Community Fridge

Today I visited our local Community Fridge for the first time.  This is run by a local Community Enterprise, run by volunteers who are passionate about keeping food (and other things - I'll post about the paint hub another day) out of landfill and looking after the community.  At the end of each day they go around the supermarkets and collect food which would otherwise be thrown away because it's at the end of it's shelf life.  Every morning at 10am, they give it out in return for a £1 donation.

I decided this warranted further investigation, so this morning I took the wiggly dog for a walk down to the community fridge venue.  

There was a queue outside the building, so I tied the dog to a post, and joined the back of the queue, which was made up of 18 people.  They were an interesting mix: young and old, with children and without, well-off and not so well off.  A lady came around exchanging a ticket for each £1.  Once everybody had one, she offered a second ticket (one ticket = 1 basket) to anybody that wanted one for another £1.

Then the queue began to slowly move forwards.  The ladies brought out baskets that had already been sorted.  They share out the food evenly into the baskets before you arrive so you don't end up with the people at the front of the queue grabbing all the good stuff.  Then you pack your basket into your bag.  They also give a choice of white bread or brown bread, veggie or meat, and if they have lots of something, you can take as much as you want (in this case - bread rolls and past their best bananas).  The lady in front of me explained that the numbers today were about average, and that what you get each time is a bit of a lottery, but it usually contains fruit and veg and bread.  She said sometimes you get a bit less, and sometimes a bit more - depending how many people are queueing and how much has been donated by the supermarkets.

I was amazed by how much I got - and soon realised that if I was coming back I needed a bigger bag (the lady in front had a spare thank goodness!) and should definitely bring the car.  I came home with two loaves of bread and three packs of bread rolls, cherry tomatoes, salad tomatoes, a pepper, 2 punnets of strawberries, 2 figs, a satsuma, some apples, slightly past their best bananas, green beans, salad, parsnips, carrots and potatoes.  A veritable haul of freshness and all for just £1!  

When I got home, my first job was to hull the strawberries and chop the bananas and chuck them in a bag in the freezer so they are ready for Miss Busy to whizz into smoothies whenever she wants one.  I then chose which bread to put in the bread bin and which bread to put in the freezer.  Everything else went in the fridge but has helped me determine what to cook over the coming days.  Some batch cooked sauces and things like that seem a good bet.

I am delighted with this find.  Not only will it save money on the groceries, but it's making good use of food that would almost certainly end up in landfill.  It also benefits those in the community who really need that help with the cost of food - they do also have a weekly "food club" (food bank) with donated non-perishables which gets given to those who need it in addition to the fresh food.

Bravo to Remake: Cornwall!

Fabric Scrap Dolls

 

If you're looking for a quick and easy craft to use up fabric scraps and create something lovely, then this is right up your street.  These lovely little dolls are cute and can be as complicated or simple as you want.

I first came across these amazing little dolls at the Medieval Christmas Fayre at Ludlow Castle a few years ago. 

I lovely lady (who I knew from my previous existence in Medieval Reenactment) had a little craft activity where she showed how to make them, and also sold them.

I immediately bought this little family:

To make these dolls, here's what you need:

• a circle-ish of cream or white fabric
• a little bit of toy stuffing (just for the head)
• thread (I use white/cream and black)
• fabric and wool scraps, felt, binding, fripperies etc. 
• pinking shears are very useful depending on your fabric - felt doesn't fray, but most other fabric will unless you pink or hem the edges

Instructions

To start with you will need your circle of fabric, your toy stuffing and about a metre of white/cream thread.
Place a little bit of toy stuffing in the middle of your circle.

Gather the fabric together and wrap the thread around tightly to create a head.  Fasten the thread around the neck.  You may need to arrange the fabric a little here so you don't have a big wrinkle where the face will be.

You now have a head, and four corners of fabric hanging down. Take one corner, fold it under and then gather up to make an arm. 

Take one of the loose ends of thread from the neck and wrap it firmly around the arm in a spiral down to the hand and then back up again.

