soulflour

We're in Waipu Kate, about 1.5 hours above Auckland!


We could start posting some of our week's dinners, if that would help?

x

Zigzag

Hi there, I feel much better now, especially knowing that a couple of people can still save money!

Hubby is a police officer, so we're hoping to take that route in, but the starting wage in NZ is $43k, which I was a bit concerned about, I will have to work as well, and will probably earn more than him as i do now, but I was really keen to know if you could survive on that!

VERY glad to hear that the weather is better than here!! I was brought up in South Africa so am very happy with change, and adapting to new way of life, just need to make hubby feel the same way!!

lardyl

just make sure that the number you dial is really a local one.........cause non-local ones will add to your bill, and Telecom's Auckland local package does not include calls to phone card no.s - we found out the hard way - 49cents a minute on top of the cost of the card if you call at peak times....yikes

KiwiKate

Hi SF

I know Waipu well - I'm in Magical Mangawhai!! I love the pizza barn, though my hips don't!! We were going to rent a place there behind the butchers, but ended up here instead. Small world, eh?

dlmckay

Accommodation Supplement is for those really, really on the breadline.
http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/man...01.htm#P22_611
http://www.workingforfamilies.govt.n...ator/index.jsp for the calculator

We have ordinary cereal for breakfast times - ricies, cornflakes or weetabix.
Lunches are always prepacked by us - sandwiches in the main with a piece of fruit and a snack of some description - I try to homebake mainly just to keep the health level higher than the sugar level.
Dinners consist of meat (sausages, mince or chicken) and then some sort of veg (normally from prepacked frozen) and then potato (chips, mash, etc).
Regular dishes would be shepherd's pie, lasagne, toad in the hole, roasts, spaghetti bolognaise, macaroni cheese, curries, tacos, soups, cassaroles, and so on.
Not an exciting diet, soulflour has far more exotic tastes but does keep us fed and happy.

dlmckay

* $110 covered on the $150 weekly bill for 3yo daycare
* $59 covered on the $100 weekly bill for 5yo and 7yo after school care
* $175 a fortnight in Working Families Tax Credit.

Those were the old rates prior to 1 April 2007.... now my situation is

* $150 covered on the $160 weekly bill for 3yo daycare
* $80 covered on the $100 weekly bill for 5yo and 7yo after school care
* $246 a fortnight in Working Families Tax Credit.

Quite a lot better off! $346 a month better off in fact.

soulflour

ha ha! Small world indeed - i just walked past that butcher's shop!

Mangawhai is lovely too - aren't we lucky?!

I work in the Museum here at Waipu

x

soulflour

That's brilliant isn't it?! Thank you decision-making-person!!

xx

P2L

I think it would be a great idea if you and some of the more experienced others on here, were to post some ideas ofr cheap meals.

I haven't been here long, but am trying to stick to a budget too. It's quite difficult when you are first starting to live this way, I should imagine once I have a stock of things in my freezer it'll get better but at the mo, I'm finding it hard work. Recipes for the slow ccoker so I can freeze them, would be very helpful from my point of view.

Thanks

soulflour

My boys are mad and have a three course breakfast consisting of cereal followed by porridge (the cereal is essential to keep them from expiring of starvation while the porridge cooks ) and then followed by toast. My dp and I have museli that he makes from raw ingredients (he's mad too!).

This week we've had:

hm pizza, salad and garlic dough-balls
lentil & veg curry with chips
Sausages with mash, gravy, onions and brocolli
'salad nicoise' (which is where I basically pile as much salad stuff, raw vegies, sprouted seeds, potato salad, a boiled egg, a fish of some kind and some hm bread onto the plates as I can!)
fish and veg
hm bean burgers in buns with two salads and wedges

... and there's a thai chicken curry and rice just cooking now.

Lunches are a variety of stuff, that i make in bulk and put in the freezer (mini pizzas, mini quices, cheese biscuits, etc. etc.) and I usually make a pasta salad or some sort of salad for me and dp likes soup or curry.

We eat quite a lot of rice so I bought a rice-cooker when we first got here, which is the best thing ever - it's SO easy to cook rice now and it never goes wrong!! I was buying big sacks of basmati or jasmine rice from bin inns, but now it's slightly cheaper at the warehouse in whangarei...

I buy our olive oil in those big catering tins, again from bin inns - although i've just bought one from the warehouse for half the price at $19 (that's 3.5 litres) but I have to say i'm not expecting it to be a fine vintage or anything!! i'll let you know! I use the tin to refil a normal-sized bottle plus one of those spray bottles which I find really handy.

I buy a big sack of white flour and a big sack of wholemeal each week/fortnight and use half and half in our bread etc, but I use white for pizza (it's so yummy!). Those big sacks are $4.99 in countdown or the warehouse.

Kev&sarah - i've been trying to use up what's in our freezer this week so that I can defrost it and so far I've spent $40 on fruit and veggies - and that's it! our week ends tomorrow so with the remainder of our $120 week budget i'll buy some wine & beer and stick the rest in the savings!

