Coffee and chocolate

miggy

Yes, me too - there are some great people on these boards and we have a laugh too, which is worth a lot.

Talking of worth a lot - just had a bill for £687 for car repairs. :eek: Car is necessary though and that was a completely unprecedented breakdown, something to do with a turbo? Don't ask me, I know more about horses than I do about cars, and I don't drive. I just know that sudden plumes of blue-white smoke are not a good idea.

Anyway. All fixed now, and spring get-away postponed in the interests of the bank. That's okay, though. We've only had a spring get-away once before and we can survive without it. We are still planning on summer hols of some sort and would rather not have to scrimp too much having already spent it on February.

miggy

Tonight is the last in a run of four nights at work, which also means four evenings of nabbing stupendous bargainaceous end-of-day mark-downs at T before legging it down the road so as to arrive approximately on time.
Today I have to confess to spending out on toiletries (S/drug and W!lkos) but we were low on things like shower gel and this way DD can take some back to Uni. She's very broke so I will 'discover' we have spare toothpaste, loo rolls, handcream and so on over the next week or so. Fun, really.
Bumped into a friend in town who told me Mr A has a scheme where parents and students both have a card which the parent loads with money and the student then buys real food (as opposed to endless noodles). I must find out if there's a Mr A near her in which case I think I might go for this.

silentsister

The card sounds a great idea. I have been known to arrange the odd delivery but the card, used well ...

I've been more or less in bed for the past 6 days which should have meant no spend, but I had to get Mr T to bring vital non-food stuffs, then I thought I'd add in something I might want to eat. This morning I've got the window open listening to the cathedral bells - and I've got the wm going and the bins and recycling emptied. I think 2013 could just be starting!

Erme

That card sounds really good.

Also find out if her local church has a student hospitality scheme whereby she can get one meal a month with like a family - proper food . Now that my lounge is just about sorted I'm thinking of signing up to it

Have a good day

E

miggy

DD is very keen on the thought of the card but so far we don't know of a Mr A near where she lives. Working on it, though.

SS, I hope you're feeling better? Cathedral bells has a great 'ring' to it (;)) - seriously: how lovely.

Erme, I'm not sure she would go to a church 'do' (though I lived off the hospitality of church friends when I was a student!) but I will have a look. Won't hurt to try! Thanks.

Upsidedown_Bear

Mr S do a similar card as well. Not sure about anyone else but might be worth checking.

http://www.sainsburysgifts.co.uk/meal_ticket_cards.html

miggy

The financial down-turn has been creeping round Miggy-dom in the guise of various bills. First of all the element of the oven died on the afternoon of Christmas Day (Erme, maybe you have a point in not celebrating Christmas? ). DS1 had finished cooking us a scrummy dinner and we do have the top oven to use so it wasn't a disaster, but not good as the cooker was only a couple of months out of guarantee. It was mended yesterday and cost something like £83.

On the way home from Liverpool during Christmas, we were driving along the M62 in a lot of spray, but when we turned up the M1, the weather cleared and we saw we had our own personal white cloud following us. We pulled into Wetherby and called the AA, who advised we could probably get home if we limped along and didn't rev the engine - or we could upgrade our membership. We pootled along at around 40 mph, hazard warnings lights eventually employed to get rid of the people who thought we were inching along in a cloud of foul smoke for the fun of it. Two bottles of oil later we reached home safely - repairs came to £683. :eek:

I checked the bank account the other day and discovered we appeared to have had a phone bill for £150. DH checked our account and rang them: we are being charged for work done on the Internet in August (and billed now? I don't get that bit). However, DH thinks we were told the work would be free and the engineer didn't even come onto our property, and the PO records show we weren't advised of a charge at the time - and to ring them back in a fortnight. A fortnight?! That's almost an armful. Or was that something else? ... Anyway, I thought we were supposed to be notified before a DD is increased, which we might or might not have been but neither of us noticed it if we were.

So that's pending.

Yesterday I had just started the slow cooker off, sitting on the back of the hob as it's wont to do, when evil smoke started to ensue. (We do a good line in evil smoke, as you may have noticed). DD got me out of the kitchen on the pretext it's poisonous - which it probably is, judging by how I felt later going into one room where we hadn't later opened the windows. We debated a bit about the whereabouts of the fire blanket, but couldn't remember. I got a few breaths of air, held my breath and made it safe. It was a very localised fire or I wouldn't have done that, but I could see that something was burning under the slow cooker so I pulled out the plug and made sure nothing was feeding the fire, then was able to dump the smouldering wreck on the path till the last bit of burning flex went out. I left it outside all day (though the insert was fine so the casserole still made it to the table!) then binned it. It seems I had somehow nudged a cooker control so the hob had lit up underneath the slow cooker! Today I've ordered the same model - £10 online which is pretty good and £2 less than in store, with no delivery charge. Extra expenses incurred: one fire blanket at the cost of £17.

In addition both the iron and the hoover are playing up but for now they are still working.

Food money is feeling the strain but I did treat DD to some ingredients as she's taking part in a competitive lasagne bake at GB's tomorrow and practised on us today. It was super, and I discovered I actually still had £10 left in the budget to feed us till Sunday so we won't be spilling over the edge of it midweek, though I don't see how I will make it last all weekend and we may have to break the rules and spend more.

There have also been extra spends in the form of a meal out with friends (£10 and a great evening it was too), a top for £4, a £4.97 food blender for DD... no piano lesson next week so that's £10 saved... can't think of any more offhand and it's late. Good job Pinterest is free.

miggy

Upsidedown_Bear wrote: »

Mr S do a similar card as well. Not sure about anyone else but might be worth checking.

http://www.sainsburysgifts.co.uk/meal_ticket_cards.html

Thank you for that, Upsidedown Bear (cute name!) I think it would be worth my while searching the websites.

miggy

Today I challenged DH to see who can legally get the most Clubcard points this year. I will win, but it might provide some incentive for him to use his as he does half the food shopping!

miggy

A few days ago our 1 inch of snow impressed someone on the other side of the country - now, it seems, we're lagging behind! Not for much longer, though, judging by tonight's fresh fall: and very sparkly, girly stuff it seems to be.

That's because I don't have to be out in it.

I had such a lazy day today... spent ages on NASA's website just because I was enjoying it, then in a sudden burst of enthusiasm started some deep-cleaning. Having cute, cottagey sloped ceilings is all very well, but they attract mildew, so I've been getting rid of it (again).

No spends, and a couple of pieces of good news. DD had her first Uni exam the other day and feels it went okay, and DS1 has blagged himself an upgrade at work for a few weeks (complicated but all above board). Oh, and DS2 has made some steps towards voluntary work. Jobs are a bit thin on the ground for lads who have never worked and being a student he is further limited, but the experience will be good for him.

That's it for news. I have been dipping back into Bernadine Lawrence's 'The Benefit Book' again and pondering on what corners we could cut if we had to. The amounts in the book are well out of date now (my edition is 1989) but it's still very good sense and full of helpful foodie ideas. Despite good resolutions I am still getting food waste and there is a lot we could do if we had to to cut electricity bills and so forth. We really have got slack, but having gone through one account this month in the way we have, there is less in reserve so maybe now's the time to put the brakes on a bit, if only to keep up the good work. Our position is so much better than when we started this diary (largely because of limiting our food spending and swapping energy suppliers, combined with not having so many trips to visit elderly relatives). However, anything I can put into reserves... well, this month shows it would be sensible to do just that.