• A new raised garden bed

    Published On: April 7, 2024Categories: Growing Food, Saving Money

    Mr S built me a raised bed that is quite tall to save me bending when I am gardening.  I could not afford to fill it with compost and so decided to fill it using [...]

  • Wild Garlic Salt

    Published On: April 2, 2024Categories: Foraging For Food, Preserves

    Adding flavour to simple food is important.  We grow a wide selection of herbs and buy spices in bulk.  To help flavour our food over this coming year I decided to make some wild garlic [...]

  • Wild Garlic Hummus

    Published On: April 2, 2024Categories: Foraging For Food, Recipes, Snacks

    This year I am trying to add more variety to the food that we make with wild garlic.  In the past I have just concentrated on pesto or adding fresh leaves to stews or salads.  [...]

  • Airfryer cheese and wild garlic scones with a kick.

    Published On: March 31, 2024Categories: Baking, Foraging For Food, Recipes, Snacks

    There was an abundance of wild garlic this year and we preserve it to flavour our food all year, as well as using it for cooking in spring. Today I fancied making some cheese and [...]

  • Thinking about food security.

    Published On: March 28, 2024Categories: Living Simply, Saving money on food

    I think about food security a lot at the moment with everything that seems to be happening in the world. My time line, the media. and my YouTube seem to be filled with scary stories [...]

  • Sour dough bread

    Published On: March 28, 2024Categories: Baking, Recipes

    Now that we have a starter we have started making sour dough regularly.  This is the recipe that we use to make sour dough bread.  It was the one we were given by a company [...]

  • Sour dough crumpets

    Published On: March 28, 2024Categories: Breakfasts, Recipes

    We recently attended a sour dough course and we were given a sour a dough starter which I have been trying to keep alive.  I have wanted to make sour dough bread for a long [...]

  • Why won’t my seeds germinate?

    Published On: March 17, 2024Categories: Growing Food

    It is that time of year here in the UK and the sowing of seeds has begun in anticipation of a garden full of food during the summer.  There is nothing better than the feelings [...]

  • Is it worth growing food?

    Published On: March 6, 2024Categories: Growing Food

    I often get asked if it is worth growing my own food.  It does take quite a lot of time and effort, but it allows me to live on a small food budget and eat [...]

  • Profiteroles for Mother’s Day

    Published On: March 4, 2024Categories: Baking, Desserts, Recipes

    It is Mother's Day at the weekend here in the UK. A nice idea for a present is to make an afternoon tea.  We used to make afternoon teas to earn extra money and one [...]

  • Changing your mindset can change your life

    Published On: March 4, 2024Categories: Wellbeing

    I did a lot of thinking yesterday about how our words, mindset, and the way we think about things has such an impact on our happiness and outcomes.   Changing our mindset can change our life. [...]

  • Slow cooker sausage casserole.

    Published On: March 4, 2024Categories: Mains, Recipes

    I use casseroles and soups to use up bits of wizened vegetables and odd bits of cooked meat.  It is also a way of using small quantities of uncooked meat that would not be enough [...]

  • Batch cooking

    Published On: February 24, 2024Categories: Saving money on food

    Batch cooking is great for saving  time, saving waste, and saving money.  It gives me the ability to have a nutritious meal on a day when I don't feel like cooking. I also don't want [...]

  • Rustic hash browns

    Published On: February 21, 2024Categories: Breakfasts, Recipes

    The potatoes that I bought for 15p a bag at Christmas are starting to sprout now and so I am finding different ways to use them up without wasting them.  We like to eat a [...]

  • Pickled red cabbage

    Published On: February 21, 2024Categories: Preserves, Recipes

    We had one of the Christmas red cabbages left which are reduced to 15p in supermarkets over the festive week.  The outside was starting to change colour and so I decided to make some pickled [...]

  • Making breakfast sausages

    Published On: February 3, 2024Categories: Breakfasts, Mains, Recipes

    Any one who has been following my website for a while will know that we try to make as many things from scratch as we can.  This is for 3 main reasons.  We need to [...]

  • Things I no longer buy from the supermarket

    Published On: February 1, 2024Categories: Saving Money, Saving money on food

    Over the last few years I have become more and more aware of the chemicals and rubbish that is in the food that we buy from the supermarket.  I used to think that I was [...]

  • Date crunch

    Published On: February 1, 2024Categories: Baking, Desserts, Recipes

    DATE CRUNCH We needed something sweet but I didn't want to put the oven on and bake.  I decided to make date crunch as we have supermarket own brand rice crispies that need eating up [...]

