What have we taken away from this lesson?

Takeaway food... Its overpriced, over-oiled and never quiet leaves you feeling as satisfied as you'd like it to. When we started living a far more frugal lifestyle we very quickly discovered that takeaway was a massive wallet drainer. Embarassingly some of our favourites were foods like Macdonalds, Dominoes, Subway, and KFC (pretty much all the major ones, right?)

The last time we had dominoes our meal was $50, yes you read right. Theres three of us. When we got home and started eating it we discovered that the cheese wasnt entirely melted and the pizza was cold in the middle and the pizza was soggy right through to the cardboard box which was also soggy - so afrter $50 we couldn't even eat our meal. Now, I'm not joking when I say - I can (and have) fed my family for $50 a week before, when times were tough. So wasting an entire $50 for one nights food certainly was the wake up call I needed.

We decided that there was a definate pattern to our takeaway experiences, the meals were either too small, too big, too oily, or when we arrived home and opened the package it just was not what we ordered at all. So we decided to stop buying takeaway, I mean - if they can make it, we can too right? YES, we can.

It was that easy and honestly saved us so much money. We are also able to control things like cooking times, oil levels, ingredients used, portions, additives/processed ingredients. We dont compromise on taste at all and find that we achieve even better flavours.

So now we have our favourite takeaway meals on a frugal budget, we also have them whenever we like because they are far healthier options. Most of the ingredients can be stored int he pantry or the fridge/freezer and will be enough to make an array of different meals. Some of the things we make?

Making our own homemade pizzas is somthing we do EVERY week, without fail. Its our "go-to" Friday night meal. They are eaasy, delicious and nine times out of ten cover the next days breakfast too. We usually use "mountain bread" (avaliable from woolworths and coles) as a low calorie long life pizza base to travel with (they are very thin though so each pizza requires two). However last night we splurged a little and bought proper pizza bases (from now on weve decided we will make our own bases, I hadn't realised how simple they are). We add ingredients like ham, chicken, frozen prawns (cheap from Woolies), tonns of capsicum, onion, tomato, fetta, pineapple and much more. We try to make sure they have lots of healthy ingredients. We quickly discovered (one week when I forgot to buy it) that they taste just as good without pepperoni as they do with it, so we no longer purchase that anymore. Homeade pizza is simple, budget friendly and 100% effective at curbing those cravings for takeaway. Pizzas are a fantastic meal for other caravanners when you are somewhere remote and craving somthing delicious (and seemingly unhealthy/naughty).

Home made burgers are so quick and easy to make. All you need is beef mince, salads, cheese and a roll. All we add to our home made beef patties (for that macdonalds cheeseburger effect) is salt and pepper, simple. They takte delicious (fresh!) and if you splurge a little on the healthier mince you dont end up with your bun being a sponge to all the oil. They are also a great BBQ food for when you are on the road.

The thing we like about hot dogs is that they last - they come in a long life package and sometimes last weeks or months, plus you can freeze them if you find you havnt eaten them close to the use by date. When you find yourself in a little town with a nice bakery, all you need to do is pick up some lovely fresh rolls and you have yourself a VERY easy, cheap and kid friendly meal. You can have them for lunch, or dinner!

Subs are another option for when you pull up near a small town bakery and find yourself with some nice fresh rolls. The filling is only limited by your imagination but here are some of our favourite combinations:

- tuna, cheese and tomato (toasted)

- pazza (tomato paste with herbs, pizza meats, cheese, toasted)

- chicken parmijana (tomato paste, chicken, ham, cheese, toasted)

- fresh ham and salad

- fresh chicken and salad

Subs are delicious and filling and are certainly one of th ehealthier options of this list! They are easy to make and there will  be a combination to suit the entire family!

