The Reckoning

So the very wet day yesterday gave me the chance to go through the accounts and see how we have been getting on this month. I was very glad to find that we can put some money in savings, a few hundred pounds in fact, which was great.

Not so good was going over the grocery budget and I shall be using all the stuff we have left to try and keep next month's spending as low as possible. The March menu plan meant that I spent a lot at the start of the month and then did not make some of the meals on the list. April's plan is based on using up what we have and with 2 weeks Easter holiday for MrShoestring and MasterShoestring we should save something on transport and school lunches.

An expense we had not reckoned on was travelling to a funeral, but that is what the emergency fund is for and I am glad that we have it so we don't have to worry when unexpected things happen.

I also travelled a lot for placements for my course but was able to keep this spending neutral by offsetting it with money that is earned extra to the budgeted income, for instance by doing surveys.

MasterShoestring really needs a haircut and at his age will only go to the barbers, but he has decided to wait until the end of the school holidays to get it done, so that is a saving as well.

I also boosted the gift account this month by posting off two parcels of books to Ziffit, so that extra amount was welcome.

There were no big bills needing paid in March and there aren't any due in April either. the council tax is going up by 6.5% and we start paying that again in May so I have to re-jig the budget a bit to take that increase into account. There will also be some national insurance to pay next month once I have submitted a self-assessment form for tax. So with that on the horizon it is just as well that March has been mostly a frugal month !

Good Friday Frugal Round Up

Here's hoping the weather is a bit better than yesterday when the rain came down in stair rods ! Traditionally we work outside all morning on Good Friday, but this Easter I think the ground is too wet. So we shall just have to stay inside and make some hot cross buns to eat for supper !

I did take advantage of the supermarkets selling cheap vegetables to pick up some carrots and parsnips for Sunday, at only 33p a bag. I also menu planned and shopped for April having done a huge stock take of what we already have. I only spent £34.65 and the aim in April will be to keep this as low as possible.

I went to the library in the next village on my way somewhere else, to collect some books for MrShoestring and so avoided the reservation fees.

I also used book tokens and Love2Shop vouchers from the postal survey to pay for some things I need for my course next term. This effectively meant they were free.

There were some good offers in the Kindle free books, the complete works of Charles Dickens and the complete works of George Macdonald. So I got those, ready for reading in the summer on holiday ! Even I couldn't get through that many novels in 2 weeks !

We have a funeral to attend next week, 400 miles from home, so we researched the cheapest way to get there and the cheapest way to stay when we arrive. We shall also be packing picnics and helping out with lifts etc. in effort to help others too. Funerals are an enormous expense and I do think there should be more information about how to save for them or get just the basic services you need. It is a difficult time to be thinking about saving money but unfortunately I think that people are often paying more than they should.

I hope you have a happy start to the weekend !

Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs

A fun thing to try over the Easter days is to dye some eggs using things you have around the kitchen. Add some vinegar and salt to make sure the colours stick and get ready with plenty of recipes to use up hard boiled eggs when you have finished using them for decorating or egg rolling.

I've used red cabbage, beetroot, turmeric, onion skins, spinach and coffee powder in the past and depending on how long you leave the egg in the solution you get pale or darker shades of a colour.

 For each colour put 4 cups of water in a pan and add 2 tablespoons of vinegar and 2 tablespoons of salt. Add the colouring ingredient according to the list below and bring to the boil. Use a spoon to add an egg and boil for 10 minutes to get a hard boiled egg. If you want a deeper colour, take the pan off the heat and leave the egg submerged in the solution for 15 minutes or more.

Here's the amounts you need for colouring:-

red cabbage 1 cup; beetroot 1 cup; spinach 2 cups; onion skins 1 cup; turmeric 2 tbsp; coffee 2 tbsp

Good luck and don't be surprised if your red cabbage turns the egg blue !

Chocolate Nests

I have broken the 'bread' theme which I've had for recipes for the last few weeks as Easter week calls for these little beauties, made either with cheap cornflakes or shredded wheat or both !

280g crunchy cereal

225g milk chocolate

100g dark chocolate

50g butter

4 tbsp golden syrup

72 mini eggs ! (or fewer if you don't want 3 in each nest)

Lay out 24 paper cases and crush the cereal in a bowl. Melt the chocolate and the butter together, either in a microwave or over warm water. Once it is melted add the golden syrup and stir. Carefully pour the chocolate mixture over the cereal and mix. Put a tablespoon of the mixture in each case and divide any remaining amongst the cases. Use a teaspoon to make a depression in each one. Arrange the mini eggs in each nest and chill until set.

Hide them until you want them all eaten as they will disappear quickly !

Getting Rid of Cookery Books

Now that MasterShoestring appears to have outgrown most of his food intolerances I decided to spring clean the recipe book shelf and post a few off to Ziffit to earn some money for the gift account.

This was the first allergen-free cookbook I got, about 10 years ago. Although you can see that there are lots of recipes marked the only things I regularly made from the book were hummus and felafels. I have got recipes for those two things in other books so it was time to let it go and bless someone else with it !

Last year I also got at least three budget cookbooks and I haven't cooked a single thing out of any of them. Some of the recipes were too expensive, like the 'Family Feasts for a Fiver' book. 

I need a whole feast for £5, including a pudding ! 

Some books, like the one above, just had recipes that were too fancy for our tastes so those were added to the Ziffit pile. 

I could have felt a bit guilty about getting those books and not using them but then I remembered that I had got them using Swagbucks vouchers, so no out of pocket costs, just my time. The library did not have the books so I could not check them out beforehand, otherwise I would have known that they were not good buys.

The 'Home Economics' book has just arrived in the post, so fingers crossed that having checked this one out of the library, got it for free using Swagbucks and identified ten cheap recipes in it, that I will actually use it sometimes ! I saw another blogger writing that she thought the recipes in this book are too expensive to cook entirely on a budget of £35 a week, for a family of 4 and I would agree with that. However, there are enough cheap ones to make it useful I hope !

Have you got a favourite cookery book that you would recommend ?

March Challenges 4

So I don't think the menu planning challenge has worked so well ! I spent £17.72 at Lidl this week and an extra £3.62 at Tesco, so I'm over-budget for groceries this month by £5.05 ! This was mainly the fault of driving right past Lidl on another errand and thinking that it would be a saving to go in rather than make a special journey for next month's groceries. So in that sense it was a saving, but not until next month when I won't have to buy so much !

We have got quite a bit of food left and I am determined to start running down the fruit and vegetables in the freezers, ready for next season's bounty. I did make a start on doing that this week but the summer fruits crumble I made was so sour MasterShoestring's face nearly turned inside out it was so puckered up when he tasted it. I shall have to remember to add a lot more sugar next time I make one !

I did buy a joint of meat for Easter Sunday as well, so that will be a nice treat. I finally went to a jumble sale this past weekend but having paid my entrance fee found there was nothing to buy. I had made a special trip as I remembered that this was a good one in the past but this weekend there was very little on the stalls and nothing we needed or could have used for gifts. I think this is the third or fourth time I have been disappointed so I wondered if people are just getting rid of less stuff or selling it rather donating it ? I am mostly interested in buying books and music so I also wondered if there are fewer copies about because people are downloading stuff rather than buying hard copies. Whatever it is I am going to have to re-think my trips to jumble sales, don't know if car boot sales might be better ?

On a more positive note I got an excellent haircut at the barbers after lots of hairdressers refused to cut it as I can't have it washed due to allergy problems. I was really beginning to think I would have to cut it myself again ! No clothes bought this month and another packet of books sent off to Ziffit to boost the gift fund. I had depleted it a bit by buying tickets to the Chinese Terracotta Warriors exhibition in Liverpool. The tickets are for MrShoestring to give me for my birthday later in the year !! The tickets were already sold out for a lot of dates so I thought that I better get some now before they we're all gone !

Off to think about some challenges for April !

Palm Sunday

Today is the start of Holy Week and if you haven't already thought about what you are going to be doing and eating next weekend, Easter weekend, then now is the time to do so ! Are you visiting anyone ? Are you having visitors ? Have you planned all the meals ? Planning now, means that you avoid last minute expenses and can relax and enjoy the long weekend.

Remember Easter is not about spending money on chocolate eggs but in rejoicing in all the goodness around !

Today we shall be making our bread cockerels and beating the bounds, the children are very nearly all grown up but they don't like it when we say they are too old for the family traditions ! Things do change though, now they won't eat all the raisins off the ceremonial palm crosses as we walk around !

Enjoy your day !