Budget food/living

i just remember the scraggy bits of lamb, celery, carrots and spuds with bits of pearl barley in a warming clear broth - i miss my mothers winter stews

Good call - everything rendered soft and toothsome by slow heat and wholesome ingredients, potatoes crumpling into soup in your mouth, the bite of turnip and the guilty pleasure of a whole garlic clove simmered to the point that you can eat it, sod the breath!
See this time as an opportunity, not a hurdle.