Being on The Budget

So this is week 3 on the budget, and it has gone really well.  It has also been really tough though.

For example, day one - I wanted to make something quick and easy for dinner (it was Friday after all).  Usually on a Friday we do takeaways, but I decided against it because it was also month end and I was in no mood for queues and crowds or a 2 hour wait for delivery.

And so I found myself walking the aisles of the store on a Friday afternoon trying to think of a quick and easy dinner for myself and The Mr for R20. And they were making boerewors rolls in the store, so I was getting hungrier and hungrier. And I was ready to say "Screw it, screw the budget". But it was day one. So I decided to stick to it. After a very long time, I left the store with 4 hamburger rolls and 1 tomato. At home, I quickly defrosted a pre-prepared pack of chicken strips (pre-prepared by me - more on this later), which I fried up with some green pepper and barbeque sauce - and then made rolls with them. On the side, I made some oven baked chips and onion rings (which comes from my general grocery budget because I buy this for the month).

That weekend, I decided that I would never again find myself wondering the aisles of the store trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I drew up a meal plan for the whole month. Ofcourse, every few days I would change things around, depending on what ingredients I was able to buy and the prices. But it has definitely made my life much easier.

Other thrifty things I did this month:

1. I started a stock tub in the freezer: any bits of vegetables, or vegetable peels, gets put into the tub in the freezer. When I eventually make my stock later this week, I will use the veggies for added flavour.

2. I saved half a tub of yogurt by freezing it and turning it into frozen yogurt.

3. I saved half a loaf of bread by freezing the slices and using it for toast.

4. I saved bits of sauce from 3 different dinners, ready for a second life in another meal.  For example, this was the sauce leftover from a chicken casserole I made on Monday. Instead of throwing the sauce away, I transferred it to a ziploc bag and froze it. I am sure that I will find a use for it soon.

I only wish that I had a larger freezer!

But I must say that it is going well, and The Mr is completely onboard, which definitely helps.  So far, the only meals that have gone over R20 are over the weekend - and usually those meals are bought with spending money anyway, and not with grocery money.

I may do a few things differently in the upcoming months - I am going to review the process at the end of October and decide the way forward. But I can already see how much money I have saved this month.