Cheap Meals on £1 per Person per Day

February Food Trial Triumph!

Frugal Lasagne

It was decided that we had to analyse a few of the meal costs in order to ascertain if it is still possible to cover the costs of groceries on the sum total of £1 per person per day. Having stuck to this challenge for so long, I suspected that it had to be true, otherwise I'd have been failing in my challenge and, as you all know by now, failure cannot be an option.

Spurred on by the ridiculous claims made by some recent television shows quoting families spending over £9,000 per year on food alone, it was easy to prove that my methods were sound. I had been invited to participate in one such show, but swiftly declined. I am most certainly NOT the type to go on TV, as anyone who knows me will agree.

The unfortunate part of having chosen February to fully explain how this can be done was that my kitchen was being ripped out, so that took its toll on the final results. I was hoping for a result of less than 95p per person per day but, instead, got landed with 96.8p per person per day. The full breakdown of all meals and costs can be found HERE.

The porridge post is a few pages back on this blog, so you can try making your own frugal breakfast for 9p per serving. Likewise, all of the soup recipes are included on here, so they will explain the 4p per portion, and the bread recipes will explain how I accounted for the cost of breadmaking.



Ginger sponge

 Restricted access to the kitchen made things very difficult, juggling cooking, baking and food preparation with interupted power supplies, no worktops and, in the latter stages, no ready access to the food supplies, so it was very much a case of using what could be reached and/or prepared and heatd or cooked on the day. The slow cooker, microwave, breadmaker and electric steamer are certainly the most important items I have as far as the (non)kitchen is concerned, but I did manage to get some baking done so we weren't without cakes, sponge and biscuits.

Not living near a supermarket can increase the pressure on a limited budget, which is why I'm trying to grow as much fruit and veg as possible. Moving here in June 2011 to a house with a patch of land that hadn't been touched in years meant lack of planting and growing time before autumn arrived. Home produce was limited but, all things considered, I think we did OK. We were a little short on eggs after the mink got in and killed some of the hens, but we still had quail eggs until the quail stopped laying. Now, what's left of the hens are back laying and pretty soon the ducks will be, too.



Spring bulbs flowering

 Spring 2012 will soon be here, so preparations are underway to get the microholding project up and running. This, of course, still has to fit in with the full renovation of the house, which includs the completion of the kitchen. That's my primary goal, but if the sun happens to shine, priorities must lie outdoors, in an effort to produce as much basic foodstuffs as possible.



Herb garden

 In the meantime, I have crates and boxes piled throughout the house with enough bread flour, custard powder, semolina, hot chocolate, blancmange and cous cous to last us all year. The freezer is full with an assortment of stews, soups, vegetables and berries, plus the last of the garden onions hanging in the outbuilding. And to top all of that, the herb garden survived the winter, as did all the cuttings from the rosemary and thyme.

Top tips for keeping the cost of meals down:

• Bulk buy your favourites whenever they're on offer.
• Make the most of long shelf life products bearing 'best before' dates, which can pretty much be ignored, because the the food contained within can last for years. I don't think sugar even carries a best before date. eg: Approved Food offers some great bulk bargains.
• Get stocked up on sugar before the jam making season is upon us once more.
• Cook everything from scratch in big batches.
• Grow some herbs, fruit and vegetables, even if it's nothing more than salad leaves in a tub.
• Learn to love porridge, soup and milk puddings.
• Waste nothing.

So, the moral of this story is that in 2012, thirteen years after my very first grocery budget challenge, it IS still possible to feed a family based on a budget of £1 per person per day. Your 5-a-day may be a little erratic durig the mid-winter months but you more than make up for it during summer. Oh, and cranberry sauce makes a lovely topping for semolina once all the Christmas turkey has gone - no point wasting that!

If anyone would like to sponsor this project, I'll happily continue to write up a daily meal plan along with the frugalised recipes, moneysaving methods and sneaky tips.

http://www.frugaldom.com/

New Options for Solar Panels

As the Frugaldom eco-renovation proceeds, the prospect of increasing utilities bills needs to be met head-on, especially as we are intending refurbishing the out-building into more suitable workspace. This building has a south facing roof, so that conjours up thoughts of solar power.

