The No Coffee Shop Challenge: Update

It is now four months into my pledge to give up coffee shops, so I thought it was about time for an update. 

The reason for this challenge was primarily to save money.  In the 12 months previous to saying Goodbye Magpie, I had spent a whopping £500+ on cups of coffee.  This spend would be fair enough, if we could afford it.  Coffee shops can be great places to while away a pleasant half hour, particularly on a wet and miserable Scottish winter's day.

However, we couldn't afford it.  Toting up our total spend for the year, my husband, JW, and I realised that we had managed to spend almost precisely double our income.  Drastic measures were called for and £500 on cups of coffee was definitely not going to be on the list of essentials!

This new no-cafes lifestyle is actually really easy.  Cups of nice coffee and homemade treats at home are more relaxing and enjoyable.  I don't feel pushed out of my table after 15mins, and my large cafetiere certainly goes a whole lot further than one cup of medium coffee does, meaning I can sit back and relax properly.  Small changes have been easy to make, such as, rather than paying for a cup of coffee once I have done the shopping, I walk home and brew up instead.  I really look forward to my nice cup of coffee when I get back from shopping. Easy.

My Trusty Thermos

When I am going out and about, I just plan ahead.  My trusty thermos flask has never been so busy and a tupperware box with rolls, biscuits or crisps is an easy to pack treat.  Sat on a public bench, I watch the world go by, sipping on the coffee that is made just the way I like it, eating a snack I know doesn't contain a ridiculous amount of calories.  Today JW and I did just that, and we had the most fantastic view over to Edinburgh Castle from our park bench, one that neither of us had noticed before, despite walking along the path many times before.

Of course, I have fallen off the waggon a couple of times.  Most recently on my birthday, albeit I used vouchers I had received as a gift, so didn't spend any money.  But, having not drunk espresso machine coffee for so long, I found it far too strong and bitter and I couldn't actually drink the cup!  This is amazing, as I was completely hooked before and could well have had two cups of the exact same coffee in a row, at a cost of nearly £5.00. 

Another time, just before Christmas I was out with my sister and we had coffee in a little cafe, as a Christmas treat.  I really enjoyed the coffee this time and ordered a second cup.  But that second cup tipped me over the caffeine edge and made me feel sick for the rest of the day! 

This may put you off giving up spending money that you can't afford on cups of coffee.  But don't let it.  I don't miss going out for coffee at all, I enjoy sitting outside with my flask, without the hustle and bustle of a crammed and noisy cafe to contend with, general lack of seats and being unable to hear my companion speak.  I have had friends over to my house for coffee and I have gone over to theirs, much more relaxing all round.  The only hiccough is meeting up with old work colleagues, where lunch time meet ups in a nearby cafe is the simpliest thing.  I will have to make an exception here, but maybe I will order a cup of tea instead!

Tiffin Treat

I have been really enjoying having my morning coffee at home, in order to save money by not visiting coffee shops.  The target save for the next twelve months from making my own coffee is over £500!  As you know I am also trying to save money on my grocery bill, so my latest idea was to stop buying my usual fruit and nut cereal snack bar and to make my own snacks instead.  At 75p per bar my usual cereal bars may be yummy, but they are also costly. 

Afternoon Tea and Tiffin - Yum!

So, I have made delicious tiffin bars using up a load of ingredients that I already had in my cupboard!  The recipe was one that I adapted from BBC Good Food (which is a fantastic website, where you can find hundreds of great recipes which have been tried and tested by lots of other cooks, if you haven't visited it yet, I really recommend you have a look).  The best thing about this recipe was that I could use up all the little packets of almost finished biscuits that my son likes to leave in the cupboard to become a little bit soft!

Chocolate Tiffin

250g Assorted bisuits (I used ginger nuts, plain digestives and chocolate digestives)

250g of mixed nuts and dried fruit (I used a mix of all the little leftover bits of nuts, almonds and mixed nuts I had and dried currants)

150g Nutella (I have half a jar in the cupboard for ages, which my son left...)

150g Milk chocolate (I used some fancy flaked chocolate designed for hot chocolate, that I was given for Christmas)

100g Butter

140g Honey

 1. Line a 20cm square baking tin with greaseproof paper

 2. Melt butter, chocolate and honey in a pyrex bowl placed over a pan of simmering water

3. While chocolate mix is melting, crush nuts in a large bowl with the end of a wooden rolling pin (or however you like to crush your nuts)

4. Add bisuits to the bowl and crush them up too 
5. Add dried fruit to the biscuits and nuts

6. Mix all ingredients together, getting all the bisuits and nuts nicely coated in the chocolate mix

7. Press the mixture into the tin and pop into the fridge to chill for 2 hours

8. Cut into chunk sized pieces

9. Enjoy!

A visitor for Coffee

This morning I had a visitor join me for morning coffee.  My sister KitKat.  Rather than meet up in our local Costa, as we usually would do, we arranged for KitKat to come over to my house.  So this morning I made some chocolate crispies, (I had promised to bake; chocolate crispies count as baking in my book!) and I had my cafetiere and best cups looked out ready for my guest at 10.30am.

