I don’t like to waste anything, especially not food. Sometimes, sure, it just happens. Food goes off or becomes mouldy, perhaps it was too hot or it was left in the fridge for too long. We’ve all been there and done that at some stage but that’s not to say that we shouldn’t make a conscious effort to minimise such food waste and/or avoid it altogether. We really do try our best to avoid food waste in our kitchen as wasted food is, after all, money wasted.

Not only that, food waste is a much larger problem, in South Africa as well as globally, costing billions in whichever currency you look at it. Yet, there are how many people who go to bed hungry each night? According to this article by Farmer’s Weekly Food wastage in SA: shameful facts 31,4% of all food produced in South Africa goes to waste. Food wasted during consumption accounts for 5% of this waste and occurs mainly in urban areas by those who can afford to feed themselves. I also recently came across this BBC new story How one woman is winning the fight against food waste which was very inspirational!

So on a personal level, and as an individual, here is what you can do to avoid food waste in the kitchen.

Know how much you need & buy what you need

This is the first step: do your month-end shopping with a grocery list. I know this sounds like an absolute cliché but we do it, and it works for us. It helps us stick to buying only what we need and nothing else that might go to waste because it didn’t get eaten. I know that it can be hard sometimes to find the time in our busy schedules to go through the fridge, the freezer and the pantry taking stock of what we have before we produce a shopping list, and go shopping, but we remember why we do it and that keeps us going.

Meal planning

Meal planning goes hand in hand with step number 1 above. Meal planning ensures that we plan to use up the food that we have and that we’ve purchased for the month so that nothing, or as little as possible, goes to waste. For some ideas on how to get started with meal planning check our my posts Meal Planning Around Specials, Meal Planning Ideas and Meal Planning Folder Dividers.

Use every bit of meat & vegetable that you buy

When I meal plan, I make sure that I plan to use up every little bit of meat and vegetables that we’ve bought for the month. I’ll give you an example of how I do that. Last month I bought a budget packet of lamb meat that was on special at Meat World. When I got home, I probably spent an hour removing all the meat off the bones and chopping up the meat. I apportioned a small amount of meat to use in my Green Beans soup recipe, the rest of the meat I used to prepare Lamb Curry and the bones ended up in the freezer to be used when I next make a broth for us (you can check out my Chicken broth recipe in which you can substitute with beef or lamb bones as substitutes for chicken and you can make use of vegetable scraps).

Prepare your vegetables in bulk: wash, peel, chop, etc.

If you buy veggies or fruits in season, when they’re most affordable, you are far more likely to buy such produce in larger quantities because it’s so cheap. I often do that in which case, it’s best to wash, peel, chop and prepare fresh produce, especially veggies, as soon as I get home or at least within a day or two of purchase. I then freeze what I can, cook what needs to be cooked immediately and store the rest for use within the week or two. Last month, I also started collecting vegetable scraps as I’m preparing our veggies in bulk. I’ve stored these scraps in a freezer bag and I will use them to make a broth for us soon. Here you will a useful list of vegetable scraps you can use to make a healthy and delicious broth.

Preserve & pickle produce

Some produce, especially fruits, are only cheap and affordable when they’re in season and supermarkets and greengrocers have surplus stock. That is the best time to buy produce in large quantities to preserve and pickle. We haven’t bought jams or konfyt in years, for example, as I make enough for us to last us a while and we always have plenty to share! We especially enjoy our homemade fig jam, stewed peaches, marmalade, quince konfyt, apple butter as well as tomato sauce, tomato juice, peach juice and sweet pepper relish.

Compost

Having a compost heap or bin in your garden is an absolutely awesome way to recycle all the fresh vegetable and fruit waste from your kitchen. You don’t even have to have a very large garden to find space for a compost bin – you can do it on a small scale and still benefit. We love our compost bin. It is fairly large though so as a result every 6 months or so we have about 7 or 8 20-litre buckets full of organic manure to add to our garden, and this is practically free.

Store veggies in the fridge at eye level

This is something that we’ve started doing just recently and we’ve found that if we can see the fruits and veggies (especially the fruits) they’re a lot more likely to get consumed before they go off. We used to store our fresh fruits and veggies in the bottom drawer of the fridge and we would then often forget about what was there. We often used to throw away mouldy carrots, cucumbers, mangoes to name a few. But not anymore because we can now see the fresh produce on the shelves of the fridge and remember to eat it.

