And it comes back around again…

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 29 June 2011 in growing | 6 comments

I know it’s pretty obvious but it’s still nice to see it in practise.

Yesterday we had broad beans as part of our dinner, and a few minutes later, the chickens got the pods to snack on (they LOVE them); tomorrow we shall have manure (in the garden, not for dinner), and next year we’ll have more broad beans.

We should also get eggs out of the system too but it was too complicated to add that into my diagram ;)

A year of keeping chickens – 12 things I’ve learnt

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 28 June 2011 in chickens | 11 comments

As I mentioned in my blog birthday post the other day, it’s just about a year since we got chickens too – it’ll be a year on Thursday to be exact but what’s a day or two between friends? ;)

Before we went to buy the red four, I hadn’t had much hands-on experience with chickens – I’d read a lot of course, and gone on a LILI course (which was very good – although I think I asked about ten times as many questions as everyone else), but aside from that, I was new to birds.

Things I’ve learnt in the last year

1. ISA Browns are awesome for first time chicken owners

We got the girls from Edward Boothman near Silsden – he advised us to get the ISA Browns as they were good first-timer birds, and how right he was. Sure, they’re not the most exciting birds to look at but aside from Lime’s badly timed moult last winter, they’ve been incredibly easy to manage, are friendly and very productive. If we had more space, I’d prefer more variety but here I’m tempted to stick with good old ISAs – even their fellow hybrids, the Black Rocks have been more temperamental: Blacks here is pretty friendly most of the time but together, her and Ginger bicker like sugar-rushing eight year olds.

2. In comparison, the pure breeds are a PITA

I am very prepared to accept that we had bad luck, or did something wrong, but compared to the ISAs, the two pure breeds we’ve had – a Minorcan and a Leghorn – have been pains in the bum. The Minorcan died during her second night here (although I do think I did a lot of things wrong) and Buff the Leghorn was very flighty (so hard to health check etc), took ages to start laying (albeit possibly because she came of age over winter) and was noisy (because she was easily stressed) before her untimely demise earlier this month.

They were both very pretty and I do like the idea of supporting traditional breeds rather than the generic egg machines we have now, but they were a lot more expensive, more effort and not an efficient member of a small team.

3. Chickens poo all sorts of different shapes & colours of poo

This is one of my favourite/most visited sites on the internet these days. Oh the variety!

The chickens don’t like it when I talk about their poop on the internetz.

4. Our coop is a bit too big for our space/requirements

This week’s meal plan – garden a go go!

Posted by louisa on Monday 27 June 2011 in weekly meal plans | 8 comments

Our first Swillington Farm meat box arrived last Thursday night – all the (fresh) meat we’re eating this week (and hopefully for the next three weeks!) will come from that. Most of it went in the freezer so we’ll have it across the month and like a veg box, we don’t have any choice in what’s in there, so it should encourage us to some try different things. We had some of the bacon & some of the sausages for breakfast over the weekend and I also jointed the chicken – we froze the breasts (which each weighed over 250g/half a lb!) and had the rest on Saturday/Sunday. Tuesday’s soup comes from stock from the carcass – it was supposed to be for eating today but it’s far too hot for that today!

As for the title for this one – the garden is finally providing! We’ve been having spots of salad for a few weeks (much later than last year for some reason) but various things are finally starting to shine. I think there is something from our garden – either veg or eggs – in every meal, hurrah :)

Sunday breakfast – eggs & sausage
Sunday lunch – leftover chicken & potatoes, with homegrown garlicky broad beans & salad
Sunday dinner – dining out – curry

Monday lunch – marrow flower fritters with salad
Monday dinner – rump steak with purple sprouting broccoli, homegrown potatoes, broad beans & salad

Tuesday lunch – chicken & sweetcorn soup
Tuesday dinner – pasta with chorizo, pepper & homegrown courgette

Wednesday lunch – leftover chicken & sweetcorn soup
Wednesday dinner – chicken jalfrezi with lemon rice

Thursday lunch – bread & meat with broad bean salad
Thursday dinner – leftover chicken jalfrezi with lemon rice

Friday lunch – curried egg mayo with bread
Friday dinner – homemade pizza, with salad

A year of The Really Good Life

Posted by louisa on Friday 24 June 2011 in Featured, meta | 10 comments

Well what’dya know, it’s a year today since I started this blog!

My first posts were about growing salad leaves, pickling wild garlic seed pods (which is something I’ve been meaning to do again this year but haven’t got around to it), some bargain batch-cooked dinners and about getting our first chickens – and our first egg.

What’s happened in the last year?

