Trying to take the stress out of the debt - little steps

slm6002

Hi, yes our local library certainly does have a good range of the cookery books, and often a few of the new ones.
we still get a lot of post for several previous owners. it does get quite annoying

beanielou

Even if your local library dont have said books they can order them in.
In our library it costs £1.

Triggles

Thanks for the info re the library. I've checked and they do have one of them in stock. I will check into ordering in the other two - I like the sound of £1 instead of the whole price of the book. That way I can look through them and see if there are any recipes I like without having to purchase them first. I truly hate buying a recipe book and then finding there are only one or two recipes in them that I want to use. Such a waste!

Well, daily routine done.
- kids up, dressed, fed
- bottles washed, sterilised, made for day
- washing up, picking up kitchen done
- yesterday's clothing folded, and another load of laundry washed and hung up to dry
- didn't do sterilising fluid as I got up early enough that it was still good (within 24hrs of making it) so will make up some more tomorrow morning (I wonder if I can time it correctly so that I am only making it every other morning by getting up slightly earlier every other morning )

Not feeling great today. Blasted diverticular disease has kicked in, and I'm having those dreadful abdominal pains. So I've taken some of my codeine, which means no trip to the grocery store today, as I don't like to drive when I've taken the codeine. We're okay to wait until tomorrow morning, so I will go then. Just a few things to pick up - sale items mainly, such as nappies 1/3 off, as that stops on 20 October. Everything else will be after 22 October, when DH's 15% holiday discount kicks in, so we get the best discount possible.

DH is making our cheap curry tonight. Sainsbury's basics curry (9p a jar!), tin of basics pineapple (13p IIRC), tin of basics mushrooms (49p), and chicken (either leftover from rubber chicken or whatever we have available in the house). Cooked and served over rice (basics, of course!). DH adds a bunch of paprika and chili powder to the curry (not a clue what prompted this move initially) and it tastes quite good! Then we have basics tortilla crisps (19p per bag) with it in place of poppadoms, and sometimes we have some naan bread, but not always. All in all, a relatively inexpensive meal.

I want to use vinegar more as a cleaner and fabric softener, but all I can get it in is those little glass bottles, which is a bit of a pain. I used to use it in the states quite a bit, but I could buy it in a huge jug, which was much more cost effective (not to mention easier!). I don't have a costco nearby, so I'm not sure where the best place to find a larger container of it would be. I suppose I could dust off my math skills and see if it still is cheaper to use the vinegar even buying the small bottles. *sigh* Too early for math. Will have to look into this later in the day or maybe tomorrow. (god, I'm such a procrastinator! It's like Scarlett in Gone with the Wind - "fiddle dee dee - I'll do it tomorrow" :rotfl: )

beanielou

If there are only a couple of recipies you l;ike then photocopy them.

Triggles

Beanielou - I thought of that, however, I was trying to avoid saying it on the forum, lest I be accused of doing something against copyright laws. LOL My printer has a scan/copy option though, and I'm fully prepared to use it. Don't think I'm doing anything wrong if I'm not using the material for sale or financial gain, although I'm honestly not up on the legal side of that.

Triggles

Daily chores completed:
- kids up, dressed, fed
- laundry from yesterday folded to be put away this afternoon
- another load of laundry washed and hanging up to dry
- bottles washed, sterilised, and made up
- washing up done
- spot cleaning done on living room, picking up miscellaneous things

We've gone to the grocery store today and picked up a couple things we needed this week, the remainder of the shop including stock up items will be over the weekend, as DH's 15% employee discount for the holidays starts on Thursday at Sains. Then we will be stocking up on nonperishables along with our weekly shop until the beginning on January - this will include toiletry items, nappies, tinned goods like soup and some veg, jarred items, and probably some cereals, tea, and coffee - will just need to check the dates on them.

I've decided that since DS2 is a big muffin eater - he looooves muffins!! - I am going to clean out about a half drawer in the freezer and spend a day or two next week making a few different types of muffins - blueberry, banana, lemon, and possibly cranberry. Then I will freeze them and let him just pick what type he wants and microwave it to thaw it or I'll take one out the night before so it's thawed in the morning. It will be a nice snack for him, and he is happy to eat practically any type of muffin, so I can start trying new ones as well as old ones I haven't made in awhile, such as bran muffins with sultanas and rhubarb crumble muffins that my mum used to make. Yummmm!!! :jI may dig out my courgette muffin recipe (similar to banana muffins) and make them and also pumpkin muffins (with pumpkin bread recipe) to get a little bit of veg in him. It's not much, but better than nothing!

DH & I sat down this morning and made two huge "to do" lists. One is DIY stuff that we'd like to do on the house - stuff that's easy and inexpensive as well as more involved projects that we would like to do in future. It'll be nice to tackle things here and there on the list and take them off (it's on the computer). The other list is a general list - including ebay stuff, PPI reclaiming, hanging pictures, and other miscellaneous household stuff, including christmas things to do. I'm a list-maker and so is DH, so this will be good for us to check on regularly. Even if I can get one or two things off the list each day, I'll feel positive. And of course, we'll probably be adding to it regularly.

I've got some pictures printed off that I need to send to my parents in the states, and some to DH's uncle in Ireland. Busy busy busy. I'll get the letters done this evening and ready to post - it's getting to the post office that can be the problem sometimes! DS2 still isn't quite ready to walk the whole distance to the post office without getting worn out, and my back isn't quite up to the trek with DS3 in a sling with DS2 in the pushchair. So posting the letters will have to wait til the weekend when DH & I go to the high street for a few things.

I got another £5 amazon voucher from bingoport this week, and am working on another. And I topped up my mobile for £15 this week and got a reward of a £10 blockbuster voucher for anything in their store plus one month free unlimited movie rentals from online and in the store. So we're thinking of taking advantage of renting movies for a month, then we'll cancel it. And use the £10 voucher towards a movie on our "movie wish list" that we put together every year before Christmas.

I got £2 in my tombola bingo account - as you can earn £2 per day answering quiz questions in the rooms, so each day I pop in there and find a quiz and try to win £2. Then I go into bingolite and play 10p per game until it's gone or until I win over £10. If I win over £10 then I withdraw it. Free money! Yay!

Now I can relax for a bit and drink a cup of coffee and have a lemon muffin. Yum.

slm6002

that bingo site sounds good. do you have to make a deposit before you can play?

Triggles

slm - which one? bingoport is a free site, you can play to win points for free amazon vouchers. tombola is pay site, but if you'd like to try it, there are free coupons for a free fiver on the site right now in some magazines (i think it's heat magazine and a couple of the soap mags and tv mags).

Lemon_Tree

don't know if your library is the same as ours but if you reserve books online it's free.

Triggles

LemonTree - thanks, I'll ask DD about the cost - she reserves books online all the time.

Early start today. DS2 woke up at 4am and proceeded to be loud and noisy and woke up DS3. *yawn* It's going to be a long day, I think! LOL

-kids up, dressed, fed
-bottles washed, sterilised, made for day
-laundry washing now
-bacon moved to fridge for tonight's tea

I'm going to be doing a little reorganising in the dining room today - to make room for storing some of the nonperishables we'll be stocking up on over the next few weeks.

Too early to type much intelligently though LOL - will try again later after I've had coffee!! :rotfl: