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Cost of living crisis stuff?


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9 minutes ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

 

Buy a big one. Batch cook for the freezer. Save money and time for the modelmaking.

We do use a large one. Veggie stews are a 2 day event. 10 times better on day 2 when it has marinated over night. Think I might get a small one to experiment with. 

A lot less of a faff than a pressure cooker which was  all the rage when we were kids. And less frightening for the inexperienced.

 

Dick

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On the pressure cooker theme, we've got an Instant Pot - does all sorts of things and means we hardly use the gas oven now. 

 

Much more economical. Wish I'd got one years ago.  

 

 

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25 minutes ago, jenko said:

And less frightening for the inexperienced.

 

I remember my technologically challenged mother creating a pea volcano which erupted from the pressure regulator opening. (She hadn't put the weights in place.) You should have seen what mayhem she could cause with a liquidiser (blender)! Happy days. 😁

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25 minutes ago, Thatsmyboy said:

One thing I don't really need to worry about is travel costs . As I'm now over 60, I'm entitled to free bus travel anywhere in Scotland. 

All in all, I manage. 😊

 

Something that really gets to me is what is available to "pensoners" in our 4 countries. For example, in England I had to wait till I was 66 to get my free bus pass. 

 

Dick

Not being political. Just factual.

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21 hours ago, jenko said:

Buy an electric slow cooker. Not for now but for when it gets  colder. Brilliant  for cheap cuts of meat. Great for stews .. meat and veggie ones. The ultimate one pot cook.  Prep and get it ready before going to work. By tea time all the work is done . The smell when you walk through the door is lovely. Cost to run... a fraction of what your oven costs.

 

Dick

 

Ps plenty of recipes  on line

 

Very good advice, especially for people out all day.

 

My Mrs has had one for a long while and I love the smell of stew cooking. 😋

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I  do have a slow cooker I will need to take out of its sort of shelf of doom LOL, not used it in years, but it was a good thing and someone mentioned the idea of freezing parts of its making too, will look into this.

As regards savings on our own particular hobby, another good mention in this thread was perhaps cut back on the extra's we buy, we are maybe nearly all guilty of this and did it as a habit ... at least I did, but not any-more, Tamiya kits especially do not need much A/M, especially if canopy closed, but never say never, there will be exceptions on kits we will all individually want to go to town on :)

My ongoing stash thinning will continue too ... its quite bloated.

Any more tips are welcome, lets hope we can all ride the storm, because as much as I hate to say it, the worse is still to come this winter when energy prices will be up again.

Take care all.

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An interesting and useful thread.

 

I'm currently wondering why I have a freezer. I've had one in every house I've been in. That's an electrical appliance running full time for years on end!

We use my local market for most shopping every Thursday and by the following Thursday we are pretty much ready for another shop. Why do I need to keep a big box of frozen food topped up all the time?

Frozen fish tastes nothing like fresh. Meat is the same after a week or two in the freezer. 

I'm running the freezer right down at the moment and will switch the thing off once empty. Then we will be having a go at doing without. I suspect that after a very short period of readjustment we will find we never really needed it in the first place. The Microwave went years ago and has not been missed once.

 

Another thing we have started to do is to leave packaging at the store when we leave. Not strictly a money saver, but it seems right that we don't cart the stuff home, put it in our bin and throw it away from here.

All the boxes and wrapping get removed and the goods themselves put into containers we have brought with us. Once the shops start having to deal with the waste themselves, they will start reducing it. The pile we leave at Lidl or Aldi is alarming sometimes. I've not figured out how to deal with milk containers yet but somethings got to be done. Fifty odd plastic containers per year for milk,  thrown away by just us two, is so wrong.

 

I've been blinkered by the way we live for years now. Recent events have forced me to take look at my own behaviour and make changes. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

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13 hours ago, TonyW said:

I've not figured out how to deal with milk containers yet but somethings got to be done. Fifty odd plastic containers per year for milk,  thrown away by just us two, is so wrong.

 

 

Do you have a local milk man? if you use milk on a regular basis its worth considering. No waste but you do pay a bit more.

 

No good for me as working shifts my consiuption is up and down. I know @bentwaters81tfw still has a milky and it works for him

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15 minutes ago, Julien said:

Do you have a local milk man? if you use milk on a regular basis its worth considering. No waste but you do pay a bit more.

 

No good for me as working shifts my consiuption is up and down. I know @bentwaters81tfw still has a milky and it works for him

 

I'm not sure. I live in the middle of nowhere so anything coming here pays a price. Milk on its own may well be prohibitive, if it is available.

