No money out apart from envelope at church. I put on a sweater to keep warm instead of turning on the heating and made potato patties. Coarsely grate 2 medium sized murphies and gently squeeze out excess water. Stir in half a finely grated onion, 2 tablespoons of flour, and salt to taste (I like lots).Drop spoonsful into hot oil and fry till nicely browned on both sides.

If ever I get down to my last $10 I will buy a big sack of flour and one of potatoes and live on this for a month.

kiwifruit. I bought 8 zespri or golden kiwi for nz$1.60, and sliced up a couple with some chopped pear (also cheap this time of year) and soaked raisins. I feel I am doing my part to ward off the winter blues.

They say never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. i was looking for dinner ingredients today and I had nz$4 to spend. I wound up with sardines, rice crackers, five bananas and .30 cents change. I justify it by saying I saved on electricity by not cooking.

I have some cornmeal which has been sitting in my pantry for a while so decided to use it. Yesterday I made polenta but when I tried to then fry it I hadn't made it thick enough and it turned into a big mess in the skillet.

So this mornign I tried making cornmeal pancakes but discovered I had run out of baking powder so my pancakes were flat and stodgy instead of light and fluffy.

Never mind persevere. I'll try tortillas next, with vege chilli as it's a cool damp day.

It's official, food prices are up 8% since last July, fruit and veg up 12 %. Oh the pain. TG I'm not feeding a family anymore, it must be so hard.

But I was surprised at the interview on the radio about it this morning. The reporter opted to quiz the spokesperson about the price of lettuce and tomatoes, complaing about how expensive they were. Doh! If you're hard up you don't buy lettuce, which has few calories. And you certainly don't buy them in winter - you buy the veges which are cheap then.

So here is a basic beating-the-winter-depression dish. Throw a generous spoonful of caraway seeds into oil. Add plenty of thinly sliced cabbage and carrot and cook until wilted. Add as much as you can afford of cooked black eyed beans and lots of tomato sauce. Pop the lid on and simmer until veges are cooked.

OMG canned tomatoes up to nz$1.09 (store brand - the name brands are %1.59) What do I do? They're one of my staples.

Guess I will use less tomato and more onions.

The Asian greengrocer was selling soup bags of old vegetables for nz$1. I got carrots, parsnip and tomato, and added some pasta, parsley and a touch of chili. Very comforting on a frosty nite.

Life is hard sometimes. Especially when I'm coming home from my evening cleaning job and I'm hungry and I have to go past all the fast food joints in our area. The thought of going home and waiting while I cook up a meal makes me want to give in and buy some pizza or a burger more often than I should.

So I'm taking action. Before I leave for work I put a banana or some raisins or some other snack in my bag and nibble on it as I walk past the Chinese takeaways. On a cold night it's not as comforting as fries would be, but it works.

Maybe next winter I could get a thermos and fill it with really thick soup? At least I didn't spend tonite and I found 10 cents outside the Indian restaurant so I came home richer than I went.

I did morning teas for church yesterday and bought some chocolate sandwich cookies. Today I am eating the remaining cookies. I used to be satisfied with one, now the manufacturers are making them much smaller, so I eat 2 or 3. Ruinous on both the pocket book and the waistline.

I'm not sure what to call this - maybe sweet and sour pilaf. It's what you cook when the pantry's almost empty. Fry sliced onions until golden, throw in some rice and cook till the grains turn white. Add your preferred amount of salt, vinegar and sugar. Toss in a handful of raisins and pour in boiling water. cover and simmer until the rice is cooked and the water absorbed.

Sorry for no precise measurements. I'm a pinch of this and dash of that cook - I don't even own a scale.

I think the supermarket bakery is getting a wee bit greedy with their prices in the day old bread bin. A bag of scones used to cost nz1.50, now it has gone up to 2.99. Too much - I'll go back to baking my own.

No, it's not too early. Today I bought some vouchers from New World supermarket. You get 5% discount in December.

Went out for a friend's birthday last night, to an all you can eat place. For nz$17 I had three loaded platefuls and just enough room for one bowl of dessert. I'm still feeling bloated today so didn't have any breakfast, nor did I have a muffin at church. I ate enough for 3 or 4 normal days eating. Oink oink. Good job I only go there a couple times a year.

Found .50 cents on the way to church, so put it in the plate.

I was on morning tea after church this morning. I meant to bake last night, but wound up going out to a free concert. So I was late getting up and decided to make some pikelets (Scotch pancakes) but found I'd run out of milk. So I had to buy 2 packets of cookies and some milk, nz5.99, tho I generally try to avoid shopping on Sunday.

In the afternoon I visited my neighbor to congratulate her on a great performance - she was in the choir at the concert last nite. I wound up helping her bottle pears, then unravelling and reknitting a hat she was making. She was very pleased and gave me a pot of apricot jam.

