Truly, Madly, Frugal Day One.

Both from the store cupboard and bought at very low costs from Approved Food. The cous cous was 99p for 3 boxes and each box contains 3 sachets. Each are enough for two very greedy people. Each portion was 5.5p. The cooking sauce was 99p for 3 jars and I used half a jar with supper, which equates to 8.25p per portion.

 Hello again everyone and thanks for dropping by. Firstly, I have to take my hat off to all of you. When I asked for help and support, you signed up as followers in your droves. You commented and left such kind messages and I am truly grateful. Now readers, the next target is get 50 people a day to comment as I'm such a nosey soul and I love to hear the thoughts of people who read. As ever, if you're dropping by and you haven't become a follower yet, then it would be lovely if you could do so. This is going to be a loooooooong month and I'm going to need those hooters and placards on the side lines.

In answer to some queries, we do eat salad because it's often as cheap as the vegetables in season. Although,we add grated carrot, tinned sweetcorn and small chunks of cauliflower to salad at this time of year. We often add tinned beans such as canellini or even chick peas to bulk out salad. I sometimes make brown rice salad, which is simply rice cooked with the cheapest frozen mixed value veg and allowed to cool, I will then add some home made salad dressing, mixed with mint sauce or a squirt of lemon juice and I call that salad. Lidl will often sell two baby gem lettuce for 59p and they will keep for well over a week; punnets of cherry tomatoes are often on offer and their un-wrapped cucumbers are also 59p, and we again, seem to make them last a week, 'unopened'. I make homemade potato salad, which is simply peeled and diced potato, cooked and then cooled very rapidly so it still has a crunch, I then add finely diced onion and a good squirt of mayonnaise (6 bottles of low fat mayonnaise for 99p and at 16.5p a bottle, you can be generous) and then gently mix it together.


Well here goes the Extreme Frugal Challenge.This is it! Day #1 which is the easy part. I'll start to show the strain at the end of the first week and then things will start getting harder. There is a lot of food in the house and I know I can go a good few days without buying any more but the basic fresh ingredients and even then, I shall hold off for as long as possible. I'm going to do everything I can to use up store cupboard ingredients, which means home cooking, baking and batch cooking. By the end of the month, I want to see an empty pantry, which means I will have supplemented all my cooking with what I already have. As promised, I didn't spend any money today; there's no heating on (just jumpers), the empty rooms are unlit as are the corridors and my entertainment tonight is some knitting.

Tomorrow, to answer another query, I'm going to do something savoury with oats, left over veg and some more store cupboard ingredients. If you have any requests, let me know and I'll do what I can to accommodate 'what the ferret do I do with this?' over the next 29 days. There will be plenty of beans on toast and egg and chip days, there have to be for everyone now and some brighter days with a bit more variety. What ever I do to save money for that holiday this month, I'll share with all of you.

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xxxxx

The chicken was a Lidl bulk buy, when 4 chicken breasts were £1.99 - so 50p a portion for the chicken. The fresh veggies were expensive at 59p a bag, but that's still considerably less than the major super markets. Some of the cooked veg has been set aside for tomorrow's cook off. Supper tonight was £1.08 per portion, but it was posh nosh for a Friday.