It's All About the Beans - Part Two

 

Last week I posted on here about my bean shortage and the letter I received from Heinz in response to my politely worded email pointing out their short-changing a nation of bean lovers on a regular basis.  I apologise to any of you who are now obsessively weighing the contents of all your cans to see if you too are being short-changed ... and reading some of your blogs it would appear that you are!!

In response to my 'complaint' ... I was polite, honest I was ... they sent me six pounds worth of vouchers to spend on Heinz/Kraft products.  It didn't take me much looking around at the range of their items in the shops that I have access to, to realise that the best use of the vouchers would actually be on baked beans.

And then when I spotted them this morning as we passed the end of the aisles to go upstairs to the café in Booths for a coffee after my hospital appointment, and they were just £3.50 for four cans ... just I say, that is a lot of money when I am used to buying 28p tins of beans from Aldi !!  I decided over my coffee that I would buy two four packs with my vouchers.

Now as I am living on WWII rations at the moment and beans have to be purchased on the Points system these are going to last me a long time ... possibly into January.  😄

One pound spent = beans for months.  

Thanks for all the lovely comments on the last post.  💖

Sue xx

It's All About the Beans

I have beans on my menu twice this week over on my Getting Ready for Rations on Retirement blog, usually when I am splitting a can of baked beans I upend it for an hour or so before I open it, just so that the sauce distributes evenly throughout the can ... this time I forgot.  So to get an even distribution of beans and sauce I decided to tip it into the pan and then spoon out half.  I thought I might as well get a perfect split so I weighed the pan.

I was pretty shocked really that a good brand such as Heinz is still short-changing it's customers.  I have complained to them once before when I was doing a challenge and had cause to weigh my beans, they sent me a £2 voucher.  I have also complained many years ago to Asda about their Smartprice beans, they were seriously underweight, they too sent me a £2 gift card.

Now I didn't do this for any reward but more because I was really annoyed.  

Branded beans are now quite an expensive thing to buy, these Heinz beans were bought on offer at £3.50 for a four pack, usually they are £1.40 per can each ... obviously I was feeling flush that week whenever it was ... as I'm someone who usually buys the supermarkets basic lines at under 30p a tin this price is astonishing.

Anyway I ate my lunch, half a can of beans on two slices of toast, and then jumped on the computer to send a politely worded message to Heinz via their website.  Just pointing out that as beans are cooked in the cans there should be no room for any discrepancy of weights and if they knew that somehow beans magically lost weight on cooking they should start the process with more weight in the cans and then left it at that.

On the way to Mum's yesterday, with the car boot loaded up with Alan's carpet cleaner ready to clean Mum's carpets we were chatting away about all sorts of things and I mentioned the low weight of my beans and of the previous cans from this batch and Alan started doing the maths, as only an engineer would.  He worked out that if they are making millions of cans of beans per year and a good percentage of them are actually underweight the company is making huge profits from selling 'missing beans'.

Yes, we often have these sort of conversations!!  😄

And this was where this blog post was going to end, but ...

... I have just received this letter.

I only contacted them on Tuesday, so this is very quick work on their part.  I am now the proud owner of two £3 vouchers, I didn't do any of this for that but nevertheless I am happy to have them.

The big questions is now do I buy more beans with my vouchers?

Checking the prices of the Heinz beans and Sainsbury's own brand beans as I was a few minutes ago to get things right for this post, has thrown up that the packs of six Heinz beans are currently on offer in Sainsbury's at just £4.75 if you have a Nectar card, I'm tempted, but maybe that's their plan ... get me hooked on Heinz baked beans as I used to be many years ago.  😀

Sue xx

Our Short Trip to Wales ... and Rationing Begins

 

Those of you who have followed me for an length of time will recognise this photo.  It used to signal that we were back home, the road sign that Alan mowed around once a month to keep the roadside verge neat and tidy that was just outside our front gate ... and actually knocked down once with his tractor and had to fix ... shhh.)   As you can see our old 'Egg and Vegetable Sales' box is still in position at the bottom of the driveway.

We had dropped our things off at the flat near Llandudno and decided on some lunch at one of our old favourite places, the Tu Hwnt I'r Bont tearooms with a dog walk around the park first and a check to see in the conkers were ready for gathering in.

While our lunch was being prepared I checked out some of the photos on the wall above Alan's head.  As you can see from the photos, the tearooms flood on a regular basis and we were quite sad to see that a lot of the memorabilia that used to be on the walls is no longer there, no doubt victim to the rising waters of the River Conwy which started bursting it's banks regularly again before we moved away from Maenan.

A couple of ladies placing their order in the same place we were sat but many, many years before us.

I managed to get a couple of photos as we drove back past Isfryn to get to the flat.  We were both a bit disappointed to see that the place was looking so overgrown, and Alan was upset to see his lovely hedges and verges were neglected.  But hey, perhaps the new owners like the shaggy look, it's not for us to judge.

As you can see the house still looks exactly the same.

We headed back towards the coast pointing out differences to each other all along the route, it's nice to look back ... but I would never go back long term.  For me having the flat for a year or so will be a nice way to say goodbye to Wales properly and for us to continue looking forwards.

It was a good weekend, but we decided to come back a day early and get a head start on the week.  Alan needed to catch up on bits and bobs of work and I had decided overnight that my rationing will start tomorrow.  Just like that, not much notice for myself, sort of like how it was for the people of 1940 when rationing started with regular news reports and instructions ... and the issuing of ration books ready for 8th January.

Time for some reading, but before I do I am going to make a coffee and settle down to watch Housewife, 49.  Not a bad way to spend a cool and wet Sunday evening and get me in a rationing mindset ... it will definintely be porridge for breakfast.  😀

The new blog is now visible for everyone and the first post ... a round up of a weeks rations ... should be appearing in the morning.  It was nice to go away for a night, but it's nice to be home.

Sue xx

The Food Cupboard Challenge, Austerity August ... and Re-registering my Ration Card

 

It's the first of August, my gosh how quickly the months are passing by at the moment and it doesn't even feel like Summer.  I've been sleeping under my summer-weight duvet but with an added quilt on top, it's the only way to stay warm.  I've spent most evenings watching television wearing my fleecy jacket for warmth and days dashing out between showers to pick what vegetables are still growing to add to my meals. 

And talking about food, at the top is this months photo of the top part of the food cupboard.

Last month it looked like this.

Suddenly there are proper gaps appearing, helped a little bit by me taking a jar of jam and a tin of lentils to the flat ... not to be eaten together I hasten to add.

I decided that it was now time to look at what I have in the lower cupboard and start to include these things more in the day to day eating to go alongside the freezer stash.

And the reason for this is that I have decided on an 'Austerity August'.

I am determined to spend no more than £10 each week on food, and with that I will get any absolute essentials that I need while I work my way through the foods that I already have.

The fridge is sparse ...

... very sparse!!

After my thoughts and post on retirement the other day, and then sitting and thinking about all the Challenges I have set myself both this year and in previous years, I've come to the conclusion that they were all leading me to this point.  I love that in every single Challenge I have ever done I have learnt something new, either about myself, about how to do things or how to change things going forward.

So, I am giving myself just over eighteen months to get myself to a position whereby I can retire a year early and have enough in my savings account to still be able to draw down a similar amount as though I was earning wages.

When I put together my recent findings about ultra processed foods, my desire to live cheaply and simply, my food cupboard challenge whereby I have been eating down the excessive stores that I had built up, and then thought about my previous limited times living on the rationing amounts available in the UK during WWII, when food was limited and expensive but mostly natural ... it was almost as those had been practice runs.

So I think I am going to go back on rations, and I'm not going to mess about.  

I will have Austerity August to get me in the right financial mindset and start my bank account feeling a bit healthier and then I will go straight back to basics, paying with cash, buying and eating simple foods in the WWII quantities that made us healthy as a nation ... and see what it can do for me.

I guess it's time to register my Ration Card then.

Sue xx

Ginger's Pouffe ... and a Final Link

I bought myself a pouffe to use as a footstool sometime last year.  I rarely put my feet up on it, there's usually a book open on it waiting to be picked up and dipped into.  But about a month ago Ginger discovered it.

 Now it's Ginger's Pouffe  😸

He obviously loves the warmth that the polystyrene beads hold onto and sleeps there for hours.  He moved over to the littlest dog bed for a while yesterday when the sun shone briefly through the glass on it, but the minute the sun went behind a big black cloud he was back on his pouffe.

HERE's the link to the Challenge blog and the final End of Challenge post.

