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

Skint_Lynne

Here's the recipie as requested by SM.

2LBS GRANULATED SUGAR
4OZ BUTTER
1 TIN CONDENSED MILK (NORMAL TIN)
QUARTER PINT OF MILK
SMALL DASH VANILLA ESSENCE

Melt the butter with the milk in a deep saucepan and then add the sugar. Dissolve the sugar in the mixture stirring all the time.

Add condensed milk and bring the mixture to the boil stirring constantly.

Bring the mixture to a soft ball consistency. To test, drop a small amount of the mixture into a cup of cold water. If you can roll it into a ball after leaving there for 1 minute, then the tablet is ready.

Take it off the heat, add vanilla essence and beat the mixture until it starts to thicken and grain. Pour into a buttered tin and mark out squares when it begins to set.

The secret is in the stirring. I stir stir stir stir, until my arm is about to fall off. I don't know what I do, but it seems to turn out well. Everyone loves it, it might just be the ingredients, it might be the SL magic spoon stirring, who knows?:rotfl:

I'm off to bed now as I have an early start tomorrow, I'm off to Ulverston for work. nite nite. xx

P.S. I'll have a look for my clootie recipie and put that on as well. xx

Brighton_belle

I can't remember the last time I had a bath either CW:D. The shere thought of the effort required to get out of one puts me off. Mind you I loved the jacuzzi I had with bails: fabulous. So maybe I just need a much larger bath with steps and hand rail:D

Mooloo - can I add to other voices and agree that you don't have to explain yourself: You do have my utter admiration for coping not only with your own ill health, but with long term significant special needs of your young adult children. Mobile phones are clearly a high priority for you and yours for very good reason.
Thanks to grandma and nyk for such a good explanation that here, we all have different circumstances and are at various stages of learing to 'cut our own cloth' to most suit our own needs best.

Well done on your first couple of days cw - sounds like you are doing fine.
cheerfulness - I totally agree - go with homemade. The time & thought put into that really shows.
Lynne - so that's what tablet is. Does sounds too sweet for me but bet my dad would love it.
SF - incredibly impressed that you are handing in essays a week ahead of due date. I have nver ever ever ahcieved that!

Had a good couple of days with my parents and went to recording of 'I'm sorry I have't a Clue' last night which was very entertaining. And I always love seeing my OH laugh a lot.

FrankieM

Morning,
Did my Tesco shop yesterday and spent £40.24. Thats not bad for 6 of us and should do around 10 meals. I'm finding that if I keep less food around I really have to think about what meals to have and they are usually nicer. I probably would do well on Ready, Steady, Cook.
I've also been using DH's car so I haven't put any petrol in my car either. I've put the money aside and may do it on Saturday.
Also put some money aside for DS to get some jeans, if we can find some.
I only had £115 this week and also for the next 2 weeks. Not sure how that worked out, but will have the full £135 per week again from next month.
Anyway, I've managed to squirrel away £40.20. I'm hoping I don't have to spend it.
We are currently getting my DH's campervan back on the road. New engine, body work...its expensive but this is what is keeping me motivated at the moment to live on so little!

Today should be a NS day.I've got my chicken carrcass in the slow cooker from last night. Going to try to make chicken noodle & sweetcorn soup. I'm not very good at soup so fingers crossed. Also going to try to find time to make some flapjack. Then I've got coffee this morning and afternoon with some friends.

Hope you all have a good day.

Frugaldom

Good morning frugal friends

It's a cold & frosty morning here, I'm up to my eyes in work but am heading off to a LETS trading meeting this morning, so work will need to wait.

FrankieM - if you're making the chicken noodle & sweetcorn soup in the slow cooker, I find it's better to cook the noodles in some of the stock in a pan on the cooker then add them at the end; it means they don't go pasty with the slow cooking. I love chicken noodle soup and used to be able to buy the tiny pasta shapes but I haven't seen since our local deli / greengrocer closed about 2 years ago.

