go back to days of yore

A question about : go back to days of yore

recently I found a book about rationing and the war, and we decided to try eating the same for a fortnight, as my old mum is fit as !a flea and insists its the good eating she did during the war and all that.

so ! needless to say we lost a lot of weight without trying and without being hungry, !then ! we decided to go a step further as mum is always telling me that its banks that have caused most peoples money problems, !shes never had a bank account and lived on the money she had coming in each week without any bother, and if there was any bother -- TOUGH -- you just ride it out till next pay day.

so ! !instead of taking cards with me when I went shopping !I wrote a list from our weekly menu and took out Ј75 !from the bank, !plus Ј20 spends for me !and Ј20 spends for the Old fart,

anyway !the upshot is !after a month ! we have saved over Ј600 !!

no impulse buying, !my Ј20 spends is now Ј37 in credit with another Ј20 today to come, as you really think twice before buying if you only have X amount, the Ј75 a week is now Ј46-89 in credit as well, so this week we can have a nice peice of beef or go out for our sunday dinner, and still be in credit.

my old mum was right !and from now on thats the way Im going to live ! !we'll be rich in no time,

;D

Best answers:

• Not taking cards with you is a great idea, if you've got weak will power like my missus with shoes!!!!
  i basically budget for everything and know what 'play' money i have at any given time - works for me!!!
• so instead of taking cards with me when I went shopping I wrote a list from our weekly menu and took out Ј75 from the bank, plus Ј20 spends for me and Ј20 spends for the Old fart,
  
  I have always budgeted xamount per week for spending on things like parking, going out and general shopping but I found as I was using a card I was overspending or spending and not realising.
  I have just started to pay by cash for everything except petrol and its amazing how much I am saving as I am much more aware how much I am spending and I really feel it when I hand over a crisp note and get back pennies!
• Its amazing how much i have saved not buying 'niceties'. I buy an 21 bag of Walkers crisps a week and 21 Kit Kats, and if the kids are hungry in between they have to make themselves a sandwich. We only have 'puddings' on weekends and i dont buy sweets and chocolate to keep in the house.
  I recon i have saved about Ј20 a week on my grocery bills and we still eat well, if not better than before.
• I sat and wrote out the weeks meals then from that did a shopping list
  stuck to it plus the usual cat food dog food soap powder etc and cut my bill down from about Ј80 to Ј34!!!
  and we never ate better!!
• and i dont buy sweets and chocolate to keep in the house.
  