I'm sorry there's a few of you having trouble accessing it, I have checked all the settings on both blogs and they are identical.  I can only assume that because the other blog was dormant for a couple of years some of the anti-virus thingies are seeing it's resurrection as a threat.  Sorry, but there's nothing I can do.

Sue xx

Wise Advice from a Farmer's Wife ... and a Link

 

Wise Advice from a Farmer's Wife.

Whenever you return a borrowed pie pan, make sure it's got a warm pie in it.

Invite lots of folks to supper. You can always add more water to the soup.

There's no such thing as woman's work on a farm. There's just work.

Make home a happy place for the children. Everybody returns to their happy place.

Always keep a small light on in the kitchen window at night.

If your man gets his truck stuck in the field, don't go in after him. Throw him a rope and pull him out with the tractor.

Keep the kerosene lamp away from the the milk cow's leg.

It's a whole lot easier to get breakfast from a chicken than a pig.

Always pat the chickens when you take their eggs.

It's easy to clean an empty house, but hard to live in one.

All children spill milk. Learn to smile and wipe it up.

Homemade is always better than store bought.

A tongue's like a knife. The sharper it is the deeper it cuts.

A good neighbour always knows when to visit and when to leave.

A city dog wants to run out the door, but a country dog stays on the porch 'cause he's not fenced-in.

Always light birthday candles from the middle outward.

Nothing' gets the frustrations out better than splitting' wood.

The longer dress hem, the more trusting the husband.

Enjoy doing your children's laundry. Some day they'll be gone.

You'll never catch a running' chicken but if you throw seed around the back door you'll have a skillet full by supper.

Biscuits brown better with a little butter brushed on them.

Check your shoelaces before running' to help somebody.

Visit old people who can't get out. Some day you'll be one.

The softer you talk, the closer folks will listen.

The colder the outhouse, the warmer the bed.

 These are not my words, they popped up this morning on my Facebook Memories.  You can tell a few of them are from experience can't you. 😄

 Oh, and none of my chickens ever ended up in the skillet!! 

HERE is the link to today's post on my Challenge blog ... Days Six and Seven. 

Sue xx

Dogs, Bones and Links

 

Sitting patiently waiting while Dad is inside the garden centre café ordering some coffees ... well you never know he might come out with a bone!!

If I think about it I will try and come on each day to leave a link to the day's Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge while it is on ... todays is HERE.  But if I forget and you don't have me on your sidebar, I have moved the link to my Challenging Myself blog higher up the right-hand sidebar, just below the Followers button and the spinning globe. 

 Hope that helps.

Sue xx

A New Challenge ... and the Birthday Month Offers

Over on my other blog there is the start of a brand new Challenge.  

Now, since that blog has lain dormant since April of 2021 that is going to surprise anyone who might still have it on their sidebar.  But hopefully it is a nice surprise. 😀

Anyway it is the first day and the introduction to The Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge.

HERE's a link to the first day.
 

I've had some exciting post this week, seemingly my birthday is going to be all about cake this year. 🎂 

First I got a card and a reminder from Booths that I can claim a free slice of cake if I show my card and buy a cup of coffee on my birthday, or for up to six days after ... nice.

Then I got a letter from Dobbies to say that I can have two free coffees and two slices of cake or two scones so I can celebrate my birthday with a friend ...  and I think we all know who I'll choose.  Say scones and Alan will be there like a shot.  😄

It will be a good way to round off a cut price Challenge and a very good way to celebrate my birthday.

Sue xx

Three Months Into the Non-Challenge Challenge

 

Well it's three months into my limited spending challenge and I thought that was a good time to do a few sums and see exactly how I'm doing?

If you remember back at the very beginning of January this year on THIS post, I set off to try and live for as long as I could on the money I had saved up from last year.  I had made the cash by selling my excess belongings on FB Marketplace and at the two table top sales we did.  It was to be used for anything that I needed or wanted.  

There were no real restrictions and the only thing I really wanted to do was to bring down the food stash.  I have quite successfully done this, well to a level where nothing jumps out at me when I open the food cupboard door now and I can easily slide out the freezer drawers without things being jammed in.

 My grand cash total was £ 592.20 ... was there any left?

Yesterday I went carefully through my diary and added all the purchases up, over the first three months of 2023 I have spent:

Food = £340.66

Haircuts - 3 x £23 = £69.00

Car MOT = £45.00

Non-Food Items = £78.20

A total of £532.86 in cash spent.

