Live on £4000 for a year - Part 3

sophiesmum_2

whitewing wrote: »

****shock****I've never met anyone who makes their own sausages before!

sophiesmum - your pedestal is getting so tall, I can hardly see you...

Sorry whitewing:o but I am a complete foodie, and HM sausages are yummy.OH bought me my mincer/sausage maker a couple of xmas's ago. You can make lovely speciality sausages - pork and apple, beef and horseradish, beef and blue cheese, pork with chilli, beef and tomato, turkey and cranberry or just bog standard ones, and you know exactly what ingredients go into your food.
Next time I make sausages I will post piccies, it is good fun too.

bails

Hmm, I can't help with the broccoli Nyk, mine have survived various attacks and are now producing heads almost big enough to eat with no flowers in sight Will each plant only produce one head or will it keep growing? My gardening is far from successful in other ways though - the potatoes have had it, I think due to lack of watering while I was away, so I may try some more if you think there's still time? As for my spinach, am I meant to pick the very tops of the plants to stop them shooting up? (bit late now as they're a couple of feet tall but good to know for next year). Also, can anyone help with what type of things would be good to plant for the winter? And I have red and blackcurrants, when are they ready? Thanks gardeners! :T

Had a good day today, if very tiring. I went to my old school - was SO nervous this morning! - with the Lovely Steve to hold my hand It was definitely the right thing to do, finally closing that chapter of my life and reminding me that I don't want to work there any more. Then I had a session with a specialist which has really helped me to make some key decisions for the future. And I can get my MA funded which I'm over the moon about!
Now I'm going to spend the rest of the week chilling out! From tomorrow I'll be joining you on the 5 a day plan; bean sprouts are a winner, thanks for that reminder! Have a great evening all xx

Brighton_belle

bails wrote: »

Had a good day today, if very tiring. I went to my old school - was SO nervous this morning! - with the Lovely Steve to hold my hand It was definitely the right thing to do, finally closing that chapter of my life and reminding me that I don't want to work there any more. Then I had a session with a specialist which has really helped me to make some key decisions for the future. And I can get my MA funded which I'm over the moon about!
Now I'm going to spend the rest of the week chilling out! From tomorrow I'll be joining you on the 5 a day plan; bean sprouts are a winner, thanks for that reminder! Have a great evening all xx

Bails, that is such good news on all fronts:j :j . I am so gladyou went to the school and felt that contentment at the closed door - such simple acts can be so powerful and releasing. Superb about the grant!! and decision making:T . People arriving, must dash

lingojingo

Sophiesmum - thanks, will look in farmfoods next time I'm in town (trying to put it off, as I don't really need anything there!)

Bails - well done all round, glad you've had a better day.

I've just booked some coach tickets after reading about it on Martins weekly email - 3 of us travelling together from Leeds to Swindon, via London, and back again separately (yes, well that's what happens when you've got 2 teenagers!), anyway all for the princley sum of £26 ! :j And when I got to the paying screen, there was a voucher for £15 cashback :T (has to be spent on more coach travel, but not a problem as most of our relatives are down south).
Was going to go by train, but cheapest was £88:eek:

Frugaldom

lingojingo wrote: »

I've just booked some coach tickets after reading about it on Martins weekly email - 3 of us travelling together from Leeds to Swindon, via London, and back again separately (yes, well that's what happens when you've got 2 teenagers!), anyway all for the princley sum of £26 ! :j And when I got to the paying screen, there was a voucher for £15 cashback :T (has to be spent on more coach travel, but not a problem as most of our relatives are down south).
Was going to go by train, but cheapest was £88:eek:

URGENT - LingoJingo - Please check the small print for your £15 off voucher asap. There's a thread running somewhere about the number of people who have been caught out by something similar whereby you click to accept the voucher and they use the credit/debit card details provided in the original booking to charge your account monthly for the privilege of discounted travel. I'll try to find the link and ba back asap to edit it in here.

Edited in - here's the link. It's listed National Express in, I think, post 24

Bails, Well done! Well done! Well done! And congratulations of finding out about your MA funding. :beer:

Sophiesmum - I think we need a few extra notes and updates about how your mini-challenge is going. You know the one - I wasn't going to join in and then joined in with a slightly adapted version to allow me £10 top up funds each week for groceries? How are you getting on with that?