I still have some veges left, so made pumpkin cakes and cooked some black beans with the remaining celery.

This morning I walked 13 minutes in the rain to my own bank ATM so I wouldn't have to pay another bank withdrawal fee. After that I spent 25 minutes in the supermarket scrutinising all the bargains before buying
6 day old pumpkin seed buns nz1.00
sandwich tuna 1.30
quarter cabbage 1.00
can pineapple 1.10
peanut butter 2.00
I also went to the Asian food store where the legumes are cheaper and bought some black beans for 2.00
I also found .20 cents as a reward for being up bright and early. I was thinking what i could buy with it. I can get a knitting pattern from the Sally Army or maybe some popping corn from the bulk bin. I guess I will put it in the Christmas jar.

So I'm continuing to be creative with the pantry. This morning I did curried beans.

1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 carrot, coarsely grated
1 apple, peeled and chopped
Fry all until softened. Add 1 tablespoon flour and preferred amount of curry powder. Add milk to make a thickish sauce. Stir in one can of baked beans and heat thru.

This amount was more than ample for one person, but if You were feeding a family, you could make biscuits to go with it.

Was going to make today a NSD, but got a flyer saying pasta was on sale at my local supermarket, so bought 2 packets macaroni. That should keep me going for some time, and I still have .30 left over from my challenge.

this morning I made potato and lentil patties, with the can of tomatoes and tonite I made some gingerbread. I had one or two slices - okay, five. It was good.

And I found .70 cents.

I came across this useful website

http://www.simplesavings.co.nz/

for people saving money Down Under while I was looking for the info about the $21 a week grocery challenge. It seems they only do it for a week and mainly live out of what's in the kitchen, so not terribly helpful for living on a minimal amount long term. But some of the recipes look good so will try them out. I signed up for the free newsletter, and if it is any good I may look at paying the nz$47 membership.

Today I had pasta with the frozen mixed veg for my first meal, and pancakes with bananas tonite. I didn't get the oil hot enough before pouring the batter in, so they stuck to the pan and were a bit messy, but they tasted good.

Like lessisenough I often only eat 2 meals a day -so did most of our ancestors until 200 years ago. The word luncheon was only invented in the 19th century, and it was for rich people. Because it is difficult for me to get up in the morning, I cook my main meal then. It gives me energy to face the day, and I go out feeling I've done something good for myself. And if I'm too tired to cook in the evening, I can just have a bowl of cereal.

So this morning I started with vegetable soup, made with barley, split peas, carrot, celery and potato. I made it really thick and had 2 good bowlfuls. I didn't have lunch but ate a handful of wild blackberries, and had a coffoe and a slice of chocolate cake at a friend's. This is not about turning down free food with some high minded remark about poor people ( heck, on my income I am a poor person) because I haven't paid for it out of my alloted nz3.00 per day. I intend to continue my normal way, just cut the usual grocery spending to nz21.00 a week.

I bought some salad bananas for 1.30 and apples for 1.10 because I had no fruit. This evening I made some banana porridge with cinnamon. I also had several cups of tea with milk, but I'm running out of teabags.

So I was checking out the blog of this lady who bought food for $1US a day.

http://lessisenough.wordpress.com/

It absolutely would not be doable for me to do $1nz a day unless I ate only rice and potatoes, but I recall hearing on The Money Man that it is possible to get your groceries down to $nz21 a week, so I'm going to give it a go.

The usual start-wit-no-food-and-buy-a-dollar's-worth-a-day strikes me as a bit artificial. Most folks would have a few necessities like oil, salt and flour in their pantry. I don't go for the argument that you need a car and storage space to buy in bulk either. In India you see women walking 5 miles home from market with 25 lbs of rice or beans on their heads. Anyway, this is not just a 30 day trial, but will go as long as I can make it work. So I'll start with what I have at home, which is
potatoes
pasta
rice
frozen mixed veg
flour
oil
cornmeal
pea flour
herbs and spices
carrots
celery
zucchini
pumpkin
eggs
baked beans
oats
milk
lentils
old fashioned soup mix
can tomatoes

That should keep me going till the weekend. I spent $16.30 already, so put $4.70 aside in case I need more milk. Hmm, I can see already I'm probably going to have to give up drinking tea and coffee. I shall be amazed if I can do this as the experts at the University announced earlier this year it costs nz120 a week to feed an adult.

I actualy didn't need to cook dinner tonite as we had a lunch at Artsenta and I am full of sausage rolls and tomato sandwiches.

Bought groceries for nz$16.30. Zucchini is cheap at the moment, $3.49 a kilo, so am having zucchini fritters for dinner tonite.

