Coffee and chocolate

MatyMoo

Miggy, your inbox is full hun!

miggy

Sorry Maty.

Gosh, it's been ages since I posted here. Time to amend that.

1) Mum - broke hip just before Christmas, recovering nicely, still in hospital.
2) Washing machine broke on Christmas Eve! We have been helped by friends and family and our replacement (donated by a family member) was installed yesterday. I am so thankful!
3) Money - why can't they move February to just after Christmas so there is less month left at the end of the pay cheque? I didn't think we went mad over Christmas but somehow the extra expenses over the last few months have knocked us back.
4) Time to live off the larder - but thankfully the main reason for this is not the bank balance (sad though it is) but my tendency to over buy.

Time to show off just a little by telling what I did for tea tonight - and every last scrap got eaten.
Onion - bought today
red pepper - rescued from recesses of fridge but edible
olive oil - enough left in bottle for a while if we don't go mad.
half tin of tomatoes abandoned by dd two days ago and frozen
half jar very cheap pasta sauce left over from my work meal yesterday
small tin of tomato puree from larder
remains of two packs of sausages left open in fridge
pasta from special offer on huge bags back in the autumn
half a glass of red wine saved in freezer from making lasagne
herbs from - no, not the garden, though it's still giving sage and parsley, woohoo! - the larder.

Let's hope I can come up with something as good tomorrow!

Cook all together. Follow with a tin of peaches and cuppa.

MatyMoo

:T Yay :T To a donated washing machine, may it have many moons of good service

Glad to hear Mum is on the mend and being well cared for, one less worry

Tea sounds yummy, wish I was closer

Maty
-x-

miggy

... was a right mish mash.

DS1 had a burger and cous cous. (From freezer/larder)
DD was out.
DS2 had 2 chicken burgers with potato wedges. (Freezer)
DH had 2 chicken burgers with cous cous and mixed veg. (Freezer/larder)
I had cous cous, mixed veg and half a tin of bean salad which now needds to be finished. (Freezer/larder)

So we have emptied two boxes and two bags and made a start on another bag, plus eaten a couple of sachets of cous cous. (Is that one word or two?)

While deciding what to have with my cous cous, I defrosted a pork chop which I offered to DS1 as his burger was looking decidedly shrunken, but he didn't want it so I've ended up nibbling it for supper (it's quite small!) along with a slice of panettone. What a mixture! DH is helpfully working through little tubs of jam which I bought on BB4L: money-saving but space consuming and space is always at a premium here.

DD looks to be coming down with flu but she has to be at work tomorrow and her work trousers were still in the wash so another load goes in the machine. Don't know where it's going to dry... at least I can put a few bits in the tumble drier before bed, but I am not, repeat not, going to try to dry the lot in there. Too expensive and will take forever.

Not that I'm not grateful. I am grateful, very, I just don't want to cost us a fortune.

miggy

Not a good day for the bank!
We just seem to go through money even when we think we're being careful. Nearly £15 on pet food and bedding, but we can't skimp on it, even if I'm a bit resourceful, as the animals need it in this cold weather. The guinea pig down the road, with experienced owners, died a couple of weeks ago, outdoors while ours was still being kept in. Ours are out again now but it isn't so cold.
Then DH and I went to the supermarket, just the two of us, so the rugrats, who we usually blame, didn't help us spend. £32! Where did that go? Chicken for dinner tomorrow, potato wedges which are DS's favourite but more expensive than plain potatoes, Pepsi Max on half price (my treat to me, and calorie-free) and DH's low-calorie crackers which are expensive too. I know, cheaper to eat less. Been there, done that.
Milk, cheese, three cartons of juice, vread, cream crackers (apparently the own-brand ones don't taste good enough), frozen peas (we did a double-check and found the cheapest) and olive oil (special offer, half price)... without a list or bill to hand I can't remember what else. Nothing huge but little things add up.

The other too-high spend was lunch for the boys. We generally getourselves something from the chippie on a Saturday, though when the children were little we cut costs with home made chips and baked beans. Still yummy, but eventually the deep fryer died a death and we decided it was taking up space and not helping our health so we didn't replace it. Now I'm wondering whether to investigate another as it would be lots cheaper - £6 for two lots of sausage and chips, and they weren't big portions! Atleast when I saw the price I was more asily able to resist buying for myself!

Money-saving tonight - cook up the chicken carcass that's cluttering up the fridge and make something nice with it (no, not a necklace, I mean somethng edible) and make crumble topping for a store-cupboard apple & blackbery crumble for Sunday lunch.

Off I go, then.

miggy

miggy wrote: »

Money-saving tonight - cook up the chicken carcass that's cluttering up the fridge and make something nice with itQUOTE]

Not such a good idea - it should have gone out along with the bits DH threw out earlier. I think it was just past being okay but I didn't want to risk it.

Haven't made the crumble yet, have been browsing recipes instead...