Apologies to Fizzel81 I meant to welcome you back earlier but got sidetracked again looking for ways to hide tuna in meals. :rotfl:

I've been outside in the garden and now have bags of parsley, mint, lemon balm and coriander in the freezer. I picked my first few pea pods, shelled them, meant to keep them for salad tomorrow but emm.... I accidentally ate them all whilst shelling them! :rotfl: I did take a piccie for my frugal website, though, whic I've just updated. Here's what WAS the first small crop of peas

I really need to do some baking tonight, as we've run out of hobnobs, sponges and DS fancies some chocolate crispy cakes. All good stuff for diets! Still can't find anything to disguise fish, especially tuna, though. :rotfl:

lingojingo

nykmedia wrote: »

URGENT - LingoJingo - Please check the small print for your £15 off voucher asap. There's a thread running somewhere about the number of people who have been caught out by something similar whereby you click to accept the voucher and they use the credit/debit card details provided in the original booking to charge your account monthly for the privilege of discounted travel. I'll try to find the link and ba back asap to edit it in here.

Edited in - here's the link. It's listed National Express in, I think, post 24

thanks very much Nyk :A - looks like it is the same scam. Hopefully I've stopped it, and definitely no money taken yet.

Frugaldom

lingojingo wrote: »

thanks very much Nyk :A - looks like it is the same scam. Hopefully I've stopped it, and definitely no money taken yet.

Glad you thought to post here so it was spotted in time and hopefully sorted out. I'm surprised Martin didn't make a small print mention about it, because I'm sure there will be plenty of folks get caught out by it if there's a national newspaper promoting the cheap travel tickets. The newspaper probably isn't even aware of the connection.

Earlier today, I registered on a site called www.i-measure.org It's a university research, from what I can gather. You feed in your electricity meter readings each week and can use it as a guide on reducing your power consumption. I've also just updated my own charts that I've had running all year. The average daily useage is charted. We are all electric, as no mains gas in this area. The difference between January and March was as a result of reducing the number of storage heaters on in the house and replacing with oil filled radiators. April, I lowered all the thermostats and May, I completely switched off all heaters. I don't intend switching any back on until November/December and am going to attempt to reduce the daily consumption to 10 or less by the end of this month. I don't think that's too bad considering there are 3 of us in here for all meals 7 days a week and 2 of us work from home practically fulltime.

January - 75.16 kilowatts per day
February - 68.89 kilowatts per day
March - 65.87 kilowatts per day
April - 40.46 kilowatts per day
May - 12.8 kilowatts per day
June - 12.5 kilowats per day (included cooking the party food for 100+)

July figure averaging 10.74 to date with one week left to go.
Can I get this further reduced?
Can I cut it to less than 10 kilowatts?
Can I hide tuna inside fishcakes? :rotfl:

System

I have a terrible urge to suggest hiding the tuna in a triffle, but i have no idea why that 'idea' has jumped into my head

oh well, maybe its not such a mad idea, they would NEVER expect to find it there...
:rolleyes:

Brighton_belle

Nyk - peapod soup:D on the menu me thinks:
reject strings when podding, then rinse & put inpan with chopped onions & just cover with chicken stock. Add bayleaves & mint. Bring to boil & simmer for 20 mins. Remove leaves & liquidise and strain through a sieve. (It was on posted on the 50p thread by seakay a few days ago and you may have seen it).
I've been looking at my preliminary figures for July and all I can say is 'respect' to the lot of you. I am no where near the target for this month so am a complete fraudster:o . But I am learning all the time and maybe by xmas I'll be getting there! The thing is to get to get final figures for this month and use that as a starting point to beat for next month etc etc.
Got a letter from elec company today effectively doubling my monthly ddm from next month from £28 to £55pm:eek: . It's hard to know how to cut back when I have no control over half the house holds use. Will look into the website you've just mentioned.

Frugaldom

Jumble-Bee wrote: »

I have a terrible urge to suggest hiding the tuna in a triffle, but i have no idea why that 'idea' has jumped into my head

oh well, maybe its not such a mad idea, they would NEVER expect to find it there...
:rolleyes:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: That could work but for one [STRIKE]small[/STRIKE] major problem - DS does NOT like trifle! :eek: I told you I had serious diet problems here!

And now, I am about to publish the first ever photograph of our newest friend, Tim Berlandboot. He now lives in the back garden alongside Phileas Frog and will, hopefully, remain happily munching his (or her) way through the slug problem

Tim Berlandboot inspects the hosepipe.

Photo courtesy of DS and his mobile phone.

Name courtesy of DS and a near miss involving size 9s and a prickly problem that turned out to be a hedgehog in our garden. :rotfl: