Live on £4,000 for a year - 2009, Part 4

FrankieM

Afternoon,
The nintendo WII has arrived today..yay!

I've put a chicken into roast for dinner tonight, going to then make some chicken & sweetcorn soup with stock and leftovers.
I was looking at turkeys today, £15! I'd really like roast turkey this year but money is a bit tight. If I get some money I'm owed I may be able to do it, otherwise we'll have either chicken or beef as I have both in the freezer.

DH is going to work this evening for 4 days so its veggie or leftover meals for us. I' picked up a couple of cheap cabbages last week so I'm going to do something called 'rumbledethumps' which is onion, mashed potato and cabbage. I used to do it when the children were young. I also have lots of mushrooms so I'm going to do mushroom risotto and mushroom pilaff. I love trying to make meals out of nothing, its a bit like a work of art.

I was talking to a friend of mine who was saying that she was told once her son moves out out and its just her, she should be able to easily survive on £20-£25 a week for groceries! Sometimes its like I live in another world to people I know.

slowlyfading

Just a quick (again!) message from me. I'm so busy with school work and other stuff as the end of term looms, so I've got a million and one things to do as usual. Today is my 5th NSD of December, so thats going okay. Tomorrow should be another one hope everyone is okay x

shaz_mum_of__2

Had a busy day here

Spent time visiting family and distributing christmas cards picked up some meat for the freezer at the farm shop and done a bit of online shopping , also booked my fresh christmas food delivery from Mr T for the 22nd got the last available slot!!


got my christmas day pud in the oven , sticky toffee pudding !!! not made before so a bit of a play really if its ok it will get frozen if not we will eat it. Also got the chicken livers out for the pate i am making as a starter , it is Weezl74's recipe from the 50p thread yummy and very frugal(but moreish) I will make it then freeze in advance.

Still looking for frugal canapes ideas if anyone has any ideas ?

Better take ds to his school play or they will be missing a narrator!

Shaz

Aril

You could do mini tortilla wraps with a cheap veggie chilli filling [we had the yellow stickered version from Sainsburys], mini pizzas [buy or make a pizza base and then cut out with a biscuit cutter] and add toppings, hm houmous with the 25p tortilla chips, cheese straws.
Hope this meets the frugal criteria!
Aril

cw18

Blair - hope you're not too stiff and sore today......


Had a rough couple of days at work myself. Yesterday a member of the management (temporary loan from a different - and much bigger - store for the run up to Christmas) seemed to be on our backs all afternoon (the lady who starts at 5pm had come in a couple of hours early to help with a specific task, but both she and I had arrived for our shifts to find stuff waiting to be done that should have been cleared even before I got in at 1pm), and I ended up snapping at him !!! Calmed down shortly after, but had left work by then - so too late to find him and apologise, and he wasn't in today..... so that's a task for tomorrow. I did mention the "incident" to my manager this morning though (as an aside to a query about something the chap was asking us to do), so if anything gets said to him by HR or the chap at least he knows I plan to catch the chap and apologise.

Then today was my turn to have to fill in the accident book I was walking (briskly, but not running) through a narrow back corridor when I failed to see a flattened cardboard box on the concrete floor - but this in itself wouldn't have worried me (nor a couple of people who came to the rescue). However, when I put my foot on it, both the cardboard and my leg went flying out from under me !!! Turned out someone had used it to cover a spillage of a thick soapy substance which could have been washing up liquid or shower gel or something similar :mad: I landed on the side of my left leg (have a huuuuuge bruise coming up just below my hip), and slammed the floor with my right hand as I landed (guess I didn't want to land on my back, so tried turning as I went). Definitely jolted my back, but have codeine and ibuprofen in my locker so took some of those ASAP afterwards which seemed to help - and have taken another dose of each since getting home. I timed it right though, in that there was a first-aider just around the corner who heard me curse as I went down (don't know what I said, but know it was loud - and there was only a soft plastic door between me and customers :rolleyes2 ) and came to help me up. Also meant I didn't have to try and track someone down to deal with the accident book

Elder DS phoned a few minutes ago. No longer wants picking up from the airport when he comes home, but would appreciate a lift from a local-ish train station (for him and a mate who lives between the station and my place). My petrol budget should be able to cope with that, so I've indicated willingness as long as I'm not scheduled to work that day.

Also think I've managed to sort my home insurance out for a figure closer to my estimated budget (and with higher levels of cover too) by taking out a new policy with them on line instead of renewing - on the advice of the chap I spoke to on Monday, when I was double checking some details on the policy to see if there was any way of pulling the premium down. So that's a job for between school and work tomorrow.... I can also get £30 cashback on it, but that won't clear until 2010 so I'm not deducting it from the premium.

FrankieM

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

Had a busy day here



Still looking for frugal canapes ideas if anyone has any ideas ?



Shaz

Hi Shaz,
I came across this site a few months ago and when I was on it today noticed some recipes for tapas that looked easy enough. Some more canape like than others. https://www.cookuk.co.uk

Hope that helps

FrankieM

big hugs cw

sophiesmum_2

My approved foods order arrived today, and I just sent another order to them for lots of couscous, pulses, soup mixes etc to stock up my storecupboard so another £23.06 to come off the budget but my stores will be bursting at the seams with meal ingredients

Blairweech

CW - Oh no, hope you are alright after your fall and that your back does not start playing up.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes for me Am thankfully not too bad today, pretty stiff and my ribs are hurting quite a lot but other than that and general exhaustion, all good!

My fall yesterday is nothing compared to todays drama - one of our forklift trucks burst into flames, with someone on it! He is alright, hopped off instantly and we managed to put the fire out really quickly, but was only a couple of metres away from me getting a pallet down. We are starting a new truck contract with a different company on the 18th, hence everything is breaking now!!

Am having my works Christmas dinner tomorrow - we get paid time and a half to eat it , so not having to worry about dinner tomorrow.

Right, I am shattered so going to get an early night

cw18

Enjoy your dinner tomorrow Blair - mine's Thursday, so DS's curry night has been moved from Wed to Thur as I normally have to cook myself something different when he has that (I don't like curry)

No 1.5x for us, but we do get a 'christmas present' - and reading between the lines it sounds like it could be a small hamper of some sorts

Glad to hear the diver in todays incident escaped safely - but it certainly sounds like time you had some new vehicles !!!