(http://www.allotment.org.uk/recipe/category/recipes/)... I was loooking for spicy red cabbage and apple casserole. This is typical of where I wander off to when reading randomly on MSE.

miggy

A few MS thoughts:

• I could really do with a new winter coat next year. I might sound greedy as I have three (!) but the beloved old duffle has a hole in one cuff and is wearing out, the smart grey one is pulling out of shape so not so smart any more (I wonder if I could do anything for it, but doubt it, short of streaming and ironing it all the time) and the old blue one, I have to admit, is so sad now that I haven't actually worn it this winter.

Solutions? Make do and mend - prob not as they are past that. Ebay then, or charity shop - or save up and get something off the High Street, which I haven't done since I was about 18! LOL.

• Holiday: a family member lives abroad and has offered her house for our hoilday! We got the flights well in advance and very cheaply but I'm a bit concerned as the cost of living there is high and we always spend too much (IMO) on holiday as we go to too many things (which we've decided not to attempt this year - we heard of something called 'relaxing;' and decided to give that a try) and have to buy so much food, when at home we would buy in larger quantities and have some in.

Solutions? I don't know yet, apart from putting money aside each week (and not mentioning it, LOL), and ensuring I plan in advance so that the two offspring who aren't coming have plenty of provisions and I don't feel I have to sub them too much. Oh, and something obvious: look up travel costs and plan so we don't get hit with a huge train fare as we did once! And plan, just plan - decide where we're going and what to do, in advance. Oh, and learn German . Ich sprechen nicht sie Deutch and I can't spell it, wither.

• Possible costs associated with mum - I'm hoping she can move nearer to me but we'll see. Either way there will be fares to go and see to her house.

Solution? Plan the visits, share travel with DH when possible and be brave, book a decent chunk of time to go over, visit her a couple of times (a bit of a trek from her house and very time-consuming) and spend the rest of the time cleaning/sorting.

• Something completely different - manage toi grow some veg! I'm reasonably good with houseplants but get very little return on veg and it would be nice to grow more of our own. Two years ago I discovered a gorgeous little tomato called 'sun cherry' and bought some more seeds so this is definitely on the agenda this year, as are better-pruned soft fruits.

miggy

Here is my latest read.
Tough times ahead...? Well that may be so for us. No one ever really knows, do they? We've taken enough drop in income due to changes in DH's job, in the last year, for it to be having an impact on our finances now. We've also had some extraordinary expenses, but I guess Martin would probably say that many of them aren't extraordinary, just not regular, and therefore should have been budgetted for.
I would so like to have an emergency fund! Especially as both vacuum cleaner and cooker are looking worse for wear and might actually decide they've had enough.
We do have a sort of emergency fund: DH has been very good about putting money aside for holidays and it would probaly cover one of these items should the need arise, but this year I think we need to be serious about setting money aside for a holiday or we will be in trouble trying to finance it. We both need a really good break: things have happened in both our families which have been very traumatic, and my work managed to dump another stress on me just before our holiday last summer which meant I couldn't relax. In the end I got my break because the doctor signed me off work with stress for 2 weeks, and that was much better than my summer holiday had been!
However... (where was I?) we need that emergency fund - and a holiday fund - and a Christmas fund, although I shall make more of an effort this year to spread the cost of Christmas over the whole year, buying as I go along. Yet costs are going up and it's just possible DH's job may be under threat at some point. Yet in the middle of that, and with three teenagers to care for, we need to make money available for savings?!
I guess the best I can do is trust and not worry. God provides if I let him. It's my part to be responsible with what I've got, and that means planning. Even if I only put a fiver a week to each savings pot, it will still be more than we're doing now and it will all help. and last year I managed to make a small dent in the mortgage: very small but real nonetheless!
Well, it's late and I've still got stuff to do so I shall leave pondering for now and go to see to some things.

MatyMoo

Hi Miggy

You mentioned summer which reminded me of the piano Are you still playing???? It seemed to make you happy and relaxed way back then so I do hope so.

As for emergency funds and savings in general..... I am carp at saving, alway have been & always will be. But what works for me is to treat savings like another bill or standing order and it goes straight out of my account on the 1st of the month in to another account (where this is has varied over the years). As long as things are tight during the month and not desperate I can forget about it altogether and it really does become savings. Then if there is a disaster or, even better I deserve a treat and have found just the right thing, I can go and get it back. In the past I have had to make sure it was in a Building Society that we didn't have in town so that I had to make a real effort to go and take the money out as that seemed to make me really think if I absolutely had to spend it. Nowadays with online accounts it might not be so easy to do that and I don't as I have become much better at leaving it well alone until I really REALLY need it.

Maty
-x-

miggy

That's a very good idea, Maty. Thanks!

Yes, I'm still playing the piano. I made the usual NY Resolution to practise daily, haha. Well so far I think I've only missed once so that's not too bad and I can tell there's a difference in my playing. You're right, it's a great way of relaxing.

I was up late last night as I discovered the Social Worker has emailed me details of some care homes for mum so I had a look at a few details online. Some of the time I can't face doing things like this so I grab the opportunity when I can, but the early hours aren't a good time really - not if I want a decent sleep. Anyway, 'tis done now.

Made the crumble for lunch, it was fab and amazingly half remains as there were just 3 of us to eat it.