Coffee and chocolate

miggy

Money-saving thought - once I have freezer space again, make a couple of batches of muffins or similar to freeze. Useful, as I just mentioned, for feeding kids & visitors.

miggy

miggy wrote: »

The plan for tomorrow: DD is off on holiday and I think she may still need insect spray. I forgot it despite all my lists. I have a medical appointment, nothing urgent though. Dig deeper into the freezer and find something nice for tea. Watch the rest of 'Mary Queen of Shops' on catch-up. Dh has the day off but is spending lots of it in Manchester what with taking DD to the airport, so it's more or less a day to myself. (I don't have them all the time, but I have a week's annual leave this week). No major spending expected.

Managed the lot except for the insect spray (which I hope she remembered to get at the airport) and - you've guessed it - the money!

I have decided that trying to spend less is like trying to eat less: once you focus on it, you do it more not less!

I did okay with the shops, I just went to Netto and got some kitchen towels (just over half the price I'd usually pay), a jar of nice coffee for £1.79 (saves me getting one I'd like less and costs more when the current one runs out), and a couple of tins of fruit, one of which we had after tea tonight, and the other has gone into store cupboard jellies for tomorrow. So far so good.

Then I decided to try Approved Foods... £28 later...! Having said that, I was fairly strict with myself and bought food rather than empty calories - well, with a few little exceptions. It should be delivered early next week - oooh, all that gorgeous Loyd Grossman Tomato & Basil sauce! I got other stuff too, I expect I'll write about it when it comes.

Dinner was from the freezer, so goal met there. I also made what was meant to be a soup from odds & ends from the fridge and freezer, but then I got distracted and it's turned into something closer to pease pudding! I'll try some tomorrow for lunch.

Dh has paid the milkman - I think that was £23, but we've missed him for the past few weeks so it had mounted up.

DS and DH had another of their expeditions to Tesco - I haven't found out what got spent there.

miggy

Another new high score on the site game - 2880.
Must go and get a life

miggy

I did the sums on the Loyd Grossman sauce from AF and am delighted.
I got 3 x 2kg jars. 1 @ 59p, 2 @ 99p.
Factoring in the delivery price (which I set against these, as i prob wouldn't have done the order for the other bits alone, useful though I hope they'll be, I think I've saved £12.70 on sauce which I'd buy anyway.
By the way, if you add a tin of tomatoes to this sauce it goes twice as far and still tastes great!

miggy

Things went quite well on the money front today.

Coffee with a friend which was good and not too expensive. 79p for a bag of 4 peppers from the greengrocer's, which is about what Tesco charges for 1 pepper, and the greengrocer ones are fresher.
Tesco for loo roll, pasta, tin of tomatoes and a bag of potato croquettes for DS2 to have with burgers from the freezer. Other than that I was only feeding DH and myself, and we had tuna pasta using store cupboard ingredients and the pepper and pasta.

Slight slip-up in that I found we had pasta at home already but it had got lost in the larder.

A note about the larder - we have a mini kitchen but a real larder off it. Sadly the larder is full of the fridge-freezer (which I wouldn't want to be without) so only very limited access to shelves and things can get lost in there.

I had some of yesterday's meant-to-be soup for lunch with a bit of cheese on, and it was yummy.

Confession time: also in the larder I found a box of well out-of-date eggs which I had to chuck out and 2 part-boxes of not-so-out-of-date eggs which I will have to check for freshness and either use or chuck tomorrow. Out of the fridge and into the compost went a punnet of cherries (:eek: cherries are like treasure) (but not when furry) and half an ancient onion.

Good news: I picked nearly 10 oz of blackcurrants from the garden and got them into the freezer. There are still plenty more where they came from, and the rabbits are loving all the (non-fruiting) bramble and blackcurrant twigs I've fed them.

More good news: DH and I managed a walk this evening, and I have made a start on clearing space for the Approved Foods order (which is now showing as 'shipped' - exciting!)

knitwit67

Hi, I heard there was coffee on the go. Shame about the cherries, fur coats not a good look.

miggy

Hiya KnitWit,
The kettle is on as I speak! Draw up a chair...
I am now wondering whether the compost will eventually sprout a little orchard of cherry trees - after all it's doing well for potato plants after I chucked some manky ones in!

knitwit67

I have a cherry tree,, a year of love and care, 1 cherry this year, I kept waiting for it to ripen, then the heavy rains came and it was gone:eek:. This patio cherry tree is going to take a life time to pay for it's self. I'm 43 now, it's in a pot so I shall be dragging it to the old peoples home when I,m 93:rotfl:, I like to get my money's worth!

miggy

Oh no! Your poor cherry.
Hopefully this was just a practice run and next year will be better.
We have a self-sown cherry which makes pretty blossom but the cherries are bitter. It's also in the way of some wires. If I could think of a place to put them, I might invest in a fruiting cherry or two, but alas there isn't space.
I love the idea of a 93-year old you dragging a huge pot of cherry tree to an old people's home!

miggy

Today is due to be organised by me till 4pm, when we are off overnight to celebrate my FIL's birthday, and back tomorrow late afternoon.
Essentials to get done: shower and get dressed! Prepare clothes for me and DS to wear to the dinner, and pack. Ensure animals have food for overnight, water plants.
Guess I had better crack on with that sooner rather than later though my tendency is to put it off till last. (Reasoning being that I hate anything to do with going away, even if I'll enjoy myself when out. There is probably something deep 'n' psychological at the root of that but today's not the day to discover it).

Moneysaving: clear out the fridge and make a few inroads into the larder, where there's unknown treasure and a few crumbs.
My diary over the last week informs me I've made a few savings: the priority things to put them towards right now are dental work and the mortgage.

1. I need to sort out how much to each but before that I need to work out what I am allocating, i.e. what savings/income can go into these two pots? Normally savings don't go anywhere in particular, just back into the general fund, because I got into the habit of doing this to survive. Nowadays we have more income, and the purpose of the diary is to discover where it goes and take the reins back into my own hands.
2. I need to give some thought as to DS's spending (separate post methinks) which needs some stronger guidelines.

Well, I can't have my shower for a few minutes as DS has appropriated the bathroom, so here goes trying to sort his guidelines!