We are well and truly skint!
It seems that if you've been self employed for a while then become sick and need time off work (and your employer decides to end your contract without notice - yes, we ARE seeking advice!) you are not entitled to incapacity benefit or whatever new name it's now called these days. Working for more than 20 years it seems, counts for nothing. If you have been self-employed in the previous two years then you haven't paid enough in NI contributions (not that anyone tells you this at the time) and that's that!
So after eight weeks of being one income down, the pennies are tight to say the least. Needing to economise in every way we can, me and the hubster set about seeing if we could feed our family of four for forty quid a week.
One week in and we've not only done it - it's been a revelation!
Now it does help if you can cook. And if you have a fairly well stocked larder to begin with. And, as luck would have it, we got into growing our own this year so have been able to feast on the current glut of tomatoes plus carrots, spring onions, beetroot, peppers and chillies (apparently - there's not a bit of heat in them!), salad leaves and various other bits and bobs still springing up in our small garden.
But by God have we eaten well. We enjoyed a lovely roast chicken dinner this evening with most of the veg from the garden followed by vanilla ice cream with hot blackberry sauce (freshly picked for free this afternoon).
Tonight's roast chicken (stock currently bubbling away thanks to the carcass) was a real treat as we've cut down our meat consumption massively - without hardly noticing or caring.
Saying that, we did enjoy a fry up meat feast after the kids' football yesterday lunchtime. We used sausages (Somerfield's top notch range, 50% off), bacon and black pudding (bought reduced and leftover in the freezer), fried tomatoes (from the garden), toasted muffins (bought for 20p on their sell by date and again frozen) and a tin of beans (special offer multipack - Heinz!)
Chorizo and belly pork
Aside from that, my fantastic hubster has done some amazingly creative stuff with chorizo (Lidl, great value, lasts for ages and very versatile) and some strips of belly pork (again massively reduced in Somerfield).
Half went into an Oriental noodle and veg stir fry earlier this week (again most veg from the garden) and the other half has been smoked and will join some butterbeans which have been soaked, some fresh tomatoes from the garden and a bit of that chorizo for tomorrow night's dinner - not sure what we'll call it but it wil be a kind of stew/cassoulet affair.
Lunches
The kids have packed lunches five days a week - cheese, ham, egg or tuna sandwiches or a pasta salad, a piece of fresh fruit, a carton of orange juice (good value, great tasting from Lidl) and a daily treat (we look out for bargain biccies and the like and stock up when they're on offer).
Breakfast has been toast (Rathbones bread is two loaves for £1.20 in Morrisons at the minute)butter and jam or marmite or cereal (milk in our local Raja Bros is 99p for two litres) and a glass of juice (again amazing value, lovely-tasting orange juice from Lidl).
Grown up lunches (I work from home, husband off work) have been fantastic - Cheddar cheese and tomato sandwiches, fried tomatoes on toast or a salad (tomatoes, leaves and spring onion from the garden) with a tin of mackerel or sardines which are healthy, yummy and great value as well.
Dinners
Our dinners have also included spaghetti with a fresh tomato, basil and chorizo sauce (tomato and basil from the garden) with parmesan (a must-have in our house); good old beans on toast one night when we were in a rush to get to footy training; pizzas and salad with the kids in front of X Factor on Saturday night (Ham and mushroom, two for £1 from Lidl and we added extra fresh tomato, onion, chorizo, chilli and plus some more mozarella which we had bought for half price and stuck in the freezer) then home made popcorn for later.
Now working on next week's menu and shopping list. Some more fresh fruit (although we plan to go foraging for blackberries again and are awaiting delivery of lots of apples from mum's tree), a little more veg, bread, milk, cheese, some more tins of mackerel, sardines and tuna, perhaps some mince this week, orange juice, butter, eggs, onions and whatever else we find on special offer that can be used now or frozen for a later date.
So our butter bean, smoked pork, tomato and chorizo stew is on the menu for dinner tomorrow night. Home made tortilla with salad the following evening. Perhaps a tuna pasta bake the next night. Then maybe jacket spuds with cheese and beans on Thursday and a lovely big home-made spag bol or lasagne on Friday. We'll try and pick up a few stale French sticks for pennies and make garlic bread for Friday night plus some more for the freezer. And we might buy another chicken to make a curry for Saturday. Good quality sausages can always be found among the reduced items and are fine if frozen straight away. Also reduced bread and muffins and the like can go straight in the freezer - that's another great breakfast for the weekend sorted, maybe with an egg as well this time.
Cake heaven
For puds we're going to enjoy fresh fruit, vanilla ice cream with our gorgeous home-made blackberry sauce, blackberry (and hopefully apple once they arrive) crumble and anything else we find on special offer throughout the week. And our youngest is currently making cakes every week to try and get his Beaver Scout bronze award so more yummy cheap treats to look forward to.
Already we've realised just how much food we normally waste - and we're a family that usually cooks from fresh anyway and had always thought we shopped thriftily. But it's not until you have to be really careful that you realise how far you can stretch your budget, how much you waste normally and actually how much fun it can be living frugally, foraging and being creative.
I can honestly say we've probably eaten better (both in terms of our health and our wallets as well as in terms of taste) this past week than we have in a long time. Being careful means you can't be lazy and, by putting that extra bit of thought and effort into your cooking, you can amaze yourself by just how easy it is to make some amazing food for next to nothing.