Was chatting to a friend about the possibility of a frugathering and she thought it sounded a brilliant idea but we can't really work out the logistics of it. There's an ideal location nearby with 3 bed holiday cottage and serviced hook ups for 5 caravans plus and friend reckons the farmer would hire us a barn for BBQ & barn dance. Another friend plays in a samba band, several of the members are in our LETS group.... are you catching my drift? We could have an excellent frugathering with frugal entertainment if I involved the LETS gang too. But an event like that would cost money and it would take some careful organisation to ensure the facilities were available at a time and price that suited everyone who wanted to attend. It's something to think about, so PM me if you're interested, and we'll see if it's worthwhile considering.

bails

ME, ME, ME, count me in! I can'tPM as the mo as my computer is breaking and nothing is working!! No idea if it's the power that cuts out every 15 secs at o mor something wrong with laptop but ARRGGHHHHHH! EEEEEEKKKKK!

FrankieM

I've just been reading an article on the weekly email about banning Christmas presents. I found it quite interesting and I often find myself getting a bit stressed trying to find presents for people that I don't know and barely see. And that's family!
I was wondering if you guys are cutting back on presents this year or doing something different?

bails

My family told me not to bother at all this year, which although I would've liked to get them things from here does take the pressure off a lot. We can't post home anyway as it's ridiculously expensive! The only person I've bought a little something for is my new (and only) nephew

Computer working fine now, phew!

I missed 11am here as I was teaching so will observe the 2 minutes silence with you guys. The war in Iraq cost me and my friends very dearly

HH62

Morning

Planning on a NSD. I didn't make my soup yesterday so I'll be doing that today, and just getting on with things around the house in general. I was cold in bed last night, even with a hot water bottle, so I'm putting my winter bedding on. Nice 13.5 tog feather duvet to replace my summer one which is 4.5tog. I also have a different set of bedding for winter which is much warmer, and very luxurious looking too. I tend to wake up in the middle of the night very hot and end up chucking the covers off - it's my age, you see But as I said, I couldn't get off to sleep last night due to being so cold, so it's definitely time for the winter stuff.
This means that my summer duvet needs to go in for cleaning so I'm shopping around,online, for the best price locally.

All in all I'm planning quite a lazy day really, I'm going to catch up on some reading too.

Have a good day everyone!

cheerfulness4

HH62 - we've just popped our winter quilt on and its so snuggly. DH is the one thats boiling up with one leg hanging out the bed to cool himself down. Don't know why as its freezing and we just had 1 hr of CH.
We've just started changing over to flannel bed linen that was squirreled away for winter. Its sooo cosy.

Thanks for all the encouragement regarding the HM cooking. I've had to rethink the fruit and nut cookies as I was forgetting my niece has a nut allergy. Oops! DH says it will be great but he always says that about what I cook, even the disasters he gamely eats and doesn't scrape into the bin with a sulky stare like his offspring do.

Off to cut a hedge while the weather holds. Its come over mild now so DS2 is going to help me. Bit of together time. :rolleyes:

mama67

HH62 wrote: »

Morning

Planning on a NSD. I didn't make my soup yesterday so I'll be doing that today, and just getting on with things around the house in general. I was cold in bed last night, even with a hot water bottle, so I'm putting my winter bedding on. Nice 13.5 tog feather duvet to replace my summer one which is 4.5tog. I also have a different set of bedding for winter which is much warmer, and very luxurious looking too. I tend to wake up in the middle of the night very hot and end up chucking the covers off - it's my age, you see But as I said, I couldn't get off to sleep last night due to being so cold, so it's definitely time for the winter stuff.
This means that my summer duvet needs to go in for cleaning so I'm shopping around,online, for the best price locally.

All in all I'm planning quite a lazy day really, I'm going to catch up on some reading too.

Have a good day everyone!

If you have an os launderette near you they might be the best option.

I took in 2 x 15tog single quilts and paid £17 for a service wash for the pair. I dropped them off one week and picked them up the next.

Obviously if you sit there yourself then you don't pay for "the service"

Cheapest I could find at any of the drycleaners was £15 per quilt.

hth