Living off our Stockpile Week 4

Just tomatoes, no juice or brine, bottled and ready to go into food storage. There are two jars that didn't seal properly, they are in the fridge to be used this week.

This week I've added 14 jars of diced tomatoes to the stockpile, for just $3.94. I was able to buy 6 kilos of tomatoes for 49 cents a kilo, and we were gifted another 2 kilos.

I've also added more toilet paper, rice and flour - I won't add any more rice, but toilet paper is one thing I have a fear of running out of so it's still on the list for a while yet :)

Kaylene emailed and asked me a few questions, one of which was why am I building such a large stockpile, is it because I know something about the economy that she doesn't?

That certainly made me smile, I know nothing more than anyone else, and probably less than a lot of Australians about the state of our economy.

I am stockpiling first and foremost out of habit. I've had a decent grocery supply in the house for 21 years now. It started off small, just a month or so of most of the grocery items we use. It grew over time to be a minimum of six months' worth of the basics, with up to a years' worth of some things I am able to buy in bulk.

But a couple of months ago we were given advance notice of some changes to our finances, meaning we'll be earning less next year than we have for a long, long time. And that means we'll have less money to spend on anything, let alone groceries. We've gone over our new spending plan and cut back where we can, including the grocery budget.

And so I've started to concentrate on building our food storage, cleaning supplies and toiletries and first aid needs.

I'm building this not out of fear of any national or worldwide economic disaster looming, but to ensure that no matter what happens, either within our family unit, the country or the world, we'll be able to eat, stay clean and have basic first aid supplies if they are needed.

I've been in the position of not having a regular income before. We lived for over four years on an erratic income. Sometimes we'd have money coming in, sometimes we wouldn't. I had to learn to budget and shop accordingly and run our finances like a business - just as though we were self-employed.

This time around we know what is coming and can prepare as best we can. For me as the main cook and shopper that means building our grocery stockpile as best I can with what I have.

We know our income is going to go down, but that's not the only reason to have at least a small stockpile.

What would happen if you were to get sick for a four or five days and couldn't get to the shops? What would happen if you found yourself without a car for a week or so?  They are just two simple scenarios that could see you struggling - would you have enough food, cleaning supplies, toiletries and medicines in the house to survive?

There are lots of households that don't have even a day's food in the pantry, they shop daily. With either of the scenarios above they'd be, to coin an Aussie phrase, up the creek without a paddle.

I don’t stockpile out of fear of anything, I stockpile to save money, time and energy, to be prepared for a hiccup in our lifestyle and as a part of keeping our household running smoothly.

I encourage everyone to have at least a small back-up of pantry basics, just a week's worth, for peace of mind if for no other reason. It just makes sense to me.

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How to have a Beautiful Spring Garden on a Budget

By the time spring arrives, most of us are thrilled to see the sun shining and the flowers blooming. For we gardeners, springtime is especially welcome, because it's the first opportunity of the year to plant beautiful veggies and flowers. But if you're not careful, that spring garden can wreak havoc on your budget.

Here are some ways to save on your gardening costs.

* Plant perennials. Perennials are plants that come back every year on their own, so you don't have to buy new seeds year after year. Petunias are perennials, even though most of us pull them out at the end of each season. Cut them back and leave them over the winter and they'll grow and bloom again, saving you money, time and energy.

* Harvest seeds from your annual plants so that you can sow them again the following spring at no additional cost. Let the seeds dry, store them in labelled bags, and keep them in a warm, dry place for the winter. Plant them in seedling trays and place them in a window when spring is near, and they'll be ready to transplant when the weather is suitable for it.

* Ask fellow gardeners for cuttings from their plants. Friends and neighbours are often happy to give you a start from one of their plants that you admire. I currently have 23 lavender cuttings growing from my mother-in-law's garden.

* Plan your garden carefully. It's helpful to draw a diagram to scale and determine which plants you'll plant where. This will keep you from overspending by buying too many plants and it helps with crop rotation and succession planting too.

* Be sure to do your planting at the right time. It's important to wait until there is little chance of frost. If you don't, a frost could obliterate all your hard work and leave you with few or no flowers. Once you've planted, keep an eye on the weather forecast and cover your young plants overnight if frost is a possibility.

