Old Style Diary Archive - FEB 06

elona

Made huge pot of soup in slow cooker which DH and I had for lunch.

Tried the cinnamon buns recipe from tightwad gazette and was not expecting much as it was my first try.

They are GORGEOUS!

DDs had two large buns each just now and are raving about them.

Got ticket for DD(17) to visit her big sister in Newcastle for the weekend and have just got the chance to come on here as DH is home and has been on the computer till now.

Hug to everyone feeling poorly and take care of yourselves.

chardonnay_2

hello everyone, been reading daily but not had time to post. we've been doing loads of diy, getting the house ready to put on the market. we got our new double glazing put in on monday and the plasterer was here on wed. he's still to come back to finish the roughcasting but the weather has been bad.

still having car problems, but thanks to mossy's tip we got a radiator for half the price the garages were quoting on ebay. only trouble is we can't get the car to start now.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tootles sorry to hear about your trip - make sure you pressure your doc to get tests done.

i'm planning to start the march grocery challenge & also to do the use up challenge.

math - great news about mrs math - i'm sure she'll sail through it.
fyi- american idol is repeated on sat on itv 1 in the late morning early afternoon up here - might be the same in your region.

rchddap1

And the day was going so well. Someone decided to have a go at the back end of my car. :mad: :mad: They've bent the boot (can't open the boot), and the bumper has been shuved in, and its popped out. What makes it worse is that the guy who did it worked for a car dealership and didn't bother to look in front of him before he drove off.

His was a VW golf 55 plate....mine is a R plate car....any guesses as to whose car won?

Chances are he's just written off my car (takes me 1 hour to get to work in the mornings). I'm hoping the boss will allow me to work from home for a while as now I have to wait for the car to be 'collected'.

One good thing is that the car was due to be serviced on Monday....that's £160 saved (if I look on the bright side)....and we were hoping to go on holiday....so we may have saved a few more pounds there. But we'll spend a few more pounds getting a new car. Fortuantely we have a family member in the trade so we should be able to get a decent car for a bit less money. That is, if we need to replace our car.

Oh yes and in the following service it was due to have a new timing / cam belt...more £££s saved.

And yes I'm still shaking.

Oh yes....and to top it all off its my birthday tomorrow. What a nice birthday present hey?

Finally got passed the 'hey what happened stage' and am now rapidly entering the 'where is that person I want to kill him stage'.

Bargain_Rzl

Well I went out for a nice healthy walk duing my lunch break...

...and bought 89p worth of Sainsbury's TTD plain 72% cocoa solids chocolate, which I promptly scoffed

I figured that since I'll soon be giving up chocs for Lent, I'd better make the most of it

I'm still debating whether or not to give up alcohol as well.

Reasons to give up alcohol for Lent
(1) I want to be a good Christian and mindful of the need not to give in to temptation.
(2) It would save me at least £5 a week in beer money and would mean I wouldn't have to plan to restock my wine rack until around June (I have about 25 bottles in stock at the mo!)
(3) It would probably help me to lose weight and would certainly leave me with a healthier liver.

Reasons NOT to give up alcohol for Lent
(1) If I give up DRINKING it I should probably also give up COOKING with it, and some of my favourite recipes just wouldn't taste half as nice.
(2) The London Drinker Beer Festival falls in Lent :beer:
(3) I... um... just really like wine and beer

Hmmm. Evenly balanced. Watch this space.

One completely unrelated question before I go - for those who do paid2clicks, do you declare the payouts for tax? I'm guessing that because most of you are SAHMs/SAHDs you probably don't pay tax anyway, but anybody on here who's earning????

thriftmonster

Bargain_Rzl wrote:

I figured that since I'll soon be giving up chocs for Lent, I'd better make the most of it

I'm still debating whether or not to give up alcohol as well.

[

When I was at college, our chaplain and Dean used to tell us that it was far more useful to take something up for lent rather than give something up ie why not donate a small amount to charity for each drink you have. The Christian Aid website had some ideas last year as well.

On the other hand it does save more money giving stuff up :beer:

(This is only an idea by the way - I don't want to sound preachy)

thriftlady_2

I think it's a good idea too,Thriftmonster.I was thinking of doing something rather than giving something up.After all,giving up something only benefits you doesn't it,not that I couldn't do with giving up both choc and alcohol

I thought that maybe once a week during lent we had a frugal meal(more frugal than normal ) and give the money we would have spent on meat say,to a charity like Oxfam or Cafod.

Bargain_Rzl

thriftmonster wrote:

When I was at college, our chaplain and Dean used to tell us that it was far more useful to take something up for lent rather than give something up ie why not donate a small amount to charity for each drink you have. The Christian Aid website had some ideas last year as well.

I think the net effect would be roughly the same cos I'm so tight that I'd avoid drinking if every drink cost me a surcharge

MATH

I've never given anything up for Lent but manage to squeeze Lenten Study Group into my weekly mix of housegroups and church meetings so I add something rather than take anything away.

Bargain Rzl - I don't declare my earning from paid2click because even added to all my other moneyspinner I don't earn enough to pay tax. From that you can gather that my moneyspinners don't actually spin that much...erm...money. Maybe it's time to rethink this way of life. LOL

Katgoddess

Bargain_Rzl wrote:

One completely unrelated question before I go - for those who do paid2clicks, do you declare the payouts for tax? I'm guessing that because most of you are SAHMs/SAHDs you probably don't pay tax anyway, but anybody on here who's earning????

I never have, but the most I've ever earned in one year up to now is £30 from Ciao surveys. It's only the past few months that I've stepped up a gear and joined other sites. So I'd like to know the answer as well.

mossy

Blimey I've got so many things to say to people I cant remember them all:

Tootles - So sorry you've missed out on your holiday, I really hope that you get better soon.

Mummysaver - lol, I think this sore throat thing must have been started by a computer virus which is why we've all got it. :rolleyes:

rchdapp - what a pain in the wass I hope it goes okay with the insurance peeps you know what they can be like!!!

......sorry bout that munch just emptied half a sherbert fountain on DH's sofa....of course I .....didn't eat the big lumps that weren't rubbed in before wiping it down outside.... :shhh: :rotfl:

Bargain rzl - Have you decided what to fast yet??? I'm giving up swearing....yes I know I know I shouldn't be swearing anyway :embarasse but hey I'm only human. I would normally give up chocolate or something but I've been fasting chocolate since May 95 ummm chocolate :drool: :happyhear I miss it especially cadbury mini eggs

Chardonnay - Glad you managed to get a better deal for your radiator...sorry the car isn't working anymore though...

Got the tyres done today, managed to get them for £15 over what I had left in the bank account so will have to transfer that money from the contingency account (contigency a/c sounds rather grand but theres only £25...no £10 in it!! lol). Got tyres from the cheapest place and they did the tracking for free and gave me another £5 off when I went in there looking poor and hungry. :rotfl: £5 is 3 meals though isn't it chaps its worth asking for.

Tried out some butchers today...not overly impressed to be honest and they cost a lot more than tescos, might have to pop into my old butcher (20 miles away) next time I'm visiting SIL. I do have more gammon than you can shake a stick at and two sealed bags of huge bacon chunks (probably better quality than tescos and easier to cut up for what I want) I also brought some lamb and mint sausages from the farmers market....umm I bet they'll be nice.

Righty oh I can't believe its ten to five so I best get off and tidying up a bit before DH comes home. :heart2: