Fiver Week: Friday and Saturday

What a week, what a week. By Friday morning I was down to £4, and wondered whether I was going to make it to the end of the weekend on my petite budget without messing it up.

Friday was a bit hectic, work-wise, and a recovery evening was planned to get over a late one the previous evening. I had some puff pastry pies in the freezer, and cooked them up with some homegrown sweetcorn and broccoli. There were some pears getting a bit too ripe in the fruit bowl too, so I poached them with cinnamon, sugar and vanilla and served them up with a scoop of nice vanilla ice cream. Just what you want on a cold evening in August.  Thank goodness for a well-stocked freezer, that’s all I can say.

Then it was time for telly. Okay, as part of Fiver Week I’ve been trying to avoid just sitting at home in front of the telly eating rubbish food, and this was different. I’d been expecting to be tired/emotional/hungover so I’d recorded some comedy shows during the week and saved them up. So, the warming food and cheery TV were both great.

Oh, and I didn’t have any thrifty chores to do because, well, it was Friday. It’s nice to have a day off once a week.

Saturday was going to be difficult because I’d agreed to help The Beau go shoe and trainer shopping. He also wanted to visit his favourite deli. Amazingly, I didn’t see anything I wanted to buy in the shoe shops, or any of the other shops we looked in, apart from the deli.  I made do with eating every free sample in the place that wasn’t nailed down, and just had one coffee in the end.

I couldn’t go out shopping-without-buying-anything for hours without a sit down and a drink, and it was really good coffee, so that left me with £2.01. It was interesting to look at the new autumn/winter stock that’s just started to turn up on the shop floors, but there was no urgent need to buy anything. Phew. Although it did make me start seriously planning my winter wardrobe (but in a sensible way, hopefully).

When I got home I decided to sort out some old clothes to declutter and get things ready for the end of summer. I bundled up a few things to take to the charity shop and added a couple more garments to the mending/alterations pile, then made a massive shepherd’s pie to use up some frozen mince and a load of potatoes, onions and carrots. It got served up with broccoli and French beans, and was one of the tastiest things I’ve cooked in ages.

Most things have been cooked from scratch this week and there’s been no wasted food at all, so the menu planning went really well. Plus it was quite tasty and the meals were fairly healthy and balanced. Growing your own herbs and veggies makes it a lot easier to live out of the cupboards and freezer and avoid going to the supermarket so often, so that’s really helped. It’s been so good that I’m going to try to keep some winter herbs and salads growing now as well.

After that The Beau and I settled down in front of a rented copy of Adventureland on DVD, and had a beer. Thank heavens for that beer stockpile, that’s all I can say. Managed to alter a dress while we watched the film, and decided to dye the fabric the following evening. Stay tuned, fashion addicts… more tomorrow.

Are you having a Fiver Week of your own? How are you getting on?