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treasury ~ food budgeting

Like HM treasury, I have to maintain control over our spending. Keeping within a budget with the weekly food shop has become increasingly difficult. Avoiding waste is a must. I think most people have their preferred places to shop and mine is Sainsbury’s – they have the best range of organic foods in our area for both fresh fruit and veg and they have their own range of organic groceries too like lentils, beans, milk, cheese and pasta, and also stock other brands. We don’t have any farmer’s markets nearby for the fruit and veg, so that is not an option for us.

I use the self scan shop on my mobile app to take advantage of all the personal offers that are tailored to what we normally buy. I also collect the personal extra Nectar points that, like the scan shop offers, change each week. Then there are the general store wide Nectar card reductions on items and you can also collect 1 Nectar point for every £1 spent. Unlike Tesco and some of the other supermarkets, there are never many yellow sticker items at Sainsbury’s, but often they are not things I would want to buy.

All these offers and points might seem small but over time do accumulate and save us a lot of money, not always on the total amount of the weekly shop because I buy multiples of the items when they are on offer, enough to make sure I won’t run out until they have the item on offer again. However, it does reduce the amount we spend on food over the year.

Just buying items only on offer (where possible) means we each have to make a list of our personal offers on the app and then check on other offers as we go down the aisles. At the moment we are waiting for the Alara muesli to come back on offer, DH has only one box left so it will be touch and go whether he can spin it out until the next offer appears on the shelf! We generally have a list of things we are running out of and of course there are some dairy items that we will always need to buy weekly like fresh milk and yoghurt and fruit and veg.

I always have an alternative in mind should we need something that is not on offer. So for instance, I buy the Plenish brand of organic almond milk in a carton. This is frequently on offer in the chiller fridges near the ordinary cow’s milk and it has a long enough date to buy 3 at once (I probably use just over one carton a week). If it is not on offer I know to go to the aisle where they have the longerlife milk cartons and same Plenish almond milk in the longlife version will usually be on offer when the fresh chiller one isn’t. This has an even longer date so I keep 3 of these to hand in the pantry and rather than buy a fresh one not on offer I will wait and use a long life one.

If one brand of organic butter (my preference is Yeo Valley) is not on offer when I need it I can usually find the Sainsbury’s organic version is. It may seem a strange way of shopping but it works for us and saves money whilst still be able to buy the food we like and the organic versions.

It is just a different way of shopping that I have learnt over time and I have a mental list of all the products we normally buy and as I trundle up and down the aisle with my trolley I am always on the look out for the red stickers on the shelf edge that indicates a product on offer. I am well tuned into spotting them a mile off!!

So down to the nitty gritty….

Yesterday’s food bill came to a total of £77.81 and I saved £20.15 from all the offers, plus I gained another 717 Nectar points (77 basic and then 640 in bonus points) which is about £3.58. My £77.81 bill was made up of mainly offers, but I did buy a birthday card, a packet of beetroot and some of the fruit that were not on offer.

Meanwhile, DH spent £55.32 on all his offers and the only items not on offer were the bread, 2 avocados, 3 Bramley apples, a pack of raspberries and a pear. His savings were £3.69. He also had a voucher for extra Nectar points on a £20 spend and in total 675 points worth £3.37.

Our total Nectar points at the moment are worth £80.97, once it reaches £100 I will use it to buy my groceries in Sainsbury’s and then transfer the £100 I would have used from my bank account into my savings account. If you get my drift.

My pantry is well stocked now and I know next week I might not be able to take advantage of certain items if they are on offer purely because we won’t need them for a while. The cheese was on a personal offer and will be grated and put in the freezer.

So now it is a matter of getting it all prepared and cooked. DH made a batch of tomato and red pepper soup with those leftover from last week’s shop, one will go in the freezer for later.

DH has, over the last few years, taken over a vast amount of the cooking. He is a whizz at making nutloaf, lentil curry, or ratatouille, but he tends to make the things he knows and not try new recipes. That is down to me and something I need to get to grips with. I have 2 or 3 folders full of tear out recipes from magazines, and it is my intention to try them out – the ones that we don’t like I can then throw away.

Generally, we have very little ultra-processed food, but avoiding processed food is a different challenge. By processed this would include bread, pastry based meals, cereal or cheese as they are all in an altered ‘processed state’.

Luckily, there is always room for improvements in any diet and these are best done a little at a time, mainly by either doing a food swap or learning to go without.

After doing quite a bit of research and listening to some of the doctors and researches on You Tube (this can be good or bad – I think there are so many opposing ideas of a healthy diet and claims that are not founded on gold standard research) both DH and I have come to the conclusion that we need to lower our carbohydrate intake of bread, potatoes, pasta and brown rice and increase our protein intake and dark green veg.

I have found that listening to the practicing GP Doctor David Unwin quite enlightening. He has helped many of his own patients reverse their type 2 diabetes as well as his own. His own story is very interesting and the reason he is very keen on a low carb diet.

This is the interview with Dr Chatergee another prominent doctor fighting to promote healthier living.

For a while now I have been close to the limit, but not quite crossed the line for type 2 diabetes with my HA1C level which should be in the range of 18.0 to 41.0. Mine is currently 39.0 a tiny shift from the previous 40 and what my doctor terms pre-pre diabetic. I was quite shocked at this result as I am not overweight and I prefer savoury foods to sweet, hardly ever eat cakes or add sugar to anything. So rather than wait until it gets any worse I am taking action now and trying out this low carb diet to see if my HA1C level improves.

We have already implemented some of the suggestions. We only have a small amount of brown rice now (about 1-2 tablespoons each) with our curry and instead have it with a good helping of green beans.

Most days we have a large pot of homemade soup on the go and depending on which soup it is we will throw in chickpeas, red lentils, edame or cannellini beans for added protein and fibre. We have cut down to one slice of bread with our soup and will probably cut it out altogether soon. Instead we have a small salad of watercress, little gem lettuce, tomatoes, beetroot and sometimes coleslaw with it. We might also add a small chunk of cheese.

Not eating fish or meat makes the protein side of things more difficult for vegetarians. You have to eat far more plant protein to equal meat. We already have a fair amount of pulses and beans and I would not want to increase the amount of cheese we eat so I will probably be looking to make more nut and egg dishes.

We made an effort to reduce any snacks and have cut out packets of crisps altogether – I no longer go down that aisle at all. I have bought some cashew nuts instead, but they are a bit moreish. Neither of us liked the seaweed thins my SIL recommended as an alternative snack – she will be getting the rest of the unopened packs when I see her.

We have reduced the biscuits to one pack a week, but we might only eat half now. I am fortunate in not having a sweet tooth but I do like the occasional biscuit with a cup of tea, especially when we are outside gardening – that old saying a drink is too wet without one. I tend to buy the dark chocolate Petit Beurre or the Bahlsen Leibniz, whichever is on offer. Sometimes we will have a couple of crackers (Carrs melts) instead with nut butter as a snack.

We have been following this new regime now for 2 or 3 weeks – so early days. DH is really up for the challenge and is beginning to try new recipes that I find and think of alternatives; we have not felt the least bit hungry or missing the snacks of crisps. I expect the extra protein is keeping us fuller longer.

I have even unboxed the spiraliser I bought last summer and have not used yet and found a nice handy place for it in the kitchen cupboard. I can make a vegetable spaghetti amongst other things.

There are a number of recipes I want to try. I saw on Pinterest one for red lentil and herb flatbreads (no flour, so no gluten) and another making a quiche within a crisp potato base rather than pastry.

So small changes and I am hoping better health.

As requested I will post the mushroom soup recipe (it is rather flexible though, we often don’t make it to the exact recipe).

I will also post the Lentil and Mushroom bake. It is one of those dishes like curry that can gain in flavour overnight.

To answer Sue’s comment about the mushrooms – it will be the mushrooms that give the dish flavour, so something like red peppers, courgette, feta cheese, tomatoes or walnuts. If it is just the actual mushrooms you don’t like you could add a tiny bit of mushroom stock for flavour.

