Frugal Food - Cooking for Eating and Selling the Surplus

A Frugaleur Needs to Earn in Order to Balance the Frugal Books 

 

Earning needn't be in cash, earnings can be in another's time, goods or services. Earning, as a frugaleur, isn't about becoming cash rich, it is about balancing the books, living within our means and affording a few luxuries in life. On the whole, most of us grow our own foodstuffs in an organic-type setting, no pesticides, chemicals or artificial additives. We brew our home-grown fruit, bake our own bread, make our own jams and preserves, have fresh free range eggs, give and receive individually crafted gifts and enjoy these luxuries as part of our frugal lifestyle. In some cases, we end up with a surplus and no storage space, so we trade.

 

On the whole, this trading is done among friends, relatives and neighbours, but we all still need to stick to the rules and play fair, in the same way we need to pay our taxes, just like any other enterprise. OK, so we may not earn sufficient income over a year to pay income tax, but that is down to the Government and their assessment of how much each person needs in order to survive. At the moment, they reckon an adult in the UK needs £9,440.00. If you follow Frugaldom, then you'll already know that's £5,440 more than needed, or, looking at it another way, over £100 per week more than I need to spend. In a shared, debt free household of, say, 3 working adults, that's over £1,000 per month more than the basic needs.

 

 

But back to surplus selling and trading among friends - who among us sells surplus eggs 'at the garden gate'?

 

In order to keep within the law, a simple label attached bearing your details along with the obligatory date plus 'keep refrigerated and use within 21 days' type thing does just fine. Your surplus eggs can only be sold in this manner, you cannot sell them into shops, bakeries, restaurants etc., nor can you wholesale them without more lengthy terms and conditions being met, regarding grading and stamping etc. Nor can you declare them as free-range, as this term is reserved for licenced flocks kept within strict guidelines and accredited by Government agencies as such. Your garden hens probably have more freedom than most so-called 'free-range' eggs, I might add.) This applies to most eggs - duck, hen, bantam...

 

Quail eggs are exempt from much of the legislation, so these can be packaged, labelled and sold

almost anywhere, either wholesale or to the end user. But one thing many people overlook is that, although quail eggs are exempt from part of the egg distribution legislation, quail are not exempt from the mandatory poultry registration. So, if you have half a dozen hens, a trio of ducks and a flock of 40 or more quails (all types) then your poultry numbers have met and exceeded the maximum 50 birds, meaning you must register your flock.

 

Don't panic, registration is completely free and painless, you can even register online. (Details can be found HERE.)

 

Now for the surplus plants, fruit and vegetables. At the moment, as long as we don't process these in any way, shape or form then we are free to trade off our surpluses among friends, family, colleagues and neighbours. (I doubt very much we need to consider the wholesale options, as we are looking at gardens and microholdings her, not acres of cash-generating crops on an agricultural business level.) But what if we want to sell our produce already processed into something else? Like eggs into lemon curd, fruit and berries into jams or jellies, or any other type of foodstuff other than 'as picked'? That necessitates taking the next step, which most of us already have: EU Regulation 852/2004 Hygiene for Foodstuffs requires Food Businesses to make sure that anyone who handles food is supervised, instructed and trained in Food Hygiene in a way that is appropriate to the work they do. Now, this leads us into a quagmire of quandaries regarding what denotes a business, so we decided that anything that generated income, cash or otherwise, be assessed as business because we are, after all, engaged in the business of frugal living.

 

Again, no need to panic over this, as the safest and wisest thing to do is get yourself a certificate, simple as that. It costs as little as £15 and you can do it all online. As far as I am aware, there is no compulsory exam, just legislation stating that everyone handling food must gave received suitable training in basic food hygiene - the Environmental Health Department of your local authority can provide advice and guidance on specific queries relating to food safety and you can find out more about handling food safely from the Food Standards Agency website. For me, I prefer to be safe in the knowledge that I hold a certificate as proof of any training.



 

Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene* for Catering (including City and Guilds Accredited Certificate) can be done within a day from home, online, and needs no specific entry requirements for the course. It costs £15 + VAT and also includes a downloadable certificate that you can print from home.

Happy frugaleur studying! It's time to start selling your surplus as jams, jellies, sauces, chutneys, pickles, cakes and bakes... Make your garden pay for itself.

NYK in Frugaldom.

* Links to the study course are affiliates, there are other companies offering similar services.