Cook in bulk and freeze

Cooking in bulk and freezing meals is definitely the way to go. It’s also very convenient to have ready-made meals in the freezer which you can defrost on weeknights and as a bonus, you haven’t spent a fortune buying ready-made meals from the shops. I usually cook several meals in bulk just after I’ve done my month-end shopping. It is tiring, I must say, and I know lots of people who prefer not to cook in bulk and freeze because of that. However, I make the effort because it saves us money and it also means we don’t waste food that has been purchased in bulk at the end of the month.

Use up all your leftovers

Dinner leftovers can turn into a large source of food waste. Even if leftovers are stored in the fridge for later use, if we don’t consume the leftovers soon, they will end up as wasted that’s for sure. Taking leftovers to work the next day is a good way of using up leftovers rather quickly, or even having the same dinner two nights in a row works for us. Food is food. Alternatively, you might want to consider using those small amounts of leftovers as an addition to another meal you’re cooking. To give you an example, I recently used up a small amount of leftover mushroom sauce and gravy in a vegetable pie. It was delicious!

Don’t over-serve your plate but eat everything that’s on your plate

This is one of the easiest ways to avoid food waste – eat everything. Dish up enough but finish it. Seeing food left on a plate and then thrown into the bin is really one of my pet peeves. There are so many who are less fortunate than ourselves to have any food on a plate so in our household this type of food waste is an absolute no-no. If, for some reason, one of us can’t finish what’s been dished up on our plate, we will simply leave it in the fridge for later.

We’ll still eat recipes gone wrong

Not all recipes will turn out as wonderfully as we’d hoped they would and sometimes even the best of chefs have their off days! Sometimes a cake will fall apart… a veggie bake might not taste that great with a certain combination of spices… but, that’s no reason to turn a small mishap in the kitchen into wasted food. We’ll polish off our plates but just remember not to make use of the same recipe again!

Keep track of what’s in your pantry, fridge and freezer

This is probably not the easiest things to do, I admit! We all have busy schedules and lead busy lives. Sometimes, we just forget to check what’s in the pantry, fridge or freezer, I know. It’s happened to me more than once. But, I have since learnt to make an effort to check the expiry dates on items in my pantry especially, and to incorporate soon-to-expire items in next month’s meal plans. For more ideas on using up items in your pantry and freezer, have a look at some of my posts on the Pantry and Freezer Challenge.

Please share some of your ideas of how you avoid food waste in your kitchen by leaving me a comment below.

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Stealthy Wealth has challenged us all to a Frugal February month. I like the idea of challenging ourselves on a daily basis to be less wasteful, more frugal and more resourceful with what we have. This allows us to save as much money as we can along the way – to invest or to pay down debt or to save towards a big ticket item – so I’m definitely going to be taking part!

And here is how I plan on being more frugal, less wasteful and more resourceful with what we have this Frugal February month, and beyond.

Make a broth from veggie scraps

I’ve always wanted to try this! I often make chicken broth for us with ‘whole’ ingredients (onions, celery, carrots, etc.) and roast chicken bones but because we have a compost heap I’ve got so used to adding all our veggie scraps to the compost bin that I hardly think twice of using the veggie scraps for any other purpose! However, as the broth is going to be strained once cooked anyway I can then add the veggie scraps (which have pretty much just been boiled with no oil) and in this way, we can benefit doubly from the veggie scraps. I’ve found some nice ideas on how to use veggie scraps to make a broth here and here.

While this may not be a ‘money saver’ as such it will still make the money we’ve spent buying those veggies in the first place, go even further for us! I regularly make chicken broth for us as it’s so healthy and so delicious. We often have it as is (perfect for those cold winter evenings!) and I also often use it in cooking. It’s a much better and much tastier alternative to any stock cube you can buy in the shops, I promise!

Buy a R100.00/R200.00 food coupon from Checkers or Shoprite each month

This is a new concept that has come up in conversations quite often lately, both online and in real life. By investing R100.00 or R200.00 to buy a food coupon for the same value at either Checkers or Shoprite each month, paying for this coupon out of your monthly grocery budget, then you can save up the coupons to use at the end of the year towards your monthly grocery shop in December. This would mean a ‘savings’ of at least R1,200.00, or R2,400.00, because that’s money that won’t be coming out of your December salary!

