Charity shop finds: a wool blanket & a cute jug

Posted by louisa on Thursday 25 August 2011 in charity shopping | 2 comments

I had to go shopping from drama supplies on Monday and while I was there (Shipley), looking for spookily featureless masks, I had a couple of pleasing charity shop finds too.

Firstly, a big wool blanket.

The label says it’s 100% wool and “British made”, and it’s in very good condition – no felting and just a few snags that a couple of minutes with a crochet hook will set right.

I’ve actually be looking for a nice wool blanket on eBay for a while and based on previous sale prices, had given myself a pretty tight budget of about £12 inc p&p – but this one was just £3.99. Win.

It’s a little scratchy (it is wool after all) so it’s not going to be my favourite buried-up-to-my-face-in-it snuggly but it’ll be more than fine on top of the duvet (it’s at least double bed size) or as a throwover for cold legs/feet on the sofa.

The other thing I got was a bit less practical – well, I’ll probably use it in a less practical way. A cute jug:

It was spattered with tea or coffee stains when I found it and there is a tiny (1mm round) chip near the spout but I thought it was cute enough to still be worth the 60p price tag. It’s about 6inches tall so I’ll use it as a vase on the rare occasions we have flowers in the house and in the meantime it’ll probably be used as a pencil pot.

Have you had any good charity shop finds recently?

Alphabet in August – M to P

Posted by louisa on Thursday 25 August 2011 in meta | 3 comments

This is a month-long creative exercise led by Chiot’s Run: descriptive words and pictures about me/my life starting with each letter of the alphabet. Most people are doing a letter a day but I’m doing it in groups instead. I’m a little behind at the moment because of one of the words for L… ;)

• Alphabet in August – A to D
• Alphabet in August – E to H
• Alphabet in August – I to L

(It was supposed to be “M is for mushrooms” but I found this one while looking for fungi pics. I’m very interested in fungi. I’m very amused by muddy dogs.)

M is for…

• Maps: I love maps – reading them, drawing them. I have a very good memory for them too – if I’ve looked at a map of an area once, it’s in my brain for good.
• Mediocre: My greatest fear and my growing realisation.
• Mouthy: Fitting with all the “argumentative” style words up to now, I just don’t know when to shut up sometimes.
• Multitudes: Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
• Myopic: It’s all a blur after a few feet.

(As much as I like being outside, I think I prefer the night to day really.)

N is for…

Is it easier to be super frugal as part of a couple or as a single person?

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 24 August 2011 in Featured, frugal | 13 comments

I was thinking about this question the other day – is it easier to be super frugal as part of a couple or as a single person? – but I think I should immediately clarify that while I’m interested in hearing people’s thoughts on it, I have no intention of leaving my lovely boyfriend if single “wins”! :)

It generally is cheaper, of course, to be part of a couple – often two incomes coming in but many living costs don’t go up (or don’t go up that much) so regular outgoings on bills are roughly halved. Two people who like spending time together don’t generally need a bigger house/flat than one person; insurance costs don’t really go up when there are two of you; utility bills might go up a bit and council tax will go up when you lose your single person discount – but since you’re sharing it, you’ll be paying less overall.

But while it’s cheaper in general, in my experience, having to consider the other person in the relationship can make it more difficult to be frugal in other parts of your life. I’ve noticed that when the two of us are home at the same time, we’re more likely to put the heating on/light the stove than if there is just one of us there (especially if that one of us is me). Similarly, our meals tend to be more extravagant when we’re both eating than when we’re dining solo – dinner becomes an event which necessitates a proper meal rather than just quick’n’easy snack that will more than suffice. Similarly, John doesn’t expect for me to live in a fashion show but I think I’d probably be even scruffier/pyjama-clad around the house than I am now if my only audience was feline/canine.

John and I are generally on a very similar wavelength when it comes to (not) spending money and that sort of thing but, for example, he buys more expensive bacon than I would or is more likely to put the heating/stove on before me when it’s chilly (he’ll put a jumper & socks on first, of course, but I’d be more likely to get under a blanket too). I’m fussier when buying home furnishings (fabrics, colours etc) so spend more money on that sort of thing than he ever would. John also earns considerably more than me (because he’s in a higher paid profession and works more hours) but even though we largely pool our money, our income disparity means we have different opinions on what is affordable and what isn’t because the same amount of money represents a lot more time worked for me than it does for him.