One of my absolute favourite takeaway meals would have to be the trusty garlic prawn noodles. I absolutely love these! I realised very quickly though (after leaving the town with my FAVOURITE version of them) that I would have to learn to make a simple, yummy version myself. Challenge accepted! I bought a bulk pack of home brand "2 minute noodles", popped them in a bowl in the microwave (submerged in water) until they were soft. Meanwhile I heat up a frypan with a few sprays of the most low calorie oil I can find (it's 1.7 calories a spray and is avaliable from Woolworths - "Lupi, extra light olive oil" in a pump spray bottle) I add in some prawns from my trusty frozen bulk bag, some chopped shallots, frozen peas (and optional snow peas and broccoli) aswell as a heaped tablespoon of crushed (or fresh) garlic and a dash of soy sauce, wallah! Thats it! Once the prawns are cooked, the noodles should be too, just drain them - add them to the fry pan, spritz a little more light oil onto them and enjoy. Sometimes if I dont have shallotts I will use an onion and just the frozen peas instead of the other vegies, this way I can make this recipe when we are nowhere near shops!

Home made fried rice is quiet possibly one of the simplest and most delicious things I know how to cook. Its my absolute favourite! I always make sure I have eggs at home aswell as shredded ham, prawns and frozen peas in my freezer. Sometimes I will cook fresh rice for it, other times I will use some I have pre-cooked in the freezer and somtimes I will be a lazy a** and use those microwave rice packets fromt he supermarket. Either way - it always tastes the same amount of yum! I simply oil the fry pan, lightly whisk an egg and throw the egg, prawns, frozen peas and ham into the pan, basically scramble it all around the pan until the egg and prawns are cooked, then add in either onion or shallotts and any other vegies you want then a spoon of garlic and a good splash of soy sauce, throw the rice in, DONE! It takes just minutes to cook and is absolutely delicious!

These are some of our versions of the takeaway meals we enjoy. They may not all be stupendously healthy but we dont have them all, all the time! Learning how to make your own favourite takeaway foods can save you ALOT of money and alot of hassle. Its also a fantastic way to limit your own and your childrens intake of food additives, fats and oils. If you like somthing different to what I have posted about here why not google a few recipes and give them a try? I once made a very simple and delicious peanut satay chicken noodle dish and im sure you could find a simple recipe for your favourite takeaway meals.

Our draws and cupboards

This post is just to show you the basic kitchen items that we travel with. When you move into a caravan your storage space drops dramatically, but so do your needs so ultimately it balances out. Dont be perplexed by what you see in my photos and how it compares to yours as we are all very different and we all have very different ways of making meals! My draws did not look ANYTHING like this at the start of our trip, this level of "almost emptyness" comes from going through everything basically everytime we stop for longer than a week in a town (and I get some spare time) and donating the things we dont use to charity. You will find that as you get further along in your trip you will notice items you havn't touched the entire time, although its nice to be prepared - somtimes we can be a little too prepared! When you find these items you can choose to pack them away in the van somewhere, you could donate them to charity or if they are too special (eg. gift/heirloom) you can pop them in a post box and let it build up until its full then post it "home" or to a family family to look after for you.

Overhead cabinets

The above picture is of my overhead cabinets above my dining table. I use this tablet to house my baking ingredients and sauces/ oils etc (see the next photo). The reason I left this entire area for baking/cooking ingredients was to make them far more accessable. This way I can get to them anytime and I can bake with ease. Baking all of our own snack food and desserts etc from scratch saves us alot of money. When I became a "new mum" 3 years ago to my son, instantly the ring of "Tupperware" parties began. I ended up purchasing ALOT of tupperware and although it was costly its been a great investment. There are MANY options for plasticware out there (so use whatever works for you!) and so far one that I have found that is on-par with Tupperware in terms of the lids not falling off on corrugated or bumpy roads are those "Klip Its" containers from big W/Woolworths (the clear ones with the blue seals and clips). Its important to make sure your plasticware is durable and the lids will hold firm on rough surfaces! (I am not in anyway affiliated with Tupperware!) I also like the way the modular design makes them all fit in better together. Perhaps be concious of this when you purchase your plasticware and try to get most of your products in the same brand so they will fit in better as packing cupboards in a caravan can be much like a good game of Tetris.