I like this idea. A lot! It means that I would ‘free up’ extra money in my December budget which I can use to save or to invest in any way I want. I think it’s also going to take discipline reducing our food budget by R100.00 or R200.00 each month (I don’t want to go over budget because that would defeat the purpose of this exercise!) but I think it’s worth a try! I’m going to buy my first coupons when I do my month-end shopping next which will be end of February.

No more plastic shopping bags for me! Ever!

When I do my month-end shopping, I sometimes forget my shopping bags in the car. Guilty as charged, despite my best efforts! I only remember that I’ve forgotten them when I’m actually at the till and by that time, I must admit, I’m a tad bit lazy to go fetch them. Plastic shopping bags are not only a scourge on our environment, and even lethal to wildlife, but they also cost money. If you pay for, say 20 plastic shopping bags per month, at roughly 55c per bag (some shops charge you even more!) that works out to R11.00 per month or R132.00 per year. While this may not seem like a huge saving that’s still money totally wasted! Well, not any more.

This is going to be my personal challenge not only for the month of February, but beyond: to buy a R15.00 food coupon from Checkers or Shoprite instead of paying for plastic shopping bags each month! This will give me an extra R180.00 that I’ve ‘saved’ and can then use at the end of the year towards our monthly grocery shop in December. I must actually remember to take our shopping bags before walking into the shop though, all the time and not just sometimes, and if I do forget, actually go back and fetch them, it will only take a couple of minutes of my time!

We won’t be renewing our satellite TV subscription

On our debt-free journey, dropping our satellite TV subscription was one of the first things we did to cut costs and find extra money to throw at our debt. As you can imagine, it’s been a while since we’ve had to pay for satellite TV subscription. We have, as of lately, been discussing renewing our subscription but we’ve decided against it, after all. We realised that we don’t really miss having it that much and so we won’t be renewing our satellite TV subscription.

This currently saves us at least R8,000.00 per year (or probably a bit more – prices must have gone up over the last couple of years!) and I think we will continue to save that much! We often borrow DVDs from friends and sometimes, if we feel like watching a TV series, we can actually rent an entire season for the weekend for about R30.00. This is enough for us. I honestly don’t think that we’re depriving ourselves of anything really by not renewing our satellite TV subscription. We have more time to devote to our hobbies, our families, our pets and ultimately each other because we’re not glued to the goggle box every spare minute of our time!

We will start saving for Christmas expenses in February

Saving a small amount of money each month – from February onwards – for our Christmas expenses (mostly presents) has worked really well for us in the past! Last year, for example, we finished all our Christmas shopping before December and our presents were all wrapped and ready to go very early on! Not only did this save us our sanity (who wants to be anywhere near a shopping mall in December?!) but it was also good for our budget.

Because we started saving in February, we could afford to take advantage of really good sales and specials throughout the year. We certainly bought a lot more for a lot less. We will definitely be starting to save for Christmas expenses this February too. You can read more about how we do that here.

We won’t be buying into Valentine’s Day sales

Nope, not us. I don’t believe in buying Valentine’s Day any cutesy little thing, full stop. Besides, January wasn’t even over yet and already, the race was on for Valentine’s Day specials, gifts, discounts, promotions, ads, best gifts for him, for her, etc. at a time when many had only just finished buying Christmas presents for their loved ones! That much pressure has got to be tough on people’s budgets and wallets.

But, celebrating Valentine’s Day really is a matter of personal preference. We will be ‘celebrating’ it too but we just won’t be spending money to do it. There are hundreds upon hundreds of cheap Valentine’s Day dates, gifts, snacks, dinner and craft ideas on the internet so all hope is not lost for the frugal Valentine on a budget!

Save Cents for Charity

Who remembers their very own little piggy bank? I do! I loved my little piggy bank! As adults our savings tend to increase, and so they should, but sometimes I think we all forget just how much that little bit of money saved here and there in that pink piggy bank can make a difference! As children perhaps that meant we could buy more sweets or more ice cream cones or just one more Matchbox car to add to your collection. I’m pretty sure we all tried really hard to save up for those little things that made us happy.

As an adult now, sure, you could save up all those coins throughout the year and deposit the coins into your bank account in December but as much as I love saving I also love giving. When one of my favourite animal welfare charities sent out a post on their Facebook page just the other day inviting their supporters to start saving those 5c and 10c coins in a jar throughout the year and then donating the contents of the jar to them round about Christmas time, I thought what a great idea! So that’s what I’m going to be doing with my coins starting this February. I really think those itsy bitsy coins will add up! Imagine if so many of us did this very same thing, how much more we could give?

