several minutes of time, I had plenty of books from the library, I could even order these books from the library, I didn't need to buy the books, I would rather have the time ! I carried on looking but  I purchased nothing ! I would like my money and my life !

What do you do about impulse spending ?