Random Thoughts On New Years Morning (Rant Again)

 I just started watching a tv show called wartime farm and it has got me thinking. It is suggested that before World War II 70% of Britain's food was imported, and as of right now it is said that around 46% of Britain's food is still imported current,  however other sources say that that is not accurate and Britain imports 80% of it's food stuffs including items that are put into British made anything i.e tea, ready meals, boxed items etc. 

Now currently we have government officials saying we have a housing crisis and we need more homes, however what they say is only half the truth! If they were truthful to the people of the country they would say we have an affordable housing crisis and we plan on making homes affordable  starting with what is already available now. But they don't, they keep building costly and increasingly smaller homes (I swear I have seen tiny homes with better layout and space!) on land that could have been used to grow or raise food. 

In my own neck of the woods we have loads of warehouse and industrial units not to mention the hundreds of thousands of new home they are building (some of these are on green belt or land originally used for farming) and I honestly don't think we have the infrastructure i.e schools etc for them, we also do not really have enough jobs available for people and god forbid you have never worked or have been out of the work force your chance at a job is very slim. I have been recently informed that starting around Sept some farm land that is not too far from where I live is going to be flattened and turned into an industrial unit. The company behind this submitted plans that were rejected 2 or 3 times from our local council but the company went above the local council and was approved to build a massive industrial unit on quite literal farm land. They also used some of the surrounding farm land to set up a solar farm and right across the way from that was another working farm that was also flattened to make way for an industrial unit.

What I am trying to say is if our import of food is the same or greater then the time of/before WWII and we are increasingly having usable farm land/ any land at this point that you could have grown food on being snapped up and turned into warehouse/industrial units over priced homes no one can afford. WE ARE SCREWED. I am sure I have thought of this in previous blog posts but it just keeps getting worse as time goes on and it really is something that needs to be thought about as unpleasant as the thought is.

I do not think the UK could stand long if similar tactics that were employed by nazi Germany were applied now, not to mention we don't have the largest military (from what I can find puts the UK total at around 275,000 - 276,000). Even with allies it would be hard especially with everything digital now!

Maybe I am just being paranoid but then again does anyone in government not think of possibilities like this? Hopefully my next blog post will be more happy/upbeat! Until then thank you for reading I hope you have a wonderful new year!

So my question is how the hell would Britain fare if a similar situation to World War II happened right now? How long would it be before Britain would raise the white flag of surrender? How many people will die of hunger or disease?

The Days After Christmas & Looking To The Future

 Well I believe Christmas went well for everyone. I made 2 types of chocolate chip cookies (milk & white) for everyone and I did make a beef roast to take with us to my husbands parents and I believe everyone liked it (I hope they did if they did not I would prefer to be told then lied to). However my chocolate yule log cake did not come out well in fact half of it came out half of it decided to stick inside the pan even tho I did use cake release stuff and quite a bit of it to boot. Our daughter said she had a great Christmas and she got what she wanted for Christmas so that is good! Our son thankfully does not understand Christmas and so was not bothered by what he got, well all right that is not 100% true! He saw cadbury chocolate buttons and well that is all he wanted for the rest of the night, he even took his sisters which she was fine with as I promised to get her a new bag of chocolate buttons. As for my husband and me we received some lovely gifts and we of course like like, however we both wished that we would not have gotten anything from anyone as it quite honestly makes us both feel like we have not given the same monetarily back if you will.

As for the future I am hopeful, I currently have all I need in order to make three meals a day from scratch at home. However I will hold up my hands and admit we did get pizza one day mostly as I was worried about using the gas for anything as the gas supplier was messing around down at the end of the village and I am paranoid! Plus I could find nothing on why the hell they were out here so rather be safe then sorry!

But as I said I have everything I need to make three meals a day for at least the next 16 days! We have loads of fresh potatoes thanks to our Aldi & Lidl stores selling 2kg (4.4lb) bags of white potatoes at 15 pence (19 cents) a bag! so we have around 70-80lbs of potatoes. I plan on planting any potatoes that start to sprout so we can hopefully get a little crop for later in the year, so hopefully this coming spring & summer will be good and we will have a nice little crop of white potatoes.