Will you be joining Stealthy Wealth’s Frugal February challenge? If so, then please share your frugal and money-saving ideas in the comments below.

Got any cost saving ideas? Share them with the hashtag #FrugalFeb and spread the word!
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The danger with end-of-season sales is precisely that – they are sales. It’s very tempting to buy items on sale simply because they are on sale, we all know that. I can’t quite decide if I love sales or if I hate them. Yes, I love bargains! I love buying things for less than what they normally cost. On the other hand, I don’t like being tempted to buy things which I don’t really need or when I can’t afford to buy them.

But sales come and go, as regular as clockwork. Each end of season has its sales, and every start of a new season has its sales too. We are constantly surrounded by one sale or the other as there always seems to be a reason for sales! Just the other day I noticed a ‘Back to University’ sale probably only about a week after the ‘Back to School’ sale had finished! Next up are Valentine’s Day specials and sales.

We can’t avoid sales. We love them – we hate them – but who doesn’t love a good bargain. I think that’s what’s so attractive about sales: we instinctively want to save money. But, shopping the sales, especially end-of-season sales, can be quite costly if you haven’t planned or budgeted for this sale or if you don’t have specific items on a shopping list.

Before I buy anything on a sale, this is what I ask myself which helps me make an informed decision and one that will indeed save me some cash.

Do I really need more shoes/shirts/socks/jeans, etc.? Or do I have enough?

This is probably the first question that comes to mind if I’ve come across a sale for which I hadn’t planned to shop. It can be hard to resist a good bargain sometimes but then again, knowing when you have enough of an item, for example shoes, should help curb your impulse to buy. Ask yourself: do I really need more or am I buying this item just because it’s on sale? I’ve never been much of a shopper but I have at times bought a bit more than I should have so it’s a familiar feeling.

As a general rule, I like to wait for items to go on sale, and especially end-of-season sales, to buy items which I need or which I know I will need to use next season. The end-of-season sale can sometimes be the best time to buy jerseys or winter pyjamas or sandals to wear to work or the patio set you’ve been saving for. Anything, really. I’m all for taking advantage of sales to buy items that I genuinely need or have planned and budgeted for.

How much does this item ordinarily cost? How much will I really save?

Sometimes an item on sale is not that much cheaper. In that case, are you really saving or spending your money by paying almost as much as the actual retail price? If you find an item for 50% or 60% off, and you genuinely need that item, then I would agree that it is a good bargain. If an item is reduced by 20% or even 30%, and you don’t really need it then it’s not really a bargain, to my mind.

Items which are reduced by very little are very tempting though. Sometimes it’s an item which I know I will need, say in the next couple of months. What do I do in that case? I really think twice before buying it, especially if it’s not budgeted for and I don’t want the purchase to mess up my budget for that month. I also don’t want to fall prey to advertising gimmicks that tend to increase sales and revenue but tempt me to spend my money that could otherwise be put to better use elsewhere.

As a general rule, if I’m thinking about buying an item on sale, I always check the original price on the item, especially a garment. By the same token, I’m generally very suspicious of items that don’t carry the original price, only the reduced price in which case, I’ll generally just put the item back on the shelf straightaway! Otherwise, how would I know for sure how much I’m saving when I can only see how much I’m actually spending?

Do I have spare ‘fun’ money in my budget this month?

We have sales all year round, and end-of-season sales or holiday sales are just as predictable. This means that you can budget for a sale. If you need an item that you think might just come up in the end-of-season sale then plan for it. If you’ve just come across a sale that you haven’t planned for then ask yourself: Can I spend within my budget? If the answer is No then it’s probably best to avoid the shopping malls altogether so you won’t be tempted to buy.

Sales are great if you can afford them. If you’re a bit short of money then ask yourself: Do I really want to use my credit card for this? Even with the best of intentions of ‘paying it off’ in full when you get paid, inevitably, something else will come up and you will more than likely end up using that money to pay bills or some unplanned emergency expense that you can’t avoid. And the balance will then just sit there, accruing interest, and by continuing to pay interest you will have lost the savings you were meant to have made in the first place.

Do you tend to shop the ‘end-of-season’ sales? What tips do you have for making the most of sales? Please leave me a comment below.

