Video of lady Elaine Colliar who spends £18 a week to feed family of three.

[MinimalistMommi]

This is a great inspirational video for people looking to save money and be as frugal as possible:
mortgagefreeinthree.com/2013/08/elaine-colliar-tedx-the-frugal-tedx-talk/
She's an amazing person!

[JakeBullet]

I bet she doesn't need to work.
I bet she gets a tidy sum from being "the lady who feeds a family of three for £18 a week"

That said......I am off to watch and see if I can learn anything

[JakeBullet]

Ooh fab looking recipes on there.

[MinimalistMommi]

Jake from what is written in her blog she works very hard!

[MinimalistMommi]

She mentions in her video how she feeds her family for £18 a week. I know she preserves a lot of her own food etc and bottles her own sauces etc.

[JakeBullet]

Yeah apologies for my crappy first post...been a tough day but I now have a load of new recipes...really like the Indian Kidney Bean curry one Going to cook that this week...a really inspirational blog.

[sparkle12mar08]

Preserving and bottling costs quite a bit of money in sugar and fuel. If she's doing it in quantities sufficient to feed her family on, you really need to take that into account. A 2lb bag of sugar costs less than a pound in money but you'll only get say four jars of jam or bottled fruits from it, and the fuel cost can be enormous - perhaps 30 mins of gas for boiling the jam/fruits.

[MinimalistMommi]

jake don't worry! I found her blog a little while ago and have found it so inspirational trout I would share it here. Also the blog 'A Girl called Jack' had an awesome kidney bean burger recipe which is super cheap and lush!

Sparkle I think she bottles mostly savoury stuff like tomato sauce etc rather than jams but I might be wrong. So stuff to base an actual meal on. I know she has an awesome store cupboard going on!

[JakeBullet]

I am very envious of the storage space she has....and that's without somewhere to keep plates, saucepans etc.

Off to sort out my food cupboards and meal plan.

[MinimalistMommi]

jake

[Memorygirl125]

Hi ladies

One of my regular readers asked me to pop over - just to say, my store cupboard has been the single best thing that helped us get out debt and back on our feet.

I do a lot of canning and preserving - mostly using a pressure cooker to cut fuel costs - that really ramps us the savings you can make (Tomato pasta sauce at 6p per jar for instance)

And sorry JakeBullet - I am in the process of setting up my own business so don't earn a penny being "the lady that feeds her family of three on £18 a week" ..... I actually earn slightly less than £800 per month so have very little choice about having a tight budget ..... but hopefully it will all be worth it one day when we are back on track again. One day soon would be even better lOL

In the meantime - I will keep "Making do and Mending" and "Frugal Feasting" - because the one thing that is not negotiable is that my kids go hungry.............. so back to making a vat of chilli beans for packed lunches this week ECX

[MinimalistMommi]

Thank you for popping over Elaine!
I think you're awesome and you're a daily inspiration to me!

[Mum2Fergus]

Me too Elaine...I joined your forum just before the holiday and have done 1-2 posts...will do my own update soon but getting so much from your site already

[ChocolateMama]

Hello Elaine, I followed you when you had your original thread on MoneySavingExpert and founds it really inspirational. You have a wonderful writing style and I think you had one of the most popular blogs on the site before you left. I was a 'lurker' and never joined in with the chat, but enjoyed reading about your adventures.

Hope all is going well now.

Ladies, visit mortagefreeinthree.com You will not be disappointed!

[Mrsambition]

I would love to see the shopping list of £18 spend. Although a while back when we were skint I only spent £25 ow on 3 but it was far from fancy.

[RubySparks]

That was a great video, oddly realise I have been doing some of this stuff already just didn't know it. Really like the idea that its not just about cutting back but about re-skilling yourself, going to get my knitting needles out tomorrow! Then have a think about what other skills I can revive or learn. Sometimes though its about time not money... that is my balancing act.

[dementedma]

So how do I access all this stuff? It asks me to go to the home page to register for the forum, but them just takes me on a loop.

[MinimalistMommi]

Her site is a bit confusing, scroll down and you will see her actual blog, I found the same thing and ending up thinking 'Where's her blog with all the info?' So Eliane if you're reading this, you actual blog doesn't show on my iPad until I physically scroll down which took me about five minutes to work out LOL!