KitKat arrived at the door and enthusiastically asked if we were having coffee in the garden; hurray she didn't mind about the practically gale force wind.  So the two of us sat out on the garden bench enjoying pleasant conversation and chat over a nice cuppa and crispie, the odd spot of rain and gust of wind not bothering us, and both exclaiming how much healthier it was to be outdoors.

Having KitKat come over also got me going this morning, as it gave me get up and go to get the house and guinea pigs tidy, leaving me free this afternoon to make some jam.  More news on this activity to follow...

So, having coffee at home with relatives is certainly successful.  Will it work with friends, who may not be quite so keen on a damp coffee break?

Coffee Challenge

Well I have been really enjoying Challenge No. 1, which involves not visiting any coffee shops in a bid to save over £500 in the next 12 months.  Until today the weather has held up and even on the few wet days there has been a break in the weather and I have been outside sipping away.  But my luck couldn't last and today it poured all day! So I retreated indoors.  My challenge was to find somewhere I didn't normally sit, in an attempt to keep up the feeling of a proper break.  This is what I came up with.

 But the view wasn't so great:

Even when I lifted the blinds up:

As winter is heading our way, I am going to be having inside coffee time more and more, so need to do some reconfiguring; for free of course.  So watch this space!

Challenge One - Coffee

In the last twelve months I have spent a whopping £539.35 in coffee shops.  Which, when each £2.15 or so is added up, is a huge amount to spend on cups of coffee, I am sure you will agree.  However, I cannot be without my daily caffeine fix, as it gives me space to think as well as a jolt to get on with the things I want to achieve each day, it is also a good reason to get out of the house and go for a walk.  So I have devised a new plan which I hope will see me through the next year and one which will hopefully wean me off the craving I have to visit coffee shops altogether.  

So, for the next 12 months I pledge to spend nothing, that is correct, exactly zero pence, in coffee shops (take-aways included).   

This morning I have been to the supermarket and bought some fair-trade coffee for my cafetiere, (of which I have two; seldom used apart from at Christmas time).  The total cost of the coffee was £2.99.  Rather than heading across the road to the local coffee shop after my supermarket trip, as I usually would do, I walk back home and set up my cafetiere to brew.  I also make a small toasted pitta bread, (from things I already have in the fridge) and put everything on a nice tray, along with my notebook and pen and head out into the garden.  

We recently took home an old wooden bench, which had been sitting for years in my parents-in-law’s shed, and put it in the corner of our garden, where it looks really characterful surrounded by a mass of pink hydrangea flowers.  The bench has been in the garden for two weeks and this morning is the first morning I have properly sat down on it, which says a lot about my life at the moment.   

It is a lovely day and the sun shines on me, I soak up the rays and enjoy the warmth they provide.  I press down the cafetiere plunger and pour my hot coffee into my cheerful, smooth, Mr Bump mug.  I take a sip and it is as good, if not better, than the coffee they serve in my local cafe.  I take a bite of my freshly made pitta with cottage cheese and quorn ham and sit back and relax.  Bees, hoverflies and the occasional wasp buzz around me.  The birds twitter away.  The guinea pigs are sleeping off their belly full of grass and I think that this is actually much more pleasant than sitting in a coffee shop with no view.  I look around at my garden full of plants and feel pleased that it is taking shape this year and my usual coffee-time thoughts of what I would like to be getting on with that day come to mind.  I finish my pitta, top up my cup and take out my notebook to start scribbling.  

As I finish up my coffee, I think that maybe I have missed people watching and hearing the half pieces of conversation that I find so interesting,  along with the accompanying musings about what the people are up to, or what they are like.  I also wonder about meeting up with friends and what I am going to do about that... I will cross that bridge another day.  For today the plus sides are clear, I am relaxed, I am at home and so can immediately get on with the jobs I want to get done, like writing this piece, and I have saved myself a minimum of £1.94, (if I work out that the coffee cost me 11p per cup, plus 3p to boil the kettle and 7p for the milk), compared to the £2.15 I would have paid at the coffee shop. 

Will my new found enthusiasm last?  What about rainy days and trips out, will my thermos mug be up to the job?!  There is only one way to find out; onwards!