  My mum (non money saver) is really bad for that, and as the chocolate and biccies are there, you just eat them, when I lived away from home, I never kept any biccies in the house and never missed them.
• I think it was a Tonight prog where families went back to war time days and had to survive for a month on rations and do without tv etc. The big surprise was the Mums who lost an awful lot of weight. Kids hated being without their luxury items like tv, playstations, crisps and sweets etc but lost weight through better eating and more exercise.
• also, simple puds like jelly and ice cream, apple crumble
  and nothing nicer than a jam butty after your tea save a fortune and go down a storm,
  no need to go mad with cheescakes etc that cost a fortune, bread and butter pud is lovely and couldnt be easier.
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  Back in 1946, just after the SecondWorld War there were many food shortages. People were only allowed so much ofsome particularly scarce foods.
  Food had to be shared out as equally as possiblethe way this was done was through a system called rationing. Every member of every family would have had a ration book and it gave precise details of the amounts of certain types of food that you were allowed during one week. Some of the amounts were; -------------------------------->
  Bacon andham: 4oz (100g)
  Meat: To the value of 1s.2d (6p today).Sausages were not rationed but difficult to obtain; offal was originallyunrationed but sometimes formed part of the meat ration.
  Cheese: 2oz(50g) sometimes it went up to 4oz (100g) and even up to 8oz (225g).
  Margarine: 4oz (100g)
  Butter: 2oz (50g).
  Milk: 3 pints(1800ml) occasionally dropping to 2 pints (1200ml). Household milk (skimmed ordried) was available : 1 packet per four weeks.
  Sugar: 8oz (225g).
  Jam: 1lb (450g) every two months.
  Tea:2oz (50g).
  Eggs: 1fresh egg a week if available but often only one every two weeks. Dried eggs 1packet every four weeks.
  Sweets: 12oz (350g) every four weeks
  Canyou imagine living for a week on these amounts of food? Compare the amount ofsweets in weight that you eat in a week with the amount allowed people in 1946for four weeks 12oz (350g).
  https://www.allthatwomenwant.com/wartimerecipes.htm
• What a nightmare it would be to follow rationing. I'm glad I can go to Asda/Tesco. I want to save money but I don't want to spend all my unpaid time in the kitchen making cakes. In the 1940's house on Channel 4 a few years ago thye used parsnips to sweeten the cake because there was no sugar. However, the woman soent nearly all day preparing the food from scratch. My mum always made meals from scratch with fresh ingrediants but she didn't work outside of the house. I simply don't have the time even if I had the inclination.
• I've a couple of recipes that only take minutes to prepare - one's a really good 'steamed pudding' only it's for the microwave.
  Quick, easy, cheap and much better than the shop bought ones :P
• My mother used to do what I think was called Ham Hock
  She'd cook it for a good sunday meal then make a stew out of it then make a soup out of it ;D
  Lovely tasty food :
  Poor peoples beef she called it
• Oh yum... my kids love pea and ham soup with homemade crusty rolls.
• when I think of my gran shes always standing in the kitchen!! she lived in there I think,
  8 kids umpteen grandkids and a tiny kitchen with 2 shelves a cooker and a sink and drainer, spotlessly clean and Ill tell you what, fabulous food came out of that kitchen, much much nicer than out of my highly expensive fitted one full to the brim with labour saving devices that Ive had to work my socks off to pay for!! ???
• Sounds lovely ;DWhat I remember is the pinny..she never seemed to take it off
• yes the cross over pinny !! !never without it, then in the 60s !she went all trendy and got an overall.
  remember the smell of umpteen sunday roasts when you were a kid??
  that woman in the 1940s house looked at Margueritte Patten when she was showing her how to make a cake and said
  "Ive never cooked a meal or made a cake in my life"
  what a wife ! what a mother!!
  she even ate the kids food didnt she one day??
• Yeah proper Hilda Ogden pinny and always something on the stone ;D
  It was fascinating that series
• What a marvellous marvellous tip.
  There is a lot to be said for revisiting what our parents and grandparents cooked, as the idea of economical use of seasonal vegetables and cheaper cuts of meat was really engrained into everything they did - these days there is such a profusion of the best cuts and whatever vegetable you want whenever you want it, that you tend not to think about what you're doing or what you buy.
  And there was nothing ever quite as good as the leftovers of leftovers soup my Dad used to make on Saturday!
• This is brilliant! Since I stopped work I've got into the habit of nipping to Tesco every day - never thought whether I was spending more till my daughter questioned my shopping habits! I do take advantage of bogofs and other bargains (as the toilet rolls in the linen cupboard will testify), but like others, I go out for some bread and end spending Ј20.
  Made a promise to myself to adopt some of the tips on here when shopping. Also, as soon as my new kitchen is finished, my cooking habits will improve Too many convenience foods having to be used right now as we have minimal facilities, but look out ... things are gonna change round here. :P
• honestly, if you get a lb of mince make chilli with half of it and spaghetti bologneise with the other half
  theres 2 meals for a 99p tray of mince
  add the same quantities of lentils or oats to it and you double it up
  a ham shank can do a lovely meal with spuds and cabbage then the bone and the water you cook the cabbage and spuds in plus the ham water can make a wonderful pan of soup add afrozen bag of casserole mix veg and some split peas
  and so on
  ;D ;D