* Take care to make sure all of each plant's needs are met. Some need to be exposed to the sun all day, while others should be planted in shadier areas. Some plants should be planted deep in the ground, while others do best just below the surface. And space requirements vary significantly. These specifications should be listed on your plant's tags or the seed packet. If you're unsure about a plant's requirements, you can find out all you need to know online or from a good gardening book.

* Make your own fertilizer. Compost coffee grounds, food scraps and grass clippings, and add them to your garden. This works just as well as store-bought fertilizer, and it's much cheaper.


There are plenty of ways to have a beautiful and productive garden without spending a lot of money, these are just a few ideas you can easily use.

Buy just what you need, then use just enough

Let's face it: human nature will prompt us to purchase more things than we actually need when we realize we have more money to spend. However, by only purchasing what you need, when you need it, you eliminate wasting your money. Many times, in stocking up on groceries and other products, plenty ends up being wasted.

Avoid waste at home by purchasing just what you need each time, then use just enough of what you've bought so it lasts twice as long - you don't always need to use the amount suggested on the packaging.

This may seem the opposite of what I usually say about building up a stockpile and buying in bulk, but if you are just starting out living the Cheapskates way, take your time and think about each and every purchase. Then you will know what you use, how much you use and how often you use it.

Those tins of smoked oysters might be on sale for a rock bottom price, but if you only use one tin a year, buying a box, no matter how cheap they are, is a waste - of your money, your space and eventually the smoked oysters because after a couple of years you know you'll throw them out.

When you do stock up, only buy what you can use in a reasonable timeframe - think of those smoked oysters - and you'll save money, time and energy and eliminate waste.

How to Dehydrate Bananas

Dried banana chips, cooled and ready to be stored in an air-tight jar

We were blessed with five kilos of bananas this week. That's a lot of bananas!

I kept some in the fruit bowl to eat, put some in the freezer to use for banana cake, banana bread, banana muffins, banana smoothies - you get the general idea.

And the rest I sliced, soaked in a citric acid bath and then put them in the dehydrator to make banana chips to add to the stockpile.

Drying, or dehydrating is the technical term, is a great way to preserve excess produce for long-term food storage. And it's easy to do too. It can be done in most kitchens, you don't even need any special equipment, although a dehydrator does leave your oven free for other things.

The hard part is waiting till their ready to try them.

Make a solution of 1 teaspoon of citric acid dissolved in 3 litres of cold water. This will stop the banana from going brown.

Cut your bananas into chips. Aim for even slices, not too thick, not too thin - I like them about 6mm (1/4 inch) thick. You can also slice them lengthwise too if you want longer "chips".

I've been told that if you chill the bananas for 30 minutes before you slice them they're easier to slice. I haven't tried chilling them, I just slice each one and put it straight into the citric acid bath.

Once you've sliced all your bananas, put them in the citric acid bath. Let them soak for at least 10 minutes. Drain.

Banana slices soaking in citric acid bath - this helps stop them going brown during the drying process

Dehydrator method:

Lay the banana chips on the trays of your dehydrator, making sure they're not touching.

Turn your dehydrator to 55 degrees Celsius.

Dry the bananas for 6 - 12 hours, rotating trays every two hours to ensure even drying.

On the trays in the dehydrator ready for 12 hours of drying!

Oven method:

Turn the oven to 60 degrees Celsius.

Lay the banana slices on a baking sheet, leaving space between them for the air to circulate.

Place the trays in the oven. Prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon.

Bake for 6 - 12 hours, rotating trays every two hours.

Once your banana chips are dry, turn the heat off.  Let them cool completely before packing in jars to store.

Maple Frosted Spicy Scrolls & The Week that Was

Maple Frosted Spicy Scrolls

We had a family birthday this week, so a special tea on Wednesday, complete with a Freddo ice-cream cake (homemade of course!). As an extra special treat I made Maple Frosted Spicy Scrolls for morning tea - Tom's favourite treat in the whole world (the recipe is below).

It's been drizzling most of the week, good for the garden. Not so good for the weeds, they're growing, well like weeds!  Lots of picking done as I've had a few minutes to spare.