I have been warned of the "new worker's spread." There is lots of food at my new work place. We are provided with morning tea on Monday (cookies) and a fruit platter on Wednesdays. The trainer is handing out lollies as rewards and there is a snack machine plus baked goods for sale as a fund raiser. Not only could I easily spend a lot of money - I could get fat.

I went to the supermarket after work today, the 5pm crush is something I've avoided for a long time. I saw someone I knew and she had a deli cooked chicken, some salad greens and a bottle of wine. Her bill came to over nz$30. I asked her if the wine was for a special occasion and she said no, it was just a regular dinner. Guess I'm lucky I can't drink alcohol with my medication.

There has been a lot in the papers recently about the increased cost of food, so I decided to take a careful look at prices today. Fruit and vegetables have gone up, but as it is spring at the moment you'd expect that. Potatoes are expensive as we wait for the new ones, but rice and pasta are still cheap. We have the ridiculous situation where we are exporting food to other parts of the world, and in return a lot of the stuff in the supermarkets is imported from US and Australia. I need to check out the local farmers' market.

I came to the conclusion that a lot of the price increase is due to packaging. Instead of say, a can of plain tuna, there are a whole load of little cans with all sorts of added flavors, often lunchables with a few crackers and all done up in loads of cardboard and plastic. But if you buy the regular can it's just as cheap and helps save the environment. I found no difference in the prices of basics like oats, lentils and eggs. I think people's eating habits have changed and they're buying a lot more convenience foods.

The one thing that is more expensive is dairy products, I guess cos the Asian market is beginning to use more. But I did notice round campus, judging by the trash, a lot of students can still afford plenty of pizza and beer. Hmm, if the price of cheese keeps going up, will pizza become less affordable?

"Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness." - Jane Austen

So I made a pie for dinner from the neighbor's windfalls. Very good and I am very happy. My mom was great at baking pies and we had them a lot. We grew our own gooseberries and rhubard, there were brambles growing up the lane, and an old abandoned orchard at the back of the yard. I remember when mom was going to bake an apple pie sis and I would run thru the long grass to gather up the windfalls, chasing away the squirrels and rabbits. Sometimes in the winter, if it was just getting dark, we would see a fox slipping along the hedge. When we took them home, we would watch mom to see if she could take the peel off an apple in one whole strip - she was very good at it. The pastry was made from wholewheat flour and she used maybe half a cup of brown sugar - sometimes she put dried fruit in as well. We seldom had icecream or cream with it, just homemade custard. It was a pretty nutritious dessert, looking back.

I used to love making pies with ds. You get a math lesson with all that measuring and weighing, a science lesson with the chemical changes, and a lesson in nutrition all at the same time.

Moms - save our rising generation from the threats of obesity, diabetes, and the loss of precious domestic skills! Don't take them to McD's for a lump of fried sugar that is falsely labelled - feed them real apple pies and show them how to make them! Then, and only then, will our civilization rise again!

slips into Winston Churchill imitation... We shall bake to the end, we shall make pastry in the kitchen, we shall place pies in our kids lunch boxes, we shall make apple pies with growing confidence and growing strength, we shall defend our homemade desserts, whatever the cost may be, we shall control the amount of sugar, we shall plant our own apple trees, we shall ignore advertising in the papers and on the TV, we shall save money in the process; we shall never surrender.

Today I visited the University library at which I have alumna borrowing priveleges. There was a display of rare books, including an 1822 biography of Napoleon and a first edition of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. He was a character who came up with his own opinionated definitions. The book was open at the one which reads: "stockjobber (ie broker) a low wretch who makes his living buying and selling shares." Given the unregulated market of his day, he was likely correct.

I took out a book on Salt, Health and Diet by a couple of medical professors. I'm finding some fascinating information about the history of salt and the role it played in the economy, as well as the effect on the body. Some snippets:

- Salt is not necessary in the diet. Many primitive tribes don't use it.

- The top cause of death in the 19th Century was apoplexy, or stroke, caused by high blood pressure from eating so much salt preserved food.

- Salt played a role in the South losing the Civil War. They didn't have enough to preserve the meat the troops ate, so the Confederate soldiers were starving and couldn't fight well.

- Manufacturers add more salt, and MSG, to cheap meats like sausages and luncheon meats because it is largely mechanically recovered ground meat and fat, and doesn't have much flavor. Another reason is that salt can absorb more water so they can make it more cheaply.

- Salt makes you thirsty so that is why bars serves salty snacks and fast food giants serve soft drinks. Many manufacturers of salty snacks also own soft drink concerns.

- Cutting down on salt in your diet helps you lose weight. Part of it is loss of body fluid, and also because you are cutting out high calorie foods like chips.