• We got the chickens – and got more but then lost two. But still ate a whole lot of eggs.
• Made fresh pasta from scratch for the first time – a big deal for pasta lovers like us!
• Made my first jams & chutneys – a whole cupboard full

• Made things from wood
• Learnt how to make soap
• Assist John in making his ultimately explosive cider ;)
• Learnt loads about making cheese
• Cold-smoked cheese and other things – yum

• Baked a whole lot of new stuff
• Refined some of my favourite recipes while trying to write them up
• Added a new (small) room to the house – will post pics in a couple of weeks when it’s decorated
• Had a “no spend” almost-month and kept a spending diary since the start of this year – which has made me more conscious about casual spending
• Surprised myself by not buying any clothes for seven months and counting

• Had some growing successes in our first year here – and our second year is off to a good start
• Planted lots of fruit trees and bushes/li>
• Made lots of new internet friends :D

I think the main thing that’s happened in the last year though is that between writing about things on here (and getting feedback – thanks for all the comments, guys!) and reading about all the exciting things other people are doing (both in the comments here and on their own blogs), I’ve been inspired to try things I’ve long wanted to try and experiment with other things that I didn’t even know I wanted to try!

Basically, it’s been a really good year :D

Six frugal-friendly tips to get the most out of shop loyalty cards

Posted by louisa on Thursday 23 June 2011 in frugal | 0 comments

Last week, I asked about who uses supermarket loyalty cards – whether they’re a frugal necessity or something to be avoided.

We had so many interesting responses that I thought it was worth summarising the excellent advice here. There *are* privacy implications and by using cards, you are generally making it easier for big companies to market their wares to you – but if you do want to use them, make sure you get the most out of them.

Turn them into vouchers/rewards

Lynsey said:
We have Tesco’s clubcard which is great as their vouchers can be turned into 3 times the face value for things like magazine subscriptions (we get ours using the vouchers) and it’s also very handy for us as you can turn them into Channel Tunnel vouchers so £30 of vouchers becomes £90 towards the crossing. We never use them in store for face value and always use them at 3x.

Jo of The Good Life also said:
I get quite a lot of vouchers back from Tesco which I use for meals out and magazine subscriptions. I’ve even had a RHS subscription and tickets to Gardener’s World Live though Clubcard Deals. You used to get four times the face value of the voucher if you spent them on rewards, but you now only get three times their value, but it’s still a great saving.

I’ve also seen the Frugal Queen talking about swapping her Tesco’s points into Cafe Rogue vouchers and my mum & dad swap them for magazine subscriptions and La Tasca (?) vouchers. If you’re already going to buy those magazines or dine in those places, this makes a lot of sense.

Resist their attempts to persuade you to spend money

Strowger78 said:
You have to be very careful! They will send you a blizzard of stupid vouchers for money off things that you don’t need. You must be disciplined and not use these.

And the same goes for those vouchers – they’re a waste of money if you wouldn’t normally buy those things.

Be inconsistent and they’ll reward you

Strowger78 also said:
The best results seem to come from not consistently shopping at one supermarket. If you always spend £100/wk at Tesco or Sainsburys, I think they confine themselves to offering you vouchers off things you don’t normally buy.

If you aren’t consistent, they’ll eventually send you bundles of quite useful money-off vouchers. For example I’ve currently got a load of £7 off £70 and £5 off £50 Sainsburys and Tesco vouchers. They send these to try to entice you “back” to doing your “main” shop with them.

Link your card to bank accounts/utility bills for extra points

Lynsey has a Tesco credit card and gains points for money spent on her card. Meg had her Nectar card linked to her gas & electricity company (until her power company stopped doing that); other power companies have, at least in the past, been linked to Tesco for similar purposes. Cooperative dividend points are earned on just about anything in the Cooperative family – including bank accounts with The Cooperative Bank and Smile.

Use them when buying same-price-everywhere things

Shoestring said:
I use my Boots loyalty card to buy all of my make-up and most of my skincare stuff (I build up points by buying other stuff there, like my Vodafone top up voucher.

I didn’t know you could collect point on top-ups — do stamps count too?

But most importantly: forget points, use the cheapest option in the first place

Joddle said:
Privacy isn’t my issue with loyalty cards. I think the clue is in the name really. Once a loyalty card is signed up to, it may be so that people choose to spend more money in that particular shop than they might otherwise.

I find that the cheap shops don’t offer loyalty cards as they keep their price point down in the first place. For example Boots = expensive; pound shop generally very cheap. Superdrug has recently started doing one, which blows my theory a bit.

I don’t consider Superdrug particularly cheap so maybe it doesn’t blow Joddle’s theory that much – but I agree with the rest: Wilkinsons, Home Bargain and the like offer name-brand toiletries for far cheaper than Boots (and Superdrug) – so much cheaper that points are very unlikely to make up the difference.

Any other great tips to add?