- Borrower wellbeing app ilumoni is encouraging the nation to Get Debt Fit with a Pip Payne collaboration that brings you three new delicious, healthy recipes to save you from ordering in this January.
- Dr Marianne Trent reveals her top tips for avoiding impulse buying to keep you financially and physically healthy in the new year.
It’s January, and for many that means tightening the purse strings, and loosening those belt buckles after the indulgent month of December.
With borrower wellbeing app ilumoni’s recent research highlighting that over one in five (22%) UK borrowers buy on credit and then worry about how to pay for it later, and that nearly three in five (58%) are not happy with how they manage their borrowing[1], January is the perfect time to reassess not only our physical health but also the health of our finances.
To encourage the nation to Get Debt Fit, ilumoni has teamed up with experts Pip Payne (aka The Slimming Foodie) and psychologist Dr Marianne Trent to help you save money and stay healthy this year, with delicious guilt-free recipes and top tips to keep impulse buying at bay.
Pip Payne’s Healthy, Affordable Fakeaway Recipes
Ordering takeaways can be an indulgent treat or a frazzled parent’s family dinner, but when money is tight or you’re trying to be healthy, a fakeaway can be a great alternative to help you save both your wallet and your waistline, without compromising on flavour. Professional food blogger and best-selling author The Slimming Foodie has collaborated with ilumoni to serve-up three quick and delicious recipes using store cupboard ingredients and some key fresh items, the first of which is below:
Crispy honey soy chicken
Ingredients
8 chicken thigh fillets, excess fat trimmed away and cut into quarters
For the marinade:
3 garlic cloves, crushed
5cm piece of ginger, peeled and grated
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon crushed chilli flakes
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
For baking the chicken:
4 tablespoons cornflour
Low calorie cooking spray
For the sauce:
⅓ cup dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2cm piece ginger, peeled and grated
1 red chilli, deseeded and diced
2 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
1 teaspoon crushed chilli flakes
1 teaspoon cornflour
¼ cup cold water
To garnish (optional)
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 spring onion, trimmed and finely sliced
Small handful fresh coriander, finely chopped
½ red chilli, deseeded and finely diced
Pip has also created Easy Butter Prawn Curry and Mexican Style Loaded Wedges with Halloumi. Find more information and the recipes in full here: https://www.ilumoni.com/about-us/news-events/ilumoni-partners-with-the-slimming-foodie-to-save-your-wallet-and-your-waistline/
Method
Mix up the marinade ingredients for the chicken. Stir in the chicken pieces and mix well. Set aside for at least 20 minutes to marinade (this is a great opportunity to prepare the sauce ingredients).
Heat the oven to 190°C.
Spray a large baking tray with low calorie cooking spray, and dip each piece of chicken into the cornflour to coat it. Place onto the baking tray making sure there is a little space between each piece of chicken.
Spray the chicken thoroughly with low calorie cooking spray and bake for 25 minutes, until crispy on the outside.
For the sauce, add everything except the cornflour and water into a pan and bring up to a fast simmer. Simmer for 3 minutes stirring regularly.
Stir the 1 teaspoon of cornflour into the ¼ cup cold water until dissolved, and then pour into the saucepan. Simmer for another minute until the sauce thickens. Add in the crispy chicken, stir it thoroughly into the sauce
Garnish with sesame seeds, spring onion, coriander and chilli. Serve immediately with the sides of your choice
Top Tips to Avoid Impulse Spending
With the help of professional psychologist, Dr Marianne Trent, ilumoni has collated top tips on how to stop yourself impulse spending. Marianne says stress and being time poor often means we won’t have time to plan and shop, which can increase the tendency to make impulse decisions. For example, if you’re feeling low, cooking can seem like a big effort and takeaways mean speed. However, following the below tips can help you to remove yourself from this impulsive cycle.
Try to lean into the feeling that triggered you to want to purchase. You can do this by:
Pausing. Take a slow, deep breath in through your nose. Hold it for a moment and then breathe out slowly through your mouth. Repeat twice more.
Use this pause to focus on what it is that’s driving that feeling and do three more calm breaths in and out.
Once you have done this, think about whether your purchase will actually help change or affect how you feel. If it won’t, or while making one thing better it makes something else worse, it’s likely to be a soothing, aspirational purchase and not necessarily a logical or transformational one. It’s okay to say no to purchases and instead to soothe yourself with some great emotional self-care instead, such as a snuggle on the sofa, a hug or some exercise.
ilumoni co-founder, Jonathan Corner, said, “When we asked our social following how they planned to ‘get debt fit’ this January, spending less on and less impulse buying were frontrunners, alongside stopping buying on credit, getting on top of their debt, budgeting and saving more. It’s really hard to save if you’re leaking money on unnecessary interest on debt and spending. So, we wanted to find ways to help outside of our app too, with the app helping people manage their debt more effectively and Pip and Marianne helping to address some of the causes of debt.”
[1] https://www.ilumoni.com/about-us/news-events/is-the-uk-borrowing-well/