#beingfrugal — Public Fediverse posts

Tried to post it before, but keep forgetting.

I try hard to cut back my consumption of red meat, but few dishes are hard to cook without it.

Last week, I found minced turkey and pork/Sausage meat at the discount corner and bought them.

Mixing them together gave a perfect combination for making pasta sauce and north-Iranian Vavishka that tastes as good (or even better) than minced beef.

And of course Mellie loved having some raw and later cooked. So it's a win win for both of us.

I also made some "kebab" on the pan and made a delicious sandwich.

#food #Meat #Cooking #BeingFrugal #BoRedMeat #France

This is why I take 2 busses going to Action to buy some items.

I don't like french Mayonnaise, it has too much mustard in it and makes my Olivier salad taste awful (Iranian potato salad).

American mayonnaise as they call it here, is really expensive in the "normal" shops like Auchan or SuperU, but it's "normal" price at Action. Even though I hate buying items in plastic containers, but I buy a few of them when I visit them (plus dog treats are very cheap there too).

For mayonnaise, it's easy to choose between €40/kg and €3.9/kg.

#Shoping #BeingFrugal #France #Mayonnaise #Food

Mellie is adapting to my no-red-meat diet.

cooked a chicken breast with one large onion, took out the chicken and added 2 large potatoes (cut in pieces), 6 eggs and 2 packs of chicken liver, cooked them in the broth and removed them, added half of the vegetables of a frozen cous-cous mix and 4 cubes of frozen spinach with one table spoon of tomato paste.

Added one cup of cous-cous to the broth and let it simmer.

Diced the chicken breast with shredded eggs and potatoes, added maynaise and made iranian Salad-Olevier!

My daughter ate cous-cous with chicken liver, I ate olivier with bread and mellie had chicken liver, cous-cous and dog meat.

we have 2-3 more meals (each) between the 3 of us!

All for less than 12 euros! Healthy and delicious.

TBH, I think Mellie is happer than both of us, she loves eating the same food as we do (she really thinks she is human) and gets excited and runs around throwing her toys up in the air after each meal!

#BeingFrugal #Cooking #Food #France

I love Lentils. I have said it many time before, but I really enjoyed eating them. With rice, with bread, in soup, I salad, it's always a good addition to my daily meals.

I remember when I was student in Sweden, I used to make lentil soup (عدسی - Adasi in farsi), because of my childhood memories, coming home from school during cold winter days of Tehran and having a bowl of lentils with rice, or fresh Barbari bread from our local bakery, were some of favorite memories.

When my parents came to visit and I made lentil for them and said why, my mother laughed out loud. She said that she was making lentils in the winter mostly because she would run out of money before Iranian new year and had to make cheap food to manage. That was her only reason to make it in the winter!

But, it sure created lasting memories for me to enjoy it through the years, and I have thought my daughters to cook it "Iranian way" and they both really enjoying it too.

#food #Lentils #nostalgia #Memories #Iran #France #BeingFrugal #IranianFood

Made pizza with what ever I had in the fridge. Tomatoes, spinach, garlic and cheese.

Making really easy and quick pizza sauce, using concentrated tomatoes, soy sauce and some vinegar with peppers and oregano.

#pizza #Cooking #BeingFrugal #France

June is my buy nothing month. Except for dog treats. I am almost out of dog treats and need to go and buy for the puppy to be happy!

Other than that, I am going to spend 0 on anything, except if it is necessary.

I have enough food in the freezer and the cabinets for the whole month!

#BuyNothingMonth #BeingFrugal #France #Economy

I know I'm crazy.

While walking Mellie, I saw someone throwing away 2 really nice wooden chairs with broken seats.

I used to have one of those and loved it a lot. Very comfortable and compact.

So, I carry them home. Going to take the old, broken pieces out and replace them with new wood and add more "fluff" to the seat.

Now I can get rid of my old Ikea chair that is not very comfortable.

#Recycle #Repair #Furniture #DumpsteDiving #DIY #BeingFrugal #France

Home made pizza with everything except the cheese was bought from anti-gaspi corner of the store.

(Premade pizza dough)

#Food #Cooking #BeingFrugal #France #Pizza

My french online bank has an interesting option to buy gift certificates for various stores at slightly discounted price.

I buy most of my groceries from Auchan and Super U and paying with these gift certificates, makes thing slightly cheaper.

That 4-5%, plus 10% discount once a week with my loyalty card and anti-gaspi finds, are helping me to cope with the high prices and low pension to get a rather decent food quality at home.

Like today, bought 5kg chicken breast marked down at -35% since expiration date is tomorrow. Got 10% off because it's my discount day and 5% on top of it with my gift certificates. So the price of it ended up being less than 6 euro a kilo. Which is about half the price our butcher is selling.

#BeingFrugal #GiftCertificate #Bank #Saving #AntiGaspi #France #Saving #Retirement

Made chicken patties.

One chicken breast, 3 potatoes, 5 frozen spinach cubes, one cup of oat and 2 eggs. Plus salt, pepper,. paprika and turmeric.

Almost 30 small "burgers" for sandwich or eating with salad. Delicious and economical.

Kind of healthy too.

#food #cooking #BeingFrugal #France

Went to our local store early this morning when walking Mellie.

