How to run a feeding scheme in your house (without anyone ending up in hospital)

We have been trying to save money on groceries - and so far we have had some success stories, some drama's, a few horror stories and then some very sad stories. I would like to share them all with you so you can either avoid, see if you can do better or enjoy seeing someone else suffer.

Must say, this is not as bad as I expected, the trick is to treat it like a game of tennis. The shops/retailers are my different opponents, my budget is the net, and pricing options are the different balls we play with.

Now my tennis court is situated in the wonderful rural paradise of Delmas/Sundra/Rietkol. For those of you who do not know, it means I live on a smallholding, in a community with 4 shops (a petrol station, the cafe at the petrol station, the bottle store at the petrol station and a factory chicken outlet). If I feel adventurous, I drive another 7 minutes to play in Sundra. Sundra is a village (but with non of the villagey imagery you would associate with a typical village). It is a gritty, dusty, under-developed stretch of tar, with arbitrary shops hanging on to its crumbling edge like ticks on a cow.

And talking about cows, this is where I discovered my first jewel of a shop - allowing me to save money on milk purchases. The milk is fresh, pasteurised, ice-cold and if you take your own bottle, it costs R15 for 2L of full cream milk. They even have a slogan, which I think is a bit wasted on the passing traffic, but the cow is very attractive.

I will introduce you to the other shops when I have more courage, and enlighten you on all the little treasures they offer the concerning shopper with little money.

But getting back to the tennis game, if I want to play at a provincial level, I take the super-highway enxt to the train tracks and drive for a full 10 minutes to Delmas. There is another Delmas in Europe, but this one is in Mpumalanga - and I only go here for special occasions. Like weekly grocery shopping, visits to the pharmacy, when I feel the need to drive in traffic, to buy the best soft-serve for R5-00.

So now I have my game, my opponents, a choice of tennis courts - my next step was to organise ball boys (David my son and Matthew my other son). I like to win, so decided that I will be a player as well as the referee.

And this is how the game goes. Armed with a notebook, a pen, comfortable shoes, loose clothing and 2 eager ball boys, we scrutinised, compared, noted, weighed, calculated and pretended to look normal for 3 Saturdays this month. Before I provide you with a full economic white paper on the most cost -effective cauliflower, I will do a bit more research and play a few more games in other towns. So keep a look out for this much-anticipated research work.

So we get cheap milk, but how do you make 4 T-bones last for 2 days between 4 hungry people? This was my first challenge to my son, as I asked him to make supper on the Sunday night, then gave him a rude awakening with 2 pieces of the tough T-bone meat that no-one really wants to eat on the Monday morning. His challenge was to turn this.........

into a lovely and filling supper for 4 people. So my ball boy turned chef and made us a supper for R37 inclusive!!! That is less than R7 per person. Here is the recipe, and the left-over T-bone can be replaced by any left-over meat I guess.

OK - you got me, there is no real recipe, just a putting together of the following ingredients in any order you feel is good.
2 x carrots cut into small cubes - R0.50
1 x onion cut into small cubes - R0.80
1  x leek cut into slices - R2.50
2 x cloves garlic - squashed-up - R0.20
1 x Green pepper in cubes - R1.00
2 tablespoons each of chutney and tomato sauce - R2.00 (we use no name, bad name, cheap name when we put it in stews and stuff)
1 big baby marrow (would they then be called a teenager marrow?) in slices - R1.00
Left-over meat - R0.00
1 tin chickpeas - R 9.50
1 tin tomato and onion mix - R 10.00

Pick & Pay sell bread dough for less than R10 a pack, so he made traditional vetkoek with the stew inside. It was njam, njam, najm. Oh yes - and a tangy coleslaw on the side.

So yes - it can be done, we just need to more creative as a family. Everyone got 2 vetkoeke, so I ate 1 and packed the other one for lunch the next day.

Just a note to say how thankful I am that my hubbie has both his legs. There was a 40-60% change that one leg would be amputated, but the doctor as well as the drugs worked well - and happy to report he has 2 legs, 1 tokkelosh and still full of nonsense like before. And no - that is not the tokkelosh lying next to him - but his loyal canine partner Philip who never left his side during his 3 months he had to spend in bed. He also has 2 legs, a tokkelosh and is full of nonsense!

The most beautiful picture of Les' feet, and I love them both very much as well as the great man they belong to

The festive season is creeping up on us - and I would like you to please send me challenges. I want to be challenged on wrapping presents in a cost effective way. So please email me or send me ideas to use for wrapping presents with. i will take up these challenge, try my best to come up with a workable solution, and post it on my blog. (do you have lots of newspaper, plastic bags, toilet paper, old gift paper, magazines?) Anything you can think off - send to me and let's see how I measure up in using these materials in a creative way for wrapping presents.

Have a lekker weekend

Lovies
Lizette