Cooking from scratch: Don't feel pressured to follow recipes too religiously. Learn to "make do". If the recipe says "hazelnuts" feel free to throw in whatever nuts you have... the ones that you have had the longest as a priority (rotating your pantry is a valuable habit!). If the recipe says lime juice then try lemon or orange or even mandarin if that's what's sitting in your fruit basket... a certain amount of experiementation within "families" of foods is a good thing. When I make a fruit cake I take note of the total weight of dried fruit in the recipe.... and then happily substitute! So instead of using currants, raisins and sultanas I might throw in dates, crasins (dried cranberries) or even pitted prunes! rather than going out and buying exactly what it says. I can safely say I haven't made a failure fruit cake!

At least grow a herb garden... fresh bought herbs go off soooo fast and buying a whole bunch is usually a total waste. Grow from food scraps and seeds if you can rather than buying seedlings. Most herbs "go to seed"... and when this happens just bend the plant over (when it's looking almost dead ie the seeds are dry and mature) and dig it in... water well and voila! You'll have a whole new crop come up! For free!