I am just going to flick through some recipes now to make a menu plan. I will only try one new recipe each week as time is quite valuable at the moment and once this cold spell is over we will no doubt want to focus on the garden again.

I know many bloggers are looking to alter or modify their diets, especially when it comes to ultra-processed foods and gluten free. What a shame the NHS is always many years behind the research. Practising preventative medicine, by altering your lifestyle and diet, is so much better than fire fighting conditions with medication like statins and diabetic tablets.

Have a good weekend, back soon. x

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dear diary ~ end of the week’s groceries

On Monday, I decided both the fridges needed a wipe out whilst I was surveying the last of the vegetables left over from last Wednesday’s shopping trip. Since my friend K passed away and we no longer take her shopping with us, we changed recently from shopping on a Tuesday to Wednesday as it is a bit quieter both in town and the supermarket.

We have an intergrated under counter fridge in the kitchen where I have milk and dairy produce, dressings, nut butters and anything like mayonnaise that needs to be ‘more to hand’. The larger larder fridge in the utility room is mainly for our vegetables – we don’t need it to run flat out, it only needs to serve as a cooler place to keep them fresh longer as we only shop once a week. Not everything is kept in the fridge though. Tomatoes, for instance, are better stored in the pantry along with the onions and potatoes, fruit and avocados.

The photos below are all the ‘left overs’ to make into a few meals and eaten up before our next shop.

Some of the red peppers and the large tomatoes will make tomato and red pepper soup, together with a couple of the carrots and onions, a few sticks of celery and some red lentils. I always add a potato rather than flour to thicken and that probably makes it gluten free too.

We had two containers of homemade mushroom soup in the fridge so had one of them for lunch and I opened a small can of chickpeas, rinsed and dried them off then dry roasted them in my green pan with a tiny bit of olive oil. I then added those remaining few button mushrooms. This made a lovely garnish for the soup and we had it with some buttered brown rye bread and a piece of Wensleydale and cranberry cheese.

For our tea I had to buy a few more mushrooms to make this Lentil and Mushroom bake. It is so easy and doesn’t have breadcrumbs so is again gluten free. The recipe called for brown lentils (I used a packet), an onion, some sliced mushrooms, mixed herbs, 1 egg and seasoning. Once all mixed together put into a loaf tin (I used a shallow pyrex dish) and bake for about 35 minutes until golden. I decorated the top with the three cherry tomatoes!

Eat hot or cold.

We had half of it with the remaining parsnips, roasted, some but not all of the cabbage and those few bits of broccoli.

It tastes better than my photo looks! I will definitely make it again.

For lunch yesterday we had the last avocado as a starter, then the final container of homemade mushroom soup, to which I added the rest of the can of chickpeas and DH made a large amount of coleslaw with the cabbage and a couple of carrots and mayonnaise.

DH does not like raw onion so he omits that. There was enough coleslaw for our evening meal too. He also buttered the remaining slices of rye bread and added a slice of the cheese.

As I bought some more mushrooms yesterday from the village Co-op with my £1 reward to make the Lentil and Mushroom bake and didn’t need all of them, I will use the rest today to make more mushroom soup together with the one leftover leek, a potato and the rest of the celery.

For tea last night we had the other half of the Lentil and Mushroom bake, a small side salad of the few lettuce leaves, slices of red pepper and coleslaw, then added a baked potato and opened one of the vacuum packs I keep in of ready cooked beetroot.

All the fruit has been eaten with my yoghurt for breakfast (save the lemons) or as a dessert.

That has pretty much emptied the fridge and pantry of the left over bits and pieces of fruit and vegetables ready for our fresh shopping trip today. All that remains are a few onions and the courgette.

It has taken a while and been quite challenging but I have now got to the point where all of my supermarket shopping in my trolley consists of either the Sainsbury’s personal scan shop offers or the general Nectar offers throughout the store and the ones that gain Nectar points. Over time this does save us quite a lot of money and unless we are desperate for an item then it only gets bought when it is on offer. I have a good idea now how often an item is put on offer so that I know how many multiples to buy to keep us going until the offer comes around again.

