Hooray for Swagbucks!

I've decided to put a but more effort into surveys. Just a few weeks of minimum effort and I've got a £5 Amazon voucher coming from Swagbucks. It's a site that you can earn points for surveys, videos, searching and quick polls. 849 points (currently oin sale at 750 points) gets you a £5 Amazon voucher or you can choose from other rewards. 

I usually save my vouchers for Christmas. If you're interested join using this link and I get bonus points: www.swagbucks.com/refer/Nileypie

Shopping Day

If you want to save money shopping my advice is simple: make a list.

This is my shopping list for today and my final receipt. Every week I set a budget - as close to £50 as possible this week - and make a list of what we need. I try to have meal ideas and always stock check  my cupboards at the same time.

Once I have my list I estimate a price for each item and total it so it's not a complete shock when I get to the checkout.

While I'm there I try and stick to the list as closely as possible. To give me a little room to add extras (like this week when I realised I'd forgotten laundry detergent) I shop at Aldi and estimate prices for Asda. It always works out cheaper!!

I'd estimated £50.50 but bought a few things that weren't on my list including tortillas, washing detergent, chocolate (you have to don't you?!) and a sweeping brush as the other half left it under the house while he was plumbing and it's worth £2.99 not to have to rummage about in the dark with the spiders looking for it. My total spend was £52.69.

That includes meat for at least 9 meals. 1.4kg of pork shoulder chopped in half for 2 meals, beef mince for 2 meals, gammon joint will do 2 meals, lamb breast for 1 meal and probably a lunch, sausages, bacon and beef frying steaks. I expect I'll need to top up on milk and fresh fruit next late week though.

A bit of luck

Sometimes after a bad day the universe just sends things to cheer you up. Like today, the eldest had enough stickers on her reward chart for a treat and she wanted starburst (they'll always be opal fruits to me). I also needed milk. The first shop had nowhere to park, nor did the second. The third had no starburst!

There was, however a £2 coin shining on the pavement next to my car. So back to the second shop where the traffic had now cleared, they had both milk and starburst. But also, at the checkout there was 4m of star wars wrapping paper reduced to 2p a roll!!

Then in my wallet I found a £1 off total shop voucher!

8 pints of milk, 1 kinder egg, 1 packet of starburst and 2 rolls of wrapping paper: total cost to me 50p!!! I love a bargain!

Surveys = voucher

Just completed a survey taking me over the threshold for getting a £10 Sainsbury's Voucher. That should help me get on top of things. I'm a member of a few survey sites, if you need any recommending pop a comment below and I'll let you know which ones are worth joining.

Weaning Friendly Bolognese

My least favourite part of weaning was finding meals we could all enjoy together. While I did dabble in baby led weaning I found it messy and stressful trying to work out whether she'd eaten sufficient food or just squoodged it u  between her fingers and sneaked it to the dog.

Bolognese has always been a staple in our house because it has the meat sauce that you can spoon feed a baby but can be served with fusilli so that baby can feed herself.

400g mince 

100 streaky bacon

1 onion

3 cloves garlic

1 carrot

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

Handful of frozen corn

Handful of frozen peas

1 tin chopped tomatoes 

Mixed herbs

Dollop of ketchup or tomato puree

Spoonful of caster sugar

Brown the mince and bacon. Add the onion celery peppers and carrot (all diced) and soften. Add the crushed garlic, and the rest of the ingredients and top up with water to almost cover the contents of the pan.

Bubble on the hob for 20 minutes, in Thd oven for 1hr (gm 5) or in the slow cooker for 6-8 hrs on medium.

My recipe changes every time I make it. Sometimes I add mushrooms, a stock cube, or a tsp of Worcestershire sauce, marmite or soy depending on what's in the cupboard! Serve with pasta and grated cheese - it's always polished off by everyone in my house!!

Leftovers are either turned into a lasagne with a homemade bechamel sauce or I add a tin of kidney beans and a tsp of chilli powder for a quick chilli.

Quick Update

I went to Aldi on Friday and spent £30.12 it should last me the week. With maybe a mini top up shop at the co-op for fruit for the toddler on Monday (using my £1 off voucher)

I've been counting the penny jar and reckon I've about £32 which I'm going to cash into a coinstar machine next week to make for a cheap grocery shop.

There's beef stew in the slow cooker for tea. I did treat the kids to a McDonalds yesterday though - mainly because the kitchen was in disarray as the other half is putting a new central heating system in!!

Soup for lunch

I made a variation on minestrone for lunch using the last of Monday's leftover gammon. It would serve 4 for lunch.

Leftover gammon (maybe 100g) cubed
1 onion
1 stick of celery
1 carrot
3 leaves of curly kale
Pinch of nutmeg
About 200ml veg stock
3 salad tomatoes
A splodge of tomato ketchup
Handful of spaghetti broken into 1" long pieces

I softened the onion and celery then added the carrot and kale and softened them for 5 minutes. Then added the chopped gammon and fried that in the pan slightly for 5 mins.

Then added the nutmeg, then the stock, tomatoes and ketchup and left it to simmer for 10 minutes. Then I added the pasta and cooked for another 10 mins until the pasta was cooked through.

We've just had it with cheese sandwiches and have some leftover to freeze. I blended it as the youngest is fussy about lumps!!

Chorizo Slow Cooker Stew

I love my slow cooker. I shove ingredients in, it works its magic and by teatime I have a delicious meal with very little fuss and effort. I've just stuck in a chorizo stew.

Here's the recipe:

1 chorizo
1 onion
1 large carrot
1 red pepper
2 sweet potatoes
1 can of chickpeas (drained)
1 can of chopped tomatoes

Chop it all up, stick it in the slow cooker and leave it on high all day. Serve with rice, crusty bread or whatever else takes your fancy.

Toad in the Hole

My grandma gave me this cookery book and it is brilliant. It contains my go to toad in the hole batter recipe:

100g plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 egg
250ml milk

Mix it all together into a single cream like texture. If you've time leave it for 30 mins in the fridge before cooking as it'll work better.

Put your sausages in a suitable tray in as preheated oven (gas mark 7) for 10 mins. Once they're brown pour on the batter and cook for half an hour. Very tasty.

Credit Card Catch Up Challenge

Christmas was expensive. Admittedly not as expensive as it will have been for most thanks to survey sites and savvy shopping but still. Too expensive.

I've just got my credit card bill and I could cry. Every month I buy food shopping on the credit card and pay for it at the end of the month. My challenge is to catch up to myself so instead of using the shopping money to pay for last month I'm spending it on the food I'm eating.

This basically equates to me saving £250 from somewhere. I intend to meal plan better. Avoid impulse shopping and try and get some vouchers and PayPal saved up. I also have enough nectar points for one free shop.

The meal plan for this week is:

Tues Eve - toad in the hole
Weds lunch - homemade soup with Monday's leftover gammon
Weds eve - chorizo and sweet potato stew
Thurs lunch - leftover stew
Thurs eve - bacon lardon pasta
Fri lunch - home made soup
Fri eve - beef stew ( I'll freeze leftovers)

In the freezer I have beef mince, pork mince, a pork joint, 2 pork steaks, 2 beef steaks and some chicken pieces. I think this means my shopping list for this week is:

2 loaves of bread
2 bottles of milk
Cheese
Raspberries
Strawberries
Weetabix
(About £12 depending where I buy it from)

EDIT: Actual spend = £13.92 (at the co-op, got a £1 off £5 spend voucher to spend before next week) 


Hopefully by blogging my progress I'll do better.