Where was I? Oh yes meals! I have made a meal plan that Starts Dec 27th and runs to Jan 11th which means I will not be going shopping for the next two weeks. The day after Jan 11th is a Friday and that day is when I normally go shopping and so I will most likely go shopping on that Friday to pick up only the most needed items like milk, fruit, yogurt for the kids (if not sooner on that one!), brioche rolls (these are a must and I'll tell you why later down) and so on. So all of the breakfasts are pretty much the same across the board a choice of cereal, oatmeal/ready brek, toast, pancakes for weekdays and on the weekends air fried potatoes and eggs are added to the previous options.

The luncheons (lunch) choices vary i.e hotdogs, chicken nuggets, spam, tuna, crispy fish fillets etc and all would be served with either fried potatoes, chips (fries) crisps (chips), as a sandwich, or with crackers. Each day though will have a set luncheon.

Dinners also vary like the luncheons i.e fish and chips, egg fried rice, chilli and cheese with crackers or what have you, mini pizza's, savoury rice with vegetables and chicken or fish, breakfast for dinner etc. I will also be making my own bread, and biscuits (american biscuits that is) along with any sweets like cakes, cookies etc.

I believe I stated in another post I have already organized a budget (if not well now you know!) I already know for the most part what is going out and what is coming in ( I do need to track down our yearly payments and get an idea of how much we will pay this coming year for those). I will need to change our shopping pattern i.e I will need to send the husband to get animal feed every fortnight. The first fortnight he will get two boxes of 48 cat food pouches (that should last our cat about a month), two bags of cat litter, one 15kg (33lbs) bag of dog feed (should also last the dog a month), one 10kg (22lb) bag of rabbit feed (that will last about two months for our three rabbits), and eight 20kg (44lb) bags of layers pellets (that should last them til the next fortnight) & that will cost roughly £143 ($182.30).  Then the next fortnight he will get another eight bags of chicken feed and that will cost £72 ($91.79), So a total of roughly £215 ($274.09) for the first month and the second month would be £200 ($254.97) as the rabbit feed will last two months. I estimate that the dog food, cat litter (both bags) and rabbit feed will cost £15 ($19.12) each, the cat food will cost £26 for both boxes and all sixteen bags of chicken feed will cost £144 ($183.58).

Now that the animal feed has been broken down I believe I stated in a previous post I was going to allot around £240 ($305.96 currently) a month I may reduce that down to no less than £150 any given month as we currently have loads of personal care products like shampoo,conditioner, body wash/soap, face wash, feminine products etc. I know I can currently get around 5 months worth of toilet tissue for £40.50 ($51.63) that is 160 rolls in total or 32 rolls per month. My husband has been thinking of getting a bidet attachment but I always thought they were very pricey but I did find one on amazon for under £10 ($12.79) as a return in new condition so we bought it, we did get it yesterday and we fitted it last night it seems like all the parts are there so I am very thankful and hopefully this will help reduce our toilet usage but only time will tell on that one. As for food I will be looking for cheaper options on meats both before sales and after sales & of course eat less meat and even raise our own chickens specially for meat not just eggs at this point. As well as eating more in season produce. I will also be planning my garden in the coming weeks and starting seeds for that, I will need to choose plants that are quite hardy and tolerant either side of the spectrum. Now I mentioned my son above with food and said I would explain, well the long and short of it is our son was referred to the local pediatrician team by his speech and language team to see if our son was on the spectrum and well the pediatrician believes he maybe and has ordered more testings and has encouraged us to handle this as if he was on the spectrum including dealing with food items. He is also interested in seeing our daughter to test her if our son comes back as on the spectrum. So if anyone reading this has a child on the spectrum who is very picky and fussy when it comes to food how did you get them to try new things and how did it go?

I know this coming year will be quite tight money wise but I am hopeful that a few tweaks here and there will help reduce our costs, I'll be able to grow and raise a bit more of our own food as well and with any luck I'll be able to get our son to eat more then just a handful of foods. Until my next blog post dear reader I hope you have a wonderful day or week and hope you are blessed with whatever you need.

Budgeting, Planning & Being Frugal (Or Being A Tightwad!)

 So let me start off by saying yes we have credit card debt most people do.

Yes we are stupid for this and it is our fault for falling for the allure of using credit cards for the I don't know how many reason they are putting out now from cash back to buy it now and pay later and other excuses to use one. 

Well as most people know now most banks and other companies have sent their interest rates through the roof and even some of the best credit scoring people can't get a credit card or if they do get approved it seems they are getting a low amount on one.