During the lockdown thing we got food delivered and that was probably cheaper than us going out to get it. It almost certainly is at present now that fuel is double daft. The amount of packaging waste was enormous though.

Once you become aware of the problem, you start to move towards doing something about it. That's where I'm at now.

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10 minutes ago, TonyW said:

 

I'm not sure. I live in the middle of nowhere so anything coming here pays a price. Milk on its own may well be prohibitive, if it is available.

During the lockdown thing we got food delivered and that was probably cheaper than us going out to get it. It almost certainly is at present now that fuel is double daft. The amount of packaging waste was enormous though.

Once you become aware of the problem, you start to move towards doing something about it. That's where I'm at now.

Packaging os a major issue. I know our Morrisons allows you to bring your own containers in for fresh meat and fish which is a good idea. CO-OP now will recycle soft plastic which is a good idea.  Some supermarket ideas are not good though. Morrisons went from plastic bottles for milk to tetrapak type cartons to cut on plastic waste. Problem is you can recycle the plastic in the bi weekly collection. Tetrapak can only be recycled if you take it to the local council site so I would assume 90%+ gets thrown in the general waste. 

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2 hours ago, Julien said:

Tetrapak can only be recycled if you take it to the local council site so I would assume 90%+ gets thrown in the general waste. 

In Milton Keynes, we can put all tetra-pak cartons in the general recycling, along with empty aerosols, food packaging and quite a few other things that a lot of other councils don't seem to recycle as standard,  which (currently...) gets collected every week. On that basis, MK has one of the best recycling schemes in the country... Or would be, except we regularly see the waste operatives (as we are supposed to call them nowadays) chucking the recycling bags into the back of the bin wagon, on the same side as the general waste!

 

(our bin wagons have multiple compartments - two at the rear and one at the side. one is supposedly for recycling, the other is for general waste. The side is for glass. ON a few occasions, I have challenged them about them chucking our recycling in with the waste, and they have become aggressive and told me to mind my own business as I don't know what I'm talking about, and that they (in 1 second or so) can tell if a bag has been "contaminated" and cannot be recycled!!!)

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2 hours ago, Julien said:

Do you have a local milk man? if you use milk on a regular basis its worth considering. No waste but you do pay a bit more.

 

No good for me as working shifts my consiuption is up and down. I know @bentwaters81tfw still has a milky and it works for him

Sadly, due to a medical condition, that is one thing I cannot do! I am Lactose intolerant, and so cannot drink normal milk! I have to have lactose free milk, which is really quite expensive in comparison. Arla introduced it, and theirs is £1.65 per 1 litre carton, Sainsburys, Asda & Tesco (do not know about other supermarket chains) also do their own versions, at around £1.25 per 1Ltr carton. In comparison, Tesco Whole milk 2Ltr bottle is £1.70 which works out to £0.85 per ltr. I am using 3 or 4 cartons per week! Other than swapping to a plant based alternative (again unable to due to medical issues) there is nothing I personally can do to reduce expenditure in this area!

 

We have recently switched to an Electric Vehicle! No VED (car tax), car insurance has greatly reduced also, no more buying fuel (we had two cars - have also sold one as 2nd car no longer needed), so fuel bill gone from over £100 pm to £0 (apart from the odd bit of holiday charging). Ah, but what about the cost of using your electric at home for charging I hear you ask.... Well, just under 7 years ago, we had Solar panels fitted, and so we can have an EV charger fitted that will utilise the PV panels, and re-direct any excess power being generated from the panels, into charging the car, essentially free energy. Yes, there will be days when we will have low surplus energy, and yes, that will cost us a little extra, but no where near what we were paying in petrol & Diesel costs. In total we reckon that we will be saving in excess of £1500 a year (possibly even more) in doing the switch, and that will be just in fuel costs and insurance. 

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Was rather surprised to see a Shell filling station charging 3p per litre less than my local Asda when i was on my way to attend my local model club last night. Especially as this particular Shell garage tends to charge 2 to 3p more than another Shell i used to fill up at! Suffice to say on my way back i filled up. Granted, it only saved me about £1.20 or so on the fill but every little helps! 

 

Regards,

 

Steve

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14 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Sounds like you have been to Tesco's.

 

John.

I actually thought that after i submitted the post! Being a 'careful' Yorkshireman i like to make a saving! 😀

 

Regards,

 

Steve

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Now as a family we can hardly be described as struggling but suddenly we're feeling the pinch. It's surprising how quickly and how basics went up. 2 litres of milk went up by a third. 

Like others I definitely recommend a slow cooker but also an air fryer. Apart from the  health aspects. It's quicker than an ordinary oven and uses less energy.

 

 

 

 

 

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