Sunday 30 November 2014

Frugal with food and loosing weight

At that point 2 years ago (previous blog)  when we started seriously to plan retirement and looked at the food bills as part of that, I weighed nearly 14 stone and dress size 20 was looking attractive.  I was definitely in the red part of the chart on the nurses wall no matter how much I tried to ignore it during regular blood tests.
So when we were looking at budget we also talked about quality and not having processed food (it was the time of many revelations about food). I looked up portions and tried to follow the advice then and set targets like 4 oz meat per person per day and 100g of pasta or rice or potatoes for a meal. That worked well and within 6 months I was a definite 13 stones.  The combination of portion control and nothing processed was not too difficult.
When we retired and took on our acre in Norfolk there was a lot of outside work to do and over 3 months I went to 12 stone 6 lbs quickly, The difference not being bored in an office and eating biscuits makes!  Now I need to try something else to get nearer the recommended 11 stone (max) for my height.  Plus we need to economize for a while as the new wood burner fire is costing a bit more than we budgeted for!
I am not into detailed checking every five minutes so I have  set some new targets after checking several sites for current advice:
80g/3oz meat each for the main meal (limiting red meat which we do not like much)
75g/5oz pasta/rice/potatoes per day - must remember to count lunches!
30g of cheese
I am not going to weigh veg and fruit - we eat loads every day!

We are going to search out a good fishmonger this week. I miss my previous city center one and am never really satisfied with supermarket prepacked.

Wish me luck on these targets - I am hoping to hit 11 and a half by Easter,

Thursday 27 November 2014

Being frugal before you start shopping

A couple of years back Nigel Slater had a TV programme where at the start of each episode he emptied the fridge. This is part of our frugal food strategy too. Today inspired by a recent recipe on Frugal Queen  I gathered the ingredients lurking in the fridge for a chicken and leek risotto lunch - not enough left over chicken so scooped a few prawns from an opened packet.

Within 20 minutes there were two bowls ready for lunch and the fridge was empty.

Saute onion, garlic clove, bit of celery, left over leek and a bit of green pepper, left over chicken and a few prawns, 120g risotto rice, chicken stock with enough water to cover, seasoning, and right at the end store in the left over soft cheese for a creamy finish. Grate on some Parmesan if any left in fridge.

Wednesday 26 November 2014

Frugal shopping

Just over 2 years ago we discussed our food bills as a large proportion of what would be our state pension. At that time I was working full time and my husband was at home having retired already. We were spending £85 per week. Our immediate challenge was to get that down! It also coincided with watching some of those "what's in your food" programmes and deciding we no longer wanted processed food and as soon as I retired it would be definitely be cooking from scratch.  Our first state in the strategy was  to record all spending and make sure we knew where and what the money was going on,

So first thing I did was to record food and house hold spending item by item. I did this for 3 months. Now I have a comprehensive list on a spreadsheet that I can sort and order and I have a good grasp of item price.  By the time I retired we were down to £70 per week for the two of us on average. Since we have retired to the country side we decided to only shop once a fortnight and we have to travel 12 miles to the supermarket at a cost of £5 to buy (as my husband observed) the same things each time!.  We are now using my list of shopping to buy on line and have the food delivered free (because it is over  £100).  Over the last 6 weeks the bill has dropped to £60 per week .Is this because those extra temptation buys don't happen?   Because the supermarket give you those nectar "points" which you can take as cash it has worked out that any minor top up shopping mid week (usually milk) has mostly been covered with the pay back!

Are we going to reduce this further?  Yes, we know £20 at least is vegetables! And we are working towards a full veg plot for next year! Will be writing about this at other times!

I will also be writing about other parts of our strategy in future.

Best wishes

Monday 24 November 2014

Don't mess with me

I always thought Margaret Mountford scarier than Alan Sugar and I so admired her strong stance this morning on the issue of public littering. http://www.whatsontv.co.uk/tv-news/news/margaret-mountford-im-turning-into-a-grumpy-old-woman

I was brought up at home and school not to litter and in all our various houses have put great store in living tidily and living in nice neighbourhoods.

Found myself checking round this morning and gathering up the little bits of plastic tape floating around the work area. We then had a discussion on what could go in out next skip!


Sunday 23 November 2014

Can't believe its been 10 months and everything in life has changed. Gained 2 more grandchildren. Decided work was too much and took advantage of an early house sale to take off to the far north of Norfolk and a rural lifestyle for our active retirement years!
We have had to work hard all summer and there are some problems to overcome but it is proving to be everything we wished for and at last my state pension kicks in!

Hope to be posting regularly from now on!

So what has been this last week's highlight?  I think putting in our " wood" at the far end of our plot. It consists of 12 native trees - rowan, hazels, crab apple, alders. They are on the down side of the ancient sea dyke that provides a slight rise in our plot.  In the 17th century this would have been the edge of the sea! This area is called "silt lands" in Norfolk - where islands and marshes joined together with reclaimed land along the edge of the Wash,  The soil is beautiful, not the black of the" dark lands" or fens but a rich brown.   We spent so long over the summer cutting down and mowing the grass that had previously been a horse paddock we hesitated to dig into it!  Next summer we will develop some of this grass in this area into a wild  flower meadow. Our intention is to have some benefit from a shelter belt for the plot but also to have a shaded place with a meadow feel in which to sit.

Why the big tree guards round such small trees?  Not over run by rabbits - but we often see hares!