 

 Hold it in place while you do the same with the opposite corner and other end of thread to make the other arm. This may take a bit of trial and error to get the arms the right length for the proportions of your doll.

Wrap the threads diagonally across the front and back to create a torso and waist.

You have now created the basic body and for a female you would just need to add clothes.

To make legs, you manipulate the final two corners of fabric and repeat the same process as for the arms.  These can be a bit rougher as most of them will be covered with fabric.

Next, make the clothes using fabric scraps:

• Some bias binding or a strip of fabric wrapped around and held in place with a couple of stitches are good for leggings or trousers.
• a little felt hat or a fabric scrap headscarf are good, or you can sew some wool scraps in place for hair.
• A simple tunic held in place with a wool belt are nice and easy, but you can wrap fabric into a dress, skirt, cloak or apron, or even add wings for a fairy. You could also sew on little facial features.

My nine-year-old daughter sat and made these with me and was delighted with the results.  It's such a quick and simple activity, and a great way to make use of your scraps.

This is one of the activities in our "Year of Crafts". I'd love to hear how you get on if you try this activity. Let me know in the comments.

Upcycling - wooden drawers

Hubby had these drawers (a lot of them!) to house his cassette tape collection.  Younger readers hop on to Wikipedia for an explanation of what cassette tapes are.  He got rid of his cassette tapes when we moved from Scotland three years ago, and the drawers found new homes in his garage (for screws and stuff) and in the children's bedrooms (for bits-and-bobs).  Ever since, I've been promising the children that I would give them a lick of paint to go nicely in their bedrooms, and label them so they knew what was inside each one.

Bug had done her best to label hers herself.  Inside she keeps all her stationery, badges, fossils, beads, bracelets, shells, marbles, Kinder egg toys and so on.

My first decision needed to be about paint.  I stood in the diy shop deliberating for a while.  I liked the idea of the chalky furniture paints, but they didn't have the range of colours that I was looking for and were pretty pricy.  In then end I plumped for acrylics from the craft aisle.  I've used acrylic paint before to paint my fence decorations, so I know they apply well to wood, the colour range is outstanding, and they are pretty affordable.  I bought four spring-time colours for Bug's drawers, and some dark blue for when I do Bear's.

Next, paint!  So that I wouldn't have difficulty with drawers sticking, I only painted the front of each drawer.  I had three sets of drawers to do, so I did each case in a different colour, then I did six pink drawers, and four each in purple, green and blue.  

Acrylic dries pretty quickly, so by the time I'd finished doing all the first coats, I was able to start again and get the second coat on.  

An hour or so later I came back, arranged all the drawers in a decent pattern of colours, rearranged the contents so they were in a logical order, and used a permanent marker and neat handwriting to label each drawer with its contents.

I had started the whole project at 7.30pm when Bug went to bed, I completed it by sneaking back into her bedroom and replacing the drawers at about 11pm.

She is delighted with the result, as not only are the colours pretty, but she can also find things more easily and is even more inclined to put them away since she can see straight away where they belong.  We are planning to buy some butterfly stickers to add to the drawers and make them even prettier.  I'm going to get Bear's drawers next (later this week I hope) and paint them in blues, purples and greens.

 What crafty / upcycling project are you doing this week?

Crafty mum - embroidered shorts

I don't know where I got this idea from, but since I have a daughter who likes to combine her love of all things girlie with a propensity to wallow in mud and climb trees, we have to have clothes that will stand up to a certain amount of rough treatment.

 I took a pair of her brother's outgrown shorts and decided to prettify them.

It's taken me over a year, as they've languished at the bottom of my sewing basket and been occasionally worked on in between other projects, and I was dreading her trying them on in case after all that effort they no longer fit her.  

Here they are... some proper tough shorts for adventures, with pretty butterflies and flowers embroidered all over them.  I've now been commissioned by son to sew some bits and pieces on to his clothes too.

