The Frugality Thread

[Reynard]

The size issue does seem a waste but there is a cost implication by having odd sizes, particularly with mass / volume production / packing. Volume and speed drive down cost, the only way to have speed with machinery, counting or weighing, is uniformity.
And yes, I've always found 'wonky' products more expensive. Bogger the supermarkets, profiteering on the publics attempts to do the right thing...but then, the above goes some way to explain WHY its more expensive.

Well, you're the expert here, but yeah, I totally get that. Time is money, isn't it?

I look at the price per kilo when I buy, and go for the cheapest.

 

[BoldonLad]

Well, you're the expert here, but yeah, I totally get that. Time is money, isn't it?

I look at the price per kilo when I buy, and go for the cheapest.

Same here

 

[gbb]

So last nights tea for two
2 packs of beansprouts, yellow stickered at .28p each
3 breadcrumbed chicken stakes @.66 each (from a multipack, 6 for £4)
Portion of mushrooms, maybe 50p worth
1/2 onion...maybe 20p ?

Chicken steaks, sprinkled with cajun powder dressing, a beansprout stir fry cooked in a splash of olive oil, very tasty and simple, total cost, roughly £1.60 each.
AND, just eating the leftovers for this mornings breakfast at work

 

[Arrowfoot]

So last nights tea for two
2 packs of beansprouts, yellow stickered at .28p each
3 breadcrumbed chicken stakes @.66 each (from a multipack, 6 for £4)
Portion of mushrooms, maybe 50p worth
1/2 onion...maybe 20p ?

Chicken steaks, sprinkled with cajun powder dressing, a beansprout stir fry cooked in a splash of olive oil, very tasty and simple, total cost, roughly £1.60 each.
AND, just eating the leftovers for this mornings breakfast at work

Beansprouts must be one of the most underrated veg. Learnt its value in Asia.

 

[Reynard]

I love beansprouts, but unless you buy frozen, they're the sort of thing that you have to use up within a day or two of purchase. So I don't buy them terribly often.

Otherwise, I've just fried a 500g pack of organic beef mince bought on YS the other day for £1.14 - will use half to make a cottage pie tomorrow along with onion, carrot, celery and green lentils, and the other half will get used to make a chilli after the weekend, with black beans, extra veg and a sauce from home grown tomatoes.

 

[wafter]

Cheers all - evidently a popular subject and thanks for all your contributions. Seems I have a fair way to go before I can claim frugality on a par with some of the good folk of CC!

A few posts have jobbed my memory as to a few more areas where the purse strings are strangled:

Shaving: As others have said, screw the nasty disposible razors (yet another area where dirty consumerism has duped the masses into buying products that are bad for everyone other than those making money off their sale ). I only need to tidy up round the edges of the beard and for this use a straight razor - a fair outlay to start with but now I have the necessaries (razor, strop, stone) the only future outlay will be shaving soap and everything else should out-last me if I look after it

Hair: While I can appreciate the frugality of a shaved head I'm not overly keen, having spent several years apathetically cultivating a shoulder-ish length barnet. While this doubtless costs more in shampoo, once past a certain length it doesn't really need cutting any more and can be tidied sufficiently into a bun when necessary.. which probably also does a good job of further repelling the ladies and thus saving me even more money

Clothes recycling: I see a familiar process on here - depending on style my stuff gets used for "best", then "casual", then "tatty / dirty" before finally being consigned to the rag bin when no longer serviceable.


I really think I've dropped the ball on food compared to many on here; I'd love to make more stuff from scratch for all the usual reasons, but often end up buying stuff in packets on cost / convenience grounds. In future I'd love to be one of those people who can make a chicken last forever by starting with the best cuts and ending up boiling the carcass.. my old dear's of the generation where this was very much a necessary skill and this is something I really respect about her tbh.

 

[winjim]

If you want to know how to properly cut up a chicken, this is where I learned. It's really easy, the video at the bottom will guide you through it.

https://growitcatchitcookit.com/2017/10/25/chicken-crown/

 

[Reynard]

In future I'd love to be one of those people who can make a chicken last forever by starting with the best cuts and ending up boiling the carcass.. my old dear's of the generation where this was very much a necessary skill and this is something I really respect about her tbh.