(And one £10 Booths Voucher)

Leaving me with £65.61 in cash, a new £10 Booths voucher, £21 in M&S vouchers and around £15 in Nectar points.  I think I will be using all my vouchers and points over the coming month in a bid to hang on to as much cash as I can.  Even though I have averaged £175.67 a month for the last three months, April should be a much cheaper month for me, the only family birthday is mine, so no cards or presents to buy.  My next hair appointment is not until May and obviously the car is now MOT'd.

So I have my fingers crossed that I can get at least one more month out of my little non-Challenge cash pot.  What I really need to do is to try harder not to shop, to eat more from the foods that I have already got in the cupboards. I am so easily tempted when Alan says those eight little words ... 'Do you want to come shopping with me?'

Confession time, I have to admit that £37.70 of the 'non-food item' spending was spent on books.  I clearly remember saying that I wouldn't buy any books this year ... oh well I guess most of you realised that that wouldn't happen even if I rather madly thought it would!!

Well the wine might be all gone ... but the books remain.  😄

Sue xx

Lockdown Anniversary, Paintings and Green Soup

 

Angela over on Tracing Rainbows mentioned on her post this morning about it being the anniversary of the first lockdown here in England.  So I thought I would look back at a few of my blog posts around that time and see what I was up to when the world ground to a halt, and we were all sent to our rooms armed with toilet rolls and bags of pasta.  

And as usual, I fell down a rabbit-hole of my own making and had a good read of quite a few old posts.  What I did come across was the original post that showed the picture that I fell in love with.  

I had found the image online, used it for that post and then sent it to my son and asked if he would paint it for me for my 60th birthday, of course never realising at that time that it would be over two years until it actually came into my possession.  Yes, thanks to Covid I never got a sixtieth celebration and my older son missed out on his fortieth, but then we all had far more serious things on our minds.

A couple of days after that blog post, on the 24th March, I had to quickly pack up what I could fit into my car and head back to Wales with Suky as the caravan park closed it's gates for the duration and it made more sense for me to be back on the old homestead and us all to be in the same country.

How things changed, and how much we have all come through in the years since then.

Thanks for all the interest in my £3.50 challenge week on Tuesday's post.  Don't worry I will be posting all about it as soon as I do it, I  just need a couple of days to eat up some of the fresh things that I have in the fridge at the moment.

Lots of green things got made into a pan of soup  yesterday.

And it gave me a cup full of soup for my lunch and three more tubs to go into the freezer.

That should be nice and healthy after a week of limited food groups, and we all know just how precious our health is these days don't we.

Sue xx

What Would YOU Eat on 50p a Day?

 

Yesterday on a Facebook group that I am in we were set a little challenge.  The wording was:  

So, in the true spirit of this group, assuming empty cupboards, and that means not even flavourings, what would you buy?

Must be full price items and no freebies.

I will start you off with Aldi savoury rice 28p and Aldi spaghetti hoops at 16p. total 44p.

You only have 50p. Not a penny over! Just food for one day for one person.

There were lots of interesting answers, and you know me I just had to have a go.

 I did it in the comment section on Facebook, explaining my plans and using Sainsbury's online shopping site to check prices, and then this morning ...

... I just had to go and see if it was actually possible.

My breakfast.

The makings of my dinner and tea.

I washed and peeled the vegetables putting all the peelings, the carrot top and tail and the inner onion skins into a pan which I then covered with water and left to simmer away for twenty minutes.

Once strained, this 'stock' was poured over the now chopped vegetables and brought back to the boil before being allowed to simmer until the potatoes were nice and soft.

I removed enough of the vegetables and stock to make a nice dish of vegetable stew and then whizzed the rest up to make a mug full of soup for my lunch.

Considering this has no salt, pepper or any other flavourings added to it, it made a very tasty soup and I was pleasantly surprised.  There was a smidge too much soup to fit into my cup so that was added to the bowl of stew.

It was a good job that it was nice and quiet in Sainsbury's while I went back and forth until I found the vegetables that exactly matched my spending money.  I started with the potato as I knew that would be the most filling part of the meals and sadly this meant that the carrot was left with only 3p available for it.  But as you can see it all worked out just fine.

Yes I was hungry, an hour after breakfast, and two hours after my dinner, but it shows that when push comes to shove if you only have 50p in your pocket you can find something to eat.