The seeds I planted have sprouted, little seedlings looking good. We may have fresh veg for summer after all.

The warmer days have meant we've let the fire go out, only lighting it of an evening to keep the house warm overnight. I'm still drying the washing on the clotheshorses.

Processed more celery and cauliflower for the freezer.

Ran out of bread, and I'm waiting for a part for the breadmaker so I made pancakes for lunches and morning tea instead of going to the shops just to buy bread. Pancakes cost 90 cents to make, loaf of bread is $1.90. We had pancakes over to freeze, we never have bread left so win-win.

Sorted through a shelf in my wardrobe and took a bag of clothes to the op shop and a bag of rags to our mechanic. I tried to convince Wayne to turn our WIR into a walk-in pantry but he wouldn't have a bar of it - don't know why ;)

Whipped up some coconut oil to make an after-shower moisturiser. Summer will be here before I know it and dry, winter arms and legs need some TLC in preparation for shorts and t-shirts.

Washed the outside of all the windows this morning while it was warm and sunny, using hot water, a slurp of vinegar and a small squirt of dishwashing liquid. Now they're sparkling again.

Diluted a bottle of dishwashing liquid for the kitchen.

Was blessed with tomatoes, bananas, chips, rice crackers, cream, tea bags, pretzels, a huge bag of micro greens, and a lovely visit from Wendy on Friday.

 Our Christmas treats are almost covered with this amazing gift of treats, how blessed are we to have friends who share so much!

Put some banana slices in the dehydrator overnight to make banana chips.

The banana chips, cooled and ready to store in an air-tight jar. I've done a separate post about making banana chips for later this week.

Put some tomatoes in the dehydrator for semi-dried tomatoes for summer.

Made tomato chutney, some for us and some for the Christmas hampers.

Bottled some tomatoes.

Maple Frosted Spicy Scrolls

Ingredients:

3 cups SR flour

600ml cream

1 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons mixed spice

2 tbsp butter, melted

1/4 cup brown sugar, extra

2 cups icing sugar

3 tbsp maple syrup

2 tsp butter

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Mix the flour and cream together to make a dough. Knead lightly on a floured board. Roll out to a rectangle approximately 10mm thick.

Mix the brown sugar and mixed spice together.  Spread over the dough, going right to the edges.

Grease a 20cm square or round cake tin or casserole dish.

Roll the dough up lengthwise to form a sausage. Press the ends together to seal.

Slice into 2cm slices. Place each slice cut side down in the pan so they are just touching (this will help them to rise evenly).

Brush the tops with melted butter. Sprinkle with the extra brown sugar. 

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until the scrolls are risen, golden brown and cooked through.

While the scrolls are baking make the frosting. Mix the icing sugar and butter together until creamed. Add the maple syrup and mix well. The icing should be the consistency of custard.

When the scrolls are cooked, remove from the oven. Pour the icing over, spreading it with a spatula to make sure it covers all the scrolls. It will melt from the heat of the scrolls and fill all the gaps. Cool on the tray. 

Once cool gently tear the scrolls apart and enjoy!

Cath's Meal Plan 13th - 19th September

Today has been a beautiful spring day, warm enough to have the windows and doors open for a little while. So warm I even let the fire go out!

I posted my recipe for Fish Cakes on our Facebook page yesterday, so I thought I'd talk about salad today. It helps that I'm thinking about salad because it's on the meal plan for tonight, but by this time of year I am really craving a lovely fresh salad.

When we have salad, either on it's own or with a savoury/meat dish, I try to make it interesting, to the eye and to the taste buds. There's nothing worse than limp lettuce, dried up cheese, soggy beetroot and soft tomato, especially when it's called salad.

I start with a green, not always lettuce. But it is always finely shredded. Sometimes it is spinach or silverbeet or even finely shredded cabbage.

Then I add some colour: grated carrot, cucumber slices (leave the skin on), pineapple slices, quartered tomato, diced beetroot.

Next I add something for texture. It might be coleslaw, or noodle salad or potato salad or rice salad. Sometimes it is just a small scoop of two or three of these salads, sometimes just one of them.