(Photo courtesy of 'RattyandSquirrel' from the Frugaldom forums.)

The following is a guest post explaining a little more about solar panels, something that several of our forum members already have fitted to their homes.

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These days everyone is concerned with the impact their energy consumption has on the world around them. Along with the rising cost of electricity, solar panels are quickly becoming a popular choice for home-owners looking to get their energy from different sources.

Contrary to popular belief, solar panels don’t actually require direct sunlight as the photovoltaic cells inside them react to natural light. This means that even on a cloudy day the panels can generate electricity, at least 40% of their potential energy yield.

Solar panels use photovoltaic (PV) cells the sun’s power and convert it into energy, which can then be used to power the home, workplace or even farms and industrial sites. Any excess electricity is fed back into the national grid, for which the owner of the solar panels is then reimbursed.

The Government introduced the Feed-in Tariff (FiT), which gives home-owners more options when installing their solar panel system. For anyone able to buy their system upfront, they could see large returns on their investment, with an estimated profit of over £15000 over 25 years for some. This is through the FiT scheme as well as the savings on electricity bills – between £70 and £130 a year.

For those less fortunate, they can have their solar panel system installed for free and hand over the rights to the FiT on that system to the installer, who maintains the system throughout its lifetime after installation. Meanwhile the home-owner saves on their electricity bill safe in the knowledge that they are doing their bit for the environment.

In spite of these benefits, many are still put off by visions of the old solar panels, large aluminium framed panels. Solar panels have come a long way in the last few years and new options have become available that are more aesthetically pleasing than the older styles.

Solar PV panels are now produced in an array of roof tiles that can be incorporated with a low visual impact and blend in seamlessly with their surroundings. Home-owners now have more choice over the colour and size of the solar panels, with all black or red roof tile style panels available in all sizes.

Panels can be installed on existing roofs, without the need to perform a full re-roof, as solar panel installers can replace existing tiles with solar ones, blending them into the rest of the roof.

With increasing electricity bills and government incentive schemes like the Feed-in Tariff, there has never been a better time to switch to solar energy. Converting sunlight into green energy reduces your carbon footprint, makes savings on utilities bills and should mean guaranteed payments on electricity for life.
 
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Although we are much less likely to find companies prepared to fit solar panels of any description free of charge to our Scottish homes, it isn't completely impossible. In this economic climate, striking a deal somewhere should be possible. Give it a go, speak to the relevant company and glean all the information you can before seriously considering your options for a future safeguarded from escalating electricity bills.
 
If any of our members can provide me with a photograph of their solar panels so I can include it in this post, please send me it via the Frugaldom forums. It would be a great help, as many people still haven't seen these up close and installed. I know at least one of you is having them fitted right now. (Hope work is going well.)
 
NYK Media
Frugaldom

Working from Your Shed

Many people on their way to self-sufficiency will find themselves looking for teleworking opportunities. Working from home, however, is harder than many people realise – but can these problems be solved with the humble garden shed?

It can be really difficult to become fully self-sufficient, you are always going to have at least some bills to pay, and making the money for these selling your own produce is not easy. If you’re living somewhere remote it can be a real challenge to find jobs that will both pay your bills and give you the flexibility to provide for yourself independently. Luckily, in this day and age, more and more industries deal in information and a huge number of jobs can be done from anywhere with just a laptop and an Internet connection. Teleworking is a great way to help you make the transition to self-sufficiency, but anyone who has tried teleworking will tell you it’s not as easy as you first think.

Sure, you’re commute becomes as simple as rolling out of bed and technology means you can keep in touch with everyone you need to with a Skye call, but you’re home feels very different from your office and your office very different from your home. It can quickly become all too easy to get distracted by other things going on and other jobs that need doing. This becomes even worse if you’re meant to be working when your family is not. At the same time, for most of us, our homes have always been an escape from work, somewhere to get away from the stress and deadlines. It can be really hard to get out of the working frame of mind if you’re both living and working in the same environment.

For some people it’s enough to convert a room in there house to a home office, but not everyone has the room to spare - even if they do, if the family is up to other things within ear shot, it can be quite hard to settle into work. So what’s the solution?

