Frugal living doesn't mean being a tight wad! Sure if you have nowt then living frugally is a must and some people do take frugality to a new high.

I will expand on these thoughts soon.

A staple part of frugal living is called tumbledown cooking.

Basically you cook up a big pot of "something" usually a mince meat type meal and then add to that whatever you have.

For instance you fry off a kilo of onions and 3 kilo of mince meat. Add to this about 6 cloves of garlic, a good handfull of fresh herbs or a couple of tablespoons of dried herbs, 500g of good quality porridge oats, 3 tins of tomatoes and a half a tube of tomato paste, salt and pepper to season.

Add a kettle of hot water and simmer for 20 minutes or so. Keep an eye on the pan and add more water if it's starting to dry up or is sticking to the bottom of the pan.

This is the base "tumbledown" meal.

This is portioned up and frozen in the tin foil cartons like you get from the takeaway and when you need a quick meal take out one of the tin foils and add to that what you have.

For example throw in a tin of red kidney beans a couple of chilies and some more garlic and you have a chili con carne type meal.

Other meals are:

shepherds pie add potatoes

Lasagne add pasta sheets and sauce

Mince and dumplings add dumplings

Curried mince Add curry powder

Although these are meals that make the pennies eek out for a weeks food these meals are very easy to use when you have had a hard day at the office or with the screaming kid or even if you've just lost the corkscrew.