I top it off with cheese- cubes, triangles, slices and, if there are enough, a hard boiled egg.

It looks colourful on the plate, and on a very hot evening is cooling to look at and eat. But at this time of year, when winter is over and we are all heartily fed-up with casseroles, soups, pasta dishes and hot veggies a nice salad is a gastronomic delight :)

This week we will be eating:

Sunday: Roast Chicken

Monday: Meatloaf, mash, greens, gravy

Tuesday:Spaghetti, salad

Wednesday: Curried chicken & rice

Thursday: MOO Pizza

Friday: Hamburgers

Saturday: Toasted Sandwiches

How to Build Your Stockpile Part 2

 Way back when I first started monthly grocery shopping and stockpiling, I realised pretty quickly that we use basically the same groceries month after month, with slight changes to the list to accommodate changes in season: the summer list is slightly different to the winter list. Otherwise I'm a very boring shopper :)

Boring it may be, but it makes it very easy to build a stockpile within my grocery budget.

Before I go shopping I always do a quick inventory of the pantry, fridge and freezer, then write my shopping list according to the gaps in the inventory.

When you start to build your stockpile I suggest you inventory  your pantry, fridge and freezer too. It will very quickly show you the gaps, what you have enough of and what you won't need to buy for another two years (or so….).

Doing the inventories will also give you a chance to tidy the pantry, clean the fridge and defrost the freezer. These three food storage areas need to be ready to start taking your stockpile as you build it.

If you need to rearrange things do; I've swapped the tea and coffee from the top shelf in the pantry to an overhead cupboard in the kitchen that just had vases (very ugly vases), odd glasses and a couple mugs in it. Those things have all been donated to the op shop. Now the cupboard holds 12 boxes of tea bags, four 500g tins of Nescafe (on sale this week for $14.99 at IGA stores), four boxes of hot chocolate pods and 24 boxes of coffee pods. And the pantry shelf is free to hold other things I use more often.

It is important to remember, as you start to stockpile, to keep things handy and like with like. If they are too hard to get to you'll forget where they are or worse still, just not bother to dig them out. And that's money down the drain, another reason to organise your food storage!

Keeping like with like just means keeping tins together, baking ingredients together, cereals together, condiments together and  on.

Once you've done your inventories, you'll be able to calculate how much of each thing you need to last the length of your stockpile. At the moment I'm aiming for 12 months of everything for my family of five.

There is a (perhaps) handy sheet you can download here (link courtesy of The Prudent Homemaker) that will tell you roughly how much of each thing you'll need per person for a year.

I'm not sure the quantities are quite accurate - according to this table I'd need to stockpile 104 kilos of pasta and 154 kilos of rice! As we eat lots of different foods, those quantities are not right for us, but they give you an idea of just how big your stockpile will need to be.

I've calculated that I will need 30 kilos of pasta - a huge difference. We eat one pasta dish a week (my boys love pasta!) and I use approximately 500g of spaghetti or noodles each time. That equates to 26 kilos a year. Adding a couple of kilos for pasta salads and casseroles brings the total for the year to 30 kilos - for the five of us. By the way, I have pasta covered - there is 37 kilos in the stockpile at the moment, enough for the next 15 months.

Twenty kilos of rice will be enough, that's what I buy each year now. Yes, we eat a lot of rice, in savoury and sweet dishes, mainly because I just like it and not just because it's cheap :)

Take a look at the sheet and see how the numbers compare to what you've estimated you'll need after doing your inventories.  You might be a little surprised, like I was, or you could be completely in agreement.

How much you need to stockpile will depend on your family's size, how long you want the stockpile to last, what you eat and/or use and how much of each thing you use and/or eat and where you are going to store it.

Next week I'll share the things I'm stockpiling, the quantities I've estimated we will need for one year and where in the house it's all going to be stored.

Do you know everything you need in your stockpile? Do you know how much of each thing you use now? And how much you'd need to build your stockpile to maintenance mode?

Living off our Stockpile Part 3

I noticed yesterday that Bushy Park had tomatoes for 49 cents a kilo (around 22 cents a pound for U.S. readers). That's a really good price so of course I bought some - it will be a few months before I have tomatoes to pick from the garden. They were ripe-ish but not really ripe, so they're on the bench for a couple of days. Once they're properly ripe I'll quarter them and put them into the dehydrator for semi dried tomatoes for the summer. I love them in salads or on crackers, but refuse to pay $20 a kilo (or more) for them.