Basically, I think we’re both much happier to “make do” when we’re home alone. When both of us are here, we settle at a higher unspoken comfort level to possibly avoid upsetting the other unnecessarily.

That might just be us though – I’d love to hear what you think from your experiences.

If you’re in a relationship/have a family at home, do you & your partner/kids have the same frugal outlook? Does it cause any problems? Do you have to compromise on anything? If you have different frugal levels/requirements, how do you make it work?

If you’re single, do you have any habits that you think you’d change if you were living with someone else?

Homemade takeout

Posted by louisa on Monday 22 August 2011 in cooking, Featured | 3 comments

Steel Kitten has blogged about learning how to make her own kebab meat for homemade donner kebabs and it’s made me think about how we’ve slowly been replacing takeout dinners.

I’ll be honest – we still do eat quite a bit of takeaway/delivery food – but it is less than it used to be. When we lived in Leeds, we were in a prime spot for takeout – we were in the overlapping bit of four different takeout areas so had a huge variety of places to choose from. It was mostly junk food takeout (but done well) but there were a few more better quality places (eg Box Pizza – who when they first started out did fancy burgers too) and restaurants that delivered too. Lots of tasty temptation.

Since moving, we’ve become disillusioned with the takeaway options around here but still have takeout cravings/the urge for lazy comfort food at dinnertime so have started making more of our own takeout favourites at home:

Curries

We are curry fiends. In West Yorkshire, it’s almost rude not to be – there are so many excellent restaurants around. We still eat curries out of the house about once a fortnight but we also make them a lot. A few years ago, we went on a cookery course taught by one of the head chefs of a local restaurant chain and it vastly increased John’s cooking confidence so he’s the one that tends to cook them at home. He blogged a few of our favourite recipes from that course (lamb achar; lemon rice; chicken jalfrezi) but he’s tweaked them over the years so next time he makes them, I’ll document the new versions (especially the keema & chickpea version of the achar – that’s my favourite :) ).

We used to have daal a lot when we were veggie – with rice as a main dish rather than just the side dish it’s relegated to a lot over here. I used this recipe for tarka daal, and this for a yellow split pea one.

Obviously just about the best thing about curry is that it’s one of those foods that tastes better the next day and it freezes really well too. We always cook curries in large quantities (one of the few things we batch cook) so we can have a homemade ready meal/homemade takeout when we’re feeling lazy — healthier and far cheaper than ordering in. Daal doesn’t freeze as well (or rather, whole pulses don’t defrost well in my experience) but wetter soup-y style ones don’t suffer as badly as they’re already mostly/entirely broken down.

Cost per portion: (some sort of meat curry)
take-out/delivery – about £5-6 a dish, plus extra for rice/chapatis from some places
homemade – (made with organic & local meat) about £2, including rice
Time to make: 1hour+ – but can be batch made and frozen (then takes about 10 mins)

Cost per portion: (some sort of veggie daal)
take-out/delivery – about £4-5, plus extra for rice/chapatis from some places
homemade – no more than £1, including rice
Time to make: about half an hour

Surprise damsons

Posted by louisa on Friday 19 August 2011 in homebrewing | 11 comments

Our fab friends Vic and John B texted the other day to ask if we’d like some damsons – they’d used as many as they could but had some spare that needed eating/processing ASAP. “Some” turned out to be about 5kg (11lbs)! Thanks so much Vic & John B! :)

Last year, we thought our mysterious plums might be damsons – they’re about the right size – but the colour is very, very different. Ours are a very deep pink when ripe but these are such a rich indigo-blue, it’s almost unreal. I feel by the process of elimination, we’ll work out what our plums are eventually :)

We gave a few handfuls some to Strowger & Urbanwide for eating and my John turned the rest into wine last night. He did a lot of exclaiming about the amount of sugar needed for the wine – it’s a good job I don’t have any immediate jamming requirements as he’s used up practically every grain of sugar in the house.

Have you grown/foraged damsons this year? What did you do with them? Any favourite recipes?