I am not trying to excuse us from taking responsibility for the debt we got into let me make that clear. It is hard though when you have stuff constantly in your face and the lack of real financial education as it's not taught in schools as a basic form of education since at least my and my husbands generation and as for our parents I can't speak on behalf of my husband but I can speak for myself and say I was taught little to nothing about financials by my parents. However when living with my grandmother for a year she did teach me about buying food on sale or discounted and how to keep an eye out for deals on food & clothes (I was 6-8 years old at that time). Man I miss her!

Now with that bit of truthfulness and background out the way. I will admit even with Christmas a few days away while I am typing this I still plan to try and make it as good as possible by contributing to the Christmas dinner being held at my mother in laws from a extra main or two, to side(s) and desserts. As well as contributing to the Christmas tea time when the whole family (total of 14 people) will be there and have a bit to eat and open gifts. In fact you'll be reading this post after Christmas sorry.

But that does not mean I also can't plan ahead past the big day!  I have been coming up with meal ideas and will be setting up a meal plan in the coming days that will of course heavily rely on my pantry (both normal & prepper) along with my freezers. I have a spare budget book that I got a few years back when I first tried to budget and I did buy a week to view 2024 diary to help keep track of any appointments, birthdays, bill payments, dinner etc.

I thankfully already have my main staples for Christmas dinner with my in laws as I am taking a joint of beef for everyone to enjoy and possibly a bit of turkey if they do not have the one my mother in law would like tomorrow when we go shopping, I like to make sure I have a bit extra just in case something like that happens.

I did manage to go to a store today (Thursday) with the husband we did buy a few bits on my list while they had it so I must adjust my shopping list and the amount of money I have available to do said shopping. Well until my next post of random ramblings and rants of a crazy housewife, I wish you dear reader nothing but health and happiness now and in the year to come! 

Things don't always go to plan!

Well as the title says things don't always go to plan!

We recently had an issue crop up and of course we had to get it sorted as one normally does but which unfortunately in many a case for most people causes financial issues. So my grand plans of trying recipes for the holidays have gone straight out the window. This also has a knock on effect which makes one tighten the financial belt and we must therefore cut back on what we can. I would be lying if I said I was not worried because I am worried! Now I will say one thing I am a prepper and because of this we do have a well stocked pantry and a reasonable amount in our freezers that can see us through a month or two of lean financial times for us humans and I have cut down our food budget so now our new budget for the month is £240 or around $304 for my family of 4 (It used to be £320 or around $406) so this will be the budget for the next month or two or maybe longer if need be. I also do not have to worry about personal care products other than toilet paper, as I bought a lot of shampoo,conditioner and body soaps when I found them on offer. I also don't have to worry about clean clothes as I snagged a great bargain on laundry soap and have at least 6 months worth of it on hand. The only real issue is making sure all of our bills and debts are paid as well as having enough feed for our animals namely our flock of chickens and enough money to put into our holiday cards as a gift for my husbands family as it is something my husband likes to do!

Now like most people in this day and age we have debt and store cards/ payment plans etc and as in our case we were able to pay everything in a timely manner and still had a bit left over of takeaways (fast food) and so we thought we were in a good spot money wise. But once a financial issue hits hard that good spot quickly goes out the window!  It could not have happened at a worse time of year on top of it all. Now I did thankfully plan a bit ahead and I did get some holiday gifts for the kids, it's not as much as I was hoping  for but they do have gifts! Thankfully my oldest (7) is not overly hard to get things for and my youngest (3) really has no clue what is going on and is not bothered!  I am worried about my husband being able to give his family what we normally give them for christmas which is a bit of cash so that way we don't buy something that they don't like or won't use.

Now I will admit I have tried budgeting in the past and I will fully admit I am stupid and could not figure it out and no matter what I did or who I turned to for help to figure it out as it seemed to me like is was always geared towards someone running a business/company etc. Well I finally found someone who explained it so my stupid simple self could understand it and they to are a housewife just like me. So since than I have figured out roughly what my husband will bring home after taxes every month (thanks to listen to taxman and finding out what the government thinks he will make for this year), I have also given us a smaller food budget and looked ( and still looking to cut cost else where) as to help cover our chicken feed and maybe pay off a bit more off our debts. With that said I am hopeful I can cut my reduced food budget by half so instead of £240 around $304 I am hopeful I can get that down to £120 or $152 for the next month or two. I am also looking to cut costs even if that means I am forced to watch ads for streaming services ( side note I think it's rubbish they have now started to do ad's on streaming services I mean hello that is why people went with their service in the first place and now they want more money for ad free. Not like their service is cheap in the first place!).