I have plans to make relish too. Some for us and some to put in the Christmas hampers.

These two grocery items will be added to our food stockpile, extending it and adding variety, but even better giving us more tasty food to enjoy for less.

Pellegrinos have 10 kilo bags of onions for $2.99 this week. I use a lot of onion and nearly always buy them by the bag. I also use a lot of onion flakes, especially in spag bol sauce, onion gravy, meatloaf, rissoles and meatballs. I have been buying onion flakes from Hindustan Imports but this lot is going to be sliced, dried and then crushed into  flakes.  http://www.hindustan.com.au/

I've been thinking about long-term food storage this week, the tomatoes and onions were a good reminder that there are alternative methods of preserving that I (or you) can easily utilise. We don't often have a blackout (I can only remember one in all the time we've been in this house) but I do often wonder what would happen if the power was out for more than a couple of days.

The freezer is always full of meat, chicken, vegetables and fruits and while cooking and eating some of it would be possible, saving all of it before it went bad would be nigh on impossible, especially without power.

Dehydrating is a simple way of preserving food. One big advantage is that dried foods don't take up a lot of space. You can use the oven to dry food, or you can use a solar dehydrator (easy to set up and use, and ideal for Australian summers), you can smoke meats, you bottle fruit and some vegetables using the hot water bath method, you can can food, including cooked meat dishes, using a pressure canner. There are a lot of options for homemakers.

I have a bottling outfit and the dehydrator that I use. I could make use of them more and that's what I'll be doing from now on.

During the next week I'll be busily drying tomatoes and onions (10kg for $2.99 at Pellegrinos) to add to the stockpile, content in knowing that I've saved us a lot of money.

What methods do you use to preserve food for your family stockpile?

Turn an Old Shirt into a Beautiful Quilt

Using old shirts to make a quilt will cost you the price of the batting and the backing if you have to buy them. You can use old woollen blankets for the batting and spare sheets make wonderful backing and can even be used for the spacing between the quilt blocks, depending on the design and you choose.  Making a quilt by recycling materials you already have will cost you nothing but your time; you can't get much more frugal than that!

Using recycled materials is a great way for a beginner quilter to get started too. If the quilt is less than perfect you haven't wasted a lot of money on expensive materials.

Quilts can be made from favourite t-shirts, souvenir shirts, uniform shirts, even the odd school shirt. They become a visual history of life, keeping memories alive while they keep you warm.

The Week that Was

A bunch of beautiful roses Wayne surprised me with this week

I didn't get a lot done this week, a very dear friend passed away unexpectedly and that threw us all out of our regular routines. I did manage to do a few bits and pieces, most of them on auto-pilot. This has been a way of life for so long that most of what I do to save money, time and energy is habit and automatic, just like saving the liner from a cereal box to use as go-between in the freezer.

I carefully open them out (they tear really easily along the seams), give them a wipe with a clean dishcloth and hang them to dry. Then I cut them into squares to use between burgers and rissoles or strips to go between sausages or cut them in half to go between chicken fillets, chops, steaks and so on. They are also good for separating biscuits, cakes and muffins in the freezer.

Used reconstituted dried mushrooms from the lot I dehydrated last summer in the Stroganoff on Tuesday night. We didn't have any fresh mushrooms and I didn't want to go out to buy just mushrooms.

Collected the water from the showers and the kitchen sink and poured it into the washing machine, the floor bucket or used it to water the seedlings.

Posted off the cards for the September card swap.

Dried the sheets and towels on the clothesline for the first time in ages. It was nice to put the sheets away smelling fresh from the sunshine. The rest of the week the washing was dried by the fire.

Wednesday Bushy Park had oranges for 5 cents a kilo, so I quickly rang Mum to make sure she had freezer space and went and bought some more. At that price I can stock up and oranges may well be the only fruit we eat next year apart from what we get from our garden.