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It’s much, much cheaper to make Sausage Rolls at home, and we often make a batch or two. A Sausage Roll is nice as a meal on its own with some gravy and salad on the side, and they’re also an inexpensive but convenient food to pack for picnics or road trips.

Sausage Rolls are very easy to make at home. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that I just love quick and easy recipes which make delicious foods! This Sausage Rolls recipe is just that with only two ingredients – a Puff Pastry roll and Vienna sausages, or any other kind of sausage that you prefer or have on hand.

The Puff Pastry roll can be purchased for R9.99 each when they go on sale (I prefer to use Today). The Vienna sausages will come to about R2.50 each when packets of Viennas (Enterprise Chicken & Cheese Viennas for example) go on sale as well. The total cost for this recipe is only R27.50 for 7 Sausage Rolls.

If you were to buy that many Sausage Rolls in the shops you would have to pay at least R16.00 per Sausage Roll, spending a total of at least R112.00 (Sausage Rolls do vary in price, as I’m sure you know, depending on where you buy).

Ingredients:

1 Puff Pastry Roll

7 Vienna sausages

1 Egg wash

Salt and Pepper to taste

Spray ‘n’ Cook

Method:

Defrost the Vienna sausages for 30-45 seconds in the microwave (depending on the strength of your microwave) and set aside. Defrost the Puff Pastry roll just enough so that it can be rolled out easily. I usually use a rolling pin to even and thin out the pastry just a little. Cut 7 pieces across the Puff Pastry. As you only need enough Puff Pastry to roll around each Vienna it would be a good idea to measure against the Viennas or the sausages that you are using and cut accordingly.

Roll each Vienna into a sausage roll. Cut one or two slits on the top of each sausage roll. Spray an oven tray with Spray ‘n’ Cook. Layer the sausage rolls about 3cm apart. Brush each sausage roll with egg wash and season with salt and pepper. Bake at 180 for about 25 minutes. Serve with a side salad. Enjoy hot or cold.

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Now that the holidays are over, it’s time to start thinking about Back to School items and preparing for the new school year. While the thought of shopping and returning to school for another year may be exciting for many children, the prospect of shopping for Back to School may be a bit stressful for parents.

Here are a few Back to School tips to help you get organised and to save on your Back to School shopping trip.

Back to School Clothes

Before you head to the shops for uniforms, socks and shoes, take inventory of what you have that can still be used this year. Based on your stock take, write up a shopping list of which items you need to buy and how many of each. While many retailers are offering specials on back to school uniform clothes this week, they are also counting on your making impulse purchases this week. It’s always best to head on to the shops with your shopping list at hand.

Before you do, you might want to look into whether there are any second-hand items for sale that you can buy? Perhaps there is a thrift store in your area, or someone is actually selling items that are too small but still in very good condition. You might want to check out School Trader for any listings of second hand clothes for sale. Another idea might be to look at the lost and found – sometimes there are absolute gems among those unclaimed items that end up being sold.

Finally, before you head to the shops, have a look online at all the retailers – big and small – offering specials and compare prices before you leave the house. It might just save you a bit of money as you don’t want to come across a better deal after you’ve done your shopping. PEP is advertising some nice Back to School deals at the moment and they’ve just advertised on their Facebook page a one-day special on school shirts for as low as R10.00 each!

Back to School Stationery

Stationery can be a huge drain on our monthly budget and ultimately our annual spending. Stationery gets lost, left behind or just otherwise magically disappears. We all know children usually go through a whole lot of stationery each school year, and that in itself is probably an understatement!

Before you head on to the shops, it’s worth collecting all the odds and ends of stationery that might be lying around as well as taking stock of what you have and what you’re going to need (I’m sure everyone’s been given the dreaded list!). This way, you can focus on buying just the necessities. Again, it’s worth having a look at and comparing current specials before you leave the house – CNA, Takealot, Makro, Game, Checkers, Pick ‘n’ Pay – and most importantly, checking the price per item (bulk deals may not always be the best deals).

If you find a good special on items that you know your child is going to be using a lot of during the school year it’s probably best to stock up on those items. This will save you quite a bit down the line. You will always have stationery at hand to replenish as needed which will in turn help you save on a) transportation costs, taking the bus or driving to the shops and back and b) time, as you won’t have to look around for items on special to buy.