Well, this is a guest post from The Tiger Shed blog, where we believe that few problems in life can’t be solved by pottering about in the garden shed and this particular problem is no exception.

Why not set up a home office in your garden shed?

With a little luck you’re still reading and haven’t dismissed the idea as crazy already. If your garden shed is filled with tools, dark, damp and a little bit smelly, you might not be that enthused, but with a little DIY to an existing shed or building a new purpose built shed we think it could really be the perfect home office. Imagine your shed insulated, set up for electricity, within range of Wi-Fi connection, replace the tools and flower pots with a desk and comfy office chair and all of a sudden you’ve got a great working space. The distractions of home are far away and you’re now working in all the natural beauty of your garden. What could be more inspiring than that?

Not convinced? Well we’re not the first to come up with the idea, did you know that Roald Dahl actually wrote almost all of his books from the bottom of his garden in a shed? In 1954, after setting up home in Great Missenden, Roald Dahl had a custom shed built in the garden as his own private sanctuary where he could retreat to write his books. Few children fail to fall in love with the creative stories that were spawned in that shed and we’re in little doubt that the joy of the outdoor surroundings must have inspired Dahl.

Hopefully by now you’re as excited as we would be about the idea of relocating the office to the garden and you’ll be pleased to know it’s quite a frugal under taking. Converting an existing shed or outbuilding will cost you very little and most people will be able to do these conversions themselves. Even if you need to build a new shed it’s quite a manageable building project and the Internet is filled with free plans that you can use. For those of you who want somewhere a little more substantial the Internet is filled with prebuilt sheds you can have delivered and some of them are virtually separate buildings. Check out the Tiger Shed Log Cabin shop to see what we mean.

So, good luck building your shed/home office. For more ideas be sure to check out the Tiger Shed blog and if you give it a go, be sure to send us some pictures.

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Here in Frugaldom, our first big outdoor project of 2012 is to renovate the garden outbuilding and fit out the garden shed, turning them into suitable work space and a functional studio. The project is at an advanced stage of planning, but I'll be logging the progress reports on here as soon as we begin work in April. Hoping to complete within a six-week timeframe.

Potential for More Doom and Gloom?

Quantitative Easing and the Frugal Household

So once again, the Bank of England (and British Government) saw fit to churn out another £50 BILLION in cash, apparently bringing the total up to £375 BILLION of new money that's recently been (or is currently being) pumped into our failing, some may say spendthrift, economy.

Elsewhere, the US can do similar by way of the Federal Reserve, but what is happening in the Euro Zone, when the likes of Greece needs to impose further austerity measures in order to secure more 'bale-out' funding? Am I to assume that someone, somewhere, simply prints out more Euros?

Austerity measures were apparently imposed on Britain, but I don't know what they were or what they currently are, having witnessed absolutely no improvement in my personal financial circumstances, although the price of fuel (domestic heating and motor) seriously curtails any thoughts of living in a warm home or travelling without a specific need to travel.

Isn't our traditional British method of "QUANTITATIVE EASING" just a posh term for a BALE OUT? I'm no politician, nor am I an economist, but surely if the Bank of England is literally printing new money, we would expect to see some English notes pass through our own hands eventually, here in Scotland? Northern Ireland have their own bank notes, too, so come on guys, let's hear it from you across the water - how many Bank of England notes have passed through your hands over the past couple of years?

Or have I completely misunderstood the concept of how this 'easing' works? Isn't the presumption that it filters down through all the different levels until there's extra money (real money) circulating at consumer level?

What does QE do to the value of the pound? Surely, if the nation's pot of money is being topped up then there has to be a dilution occuring, a trickle of devaluation, meaning that more is, in actual fact, leading to less, over time? As far as I'm aware, devaluation of the GB pound - that's how I see it - occured in 1931, 1967, 1976, 2008 and I've kind of lost track, other than my understanding that it's been watered down by a further £375 BILLION since then. Do we know the percentage dilution?

Tread cautiously, frugal lifers, because somewhere along the line, this has to have a greater impact. Near worthless money in banks is earning close to nothing yet our 'anywhere els' investmets are being watered down continually.