Overhead cabinets again


Once my overhead cabinets were all packed witht he containers I then added in front the oils and sauces and other products I use frequently in the caravan. This way I have easy access to them when needed. This was the perfect spot for those items to fit as the actual pantry for the caravan is very deep and involves taking everything out to get to the back of. Being able to have these items here means I am able to grab things like tomato sauce etc with ease during a meal. You will notice that I have alot of sauce bottles - that is because when I run out of sauce I keep the bottles then I use them for sauces and other condements that come in glass bottles eg. Soy sauce and Balsamic Vinegar. This way they are more durable on rough roads and I know there wont be cracked glass and soy sauce everywhere! Now that I have all the plastic bottle I need I wash out my BBQ and Tomato sauce whenever they finish and refull them from a cheap, 1 litre bottle (to save money).

My second draw

This is the draw for all the larger items. The reason it looks so empty is because it houses all the containers that we put leftovers/fresh produce/baked goods etc in - so they are all being used at the moment. I like to keep a stock up of items like zip lock bags (they make up for the fact that I can hardly fit any plastic containers into the van for everyday use). I also like to keep a stock up of items like cloths (for wiping benches/washing up) scourers, baking paper, glad wrap and alfoil. These items run out/need replacing all the time and can be very costly at small shops in little towns. I use food scales ALOT when making things like bread and other baked goods so they are very handy. Ice cube trays are great as if your in the middle of nowhere and have some room in your freezer you can pop a try in and have some ice for your "happy hour" drinks.

My top draw immediately under the sink.

The top draw would have to be the draw we use the absolute most. It has our plates, bowls (when they arent all in the washing up), cutlery, cooking utencils and the plasticware we use the most. I wanted to keep this draw very simple and functional since both my husband and I aswell as our three year old son need things from it all the time throughout the day. I began with a proper cutlery tray (the type you have in draws in houses) but quickly discovered that it too up too much room! So not I use a lunchbox. It really hasnt made it any difficult as we dont have alot of cutlery so there isnt a mountain of it to sort through.

The basket in the draw is home to our cooking utencils, paddy pans, herb chopper, sippee lids (for our son) and a few other bits and pieces. The basket stops those items from ending up strewn accross the draw while in transit.

Youll notice we only have one coffee mug (we used to have none but when my mum visited she bought it). We only really keep it for visitors as neither of us drink coffee and we only rarely have tea or hot chocolate.

Some of the items we have in our draws and why we have them

Little containers

These little containers are so handy. Once you get ont he road and want to make your money stretch further you will want to use alot less "disposbale stuff" aswell as have alot more picnic style meals. These containers are the perfect size for things like mayonaise, sauces, salt/pepper/chicken salt, salad dressings, vegemite and butter etc. We use these ALL the time! You can get containers this small from the plasticware section in woolworths for just a few dollars and they WILL save you money. Even on the days you do have takeaway, you wont have to buy sauce for your chips or pie if you have one of these babies handy!

Reusable metal skewers

We felt like chicken kebabs along the road somewhere so we went to woolworths to buy a big packet of disposable skewers. We found these for only a DOLLAR more and decided to get them instead. They are fantastic! They regularly save as money aswell as the space a big packet of disposable ones would have taken up!

          reusable sillicone patty pans

Now these things are FANTASTIC! Not only do they eliminate the VERY large metal muffin and cupcake trays we simply couldnt fit, they also eliminate the need for spray oil! They are great and cost less than their metal counterparts! They also elimenate the need for those patty pan liners! When your living in a van and have weight limits every little loss counts!

         net food covers

These things are fantastic! We eat outside the van ALOT and the flies can get very full on. These are perfect for covering your meal or your nibbly trays. They also fold down to (and weigh) nearly nothing! These were $1 each at the reject shop some time ago.

        Plastic tumblers

My husband hates plastic cups so I basically had to buy these to please his subconcious. I mean, if it looks like a glass... It must be a glass right? NOPE! They are plastic! They look great (before you give up on only using the soft sponge on them) when they have no scratched, but even when they are scratched they dont hold the taste of drinks like many other plastic cups do. These were from Kmart and were somthing like $8 for four. We have dropped them a million times and had our first breakage a few days ago (after about 8-10 months of using them). They are very durable!

       plastic collapsable collander

This thing is brilliant! It is a perfectly functional collander and can collapse down to be about two centemetres deep (if that) so that it fits flat, in your draw. This one is made my Tupperware as it was the first one I ever saw so I bought it immediately, however my mum recently purchased one while grocery shopping at woolworths, from the cookware aisle! These are great, a MUST have item!