You'd be surprised the mileage you can get out of a chicken if you simply roast one, and then use it to do other things, rather than simply using it as a roast and piling your plate high. Especially with the pickings off the carcass. All those little "bits" end up in things like pasta sauces or fried rice or whatever, and then what's left gets turned into stock for soup.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

You'd be surprised the mileage you can get out of a chicken if you simply roast one, and then use it to do other things, rather than simply using it as a roast and piling your plate high. Especially with the pickings off the carcass. All those little "bits" end up in things like pasta sauces or fried rice or whatever, and then what's left gets turned into stock for soup.

We feed the foxes with our chicken carcasses - hopefully saves the odd one or two in the village house that has a run full of cluckers.

 

[Petrichorwheels]

Northumbrian Water. But, I would have thought such arrangements were pretty standard, in England if not Scotland, Wales.

nowt is ever even remotely free, even as a fond illusion, with Thames Water.
(except free running water - leaks - down the road.

 

[Petrichorwheels]

No never nearest i have got is a NOS Lee Cooper frame
Only new complete bike was a Viscount i was bought as a teenager many moons ago

well done biggs - have had three new, two now broken down, rest are second hand or built up from old frames. Almost certainly won't buy another new - no need.

edit - as penance for my sin of buying new, should maybe add that my first real bike new came when I was well heading for 40 - as a kid all as I recall secondhand apart from a very dodgy thing with solid tyres.

 

[fossyant]

My daughter is just getting into 'Vinted' for selling her old clothes. Generally lists quite cheap, and the buyer pays for the postage slip, seller prints and pops it into an Evri collection point.

Be pointless me selling old clothes, they are usually worn to distruction, or covered in oil/chain ring marks. Old T-shirts become chain rags.

 

[Petrichorwheels]

I'm sure the graphic is true in relation to post-farm waste but it does not take into account the wastage created by supermarket quality requirements. Any fresh produce seen on sale in a supermarket will have been through a stringent grading process to ensure only "perfect" produce reaches the shelves. This creates significant amounts of waste prior to produce leaving the farmgate.

This is waste driven by consumer demand for what is perceived as quality. Every tomato, lettuce, cucumber etc must be the same shape, size, colour etc. This is a fiction dreamt up by supermarkets to minimise their waste and pass it back to the producer. It's a quality standard the supermarkets have sold to the consumer who now demands this thus completing the circle and creating more waste.

things are getting better though (used to be bloody awful in the supposedly wondrous 80s when supermarkets sold simple veg for outrageous prices - luckily mine was near a good street stall) - Sainsburys now sell runt-like onions and odd-sized carrots - latter maybe cheaper than the german discounters.

 

[fossyant]

I recon 'wonky' carrots etc are better than the 'regular' sized ones - far more useful, I'll chop that big one for tea ! What did producers do with wonky veg - just animal feed ? Anyone who grows their own will know all veg is a bit wonky.

 

[Petrichorwheels]

Have you considered the impact multiple doorstep deliveries have on our environment as a whole? While your choice may reduce your personal plastic footprint its possible these home deliveries are having a far greater overall environmental impact.

yep - this has long struck me as bonkers - yet another sign to me of how we have been returning to victoriana/edwardiana for many a year.
My veg comes from the local sainsburys (walk) or lidl/aldi - bike.**
I can live without designer veg.
A local spoons of mine had what struck me as a better system for a while - various direct supply veg folk would deliver to a cabinet in the pub garden and folks then picked their orders up from there.
No longer though - carrot rustlers maybe - but the type of system worth developing maybe
Personally I think the government or councils (funded by government) should pump seed money into developing street markets.
(though this lot won't for sure)
Most now lost, even in supposedly market towns, or gone upmarket to the point where they are useless.
Street fruit and veg markets are good in so many many ways.
** edit - and a wonderful london street market (only forgot i think as I was focussed on shops) - some real bargains at the end of the day, particularly saturday - much of which goes in the freezer. If folks think I'm an alco, the occasional red flush is I swear from the all the small tomatoes I freeze and use for a variety of wonky sauces). Cycle to market.