Back to School Textbooks

We all know that school and university textbooks are very expensive and these are more than likely going to be the most expensive items on your shopping list! Have you considered buying second hand? Perhaps there are listings on the school board of items for sale that you can have a look at. You might also want to check out Ferndale Textbooks as they might just have what you’re looking for.

This might also be a good time of the year to go through your child’s books and put aside the ones they are no longer reading or no longer wish to keep, and to donate them to your local library, children’s hospital or shelter. Alternatively, you might want to consider donating books to an organisation that distributes books to children across South Africa – here is a very useful list.

Do you have any Back to School saving tips that you’d like to share? Please leave me a comment below. I always love to hear from my readers!

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I’m a huge fan of stockpiling non-perishable items in moderation. We don’t have a lot of space to store food or other items so my stockpile can never get too big, which is a good thing! I do have enough space for stockpiling certain items which we use on a regular basis and whenever I can get these items at their lowest in the shops, I buy as much as my budget allows.

When I meal plan for the month, I always make sure I check my pantry and freezer for items which I already have and which I can use in the coming weeks. This helps us keep our grocery bill in check and also helps us save overall – if I bought an item at a very low price this means that the meal I prepare with it will cost me less overall (you can read more about this in my post Meal Planning Around Specials).

Stockpiling allows you to take advantage of very low prices and this carries on throughout the year. Starting a stockpile doesn’t have to cost you a whole lot. Simply spend a bit extra, within your budget of course, to stockpile certain items when they go on special. I try and look for rock-bottom prices. In August, for example, I bought 4 bottles of Comfort fabric softener at R25.00 a bottle when normally a bottle costs over R40.00 and even on special it comes down to only about R36.00 so. This was a huge saving.

In July I found Alpo Purina dog chunks at R 149.00 per 8kg (normally this bag is over R200.00) as well as Husky tinned dog food at just over R17.00 per tin (normally they are about R23.00 or more each) so I bought as much as I could within my budget that month. This means that I will be saving money on those particular items by not buying them at a higher price.

It is important to check the expiry dates on all your stockpiled items. I do this twice: I first check the expiry date on the items before I buy them and when I store the stockpiled items I make a note of expiry dates somewhere visible in my pantry so that I am reminded of what needs to be used up and by which date. This really does help as it’s so easy for items to end up right at the back of a shelf and you only get to them when it’s too late, and you don’t want to turn your intended saving into a waste!

If you stockpile already, what are some of your favourite items to stockpile when you can? Here are my top items to stockpile in my pantry which you might find useful if you are just starting out with stockpiling.

• Coffee and Tea.

• Tinned meat (tuna, sardines, corned beef).

• Tinned vegetables & fruit (baked beans, for example).

• Tinned pet food.

• Pasta & rice.

• Oil, sugar and flour.

• Rusks & crackers.

• Laundry washing powder & fabric softener.

• Household cleaning supplies.

• Toiletries (shampoo, toothpaste, soap, toilet paper)

Having a stockpile, even a small one, can help reduce your expenses each month. Even if you decide to spend only a hundred or two hundred Rand each month, within your budget of course, to stockpile on items when available at their lowest prices, I’m sure you will find that it does help from one month to the next.

Have you ever taken part in a Pantry and Freezer Challenge in order to reduce the amount of items you have in your stockpile, no matter how small, and to save a bit of money? I have! You can start by reading my post Take the Pantry and Freezer Challenge.

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I love my slow cooker, and I use it often. I use it to cook stews and soups but also to roast meat: chicken, gammon as well as cuts of beef. In fact, I prefer the slow cooker to using either the oven or the stove on any given day. The question I most commonly get asked by both family members and friends is this: Doesn’t it cost more in electricity charges to cook a meal for 8 hours in the slow cooker as opposed to 2 or 3 hours using the oven or the stove?

The answer is: No. I actually save on my electricity bill by using the slow cooker, and here is how that works out.

The current electricity charges in South Africa, according to our latest municipal bill, works out to R1.62 per 1 kW (or 1,000 watts), and this amount includes VAT. I don’t think there’s any point in calculating the price without VAT because we, the consumers, end up paying for VAT in our bills anyway, so that is the price per 1 kW as far as I’m concerned.

An average oven uses 2000-2200 watts. A roast in the oven will generally take you about 3 hours until done. Using this nifty electricity consumption calculator here, you can see that it would cost you R3.56 per hour to use your oven which brings your total electricity charge for that meal to R10.68.