For instance, in the butter section, they revolve the offers around the different brands very frequently, but for something like our Meridian brand of nut butter or Alara Muesli I could wait 6 weeks. Luckily, many products have a long shelf life so presently I have 3 jars of nut butter in the pantry bought on the last offer.

These days if I have to buy anything full price in Sainsbury’s it would be unusual. The prices keep on shooting up all the time and I will be adjusting what we eat to keep the bills down to a reasonable level. I stick to Sainsbury’s as they have the best selection of organic produce and groceries and often, like the Sainsbury’s organic baked beans, they are much cheaper than the ordinary Heinz brand.

I stopped buying any crisps a while ago and don’t really miss them. DH stopped eating those little tubs of chocolate mousse or creme caramel (highly processed) for a dessert and instead I buy him a tub of creme fraiche (I have greek yoghurt – he has an aversion to yoghurt) to have with the fresh berries or he stews a punnet of plums when the are on offer.

After doing quite a bit of research recently we have decided to eat fewer carbs like bread, pasta, potatoes etc and substitute with other low carb foods….but that is another post.

Thank you for reading, I hope you are able to manage the rising prices to save money in whatever way you can.

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Any good tips always welcome.

Back soon x

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dear diary ~ Monday, Monday…

Monday is always a busy day when I stick to the routine. Sometimes routine goes out the window for many reasons chez nous, but currently, as I continue on my mission to restore and reset, I am trying to get myself into routine mode, albeit a new routine.

I usually strip and wash the bed on a Monday, it seems a good start to the week and means I should be able to get the bedding washed and dried, ironed, aired and put away by the following weekend even if we are subjected to the worst of weather.

I also put the duvet out on the line for a good blow in the fresh air. It was much colder outside to day though with the overcast sky.

Talking of duvets, I had a bad restless night last night after a few frantic calls from my mother during the evening, so I was not up early or feeling my best. She has another paranoia issue again. You may remember the saga of the ‘dead persons duvet’ that began when the carer changed mum’s duvet cover and that night mum got it into her head that the carer had switched her snuggly 180 tog duvet for a thinner one because she felt cold and the top of the duvet had lost its feathers. Of course we all know they don’t make 180tog duvets but mum was adamant hers was. From memory I think hers is a seven or eight tog. And it got worse because then she convinced herself that the carer had switched the duvet for one taken from an empty apartment down her corridor of someone that had died!

You couldn’t make it up could you?

This issue rumbled on for weeks and nothing I said would convince her that the duvet on her bed was still hers. I had to ask the carer to give the duvet a good hard shake from the bottom every day to make sure the feathers hadn’t gone thin at the top and eventually this did the trick and mum accepted the duvet (but was still reluctant to believe it was hers).

Now the latest issue is that the carers are trying to give her some green tablets and one night she felt very sick with them. Firstly, she told me they are the codeine tablets the doctor prescribed recently and then she changes her story and tells me they are paracetamol. Again, like me, you have probably never seen a green paracetamol or codeine tablet – they are usually white. I had to speak to the carer on the phone last night as she was refusing to take anything. I asked him what tablets he had there. ‘I have some codeine tablets which she is refusing, and some paracetamol…both of them are white’ He showed mum the tablets whilst I was on the phone. I told him she always refused the codeine as she says they make her feel sick but she likes to take the paracetamol before bed.

Once he had shown her the tablets as proof they were not green I asked him to put mum back on the phone.

‘ Mum the carer has just shown you the paracetamol and they are white not green’

‘I know,’ she said

Breakthrough…so I thought.

Not quite…. mum then said ‘ I am not taking these paracetamol they want to give me they are the green ones that make me ill’.

And then she added ‘I am not colour blind’

No answer is there!!