The other book I borrowed was Planet India: How the Fastest Growing Democracy Is Transforming America and the World by Mira Kamdar. Only flicked thru this, but it deals with the effects of jobs offshore on Americans, the rise of the Indian middle classes and the impact of technology on their economy, and the consequences on the poor Indian villages and the landless who flock to the cities for work. Having seen this at first hand myself, I look forward to reading what an Indian economist has to say about it.

Heh, I'm getting the equivalent of another degree - for free. Oh, and found 40 cents coming back across campus. Think I'll start a running tally in the side bar.

There are two schools of thought about this. One says; stay out of shops as much as possible to avoid temptation. The other says; keep going back to get the best bargains. I shilly shally - actually I do like browsing to see what's on sale, but I impulse splurge far less than I used to. (I used to be one of those ooh-a-bag-sale-at-the-thrift-store-I'll-get-five-bags-of-stuff-I-don't-need shoppers)

But today I got lucky - thrift store was selling herb plants. I got some basil and lemon balm at a dollar each. I also saw two new stores had opened. One was a consignment store. Wow, did they have some lovely stuff! Many garments with the original price tags still on them - up to 80% off. Of course they were horrendously overpriced in the first place, which is why the store of origin probably went bust - but still good quality. Will definitely go back there when I am earning again.

The other place was a new Asian food store. Lots of very cheap convenience foods - catering to local Asian students. I prefer the one in town where I can buy mung beans, big bags of rice, vegetables and other real food. I ocassionaly get some soy or other sauce, but all that MSG does me no good. The only thing I bought today was some soy milk for nz$1.70

Going past McD's drive in I remembered I had some packets of their ketchup still sitting in the pantry - it was from when a friend came round with burgers as a treat, but he doesn't eat ketchup - So when I got home I made a risotto with the last red pepper and squeezed in McD's blood for some flavor. Well, let's just say I'm glad I've got some herb plants now.

I went to a 50th party and ran into an old college friend. She complimented me on my new trim figure (tho the way I was eating the weight will go back on soon!) She told me about a new diet she'd heard of - the free food diet. You only eat if someone gives you food, not buy any. She reckoned it was doable in her case as she and her hubby go to so many business and social events where food is provided. Just think of the money you'd save on groceries and dining out!

Out of curiosity I kept an eye out for free food as I went back home across the campus. You wouldn't believe the amount of partly eaten burgers, fries, sandwiches, pizzas, fruit etc, which I'd be happy to grab if I were a street child in Mumbai. Also saw a couple of well known winos collecting bottles and cans. Also found $1 which I did pick up. These are the kids which are forever whining about their student loans.

When I got home a neighbor had left some windfall apples and walnuts for me. Now those I was happy to take.

Oh and I totalled up the amount of food I'd eaten at the party on fitday.com - 3508 calories! Maybe this free food diet could wind up being fattening ...

Today New World had 2-minute noodles on sale at nz.20 per packet, normally nz.35. There is not much nutrition in them, so I tend to avoid them, but they are handy to have in the cupboard when you need a quick meal. I sprout my own mung beans and add an egg for a cheapie stir fry. So I bought 10 packs.

Broccoli was on special and I got some reduced price carrots, so will make a noodle-vege-cheese casserole tonite. I don't buy canned soup, but will use the flavor sachet with the noodles to make a sauce.

Tonight some friends had a potluck. All of us are on disability or work parttime. We had:
bread
shaved ham
salad
strawberries
chocolate cake
lemonade
coffee

sounds like a feast to me! We were talking about the old days (most of us 40-55) and recalling how our parents used to grow veggies, hunt and fish, bake goods, and make our own clothes. I have to say, I think a lot of the poverty we hear about in this country is because people have lost those skills.

I once met a Russian who had jumped ship in a NZ port. He only had a knife, but he made his way inland, and spent several months living off the land, before he got legal status and wound up being quite a successful landlord. He always said this was a wonderful land of opportunity and he didn't see what people had to complain about. Even without money, life here is so much better than in other parts of the world.

Not what you think! Went to do my grocery shopping today. I was looking for some curry powder. I found the branded packet was selling at nz$1.95 for 30 grams. The supermarket own brand was nz$0.85 for 40 grams. Quite a difference, and it shows why I seldom bother with coupons. The unbranded product is usually cheaper even without the discount.

On the topic of Indian cooking, I have taken to making chippatis instead of bread, as it is quicker and uses less power. I tend to make them with milk or peanut butter for added nutrition. If I have any leftovers such as dahl or yoghurt, I toss that in the dough as well.

This morning I made some carrot marmelade to go with my chippatis. Peel and chop one orange (the peel is traditionally finely chopped and added, but don't do this if you're concerned about insecticides) coarsely grate 2 carrots. Add a little water and half a cup sugar, and I like to add some ground ginger. Cook for 2 minutes at a time in the microwave, stirring between bursts and adding more water if it gets too stiff. The consistency should be that of jam. Keeps in the fridge.