My slow cooker uses 380 watts of electricity, and most brands and types and sizes are very economical this way so chances are, yours is too – look at the bottom of the pot for the exact number. If I cook that same roast in the slow cooker, it would cost R0.61 in electricity charges per hour, and with 8 hours of cooking time, the total would still come to R4,88.

That’s half the price.

Let’s look at the bigger picture here. If you cook a meal in the oven or on the stove 10 times a month, roughly 3 hours at a time, your total electricity bill including VAT will come to R106.80 that month. If you choose to cook the same meals using your slow cooker, also 10 times a month, with 8 hours’ average cooking time, you end up paying R48.80 per month.

So, instead of paying R1,281.60 per year, you would only be paying R585,60, which gives you a saving of R696. That’s right – R696 that’s left in your bank account at the end of the year!

An added bonus to cooking meat in the slow cooker is that you can choose to buy cheaper cuts of meat. Those cheaper cuts will cook slowly for 6-8 hours at a time and will be as soft as any of the more expensive cuts you can buy in the shops by the time the meal is done.

As an example, shin meat costs R39.99 per kg on special at Meat World in Alberton these days. It has a bit of bone and a bit of fat, but it’s precisely that little bit of bone and fat that will actually give your stew the taste and the goodness it should have. I wouldn’t even think of paying double the price, or more, for the same amount of beef fillet to make a pot of stew.

Shin meat is actually the best beef stewing meat and it makes the tastiest stew precisely because it’s cooked in the slow cooker for 7 or 8 hours at a time. It has the chance to stew and turn into tender, tasty cuts of meat that you would expect to see in a pot of beef stew. Cooking the same cut of meat on a pot on the stove would never give you the same delicious taste!

Using the slow cooker is so much more economical and can help save you money on your household expenses each month. We bought ours a couple of years ago and it was not expensive. It might have cost us about R500 for a fairly large slow cooker. We really see it as a wise investment considering that it has probably paid for itself long ago and still continues to save us money each month.

Check out my recipe for Roast Chicken in the Slow Cooker here and the super, super healthy Chicken Broth in the Slow Cooker recipe here.

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I don’t know how you feel about this but I think food is becoming more and more expensive. Statistics show that food is the 3^rd highest household expenditure, after housing and transport, in South Africa. As I do most of the grocery shopping in our household I pay attention to the prices and it seems to me that each time I go to the shops something else has just gone up again, based on the food items we tend to buy regularly. I don’t know how the average consumer manages to keep up without feeling the pinch. I try my best to be as frugal and careful as I can be when it comes to grocery shopping and here’s how I save us money on month-end shopping for food:

1. Have a budget. This one tops my list. Know how much you can afford to spend each month on food, and avoid buying on impulse. We don’t use credit cards to buy our groceries. We budget and we buy only what we can afford. We do have to make an effort to stretch things a little towards the end of the month but that’s the perfect time to get creative with the food items that we have in the cupboard, fridge or freezer and we end up making some of the most delicious meals!

2. Go shopping with a shopping list, and stick to it! As I do our grocery shopping once a month, I tend to write down items on a shopping list as we run out during the month. Before I make the trip to the shops, I always check the cupboards, the fridge and the freezer and add to the list of items to buy. What I also like to do is write down ‘generic’ e.g. meat so that when I’m at the shops I can buy the meat that’s on special for that week or month, which means that we always have different meats on the menu each month, while we spend less. Check out some of my recipes in the Thrifty Recipes section of my blog.

3. Check out the specials, and compare them! I always do this before I head for the monthly shop. Different supermarkets have different specials on. Just before the 25^th, there are loads of specials inserts in our local weekly – the Alberton Record – and I make sure I look at each one of those inserts from front to back! We’re lucky, I guess, in that we have all the major supermarket chains in our vicinity so I can do the rounds at the end of the month without spending more than a litre or two of fuel at a time and still manage to save on our total grocery bill. I know that doing monthly shopping at the end of the month means long queues at the tills, problems with parking, etc., I grin and bear it because the best specials always come at the end of the month and we save the most.

4. Buy in bulk and stock up on items when they’re on special – meat, frozen veggies, tins of food, condiments, staples, household cleaners, etc. whatever can last a while. I find this helps us save quite a bit in the long run but be sure to keep track of expiry dates and use up everything before it expires. I also found the guidelines in this Refrigerator & Freezer Chart quite useful. 
   