What is the real answer for those of us who have little or no savings and who practically live hand to mouth each week, albeit debt free? Into what should we be investing our time, energy and meagre excesses?

NYK Media
Frugaldom

Porridge For Breakfast - Less Than 10p per Serving

9p Porridge - What a Bargain!

Following on from my previous post that breaks down the cost of porridge, I noticed a flaw in the figures! Shame on me! The actual cost of each serving made here in Frugaldom should be ONLY 9p!

If, like me, you are paying £1 per kilo for porridge oats and cooking them in the microwave, then the following should be true:

1 scoop (50g) porridge oats - 5p

Pinch of salt - included in cost of sugar, as the number is too small

2.5 scoops tap water

6 minutes in a 700w microwave on full power - 1p (based o 14p per kWh)

Sprinkle of sugar (89p per kilo) - less than a penny, let's call it 1p to include the salt

Milk (49p per litre) - 2p

Total for one serving of porridge is approximately 9p

The  reduced price reflects the difference between buying expensive, well known brands of porridge oats and the more cost effective stores' own bags of oats. I always use the bags, as they are so much cheaper than the boxes.

NYK Media
Frugaldom

February's Frugal Grocery Challenge

Cheap Meals for £1 or Less per Person per Day

With a grocery budget of £1 per person per day, it is getting more and more difficult to afford too much meat in the diets, but it isn't impossible, so long as you aren't expecting steak or roast beef too often.

I've been carrying out my own version of frugal grocery shopping for more years than I care to mention. Originally, during the 80's, it began with keeping hens for eggs, baking bread by hand and cooking whatever I could from scratch, making the most of a slow cooker.

Times have changed slightly, with the emergence of the huge supermarkets. By the late 90s, we had the bread wars, where it was possible to buy a cheap loaf for as little as 4p, rendering it a complete waste of time and energy even contemplating self-baking it. But again the times have changed and the cheapest loaf (of questionable quality) is now approaching 50p. So how does a household manage to survive on a tiny food budget?

From today, 1st February, I am going to cost up each of the meals we eat in a day. I'll try to do this for the full month - time permitting - and see how far off the £1 per person per day we really are.

Breakfast is usually porridge during the colder months and let's face it, that's most likely to be about seven months out of the twelve if you live in Scotland. (There's a section of the Frugaldom Forum dedicated to cheap meals and how to help keep the cost of grocery shopping within a tight budget.)

19p PORRIDGE FOR BREAKFAST

Porridge oats currently cost me £1 per kilo and one kilo makes approximately 20 to 22 portions.

• 1 x small cup (45-50g) of porridge oats
• 2.5 x small cups of water
• Good pinch of salt

I cook mine in the microwave, it takes about 6 to 8 minutes, depending on how powerful the microwave is. Don't forget to stir it halfway through and let it stand for a minute before serving. Serve with milk and a sprinkle of sugar (if prefered).

Allowing 8p for the salt, milk and sugar, this costs approximately 18p per serving in grocery costs. My microwave is 700w, so a 5 minute blast with this costs approx 1p, making the REAL cost of a bowl of porridge each morning 19p per serving.

If you have a handful of dried fruit with your porridge, you can easily add on another 10p, so maybe best save the fruit for mid-morning snacks. (The recommended amount of porridge oats per serving is 45g.)

24p PIZZAS FOR LUNCH

I very rarely buy pizzas, nor do I specially bake pizza bases. I find that using homemade bread works equally well and is a great way of using up the end slices. These taste more like French Bread Pizzas.

My breadmaker does 2 x 450g loaves at a time, so they cost around 35p for wholegrain by the time I factor in the electricity. Assuming each loaf slices into 8-10 slices, I allow 4p per slice.

Getting your minimum 5-a-day fruit and vegetable servings each and every day can sem expensive, so it's a case of making the most of what's available at the right price. Tinned tomatoes, whenever you can bulk buy them on offer, will always be your friend. They don't really go out of date or go off as long as the cans aren't dented, so no need to pay too much attention to the BBE dates stamped on the end.