I know that you can buy clothes, both pretty and tough, for next to nothing at Primark or the supermarket, so it really doesn't matter if they get torn halfway up a tree, but I like to do things differently, and if that means spending hours embroidering shorts that will only be worn for a few months, then that's what I'll do! ... in any case, I have plans to cut out the embroidered bits and incorporate them into a cushion once they're outgrown, so it won't be thrown out.

What crafty projects have you been working on lately?  Fancy some embroidery?

Feed your family for £50 in February - week 1

I've just done my first weekly grocery shop in February.  If you're new to this, check out my Feed your family for £50 challenge post here.  Here's how I got on:

Local greengrocer - 
Fresh fruit and veg - just under £10

Remainder of shop at Morrisons supermarket - 
Meat - whole chicken, minced beef and chicken fillets - 3 for £10 offer
Other refrigerated items, including ham, cheese, milk, quiche etc. - £12.68
2 packs cereal and some pain au chocolat for breakfasts - £4.92
snack and packed lunch items - £4.68
sliced bread, bread rolls and bread flour - £2.60
other - jam, kidney beans, frozen pizza for lunch, raisins, chopped toms and eggs - £8.35
Supermarket total - £43.15

Grand Total - £53

The meals I intend cooking are: burgers in baps with wedges and beans (already got all this); spaghetti bolognaise with plenty of veg - only use half the bolognaise; chicken and chorizo paella; chilli (add kidney beans and chilli to remainder of bolognaise sauce); roast chicken with mash and veg; fish pie (already have ingredients); chicken casserole using remainder of chicken from roast; plus breakfasts and lunches for everybody for a week.

I made the mistake of shopping while hungry, which meant that a few more snack items were added than should have been.  I did go past the local butcher this morning, but chose to buy my meat at the supermarket simply because I'd already planned my menu based on the 3 for £10 offer - next time maybe I'll shop in the town more frequently, rather than a once a week supermarket shop, and see how that impacts on the cost of my groceries.

As you can see, I did go over my target of £50, but have let myself off the hook on a technicality... I had two £5 Match and More vouchers from the supermarket!  This means that I can do a small top up shop on the weekend for milk etc if required, without feeling TOO bad!

So next week I'll only plan my menu a couple of days in advance, and shop more frequently in local shops (especially since I've now found where I can park for an hour for free in the local town) and see how I get on with that.

Feed your family for under £50

Is it possible to feed your family for under £50 per week, while still providing healthy, home-cooked food?  

I appreciate that I'm in a very lucky position, with my average weekly grocery spend for my family of two adults, a three-year-old and a five-year-old averaging between £70 and £90 per week.  I'd like to reduce that bill a bit.

I'm pretty convinced that I could reduce my spend by buying more pre-prepared food - odd though that sounds.  I know, for example, that I can buy a cake at the supermarket for less money than it costs me to make; that I can buy a frozen pizza for less than it costs me to get mozzarella, ham and pineapple to make my own; that I can get three individual portions of frozen lasagne for less than the minced beef to make my own.  This troubles me.  It troubles me because I like cooking, and I think knowing how to cook is important.  It troubles me because, apart from the obvious economies of scale, how are they making this lasagne so cheaply?  It also troubles me because I know that these pre-prepared and frozen meals contain much more fat, salt, sugar and other preservatives (and other ingredients that I don't even recognise!) than I would put in my home-made versions.  While cutting down on my weekly spending, I don't want to be resorting to ready meals.  I still want to put food on the table that I've made from scratch.  I want to know what's gone into the food.

So, here's my challenge.  I'm going to attempt a Feed for Fifty in February.  If you want to join me that would be great, and please link into this post and comment with a link to your blog below so that I can visit you and see how you're getting on.