Found a lot of discount items being put in the fridge, like 2,5kg of chicken breast for 18 euro (normally 13euro per kilo) and 2,5kg chicken leggs for 8 euro, normally 5 euro/kilo.

Prices were like those I used to pay before COVID back when I was living in Paris.

I have enough chicken for the whole month now.

#BeingFrugal #France #Food #AntiGaspi #SouthOfFrance #Economy #France

Learned my lesson. Went to local supermarket early in the morning and bought bananas, strawberries, clementines, apples and mixed vegetables at their "anti-gaspi" section for 1-2 euro a pack.

Going to make a lot of smoothies in the coming days and try to freeze some of the vegetables for later.

#France #BeingFrugal #AntiGaspi #Fruits #vegetables #smoothies

I never could have retired at fifty, had I not always driven compact cars and purchased all my "teacher clothes" at Goodwill. Cheapness pays. 1995. #cheap #beingcheap #thrifty #beingthrifty #thriftiness #thrift #parsimonous #parsimony #moneymanagement #frugal #frugality #beingfrugal #teacher #teacherclothes #suits #menssuits #suit #threepiecesuit #threepiecesuits #paintings #oilpaintings #budget #savingmoney #savings #moneymanaging

Dinner is almost ready

Antigaspi chicken with potatoes, onions and vegetables, slow cooked in pyrex dutch oven.

Both me and Mellie are going to have a delicious meal.

#Food #HomeCooking #Chicken #France #BeingFrugal

Bought a lot of chicken and single packed them to freeze.

Each pack is for one day (lunch/dinner) for me and mellie.

Total 16€

#France #BeingFrugal #Food #Cooking #Chicken

Baking some treats for Neloie, using broth from bones I cooked, some meat, fat and other stuff from butcher, cooked with sweet potatoes, carrots, string beans, oat and flour.

It will be a lot of treats to freeze with a full pot of bones and 2L of broth.

Mellie likes it so far. Will see how she does after a few days/weeks. Good way of saving money and giving Mellie good treats.

#DogFood #Homecooking #DogTreat #MyDog #France #Mellie #BeingFrugal

Really enjoy my (free) Air Fryer.

Made some fries with Croque Monsieur.

Made some salad and spicy sauce to eat it with while it was cooking.

Delicious food with almost 0 efforts.

#Food #AirFryer #HomeCooking #BeingFrugal #France

Making dog treats with half of my turkey meat with sweet potatoes, string beans, Turkish yogurt and eggs.

She loves them so much and I save a lot of money buying them.

Going to dry them so they don't go bad.

#DogTreats #HomeCooking #DogFood #Treats #Dogs #France #BeingFrugal

I love humus.

The good ones are so expensive, and my old mixer wasn't working well to make them at home.

Tried with my new mixer (the one I barter against a jalapeno pepper plant). And the results are just great.

Now I have almost a kilo of hummus, for less than 3 euros.

#humus #Food #DIY #BeingFrugal #France

One of the greatest things for me living on a budget is looking for discount items.

The french #Antigaspi (Anti-waste) rule requires grocery stores to offer fresh items with short expiration date (fruits, vegetables and any other perishable items) at 30-90% discount price instead of throwing them in the garbage.

Today, I bought 3.5kg of bananas that are perfectly fine, but have brown dots on them for €2. Plus 2 honey melon for €1 each.

Time to make some banana bread.

#France #BeingFrugal

I love buying and selling used items.my old vacuum cleaner is not working very well (wires don't go into it) so I put it online for 20 euro (with lots of accessories) and sold it yesterday

Today, I picked up a pretty decent used one for 25.

Mellie didn't like my vacuuming and barked and followed me everywhere.

#Reuse #BeingFrugal

One large onion, one small chicken breast, 250g frozen vegetables, salt, pepper, turmeric, soy sauce and 250g of cuscus was enough for dinner last night and late lunch today.

Mellie had some too.

Healthy, economic and delicious.

#Food #Homecooking #France #BeingFrugal

For those who follow such things, I just put up a new blog post (my first in a while). And I think it'll be very useful...
https://cheapconnie.weebly.com/blog/the-tariffs-are-coming-for-your-money

#blog #blogs #blogpost #frugal #BeingFrugal #Cheap #SaveMoney

I have to stop cooking such huge meals.

Chicken hearts, with string beans, pasta and potatoes. Cooked in cream cheese and red wine.

But it's delicious and economical.

All of that for less than 4 euros. Enough for 4-5 meals.

#Food #Cooking #Homecooking #ChickenHeart #France #BeingFrugal

Bought some #turkey wings at half price and cooked 4 of them with bone broth, #chickpeas, red #lentils with #spinach, #leak and #parsley.

I have enough for 4 more meals and all for less than 5 euros!

made some fine pasta to eat with it. next time I won't use that much parsley.
#Soup #Cooking #France #BeingFrugal

Turning 6 chicken wings into multiple delicious meals plus a lot of scraps for Mellie.

Used Swiss Chard, Leak, garlic and parsley from the balcony garden, plus a can of mixed #vegetables, a couple of potatoes and 2 large tomatoes into a big pot of #soup.

The bones, skin and joints will be for Mellie (she actually got more than I got from the #chicken).

#Food #Cooking #Gardening #BalconyGarden #France #HimeCoking #BeingFrugal #ChickenSoup