Another Frugal Soup Recipe for 2012

It's all over for another year - Christmas has been and gone, Hogmanay has been and gone, New Year has been and gone. We're now marching boldly into 2012, ready to do battle with whatever life throws at us and hopeful of grabbing any new opportunities that may present themselves along the way.

There was no winter snow over the festive week, instead, we had wind and rain with the odd smattering of sleat and hailstones. Occasionally, a glimmer of sunhine managed to sneak through the clouds. Sadly, we lost a 'runty duckling' that prefered to stay in the pond than seek shelted from the torrential dowpours, but the rest of the Frugaldom menagerie seems happy enough. The cat loves her new toys and the rabbit has been out for a run about the garden to work off all the extra carrot peelings she managed to consume over Christmas.

The breadmaker had been playing up for quite some time; it had lost all the little washers from between it's baking pan and the mixing blade which, itself, was almost worn out. Everything was crossed that it would see us through Christmas. As (good) luck would have it, mum had passed her's on to one of my sisters who had ended up putting it into her attic, so a quick phone call of pleasantries and pleading - OK, I simply asked her - meant she had time to fish the breadmaker from the attic and bring it on her trip to the family get together.

Despite it being a few years old, this machine is in almost new condition, as neither of its previous owners seemed to enjoy (or have time for) breadmaking. I think I won out on this, as it's now safely ensconced in my kitchen, replacing my old one. The old one, however, hasn't been thrown out, as it does still work! It might come in useful sometime in the future, or may even find itself with a shiny new baking pan and mixing blade.

Two loaves are better than one, apparently, as the 'new' machine makes two tiny loaves simultaneously. The settings allow for different types of mix to be used in each pan, so we can have white and wholemeal or cake and bread baking at the same time. Right now, I have a couple of bananas needing used up, so I'll probably do a wholemeal loaf alongside banana bread tomorrow morning.

The post-festive period is a great time for using up leftovers. Let's face it, most of us have them around this time of year, whether it's turkey from Christmas or steak pie, gammon or roast beef from New Year. I used half the stuffed turkey breast for Christmas day, so the other half went into the freezer, cooked. I had pheasants in the freezer, so one of them got cooked up with all the trimmings and served with puff pastry in suitable pie-like passion on New Year's Day. The cat is happy, as she has had all the extra meat chopped into catfood-sized nuggets and then everything else that remained of the fine bird went into my slow cooker.

Cue another one of those rather 'interesting' Frugaldom soup tales...

GAME AND TOMATO BROTH

Everything remaining from the pheasant went into the big crock pot in the slow cooker, along with a couple of onions and the leftover potatoes. This was set on the timer to simmer for a few hours overnight. At the same time, I rinsed off a 500g pack of broth mix and a cupful of butter beans, then left them soaking in cold water overnight.

In the morning, the stock was strained and then returned to the slow cooker, along with the broth mix, butter beans and half a carton of passata that I had lurking in the fridge. (I buy store's own 'basic' passata, as it's cheaper than tins of chopped tomatoes and works well as a base for turning the end slices of homemade bread into frugal, speedy pizzas.) Season the soup with salt & pepper, then leave to simmer until all the beans, peas, lentils and barley are tender.

That's it, that's the frugal game soup of the day and it works equally well using a shin of beef, although this would add to your costs by around 65p.

The pheasant cost me nothing, as I had traded for a brace through our LETS group, so stock from leftovers is an extra bonus, as we'd already had the bird for New Year's dinner. The broth mix and butter beans had been on special offer last year, when I made a bulk purchase, so I reckon they cost me no more than 50p in total. If I recall correctly, the cheap passata costs 23p and I'd already used half of it for lunchtime pizzas. The onions and  potatoes were leftovers from New Year's dinner and they were all homegrown, so I don't bother counting them. At a rough estimate, I got 4.5 litres of soup for no more than 73p plus the cooking time (20p).

I'd say 20 portions of soup for 93p was a fairly frugal meal, wouldn't you?

Looking forward to getting back into the frugaling spirit this year, with plenty of new projects and challenges. Don't forget you can follow the day to day activities of frugal living in our frugaldom forums, where the brand new 2012 Frugal Living Challenge has just begun.

NYK Media

http://www.scottishmultimedia.co.uk

Introducing the Concept of Microholding.

THE CONCEPT OF MICROHOLDING

It's smallholding on a smaller scale and self-sufficiency in everything, including home and finances. It's about self-sustainability, frugal living & homebased working. From shed working to allotments, from windowsill gardening to rearing livestock. It's about a new way of life. It's about Frugaldom.