Here are some of the things that you can try:

• more porridge for breakfast.  A box of cereal can be anything up to £3 to last for a week.  A bag of oats costs about 60p and will provide breakfast for at least a week.
• School dinners - All of Key Stage One (infants) in England are entitled to free school meals, and if you are a low-income family then this entitlement continues.  If you can, take advantage of it - schools are now required to offer balanced meals.  C started off on these free school dinners, but after a few weeks decided that he'd prefer packed lunches...
• Packed lunches - C has a packed lunch every day, as does Hubby most days.  Bug takes on to pre-school on her two days per week.  For adult packed lunches you could try investing in a thermos cup or bowl, and making a big batch of soup on a Sunday night to be warmed up and put in the flask every day with a home-made bread roll.  A warm and filling lunch for probably about 50p.  Rather than buying guacamole or houmous you can make your own with chickpeas or avocado for about half the price of a tub from the shop.  Equally home-made sausage rolls, home-prepared cous-cous, pasta salad or rice salad are all much more economical than buying prepared ones from the supermarket or deli.  A tray of home-made flapjack or mini buns is probably cheaper than a pack of chocolate biscuits or cakes.
• Meat deals - you can get different meat deals from different places, for example at Morrisons they do a 3 for £10 deal on different meats, but you can also get great "meat packs" from traditional butchers.  Find out what the deal is where you shop, and plan your menu around the offer.  If you plan carefully, you can probably get six dinners from £10 spent on meat.
• Make the meat go further - buy a larger joint and use the meat for two meals, and probably some cold meat for lunches too.  Mince and casserole meat can also be made to go further by bulking out the recipes for casseroles, shepherds pie, cottage pie, bolognaise, chilli etc with vegetables and lentils.  A few added mushrooms, sweetcorn, peppers, peas, carrots and lentils make the meat go a lot further.  If you make a large batch, you can also freeze half to eat on another occasion when you might have less cooking time.
• Menu planning - use the previous two points to plan your menu, making sure that you maximise every item, use things you have in the store-cupboard and freezer and waste as little as possible.
• Choose where you shop - I would love to shop in markets, farmers' markets, traditional butchers and grocers etc. but because I live in a rural spot, I would have to drive to the town and pay for parking to do this, so unless I'm in town for another purpose, I tend to do supermarket shopping.  I also understand that if supermarket shopping, you can save a lot of money by "taking the Aldi challenge" i.e. shopping at Aldi first, then going to your normal supermarket to pick up the things that you can't get at Aldi.  I don't do this for two reasons: First, shopping with the kids is a nightmare, I certainly wouldn't put myself through it in two supermarkets, and on the days when I'm kid-free I have a lot of jobs to get done, and don't want to waste my time with two supermarkets; Second, I'm afraid that I'm a supermarket snob and I like going to supermarkets where they apologise for the wait (even when there wasn't one) and ask if I'm okay packing my bags.  I don't like going to supermarkets where people throw the produce on the floor and the cashier practically throws the food at you.  Just me.  It's one of my snobberies and I think I'll mostly be sticking to my local supermarket, while using local butchers and markets when I can.
• Cut down on alcohol - A couple of things really push the price of my shopping up to £90 and beyond sometimes.  On weeks when I'm buying items like batteries, razorblades, laundry detergent... then the bill is higher.  And on weeks when a bottle of wine and a couple of real ales or local ciders are in the trolley.  I tend to buy wine that's on offer, spending about £5 on a £10 bottle of wine, or we buy three or four beers or ciders at around £2 per bottle.  It soon puts the price up.  I'm cheating a bit, as Hubby bought a couple of cases of wine at Christmas time and we've still plenty of that to work through, but I'm going to try to avoid getting beers and ciders this month.

So that's how I'm going to attempt my Feed for Fifty in February.  Join me for a weekly round-up on Grocery Day (Tuesdays in my house) to see how I'm getting on.

p.s. I'm going to add an exemption right from the beginning.  It's Bug's birthday in three weeks time.  We're going to have a meal out, with a cake on her actual birthday, and then she's having a birthday tea at home with a few friends the next day, so I'm budgeting a bit extra for that and without any guilt at all.  She's only going to be four once!

p.p.s. I've linked this to Thrifty Thursday over on Living Well Spending Less.  Check it out and see all the other Thrifty posts!

Free Our Kids

I was directed to this blog by my little sis.  