Stocked up on Nivea sensitive shaving gel for Wayne at $2.99 (half price and cheaper than Aldi) from Woolworths. Bought 6 cans, enough for a year.

Managed to spend some time every day pottering in the garden. Bliss!

Embroidered some initials on hankies for Christmas gifts - monogrammed hankies are expensive. It only takes a little while to work an initial on a hanky and you don't need any special skills. I found a font I liked, printed it in the size I wanted then traced it onto the hankie using tailor's chalk. Then I just worked over the tracing.  It was just the mindless task I needed this week.

Art Sets from Old Make-up Sets

Colouring in has become an adult pastime - it's even found its way into our house, with Hannah enjoying the odd half hour quietly decorating her colouring book. She was hunting around for colouring pencils, watercolour pencils and textas when I remembered this tip from the Cheapskates Tip Store.

Problem solved! Between us we had  few different eye, lip and cheek compacts we weren't using. Now they're being put to use and a brush and water over powder eye shadows makes beautiful water colours.

Art Sets from Old Make-up Sets

I used to use old make-up sets for drawing as a kid. Shading areas is a lot easier with eye shadow than it is with pencil shavings, although you use a bit more. However, if you can't use it as makeup, it's no loss really.
Contributed by Leanne

Cath's Meal Plan 6 -12 September 2015

Oranges! I've been processing oranges forever - well for a couple of weeks anyway - it just feels like forever. I even dream about oranges at the moment. I bought a few kilos when they were 29 cents a kilo. Then the price dropped to 5 cents a kilo and at that price I just had to buy more. It looks like oranges will be the only fruit we have for the next year, but at least we'll have fruit :)

How do I plan to use all these oranges? Well some are in the bottom of the fridge for us to eat. The rest have either been frozen whole for summer ice blocks, or processed for baking (Whole Orange Cake and marmalade). The peels from the oranges we're eating are being put in vinegar to make citrus cleaner or frozen to make candied orange peel, that I will coat in chocolate, to go into the Christmas hampers. I'm keeping some peels to flavour coffee beans too.  No waste in this house!

Microwave Orange Marmalade

Ingredients:
275g oranges
Juice of 1 lemon
500g white sugar
Muslin square - about 7cm

Method:
Cut the oranges into quarters, and remove pips. Put pips and lemon shells onto muslin square and tie with string to make a bag. Finely slice oranges and put in a 3-litre microwave safe bowl (or bigger if possible to prevent splashes) with the bag, lemon juice and 300 ml boiling water. Cover and soak for 1 hour. Add 200ml boiling water. Microwave on high for 20 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes, until peel is tender. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Microwave on high for 25 minutes until setting point is reached, stirring every 5 minutes. Be careful as the mixture can get very hot.  Stand for 15 minutes, then stir and ladle into hot, sterilised jars  and seal while still hot.

Note:  Do a freezer test after 25 minutes to see if jam will gel, if not cook in one minute bursts until gel sets on a cold saucer.

This week we will be eating:

Sunday: Roast Lamb (this is the last leg of lamb in the freezer, hoping the spring lamb will be on sale very soon!)

Monday: Rissoles, vegetables, gravy

Tuesday: Lamb shanks in gravy, sweet potato mash, broccoli, carrots, peas

Wednesday: Schnitzels, potato bake, carrots, tomato gravy

Thursday: MOO Pizza

Friday: Fish Cakes and salad

Saturday: Muffin Surprise

Cheapskates in Adelaide

I'm sorry this is a little late, but we've had a couple of upsets this week that have distracted me.

During the Adelaide workshop in August Today Tonight came along and filmed the workshop and interviewed some of the lovely Cheapskaters.

Here's a link to the story, I hope you enjoy it.

Cheapskates Master Class

If you'd like to come to a Cheapskates workshop here in Melbourne or have one in your area, please let me know via the comments below.

How to Build Your Stockpile

"Stockpile -
A supply stored for future use, usually carefully accrued and maintained"

I've had a lot of questions about my stockpile: how big it is, how long it took to get to this stage, what I stockpile, where I store it, where I buy the groceries, how much do I pay for them, how do I use them all - so many good questions, especially if you are new to living the Cheapskates way and/or just starting a grocery stockpile.