I will say as of Dec 17th I did manage to get a renewal deal on our tv,home phone and net package and we have shaved off at least £23 ($29) for now off that bill, I also renewed my sim only cell phone plan so I have hopefully around £5.88 ($7.46) from now til the end of march I have to wait for a week or two before I can do the same for my husbands phone. Also as of Dec 17th I have now cancelled our amazon prime saving £8.99 a month (around $11.50). I have also cancelled our lionsgate+ subscription saving £1.99 (around $2.60) a month but only until Feb I think then it was to increase to £5.99 (around $7.60) this is because I don't watch it all that much now! I also cancelled our youtube premium saving £12.99 (almost $16.50!) a month! Those are the only things I could think of thus far to cancel or renew, This will save us around £52.85 ($67.06) a month starting next month so far if this changes I will put a edit down at the bottom of the page. Now I will admit there maybe a month that we do buy a monthly prime membership to order bulk herbs/spices or a large amount of toilet roll etc so I will need to keep that in mind and plan accordingly.

Now with the above said we have also been informed that a price increase to our gas and electricity will kick in next month and in seeing how we are on a flex tariff where our price could go up or down but if the prices do a large jump up then we are probably going to be in more trouble money wise and in debt to the gas & electric company. So we did make the decision to lock in a price which we will be going from £140 ($177.65) to £193.57 ($245.62) a month which I am hopeful will be more than enough to cover us. We also had to look at a new mortgage offer as a variable would cost us too much a month, say instead of paying £350 ($444.11) a month it would be £650+ ($824.78+) a month we would not be able to do a £300 ($380.67) difference. Thankfully we got a great 5 year fix that is only £108.11 ($137.18) more than what we are currently paying and we can manage that! I also know our council tax is going to go up this coming year from £118 to most likely around £124 so that has to be worked in..

I just realized I hate numbers and math! But it must be done and it falls to me as my husband bless him works long hours to make sure we have all we need and the things we would like.

Recipe testing and planning:Part 2

So we tried the recipes from the first part and the results were good. So first up the reviews.

 We all liked the pot roast itself, it came out so tender it ended up shredding with just a push of a fork on the top of it. However we all agreed the gravy was a bit much and next time I make the roast I will add either more water or use less beef stock as I believe I said in the first part as while I got the gravy edible it was a bit salty and I personally found it bitter. 

The cheese ball went over really well and everyone in the family liked it! it went well with crackers and tortilla chips. I think next time I will try just adding herbs to it instead of walnuts on the outside of it.

The meringue cookies came out very well, However the cherry ones tasted like cherry flavoured lipstick and no one including myself liked those so no cherry meringue cookies again! The best tasting was the bubble gum flavoured one oddly enough! I personally liked the marshmallow ones as they reminded me of the freeze dried marshmallow pieces in lucky charms cereal.

In this post we will have a few recipes as well.

Our first recipe is a cardamom, banana walnut bread.

I found the main recipe in my Betty Crocker's Picture CookBook.

It's the key fruit loaf recipe but instead of apples you use bananas. I did add the cardamon as an extra but the batter came out well and it baked beautifully!

The next few items I am going to bake are from The Original Jewish Cookery Book by Florence Greenberg.#1 is a fruit cake recipe without alcohol. #2 is a honey cake and #3 is a pound cake.

I also plan on making a few batches of cookies from my McCall's cookie collection book circa 1965. #1 gingerbread cookies. #2 Moravian spice cookies and #3 brown-sugar shortbread.

I also plan on making a few recipes from my book The Complete Guide To Traditional Jewish Cooking. #1 will be their version of Challah bread. #2 Kesra. #3 Hungarian split farmhouse loaf. #4 Russian potato bread (I will be substituting instant potatoes for the normal mashed potatoes).

#5 Soufganiyot (it's pretty much a jelly filled fried donut). #6 Maali.#7 Sun-drenched yogurt and lemon cake.

So I have, what 13 recipes that I want to try and make. Lets see if I get it done!