This is an odourless mosquito zapper, It does have to be plugged in though so you need to be connected to power or have a generator (or solar and an inverter) to run it (im sure there are non electrical mosquito methods that would be as effective). After staying at a few places and waking up in th emorning to our little boy eaten alive by mosquitos we didnt evenr ealise were in our van, we purchased this! Now we simple plug it in, in his room for half an hour to an hour before he goes to bed, then we swtch it off when we tuck him in. No more mozzie bites!

I still have a few more cupboards to add to this list, but this post has become quiet large so I will add a part 2 to it tonight or tomorrow!

Part 2 will include:

- pantry

- overhead cabinets above the sink

- other miscelaneous items!

I will also do a post down the track of our food/cleaning etc items.

Hope our methods gave you some new ideas :-)

Make it at home! A few contraptions and items to make life a little easier and more convenient.

Once of the most benificial things for us in maintaining a lower grocery budget has been learning how to make things our selves. This has also involved purchasing some of the right "contraptions" to use to make things. Some of the things we have bought (and a few we plan on buying) in order to make our grocery bill a little cheaper or to just cut out those "mid week" runs to the shop and late night trips to the service station:

Soda Stream Machine:

I highly reccomend it. We dont drink *alot* of soft drink but when your own the road there are alot more opportunities to relax and rest and alot more people willing to indulge in "happy hour" each afternoon with you. Having a few soda stream bottles in the caravan fridge filled with cold water means that at any given time we can use the soda stream to fizz them up. We can then use them to make cola to mix with alcoholic beveridges or to make a nice cold bottle of fanta or creaming soda to enjoy with a picnic lunch. We have saved alot of money by avoiding the odd late night trip to the service station on a Saturday night to get extra Coke.

A bread maker:

I tried making bread without one and I failed EVERYtime. My mum ended up buying us a breadmaker machine for christmas (a compact one). Its FANTASTIC. When you are on the road and can end up having to buy bread from service stations etc you can expect to pay in excess of $5 a loaf. Not anymore! I can set the bread maker the night before and it will have a warm, fresh loaf waiting for us at the crack of dawn which will do our breakfast and lunches once we arrive in the next town. A breadmaker (for those who fail at handmaking bread, like myself) is a definite investment!

Easy-yo Yoghurt Maker:

I havnt bought this yet as I heard alot of negative feedback on the price of the sachets. They ARE good for convenience but the savings arent really phenomenal, unless of course you consult the "Stay at Home Mum" webpage ( http://www.stayathomemum.net.au/ ) and use their "Home Made Yoghurt Recipe" with your yoghurt maker, then the savings are more than phenominal. Im buying one of these tomorrow and plan on making all of my own yoghurt from scratch now.

A slow cooker:
These are very common now and are fantastic. Especially if you arrive in a new town and have a big day of exploring planned, you can just pop the food in and when you get home that afternoon absolutely exhaused, dinner is ready! Wonderful invention! The list of dishes you can make in them is growing everyday so dont think you have to miss out on variety if you use one. They are uber economical too.

Icey pole moulds:

This is super simple, obviously when living in a caravan you have a teensy weensy refridgerator and an even smaller freezer. Keeping some of these on hand means that when you have some fruit thats on the blink you can juice it (or process it) and freeze it up, shove them wherever they will fit in the space that have appeared in your freezer midweek, YUM! Great for when your in the outback too and when your on the road travelling these are fantastic if your like me and stop at servos to fuel up, see the ice cream fridge while your paying and INSTANTLY crave a cold, sweet snack. Your combinations are only limited by your imagination, you can use yoghurt, frozen berries, fresh fruits, fruit juice, cordial, milk and milk flavourings, a genuine home made ice cream recipe etc.

Potao chip maker:

Today, during my grocery shop I discovered a "microwave potato chip maker". Potato chips are basically the last "prepackaged snack" we had left to elimenate for a "home cooked" version. Obviously when I seen this contraption I HAD to try it, so we purchased one. We brought it home, used the included slicer to chop up the potato slivers - popped them in the "thingy" (pictured above, lol) and popped them in the microwave. They came out fantastic. The only challenge now is finding some interesting - cheap - seasonings for them.