Over the next few weeks I'll cover the different steps to establishing a stockpile that will save you money, time and energy, but more importantly that you will use. There's no point in having a pantry full of groceries if you never use them.

When you first start to live the Cheapskates way you are very conscious of where you spend your money, especially when it is in the supermarket.  Convenience packets and mixes are swapped for raw ingredients and basic pantry items in an effort to get the most from your grocery money.

Indeed many new Cheapskaters find that in the beginning they are spending more on groceries each week than they were in their spendthrifting days.  This isn't unusual and is to be expected; after all many households are building a pantry from scratch as well as learning to cook this way.

It won't be long before spending will swing around and you'll be spending less, keeping a better stocked pantry and eating better than ever before. You'll also start accumulating some of your more frequently used items to use in the future. This is the start of your pantry stockpile.

Building a stockpile takes time.  While it would be fun to go to the supermarket and load those trolleys with six months' worth of groceries, it's just not practical. Cost is of course a big factor, but more than that you need to have a plan, somewhere to store everything and ways to use it all up.

Start off with adding one or two extra basics to your list next time you shop. It might be an extra packet of pasta or sugar or another box of cereal.  Continue in this way until you have your stockpile.  Aim to have a stockpile that will let you skip grocery shopping for a week. Then aim for a fortnight, a month and build up to three months.

The thing to remember is that not everyone cooks or eats the same foods, so not everyone will stockpile the same foods, or even the same quantities.

Your stockpile, like your Emergency Fund, will be unique to you and your situation. Build it up until you are comfortable.

Then you can shop at home first, and use supermarkets to replace your stockpile items.

Next week I'll share some practical tips that will help you get your stockpile started.

Living off Our Stockpile Part 2

As the stockpile grows I need to be more creative with the storage - we live in a pretty average house, meaning lots of empty space and not a lot of cupboards!

I've added more sugar, honey, tuna, baked beans, tomato soup and plain flour and toilet paper to the stockpile this week.

I will need to start looking to restock the freezer with meat soon. I've been waiting for mince and lamb to come on sale, as soon as it does I'll be able to buy up. I've put money aside for a meat shop and I've been watching the Tasman emails, as soon as the prices drop I'll stock up. Keeping us in good meat and chicken is the one thing I think I'll struggle with on our reduced grocery budget but I have a plan in mind that works on paper. I just need to test it in reality, then that problem will be solved (hopefully) for 2016.

While we have red meat, chicken or fish 4 - 5 nights a week, we don't eat as much as most people. And meatless/vegetarian meals  or freezer meals 2 - 3 nights a week keep the cost down too.

Over the last two weeks I've refined the inventories - they are done. Now I'm working on the shopping lists, spreading the cost over the next four monthly shops so my planned stockpile will be finished by December, and using just our regular grocery money.  It all looks good on paper, so this week I've started planning how to keep us in fresh food without having to spend money.

One of the easiest ways to eat well and save money is to grow your own food, that's a no brainer really.

I've had a garden for years. Of course over those years it has developed into a much bigger and more productive garden than it was in the beginning. Until July this year it fed us year round without a break.

Because we were away for all of June and some of July I didn't do any succession planting, instead harvesting what I could before we left, leaving the rest for the kids to pick and then pulling the plants out when they were finished after I came home.

That means that right now in the garden there is very little other than some fruit (lemons, mandarins, oranges and limes), the catnip I'm nursing along to make bug spray for summer, a little parsley and Vietnamese mint and the strawberries.

So if we are to get back to eating from our garden and having enough to preserve for next winter I need to get seedlings started and quickly.

I started the tomatoes a couple of weeks ago, and they've come up. They'll be ready to plant by the end of September, once the soil has warmed up a little and the days are sunnier.

The last two weekends I have had some time to potter so I've weeded and the boys dug through compost to ready the beds for spring planting and they look so tidy and fresh.

But more exciting still I have been able to get a lot of seeds planted.

