Save money with Bargain Mummy!

These days going to the supermarket and trying o save money in the process is such a hassle, it really is not something I enjoy. Even before I had children it wasn’t high on my list of priorities. With children; let the screaming commence. The other thing that makes it stressful of course, is the sheer price of everything now, particularly fruit and vegetables.

This puts me in a bit of a quandary: if I have a limited budget to spend on food, where are my cuts going to be? Should I sacrifice fruit and vegetables for the sake of something else?And if so – what?

Thing is, there are some things don’t seem to have gone up in price much; frozen foods. Years ago, I never even used to bother looking in the frozen sections and the aisles were always empty, not so now. My first port of call is usually frozen vegetables mainly because I work full time and I can’t get to the supermarket more than once a week. Vegetables that looked nice and fresh on Saturday usually look sad and sorry by Wednesday. That’s where frozen peas and carrots really come into their own, and in fact the nutritional value is equal to if not better than fresh vegetables (source: my memory).

My children also really enjoy frozen sweetcorn which can also be added to many recipes to add flavour and bulk, shepherd’s pie for example. I am also a big fan of frozen herbs, what a winner, buy them frozen and use them in small quantities when you want, what’s not to like! Great for perking up fish pie or Thai dishes just to give it a little extra “zing”! If I buy fresh herbs I always find them in a soggy mess at the bottom of the fridge after about three days, what a waste! Buy frozen and you can just use little and often, and that goes for everything. You can take out what you need and put the rest back in the freezer, save waste and save money. Therefore I don’t actually have to make the decision about what to cut out, I just buy frozen instead.

I guess for me, the big pull is really the convenience of it all, I am sure I am not alone in that when I come home from a hard day’s work, the last thing I want to do is cook a meal from scratch, in fact, most days I have no idea what we are going to have for tea! Luckily I can just look in the freezer and see what we’ve got in, usually lots.

Another benefit of our lovely freezer is when you see the yellow stickers on food, snap them up, then freeze them! This goes especially for bread. Buy it, freeze it, use it for toast or whatever straight from the freezer and freshness isn’t compromised at all.

There are also lots of activities you can do with children that involve the freezer believe it or not, we like making ice lollies from scratch out of fruit juice or even frozen fruit that we’ve made into smoothies. We get lolly moulds and put the frozen juice inside. We talk about solids and liquids and then a few hours later hey presto! Home-made lollies, cheap, nutritious and fun to make!

We also freeze nearly-gone-off bananas and wait until they are frozen solid. You can then put them in a blender and the result is something akin to heaven, it honestly tastes like the world’s most delicious ice cream, though I have no idea why!

How much do you use your freezer? What are your favourite frozen foods?