I will add more to this list down the track as there are many things that can help you to be able to have your favourite snacks, treats and meals along the road for a low cost and a high level of convenience.

Some of the other items I like to keep well stocked are:

- ALL baking ingredients
- bread mix (for the breadmaker)
- long life milk (I use long life milk for baking, I also use it in place of full cream fresh milk when we run out)
- lots of butter (for baking)
- eggs (you can make ANY type of meal from eggs, breakfast, lunch and dinner!)
- lemon cordial (particularly handy for when your stopped in a town with water you arent used to)
- a big, home brand, block of tasty cheese. (much cheaper to grate it yourself then buy grated)
- I keep pizza bases and the ingredients for pizza frozen, this way when we crave pizza instead of ringing dominoes we make it ourselves, this saves us about $50 a time as when we buy from dominoes we also purchase other junk food items we dont need)
- tinned items like baked beans, spaghetti and soups/stews (just incase you are stuck somewhere without adequate supplies)
- toiletries - these can become quiet expensive if you end up forced to buy them from mini marts in small towns or from service stations. It's always good to have at least one spare bottle of each if you have the room for it.
- water - I keep some homebrand bottled water for the same purpose as the lemon cordial. If you are somewhere and you REALLY dont like the water then you have the bottled water to drink. We havnt really come accross this problem yet but the bottled water has been useful for in the car (until we purchased drink bottles which we now keep in the fridge).

I will update this list as I think of more things to add to it.

El-cheapo food.

My husband works seven days of day shift, then has four days off then works seven nights of night shift then four days off (over and over). So in order to keep our grocery budget as low as possibe I've developed a "fail proof" routine.

Grocery shopping, ARGH!

I grocery shop in his days off before he begins the week of dayshift. Once I get all the groceries home I bake him a batch of muffins for the week, some sort of a slice and I make a ginormous batch of "chilli con carne" style mince (with lots of red kidney beans and tomatoes) and cook it into single sized pies in my pie maker. Each day that week he takes a piece of fruit, 1-2 pies, some slice/cake 2 and a few ham and salad sandwiches or rolls. Then each of those 7 nights of his dayshift week when I make dinner I freeze the leftovers (which can be anywhere from 1 - 3 serves) in containers that he can take to work and put in the pie warmer on his night shift week. So when his night shift week comes around I dont have to do ANY cooking for meals (I make myself simple, single serve meals each night like omelletes, toasted sandwiches etc). So right before his nightshift week starts I will bake another big batch of snack food (slices/cake etc), more savoury muffins (or whatever else he wants that week) and a big batch of homade sausage rolls. Then for that week he will take a pre-made meal, a sausage roll or two, and the snack food and a piece of fruit. Its really simple.

Sausage rolls are cheap, easy and freezable. I also find that rather than buying the tubes of sausage mince for them it is cheaper to buy a 2kg packet of bulk sausages and just remove 50% of them from their cases (mix in a bowl with a couple of cups of breadcrums, some garlic, herbs, sauces etc) and then freeze the other 50% of the packet for your "sausage meals".

This means that  I shop for a 18 day period at a time. Which generally costs me about $300 - $350 (which includes $50+ to use halfway through that time period to restock fresh vegies, milk etc).

Make taco mince go further with red kidney beans you could even use this to make the meal cheaper so you can afford to buy the "heart smart" or "healthier" mince instead of the normal, fatty mince.

It also makes life easier for me as I only have to cook for about ten of the 18 nights. I also will buy things like (for example) two "Taco kits" (boxed kits to make tacos for dinner). Each kit is supposed to take 500grams of mince but on the first night that we have tacos (generally on my husbands "off work" nights) I will fry up ONE lot of 500grams of mince with the seasoning and add a VERY cheap can of red kidney beans. Then when the meat is cooked I can split it into two, use half for that nights dinner and freeze half so we can have it for tacos the next week. This saves money AND once again saves time because all i then have to do the next week is pull the mixture from the freezer and defrost/reheat it.