I've started:

Lettuce - Ice Berg
Spring onions
Mini cabbages
Beans - Lazy Housewife, Giant Stuttgart and Rattlesnake
Capsicum - Chinese Giant and Quadrato D'Asti Giollo
Cucumbers - Lebanese and Gherkin
Tomatoes - Amish Paste, Mortgage Lifter, Giant Throwing (I can't remember the correct name, but they are huge and so meaty - great for salads and sandwiches)
Basil
Parsley
Mint
Vietnamese mint
Pumpkin
Squash
Rock Melon
Lavender (from cuttings)

Because there is nothing in the garden I've started 12 of most things. In three weeks I'll start another six lettuce and cabbage and start zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli and bok choy, then start another six of each three weeks after and so on. This way we'll have a steady supply all through spring, summer and autumn next year of these veggie we eat all the time.

These frames will support the climbing beans as they grow. I have more of them that will support the tomatoes too.

I'll start another 12 tomatoes in a month and that will stagger them to produce all summer and into the autumn next year. This keeps us in eating tomatoes and I have enough to make sauce, semi-dried tomatoes and bottled tomatoes without having a huge glut to preserve all at once. It also means that we get our own fresh tomatoes well into winter - this year the kids were still picking tomatoes while we were away in June; because I don’t buy tomatoes out of season I am very grateful for the few we get in winter.

Seeds planted in recycled toilet rolls, the put into a recycled blanket bag to act as a mini hot house 

The seedlings are all in toilet roll planters (just recycled toilet rolls) that can be planted straight into the garden. These are really good for plants that don't like to have their roots disturbed (beetroot, carrots, turnip, parsnip, spring onions and so on).  Because it's still not very warm I put them into blanket bag hot houses and sat them on the back verandah.

Tom is also keen on putting in some more fruit trees. At the moment we have apple, lemon, lime, orange, mandarin and grapefruit trees. He thinks plums and peaches would be nice to have and he's right, they would be. It was his idea so he's in charge of finding suitable trees at a price we can afford to extend our little orchard.

Not having to buy fruit and vegetables saves us a lot of money - at least $40 a week. When tomatoes are $7 a kilo at Christmastime, I'll have plenty to pick, I won't be rationing them. Ditto cucumbers, zucchini, capsicums, cabbages and every other vegetable you can buy at the supermarket.

I usually only buy potatoes, carrots and onions (and I always buy them in bulk and preserve them). This year I'll also be buying celery. It takes a long time to grow and that garden space is valuable when I can buy bunches of celery for $1 each and I've just had an email to say they're $2 for 3 bunches at Bush Park F&V - 67 cents a bunch so I'll be buying a few right now to freeze for next winter.

I'm also buying more oranges. Bushy Park have dropped the price to 5 cents a kilo for today only and that is too good a price to pass up. At that price I'm happy to just juice them, but I'll make more marmalade and freeze whole oranges and processed oranges too. I rang Mum to ask if she had room in her freezer because mine is full. She has so as soon as they're processed I'll run them over to her house and fill up her freezer :)

I'm feeling much more confident about keeping us in fruit and veg now. I can see the garden beds filling with food, food that I won't need to buy, and it gives a very nice feeling.  And planting more than usual, so I will have plenty to preserve for winter and spring next year, is reassuring too.

White Choc Anzac Biscuits

When we cleaned the pantry out last week, I found a packet of white choc bits that had been opened and somehow forgotten. Turns out it was opened while Wayne and I were on holiday, so not too long ago, but they needed to be used up.

I was going to bake anyway, we had nothing in the biscuit tin, so I made a batch of White Choc Anzac Biscuits. I didn't know that was what they were as I was measuring out the ingredients, but once we tasted them, that's what they were named.

They're based on my ANZAC biscuit recipe, with a couple of alternations.

White Choc Anzac Biscuits

Ingredients:
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1/ 2 cup sugar
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup coconut
125g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tablespoon golden syrup
1 teaspoon. bicarb. soda
2 tablespoons boiling water

Method:
Pre-heat oven 160 degrees Celsius. Combine oats, flour, sugar, white chocolate chips and coconut. Combine butter and golden syrup, stir over gentle heat until melted. Mix soda and boiling water, add to melted butter mixture, add vanilla extract, stir into dry ingredients. Place teaspoons of mixture on lightly greased trays. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly golden - watch them carefully, they will brown and burn quickly after the 15 minutes.