Microholding is the term I use to describe the source of everything concerning the 'Frugaldom' lifestyle. It isn't about smallholding, because we don't have land. We do, however, have a home and a garden, and that is the basis for what will, hopefully, become a self sufficientish lifestyle.

There's no limit to how small your property, garden, allotment or patch of land need be, so anyone can create their own microholding. It's about the lifestyle, the community, the camaraderie and the willingness to pursue the dream of establishing a degree of self sufficiency, be it for business or pleasure. We all need to start somewhere, so don't worry if that somewhere is nothing more than a tiny garden, a patio or even a windowsill with a pot of herbs. We each have space to grow and learn. A true smallholding comprises anything from 2 to 50 acres, so even the largest microholding would have to be less than 2 acres.

We have a specially designated section for Microholding in the free to join, Frugaldom Forums. Feel free to ask questions, make suggestions, share your trials and tribulations. Follow the frugaldom blog, where you can leave your comments or ask questions there, too. We have an entire micro community right here, waiting to welcome other like-minded people such as you. Welcome to the concept of microholding and the wonderful world of Frugaldom.

Man's home is his castle, so I'm guessing that the first thing we need is a secure roof over our heads. An adjoining garden offers essential growing and rearing space to provide us with edible produce, be it fruit, vegetables, herbs or eggs from poultry, game or fowl. Ideally, our microholding could provide us with meat, but we haven't ventured within the realms of putting what we rear into the food chain. It could provide us with financial freedom.

If you ever fancied life as a smallholder but haven't the time, energy, space, health or wealth to do so, then will power and the ability to adapt one thing into another is all it takes to create your very own microholding. Finding the right property might seem like a problem but frugaldom means adaptability, so we shall overcome all these problems in due course. Your future microholding may already be on your doorstep.

Remember - There's no minimum land mass requirement - a patio, balcony or, even, your windowsills could provide you with the basis for your own microholding project. "Micro", by definition, means very small or, in other circumstances, suitable for being operated and maintained by one person, so the prefix associated with a smallholding sounds apt to me. You can even use the term in reference to property, a shares portfolio or your personal investments.

The plan is to become as self sufficient as possible, earning a living by working from home as mini smallholders and frugal entrepreneurs - otherwise known as microholders. You might even like to make a small investment in a home study Garden Design Course or hone your skills in Property Development in anticipation of your future success. Knowledge is something you can never have too much of, so it's something we all need. It's a definite longterm investment that can pay rich rewards by way of living our chosen lifestyle and you can start that right now.

Generating an income from your microholding project could include egg sales, gardening services, home produce or even becoming a virtual assistant. With this in mind, I chose to pursue some Home Study Courses.

First and foremost, I sought out the relevant certification that enables me to make and sell homemade preserves on a small scale. A Food Hygiene Certificate costs just £25 + vat and should be sufficient for current legislation governing the sales of your home produce. What's more, the course can be studied online within a matter of hours, then it's just a short multi-choice test, all from the comfort of home. It's always advisable to check with your local Environmental Health Office if you have plans for further development of your ideas. Always be prepared to take the next step forward.

On the other side of this virtual coin, there's money - the hard cash that we all need in order to survive within the realms of modern society, leading a normal life, paying bills, investing, saving for the future. In this respect, 'microholding' is about the small investments made in an attempt to grow and safeguard your own financial future. Think of it as growing your own money trees. Your personal investments portfolio may be miniscule (or micro) to begin with - a mere handful of seeds - but it is yours, bought and paid for by you, for your future. It is your responsibility to ensure its safekeeping.

Just like sowing the seeds that produce the food in a garden, you need to sow the seeds of individual investments, ensure they are provided with the best possible opportunities to germinate then carefully cultivate them to ensure their future productivity. Just putting food on the table isn't enough, you still need to think of the future. In our present economic climate, during these times of what's being called, "austerity", we need to do more than just save a few pennies. Secure your own future, start your microholding now. Knowledge is power, so start learning how to develop your own self-sustainable future.

Brand new MICROHOLDING CHALLENGE starting soon! Take up the challenge to create your very own microholding from scratch. Hints, tips, pros and cons, the good, the bad and the downright ugly - we'll be charting the progress online and everyone is free to join in. Join us in the Frugaldom Forums and get ready to work, rest and play from home. We CAN succeed, we WILL succeed!

Visit the Frugaldom Store on Amazon for some great ideas

Following Frugaldom on Twitter

See the Microholding Twitter Feed