Red kidney beans are a brilliant resource for making your mince go further and you can put them in pretty much any of your mince based dishes from tacos to pies to spaghetti bolognaise and they will make it last an entire extra meal.

frugalise it!

I've been really full on with my "penny pinching" techniques lately. I have to honestly say this is the best effort at sticking to a budget I have ever made. In all honestly, it's actually the first time in my ENTIRE adult life I have ever been able to stick to me self imposed budget. I'm feeling pretty proud about it and for the most part its been quiet easy.

I have picked up ALOT of "penny pinching" techniques from different online forums and just general common sense. Some of the things I have been doing?

- I bought 12 white facewashers, 12 brown face washer, a big (homebrand) bottle of nappysoak and two small buckets. Now I use the white washers to clean up my son after meals (instead of baby wipes) and the brown washers are for cleaning benches/floors/walls etc. Whenever I finish with one I pop it straight in the bucket to soak then every few days I run them through the wash.

- only using half the amount of products like shampoo, conditioner, body wash, washing powder, dish washing liquid, spray and wipe, hand wash, etc. Essentially this means all of these products WILL last twice as long so I will go from buying them once every six weeks to now buying them once every three months. (therefore 4 times a year instead of 8 times a year).

- cooking EVERYTHING at home, from scratch. Buy doing this I have eliminated MANY prepaged/jarred foods some of those are - variety pack chips, spaghetti bolognaise sauce jars, macaroni cheese sauce jars, curry sauce jars, stroganoff sauce jars, apricot chicken sauce jars, gravy (gravox), white sauce, cheese sauce, cakes, muffins, bread, biscuits, flavour sachets (eg. taco seasoning) and MANY other snack foods. I now make all of my husbands work snacks (such as meusli bars, cocnut slice etc) rather than buying pre-packaged snackfoods for him. We also have not been having ANY takeaway/takeout nor have we been out for a meal other than packing our food and taking it somewhere for a picnic.

- Three of the big things we spent money on were A) buying drinks at the service station. B) buying magazines (think: celebrity gossip/health magazines/etc). C) late night junk food cravings. We decided to elimenate ALL of these by A) buying the types of drinks we would impulse buy - with our groceries (they are WAY cheaper in 4 or 6 packs from the supermarkets, plus if you go in when they are on special you can get TWO 24 packs of cans of diet coke for $30 instead of for about $48. We then put a few in the fridge each week and grab them as we are running out to leave the house. B) I now get ALL my celebrity gossip fixes, health tips etc from the internet, duh! Its free, its accessable 24/7 without leaving your lounge/bed. Too easy! D) I learn a little recipe called "cake in a mug".... I ALWAYS have the basic ingredients needed for it so if im desperately craving chocolate I make one of these (but leave it slightly undercooked and gooey) and hubby and I share the one. It literally takes three minutes from pantry to mouth and tastes amazing (especially if you use brown sugar instead of white). (Cake in a mug recipe -

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2009/05/29/the-five-minute-chocolate-mug-cake/ )

We have many other changes too which I will outline further down the track but right now I can honestly say that just these few simple changes have made a MASSIVE change in our weekly finances. Cooking everything at home can save you so much money and cooking everything from scratch puts yet another noticeable dent in the grocery bill, you will be amazed. I feel like these changes are such a small sacrafice in the grand scheme of things.

I basically think about it terms of how much time my beautiful husband has to spend at work. Every minute is a dollar and if we are spending them as fast as he is making them then he wont be leaving anytime soon. I'd much rather park our caravan at a beach somewhere and spend every moment having fun in the sun with Brent and Zac as opposed to having takeaway food regularly. Ultimately I nearly always either feel sick after takeaway OR dont *actually* get given what I ordered. I could honestly say that about 95% of my "takeaway food experiences" have left me highly dissapointed aswell as shocked at their cost (upto $50 for one nights worth of dinner).

So the more I penny pinch the less he works - the more time we have together, as a family and as a couple. Sounds blissful to me.

Why in the world would I want to miss beautiful moments like the photo above which is of my husband and son on the beach at Lee Point in Darwin during sunset. We only live one life and I hate wasting moments.

Have a beautiful evening everyone.