After looking through all her case notes on my app, I can only presume that the green tablets are the Doxycycline antibiotic capsules for her rodent ulcer that she has been taking in a morning and only for the previous 5 days. My mum’s head now is such a muddle, but this problem of the green tablets will no doubt continue for a few weeks.

It wears me out and hence the sleepless nights.

I spent the morning after breakfast refreshing the vases of flowers. The lovely bouquet my daughter had given me on Mothering Sunday had not lasted as long as I would have liked, I think perhaps the quality wasn’t there to start with (not her fault though – I expect a lot of these bouquets of flowers they sell for Mothering Sunday are not the best quality).

I saved as many blooms as I could and rehomed them in smaller vases. The pink tinged fluted Art Deco vase in the picture below is one of a pair that belonged to my mum and I think my grandma before her. I don’t use them often but they set off the pink alstromeria and peachy carnations perfectly.

After watering the plants (also a Monday job), I set about tidying the kitchen and wiping out both fridges – we have an undercounter intergrated one in the kitchen mainly for milk and dairy and anything we need to have handy, the other is in the utility room, a free standing taller larder fridge where we store all our vegetables. This means we only need to go to the supermarket once a week and save on petrol costs.

I thought it might be interesting to show you the remnants of the fruit and veg I found when clearing out the fridges and, with two days to go until our next shopping day, the meals I made from them. But that will be another post…hopefully I can write it tomorrow.

We are having a trip to Stalybridge today to see an old neighbour and good friend for a catch up. It will be a pleasant change to have a chat and do some socialising with someone other than my mum over the phone – only 8 calls yesterday, so a quiet day. I am hoping she doesn’t make up for it today and bombard me with calls and issues while we are trying to spend some time with my friends.

Have a good day, thank you for reading and your lovely comments.

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dear diary ~ down in the garden

There was a tug of war going on in my mind yesterday, trying to decide what would be the better task to start on.

I had washed all the cleaning cloths overnight and hung them on the line yesterday morning – nothing feels better than having a line of washed cloths after a good fettle in the house and I did wonder if I should continue with the spring cleaning.

But the garden won, the cleaning will wait.

I intended to set some outdoor seeds under cloches, but dithered as I couldn’t work out a good rotation of the 4 beds where I usually grow the vegetables and salad crops. They are all different sizes, not very big and are a problem if I grow potatoes or two courgette plants, usually one in each of the square tubs.

I dithered too much and then found myself doing something completely different and abandoned the seeds for another day. One of the beds had aquired a self-seeded valerian plant at either end. I removed one of them along with an ancient fennel and marjoram and loosened the soil, removing and transplanting the many self-seeded forget-me-nots, so the bed will eventually accomodate more vegetables along its length.

On Friday when we picked up the car we called at the garden centre and bought 3 bags of compost on the 3 for £15 deal and also a reduced pot of daffodils from £12.99 to £6 and another 3 small narcissi for £4.

I thought I had done well until I came home and at 5.30pm I received an email from the garden centre with their spring offer of 10% off everything from 21st March- I would have saved £2.50 if I had gone the next day. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

It is set to be another glorious day today, warm and still…but doesn’t everything shoot up a few inches when the better weather suddenly appears.

Let me introduce you to our beautiful spring rhododendron named RW Rye after DH’s grandfather who was head gardener at Castle Kennedy garden for a long time and he created this himself along with many other varieties for Lord Stair.

We have the horticultural medal he was awarded. One of the plants he propogated many people will have in their gardens – a buddleia called Lochinch. It has grey-green leaves and lighter mauve or violet blue panicles with an orange eye. Ours must be over 35 years old now and still going strong.

Our rhododendron had become quite leggy and we are tentatively pruning it back each year bit by bit as we do not want to lose it. In the past few years we have had a dose of snow or frost just as the flowers are about to open and they all dropped off unopened. We have been so lucky this year and it has escaped the bad weather hitting at the wrong time and is now in full bloom and being photographed constantly like a top model.

Well, must get on I have a few plants to tend and weeds to remove.

Have a good day and thank you for reading, back soon. x

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