What would YOU buy with 50p to feed yourself for a day with?

Sue xx

Blogmas Day Sixteen - Searching for Doors, Old Nightlights and Greying Dogs

 

Today's little Advent calendar goodies,  jam and a pack of Rocket seeds. It took me ages to find the little door on the Bonne Maman Advent calendar ... I mean, how hard can it be, there's only 24 of the little blighters!!   

In the recycled calendar from last year instead of decorations there were two of the jumbo nightlights that I bought as part of a £10 splurge on my Challenge blog back in February 2019 during my 'Shopping Hauls' Challenge.  These berry scented nightlights seem to have lasted well.

See the post HERE if you're interested.  

We were at Mum's yesterday, instead of taking sandwiches for lunch for the three of us, we took some soup and crusty rolls.  We also took two very clean and spruced up doggies as we had just picked them up from the groomers before we set off for Manchester.  

They were exhausted by the time we got home at teatime last night.  A bath and trim at 8am, a trip to Grannies for the day and then home, they totally zonked out once we sat down to have our tea and that was them fast asleep for the night.  Now she's clean again Mavis looks even greyer on her ears, they are truly two little old ladies ... but clean ones and all ready for Christmas.

Sue xx

A Single Sausage ... and YouTube

 

I've been gradually eating my way through the contents of the fridge and freezer over the last week. 

 I Olio'd a few things that I knew I just didn't fancy eating anymore as I am trying to moving to a more 'real food/plant-based' diet but some of the things that don't really fall into that category I will still be eating from time to time, and Linda McCartney sausages are something I will always have a taste for. 

When I found an opened pack of the Rosemary and Onion ones in the freezer with three left in it I thought I might as well just cook them all, even though I knew that two sausages on a bun are plenty enough for me for a simple lunch.

So two of the sausages onto the bun and one into a container to cool down.

And while I was chomping my way through lunch I made myself a little list of what I could do with my one remaining sausage. 

 'Banger and Mash' sounds quite lonely doesn't it!! 😄

This morning while I drank my first coffee of the day I watched and listened to former blogging buddy of mine and now YouTuber Jane (AKA Frugal Queen) on her YouTube channel.  

This latest video was really interesting and as she listed all the 'Old Fashioned Frugal Living Tips' I mentally crossed them all off my list saying 'yep, I do that' over and over.  But this sort of thing is really needed at the moment for all the people who are suddenly realising that if they don't start saving money soon the sh*t really will hit the fan.

She has a really good channel, with her viewer and subscriber numbers rising rapidly as people are discovering it, and if you haven't been over there for a watch of her tips and tricks, meals of the week and cooking demonstrations you really should give it a try.

Anyway ... what would YOU do with one sausage?

Sue xx

Summing Up the Rest of That £1 Challenge ... What WAS the Final Total Then and Now?

Of course over the 28 days of the Eating for £1 a Day Challenge back in 2018, I did go shopping again after the first 'big shop' of the month, in fact I shopped three more times.   So yesterday I just couldn't help myself ... I went back and read through the rest of the Challenge posts, noting down as I did so what else I bought and how much they cost me in November 2018.

I think it made a difference doing the Challenge halfway between October and November, and when I compared the prices that are in the shops now with then, a couple of things were cheaper now than they were back then, but then I realised all of the cheaper things were in fact the salady type things which of course are in season here in the UK at the moment.  Everything non-seasonal was more expensive.

By the end of the Challenge I had spent £27.24 of my £28 and had 76p in cash left over.  

If I was to buy the same foods from the same shops this week, I would need to spend an additional £5.48.

A couple of people wanted me to have a go at doing the Challenge again, and it really is tempting. 

 So what I did was to have a closer look at the final post when I summed up what I had left over and my thoughts after the month of eating for £1 a day.  There were foods I hadn't touched ... the beetroot for example, and foods that I had barely used such as the rice, the celery and the mayonnaise, so obviously I could do without those.  

So if I were to do it again for just £1 a day I think I would have to menu plan extremely carefully and make full use of everything that I bought to even stand a chance of being able to keep to the budget.

But I think if I were to do it again I wouldn't try to replicate what I did back then, or even try and copy from the Ration Challenge week that I did recently, which was definintely a very cheap way of eating.  I would want it to be different ... I just don't know how to do it differently, so I will have to have a think about it.

Sue xx