She saw an article about it in The Telegraph, and sent me the link.  Once I started reading I realised I was smiling.

Basically this wonderful woman (Harriet), having been made redundant, and realising just how much unnecessary money people spend on their children, decided on a year-long "no spend" experiment to see if it was possible to raise children without spending so much.  No child-specific foods, no money to be spent on toys or clothes, or activities for children.  She and her husband and their two year old son were going "old school".

I'm disappointed not to have discovered this blog before.  Her year long experiment is now finished, and I find myself trawling back through her posts to find out how to get on (it appears she had another baby during the year too!).

So... how much money do we spend on our children?

Hmmm...

FOOD - I am delighted and proud to say that I have NEVER bought anything from the baby/toddler food aisle in the supermarket.  My children have never had puree and have always eaten exactly the same as we eat.  I do find that I buy more food, but I figure that's okay, they've got to eat after all!

NAPPIES - we MOSTLY used reusable nappies.  We bought disposable when we were travelling on holidays, and for the first few weeks when nappies are at their most disgusting, and then we switched to expensive "pull-ups" once the children were potty training, so that they could get themselves to the toilet.  Bug is still in pull-ups at night, and I can't wait until that finishes.

TOYS - when they were babies I don't think I bought them any toys.  I made toys from bright sparkly things and pictures hanging from a clothes airer, and pasta in tubs and bottles and things like that.  No, I tell a lie, I was proud of myself for being so frugal and splashed out on a wooden baby gym.  As they've got older though, there have been more toy buys.  I still try hard to make toys (the wooden cooker), knitted toys, some new pouches that I've just sewn (they were supposed to be pencil cases but ended up too short for the pencils - doh! more on that in a future post), but they are now into playmobil and lego, and have discovered money.  C has just emptied his piggy banks to buy some playmobil on ebay, which at least is second hand and a lot less expensive than new.  I don't think we spend nearly as much as some on toys, but we do spend.

CLOTHES - a lot of our clothes are hand-me-down.  With older cousins of both genders, we do get plenty of clothes from my sisters, and there are also a couple of girls in the village who have passed on plenty of clothes to Bug, so actually I have little need to buy clothes very often.  I'm just thinking about what new clothes we have bought over the last few months: vests, pants and socks, pyjamas, trousers and jumpers for C (he seemed to have very few for a while), shoes, waterproof coats.  I think I could have got some of these second-hand, but I find trawling around the charity shops with small children in tow very trying, so tend to avoid shopping at all costs, and then just pop to the shop with something very specific in mind when I need something.

ACTIVITIES - aside from £2 per week at the local toddler group, I have no regular spends on children's activities.  They are still free to get into the swimming pool, so I just pay for myself.  We do have occasional trips to soft play, castles, museums, steam trains, safari parks etc. but they are usually either free or rare enough to be a special treat, so I don't think I overspend here.  We do lots of playing at home, in the garden, walks and bike rides, parks and free museums, or make use of our Historic Scotland membership to visit castles.

How much do you spend on your children?
I'll be continuing to follow Harriet's blog, and hope that she continues to post as she ventures into trying not to spend to much with a baby in tow as well.

Bargains!

A local Under-5 group have an annual toy sale.  I think they aim for this time of year deliberately as they know that parents are thinking of clearing space ready for Christmas, and other parents are looking to bag a bargain in the run up to Christmas.  I fall into the latter camp.

We headed to the toy sale without too much cash in hand.  C was allowed to choose a toy for himself up to the value of £5 as a reward for getting twenty stars on his chart.  He chose a (sadly plastic, and with noises) lorry that opens out to a small road and ramp system for little cars.  It cost only £2 and he is delighted with it.

I next spotted a wooden dolls house.  Santa has instructed me to keep an eye out for one of these, and I have been scouring Gumtree and e-bay, but so far have had no bidding success.  Imagine my pleasure when I spotted this amazing one, including the dolls and the furniture - for only £10!  That's Christmas sorted for Bug...