  • Onion bhaji

    Published On: February 1, 2024Categories: Light Meals, Recipes

    We made a little Indian buffet yesterday for our meal.  We used some left over curry, chicken tikka, and chapati, and made some onion bhaji to pad it it out.  We actually did not have [...]

  • Air fryer Chicken Tikka

    Published On: January 31, 2024Categories: Mains, Recipes

    We  are trying to tempt my brother to eat.  He fancied chicken tikka but there are lots of foods that he can not eat anymore due to his illness.  We therefore could not make it [...]

  • A bag of flour can fill your bellies

    Published On: January 29, 2024Categories: Saving Money, Saving money on food

    People are always asking me what are my priority ingredients when building a prepper pantry. If I could only have 5 ingredients to feed myself, for me, one of them would be a bag of [...]

  • How I organise my cupboards, fridge and freezer to save on waste.

    Published On: January 7, 2024Categories: Saving Money, Saving money on food

    One of the things that has had the biggest impact on our food budget has been reducing food waste. I will do a separate post on the ways that I use items that I used [...]

  • Living on a low food budget

    Published On: January 2, 2024Categories: Saving Money, Saving money on food

    People often ask how I feed the two of us on such a low food budget.  I don't have a weekly or a monthly food budget, but have an amount I am able to spend [...]

  • Decluttering emotions for the new year

    Published On: December 31, 2023Categories: Wellbeing

    This time of year is always a time for reflection for me.  We always think that this is the time of year to make changes to improve our lives, but really these can start at [...]

  • Is your clutter connected to how you are feeling inside?

    Published On: December 27, 2023Categories: Living Simply, Wellbeing

    Life has been a bit stressful recently and I have been ill. Over the last couple of months my bedroom has become a tip and a dumping ground.  It is like a teenager's bedroom.  Today [...]

  • Alone at Christmas?

    Published On: December 25, 2023Categories: Frugal Festivities, Wellbeing

    People can be alone at Christmas for all sorts of reasons.  Family may have died or moved away, a partner may be working, people may have fallen out, or be separated from family etc. For [...]

  • How to store 15p Christmas vegetables so that they last a few months

    Published On: December 22, 2023Categories: Saving money on food

    In the UK all the supermarkets compete with each other and a way they tempt people into the shop is to sell cheap Christmas vegetables.  Most things are 15p each.  I take advantage of this [...]

  • Christmas left overs meal plan

    Published On: December 22, 2023Categories: Saving Money, Saving money on food

    We had our family Christmas last weekend with my side of the family, and have another one on Christmas Day with the family of Mr S.  This week we have therefore been living on the [...]

  • Chocolate Yule Log

    Published On: December 21, 2023Categories: Baking, Frugal Festivities, Recipes

    Tonight is the Winter Solstice which is a pagan celebration called Yule.  This is an ancient celebration of the shortest day, midwinter, and the return of lighter days and the sun. A yule log was [...]

  • Slightly healthy, sweet Christmas buffet dessert idea

    Published On: December 18, 2023Categories: Desserts, Frugal Festivities, Recipes

    I always try to make sure that there is some fruit and salad on the Christmas buffet table to we have some slightly healthy food.  This year I managed to get some cheap strawberries (25p [...]

  • Easy, frugal Boxing Day meal

    Published On: December 18, 2023Categories: Frugal Festivities, Mains, Recipes

    We have had our Christmas this weekend as it was the only time that we could all get together.  There are new grandparents in law to consider now, and some members of the family work [...]

  • Affording salmon on a low income

    Published On: December 10, 2023Categories: Saving Money, Saving money on food

    I love salmon, or any kind of fish, but the price of it means that I can not eat much of it out of my £750 a year food budget.  However, Mr S and I [...]

  • Does your food have a story?

    Published On: December 9, 2023Categories: Living Simply

    The thing that I like about growing my own food, preserving, and foraging, is that a lot of the food that we eat has a story.  Thankfully I am not just using random things that [...]

  • Getting ready to build my food store for next year.

    Published On: December 4, 2023Categories: Saving Money, Saving money on food

    People who have followed me for a while, know that I have a stock of food that really helps me to keep ahead of inflation, but is also there for the months that we have [...]

  • Quick, cheap sponge pudding

    Published On: December 2, 2023Categories: Desserts, Recipes

    It has been cold this last week and I have been ill.  As I started eating again I fancied a sponge pudding.  I am living out of my cupboards and so am protective of ingredients [...]

  • Christmas Sausage Roll Wreath.

    Published On: December 1, 2023Categories: Frugal Festivities, Recipes

    Sausage rolls have been a staple of Christmas buffets for decades. I am always banging on about how 'normal', every day food can be made special with just a bit of creativity and this Christmas [...]