Caitriona Redmond: Would you go on a money diet? I think they are damaging and here is why

Hainanese chicken rice, chilli sauce and bouillon on the table. horizontal view from above

Have you ever heard of a money diet? Similar to a food diet the idea is restricting your spending to a set pattern or abstaining. People can feel virtuous for the days they don’t spend money and these are called ‘no spend days’.

Supporters of this method of budgeting gloriously mark their calendars (and often their social media) on the days they don’t spend money in bright and cheerful colours. Just like people who are in diet clubs celebrate the days they stayed within their calorie deficit.

I call it a money diet because this method of budgeting has many similarities with diet culture. Days you stay on track are vocally celebrated and days you don’t are not. 

In my opinion, it’s a problematic way to manage your money. Like diet culture, the days that people fastidiously stay on budget are the days where they can feel restricted and deprived. Then when they have a splurge day they can be prone to overspending (or overeating).

The backlash in diet culture has led to mindful or intuitive eating; where you reflect more on what you are eating, your motivation to eat certain foods, and meet the needs of your body.

Likewise, I believe that mindful spending is the key to living our lives on a tight budget. 

I understand why I am motivated to be careful about what I buy each week in the supermarket; because I want to be in control of the grocery spend. This feeling is directly related to how out of my control rises in things like my energy bills and the general cost of living is. So by controlling my supermarket spends I feel like I have more choices in my life.

There is enough guilt associated with living life on a tight budget, we don’t need to add in an extra layer of guilt for spending money on a day where we’re meant to be sticking to the ‘no spend’ method.

Instead of tackling a new way of spending money like a diet evangelist with two weeks to a sun holiday, it’s about spending the money we have on the items we need when we need them.

It’s about meeting the needs, not wants, of our households.

Singapore Inspired Chicken & Rice

recipe by:Caitriona Redmond 

A quick and easy comfort meal for midweek evenings

Servings

5

Preparation Time

 5 mins

Cooking Time

 30 mins

Total Time

 35 mins

Course

 Main

Cuisine

 Irish

Ingredients

• 1 small chicken

• 2 thumb-sized pieces of fresh (or frozen) ginger, whole

• 1 bunch of scallions peeled and chopped

• ½ tsp white pepper

• 1 tsp salt

• 500ml cold water

• 75g uncooked rice per person

• Equipment

• Pressure cooker

• 1 small saucepan with a lid

Method

1. Place the whole chicken into the pressure cooker, and season well with salt and white pepper. Add in the ginger and scallions then pour the cold water on top.

2. Seal the pressure cooker and bring it to high heat. Cook for 30 minutes then allow to cool enough for the pressure to release naturally.

3. If you are under pressure for time you can release the pressure manually but I find that the chicken isn’t quite as tender that way.

4. Remove the chicken from the pressure cooker and place it onto a plate then cover it for use later. It’ll keep warm for quite some time once covered.

5. Decant enough of the chicken broth to cook the rice into a small saucepan. Cook the rice in the hot chicken stock with no seasoning (remember you seasoned the chicken before placing it into the pressure cooker).

6. Once the rice is cooked portion the chicken and serve with fresh cucumber slices, pickles, and your preferred condiments. If you have remaining chicken broth drink it separately.

Money Saving Tip 

Pressure cookers are back in popularity because they reduce cooking times to a fraction of the conventional amount of time used in a regular pot. A whole chicken for example, featured in this weeks’ recipes, will take 30 minutes to cook through.

Slow cooking is great, don’t get me wrong, but pressure cooking has a way of preserving the brightness and texture of ingredients if you get the timing right.

Growing up my family had a large silver pressure cooker that had to sit on the back ring of the hob but modern multi-function cookers can be used as both slow and pressure cookers, never mind an air fryer. 

Since I acquired a Ninja Foodi at the height of the lockdown I now only use my oven for baking and large-sized roasts; my energy bill definitely shows the difference.

Halloween Treat Advice 

For food safety purposes individually wrapped treats are the way to go

We have a number of family birthdays and occasions in the Halloween/midterm period so this is a season that we really enjoy. 

Living in an estate can mean that I could get hundreds of children knocking on my door on the night in question and I try my best to give something to them all.

I know that there are some children in my estate with severe allergies and dietary restrictions. I used to keep a separate box with jellies to one side but realised a while back that it’s simpler to hand out goodies that will be suitable for everyone. 

For food safety purposes individually wrapped treats are the way to go.

The absolute best value for your Euro is the bumper 1.2kg bag of chewy sweets from Lidl priced at €5.99. There is pure joy in being able to pop a handful into a bag or let a child pick what they want from a bowl.

A super mix bag of 21 individually wrapped mini packets of Haribo jellies is €2.69 in Aldi. It’s also a budget option but not as environmentally friendly as it’s plastic-heavy.

If Halloween is not your thing for whatever reason you can skip all this advice. If it is, then this week is the time to start planning for the knocks to the door and start to pick up a few bits.