Just next to it - for only £2 was an unopened box of Meccano - a set which retails for between £20 and £30 and was on our radar as a potential Christmas present for C.  Okay then... twist my arm - that's Christmas for C sorted as well.

Is it bad to deliberately spend little on Christmas presents for the children when others spend hundreds of pounds?  I don't think so.  They are still getting something for Christmas that they will really love - I don't imagine that they will mind that it wasn't bought for full price or was previously loved.

Pegging Out - Quick and easy activities for baby and toddler

Another super easy activity here:

Take a basket or bag of pegs, show the children how to peg them on to the basket or a box and then just play with the pegs.  You can peg them on to clothing, a low washing line, peg bits of paper together, peg pegs to one another.  You can also hide pegs and go looking for them, or create a trail of pegs leading to some "treasure".  You can draw little faces on pegs and have them talk to one another (or even better, a crocodile face with sprung jaws!).

A good idea

Paint pots for toddler painting.

Rather than using conventional paint pots (which you have to buy) for painting with toddlers, make use of what you find in the recycle bin.  Yoghurt pots or fabric softener lids are good, but egg cartons are even better.  Don't put a lot of paint in, you can always top up and since toddlers don't remember to wash their brush each time, it's going to end up sludge coloured pretty quickly anyway.  A plate or a foil quiche tray is good as a mixing palette.

The best thing - at the end of the painting session you only need to wash the brushes and the apron - the paint pots and mixing palette can be thrown away ... unlike the work of art!

Sticking

Another cheap and free idea for entertaining a toddler.  I just provided a range of items from the recycling box - pizza boxes, lightbulb box, milk bottle lids, pictures from magazines, loo roll tubes, yoghurt pots etc., some PVA glue and a brush and set him loose.

He spent about an hour quite happily gluing things to a pizza box.  I pottered around the kitchen and occasionally stepped in with some support or direction, showing him for example how to:

• brush the backs of things with glue in order to stick them on, not just placing them on and then gluing the top
• hold things still for a while to let the glue start to dry so that they stick on

While we didn't make anything that resembled anything, and there was no clear outcome for production in mind, I just wanted him to experience playing with glue and learning what works and what doesn't.  He was pretty happy with the result anyway, which is all that matters.

What do you NEED to buy for a baby?

I'm a member of a parenting web forum.  One recent thread asked this question and I couldn't resist answering it, as there is so much stuff out there to buy.  Parenthood is big business!  I feel very strongly that you can get by on a lot less than the shops will try to convince you.  Here is my quite long reply to the thread!

Firstly - hold off buying much until after Christmas, as by then you'll have more of an idea what people are planning to buy for you, hand down, lend you etc. and whatever you do need you can get in the sales.

Secondly - and importantly... there is an absolute mountain of stuff out there being marketed for new mums and believe me you don't need most of it.  Just because they sell it, doesn't mean it is necessary!  Don't be too proud to get second hand and hand-me-downs, or to make do, make creatively or borrow - most of the stuff you need in the early days you won't use for very long and your baby really doesn't care that it was used by his/her cousin first or was from a second hand shop.

Travel - you need something to transport your baby in.  A decent car seat - new is important here (and I recommend 0+1 stage as it lasts from newborn to 4 so you don't need another one for a while), and something to walk around with, I used a Maclaren pushchair which fully reclines (so again will last newborn until it's no longer required as they are walking) and a ring sling.

Sleeping - a moses basket or similar is good for when they are in your room with you (don't buy one new - either borrow or go second hand) and then a cot.  A new mattress for the cot is important.  At least 2 cellular blankets and at least 2 sheets.  You don't need different blankets for the moses basket and cot - just get the big ones and fold or drape over the sides of the basket.  Also pillow cases make good sheets for moses basket, and old unused adult sheets can be cut down and hemmed for use in cot.  You don't need to go mad decorating the nursery - baby won't care as long as it is warm and there is somewhere safe and comfy to sleep.  Home made mobiles and decorations will save you a fortune and are a good way to spend time while waiting for baby to arrive!