5. Cook in batches and freeze. I do this with soups and stews mostly and find that not only do I save on electricity – I cook the same meal once instead of five or six times – but we have our home-cooked, ready meals to just heat up and eat at the end of the day.

6. Buy vegetables in bulk, wash, peel, chop and freeze. We buy our veggies from an awesome greengrocer in the Alberton area – Apple Tree. Veggies in season (and also fruit) are cheaper when you buy in bulk, and definitely cheaper at the greengrocer than at the supermarket. All the peeling and chopping takes a bit of time, sure, but we save quite a bit on our overall grocery bill for the month especially with veggies that freeze well such as butternut, onions, mushrooms, herbs, etc. Have a look at this guide to Freezing Vegetables.

7. Plan your meals around what’s on special that month. I do this with both meat and veggies, so I buy the cheapest of what’s available when I do my monthly shopping. Neither my husband nor I are fussy eaters and this way, we get to have a variety of meals on the menu each month.

8. Avoid buying ready meals. They may be ‘convenient’, yes, but they’re also a lot more expensive and far less healthy for you. Plus, nothing beats the goodness and freshness of a home-cooked meal that’s good for the budget too!

9. Take your own breakfast and lunch to work, and you will save tons on your grocery bill for the month! It’s so easy to pack up some leftovers the night before so it’s ready to go in the morning. If there are no leftovers, a sandwich and a fruit will do. Plus, I’d much rather spend my lunchtime actually enjoying my meal and having a quiet break instead of organising lunch.

10. Don’t eat out often. We have a choice of one take-away meal each month, as a treat, and for that we budget R120 or less. We eat at a restaurant once or twice a year, at the most, and if that.

11. Try the no name brands. Most of the time, there’s not that much of a difference in taste: margarine is still margarine, milk still tastes like milk and so does sugar and tuna.

12. Buy refillable items of anything and everything that you can get your hands on! Not only do you save a few rand each time you do this but at the same time, you are actively contributing to reducing the amount of plastic bottle waste in the environment.

13. Use supermarket rewards, points and coupons. This is becoming more and more popular in our part of the world and I’m really glad to see that. I always make use of whatever points and coupons I can get from various supermarkets. Read more about this topic in my post on Frugal Shopping: Coupons, Specials & Rewards.

14. Buy junk food in moderation, or avoid buying it altogether if you can. This includes sweets, chocolate bars, biscuits, wafers, cool drinks, chips, etc. These are probably some of the priciest items in your food trolley or basket with the smallest nutritional value. Why not get creative in the kitchen with home-made desserts, puddings and cakes instead? I will share some of my quick and easy, frugal recipes in a separate post – check out my Thrifty Recipes section.

15. Water down fresh fruit juices that you buy in supermarkets, or even better – make your own juices at home! Diluting fresh fruit juices with water is not only healthier for you as you’re halving your sugar intake but you’re also making it go further. We’re so used to doing this that undiluted fruit juices taste far too sweet for us. Juicing your own fresh fruit juice at home can be a cheaper alternative, especially if you buy fruit in bulk and in season, when they’re at their cheapest.

16. Make your own bread. Invest in a good quality bread maker, if you can. We love our bread maker! It saves us trips to the supermarket and it most certainly costs us less in ingredients per loaf of 1,3 kg of bread than what it costs us to purchase a 700 gr. loaf of bread from the shops (you can read more about that in my post Is Homemade Bread Healthier and Cheaper?)

17. Use hand-made shopping bags when you go shopping. Each time I have a piece of left-over material that’s big enough for a shopping bag, I make one; it’s real quick and easy. The bags are washable and reusable, over and over again; in fact, depending on the quality of material that you use these bags can last for years. Try not to buy plastic bags for your groceries – not only do you have to pay for them but they are an absolute scourge on our environment (Some Facts about the Plastic Bag Pandemic).

18. Monitor your grocery items as they go through the scanners at tills and always, always, always check your slip before you leave the store. I’ve had specials and coupons not register at tills as well as items being scanned incorrectly or in duplicate. Mistakes do happen occasionally and it’s best to report and sort these out straight away. Otherwise, once you get home, you don’t want to waste fuel going back to the store to claim for a R5 or R10 refund.

Finally, what do you think? What do you do to save when you’re grocery shopping? Please share your experiences in the comments box below. I welcome and appreciate your thoughts and always love to learn how to be more frugal!

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