Today's pizza lunch included 2 of our 5-a-day by way of chopped red pepper, onions and tomatoes. I keep bags of chopped peppers in the freezer after buying them whenever I see them cheap. At the moment, I am buying peppers with my ROSSPA orders, at a cost of 80p for 3.

Ingredients

80g diced onions (5p)

40g chopped peppers (7.5p)

Tin of tomatoes (33p)

Salt, pepper, pinch of mixed herbs (1p)

Bread - 12p

20g finely grated cheese (11.5p)

Total cost = 70p, that's less than 24p per pizza, plus leftovers for the freezer.

While the grill is heating, I give the veggies a couple of minutes cooking on full power in the microwave to soften them up, then I add the tin of tomatoes and seasoning. This all then gets microwaved on full power for a further couple of minutes to make sure it is all properly heated. This is your basic pizza sauce mix.

Lay your bread out on the grill tray and slightly toast one side before turning it over and covering each slice with the sauce, followed by a sprinkling of your grated cheese.



20g of mature cheddar



Grate the cheese as finely as you can, using the smallest side of the grater. This enables you to stretch the 20g cube of cheese much further. I use mature cheddar cheese, as we all prefer the flavour, but I'm sure there are cheaper options. To give you an idea of quantity, here is what 20g of cheddar looks like. It is a tiny amount, but that's the price of cheese nowadays, it's extortionate! We need to be economical in that department!

 

Freeze any extra sauce

 Surprisingly, the above sauce is enough for 4 pizzas. I made only 3, so the extra tomato, pepper and onion topping has gone into a margarine tub for freezing. If you don't use it for a quick pizza, it's fine for adding to bolognese or chilli con carne. Is also nice with a little chilli added and served with fajitas in place of shop bought salsa.

If all your ingredients are costed now, it's like having free ingredients when the time comes to use them in your next meal.

NYK Media
Frugaldom

Aurora Borealis - In Search of the Northern Lights of Frugaldom

Frugal Living and Wet Weather Blues

Since the weekend, I have been trying to watch the night skies in the hope of catching my first ever glimpse of the Northern Lights - Aurora Borealis, to give it its proper name. It's the first time in several years that the solar activity has reached sufficient levels to allow us, here in the southern sector of Scotland, to witness this splendid, somewhat terrifying, atmospheric phenomenon. I believe there have even been sightings as far south as northern England!

All week long it has been cloudy and wet! We have had rain, hail, sleat and snow. Finally, yesterday looked like it had 'snowed out', with several areas of Scotland particularly badly hit. However, the aftermath of this was plummeting temperatures and a black velvet, star spangled sky that was lit up by a new moon and the bright light of 'nearby' Venus. I had to ask twice about this bright light, as I was convinced it was a satellite. There's never as much as a flicker of twinkle from it that I have noticed. But then the telescope is still packed away in a box from housemoving and my eyesight isn't what it used to be.

With great expectations, I kept one eye on the aurora activity level map for the northern hemisphere and the other on the night sky... was hoping to see the activity level beat 7. Then the clouds moved back in again and the heavens opened! It's still raining now!

Don't get me wrong, I am no astronomer. Nor am I a regular star gazer (although we do have that telescope lurking somewhere) but the prospect of seeing Aurora Borealis completely free of charge (no pun intended) from our own garden, when people can pay thousands of pounds holidaying in far off, northern countries, paying for guided expeditions as part of a lifetime dream, it's very, very moneysaving and would be most satisfying to be able to make that 'claim to fame'.

Being unable to see beyond the rain clouds here, I chose to watch events unfold in Norway, by way of the Aurora Sky Station live camera - absolutely awesome! Spectacular footage and all for free, from the comfort of home. If you do check out the site, remember you can't see the lights during the day, you'll need to tune in at night.

Apologies for the lack of posts here of recent times, procrastination has been lurking dangerously close to chronic level. I promise to try and update more often and, for now, would like to extend a special thanks to those of you who have chosen to have this humble, frugal little blog delivered to your Kindles.

Edited in:
According to the Met Office, our local forecast is for a freezing night with clear skies. What's the betting that means the Aurora has retreated well out of view? Dead cert!

NYK Media
Frugal Living in Frugaldom