You're right - once you're in the swing of it and are using your freezer you'll be fine - get into the habit of cooking much more than you actually need (learning to bulk things out is good - for example grated carrot or potato in mince or stews or curries) and freeze portions for lunches/another dinner when you might be tempted to get takeaways.

The slow cooker I find is best with meat & stews. Brisket etc. is brilliant, as are red-wine & steak stews. I'll post some recipes in a bit. You can also cook up pulses in the slow cooker - in most cases without that hard boil that you have to do - possibly not kidney beans though, i'll check that out for you.

One cup of dried chickpeas will swell up to about 3 tins worth (a bag of chickpeas is $2.99 and you'll get quite a few cups out of that!) - add to that some tahini (bin inns or any supermarket), garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and a splash of yogurt if you have any - and you'll have TONS of humus, which I've found freezes really well. Also good on baked spuds as well as sarnies. Plus it's GREAT with homemade falafel (*one of our cheapest meals - i can post the recipe if anyone's interested!).

Speaking of yogurt - i make that too v. v. easy and you don't need any special equipment. Again, if anyone's remotely interested I can let you know how to do it

Um, oh and if you find any potatoes spouting in your cupboard - find a patch of earth somewhere and BURY them!! in a wee while you'll have about 15 potatoes from that one I do the same with garlic (which is much cheaper at countdown than anywhere else, btw!).

Right, curry's ready and wine is open - i'm off!! I'll post some recipes later

xx

mojos

Plus it's GREAT with homemade falafel (*one of our cheapest meals - i can post the recipe if anyone's interested!).


Yes please

Jo

Ozzidoc

Can the recipes be cross-posted to the recipe thread pretty please?

Cheers

Zigzag

I am so glad I found this site!! In the uk I couldn't have all those big sacks of flour & rice, and big tins of oil! I have nowhere to store it!!!

Please tell me houses are bigger in NZ??

soulflour

Well - put it this way - we've gone from a (admittedly lovely) one bed semi-detached cottage to a detached 4 bed surrounded by fields (although it's a 'do up' but then so was the cottage a first!). We have a smaller mortgage than in the UK too...

Oooh, also in the NZ like in the US you don't get 'plain' or 'self raising' flour - well, you can but it's expensive and silly becaus selfraising flour is only plain flour with baking powder added, and a wee pinch of cream of tartar. One tea/s baking powder to each cup of flour makes self raising. Or look for american recipes online.

Anyway - here's the falafel recipe. I always used to cook the chickpeas first and used to get nice, but slightly soggy falafel. This recipe rocks:

2 cups dried chickpeas
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons chopped corriander (or spend $2 on a 'vietnamese mint' plant and plant it somewhere -it's perennial, tastes exactly like corriander and won't bolt)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon bakin powder

Soak the chickpeas overnight or for 4 hours or so, drain and process in a food processor for 30 secs or so until ground. Add in the onion, garlic, corriander, cumin, baking powder, salt, pepper and one tablespoon of water and process again.

Leave it until you're ready and then shape tablespoons of the mixture into balls with your hands and squeeze out any excess liquid. Cook your falafel in hot oil (you're meant to sort of deep fry them, but i just fry them in a frying pan) for about 3-4 mins each.

Serve with whatever you like really, but humus, pitta breads and salad is good.

Pitta bread:

1.8 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1.5 teaspoons sugar
1.5 teaspoons yeast

Bung everything in bread machine, select Dough setting and start.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Gently roll and stretch dough into a 12 inch rope. With a sharp knife, divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll each into a smooth ball. With a rolling pin, roll each ball into a 6 to 7 inch circle. Set aside on a lightly floured countertop. cover with a towel. Let pitas rise about 30 minutes until slightly puffy

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F (260 degrees C). Place 2 or 3 pitas on a wire cake rack. Place cake rack directly on oven rack. Bake pitas 4 to 5 minutes until puffed and tops begin to brown. Remove from oven and immediately place pitas in a sealed brown paper bag or cover them with a damp kitchen towel until soft. Once pitas a softened, either cut in half or split top edge for half or whole pitas. They can be stored in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for several days or sling them in the freezer for quick meals or lunches!

At the end of lemon season the kids and I picked all the lemons and I froze the juice in icecube trays and the grated peel in tubs, so now I have a huge sack of lemon juice in the freezer for free - very handy cause I use it in loads of stuff and make lots of lemon cakes!

Oh, and my last tip of the evening (phew!) - keep all the receipts you're given for childcare etc. and make a tax rebate claim at the end of the financial year. My dp and I aren't married and someone here told me to photocopy the receipts and claim in both our names - and ta-da! just today two lots of $310 were deposited into our account, one for each IRD number (your tax number). Now this might well work if you're married too - so i'd try it if i were you!

I'm all typed out now! night night!

SF

mojos

Thanks for the recipes

Jo