Coffee and chocolate

MatyMoo

Is it a gas Barbie Miggy?

After winter we light ours on full and leave it for about 15-20 minutes and then attack it with a wire brush. Works a treat and means less elbow grease required

miggy

No, just the basic sort... I think I need to get us a wire brush...

And on a completely different subject, I had fish & chips tonight with friends which was nice. Not good for the food budget so I am wondering if it counts as entertainment?

:whistle:

Other than that I owe DD £1.63 as I see she has brought home lots of end-of-the-day goodies from work.

miggy

I keep trying for an NSD and not getting there - first the window cleaner came, then I paid DD for the groceries and paid for my piano lesson. On the plus side I haven't bought groceries in several days, though this is accidental - I worked yesterday evening and called in at the supermarket on the way home because they usually have very good discounts here around 9pm - but there was nothing! Well, nothing that interested me.

Today - a bit of grocery shopping for us and some for mum. I've been looking at mum's finances and her electricity and gas bills are far too high. I've texted her cleaner to check things are turned off that aren't needed. So much for me worrying about sorting out her income - it's her expenditure that's going to make the biggest difference.
Anyway, I'm off to see her very soon: better get mioving or I won't be back by tea time!

ani_26

Most days for me, are nsd's, or should i say, essential only, spend days. Because i don't talk about them anymore, does'nt mean they've ceased to exist. Just popped out to spend a voucher i pinched from a free newspaper on saturday. Got myself a free evening meal, in the form of a pasta bolognese thingy, ( fresh too ), worth nearly £3, plus a free roll of chocolates, worth 65p. Not three bad?

Sometimes its worth buying newspapers for the freebies, alone.

miggy

ani_26 wrote: »

Most days for me, are nsd's, or should i say, essential only, spend days. Because i don't talk about them anymore, does'nt mean they've ceased to exist. Just popped out to spend a voucher i pinched from a free newspaper on saturday. Got myself a free evening meal, in the form of a pasta bolognese thingy, ( fresh too ), worth nearly £3, plus a free roll of chocolates, worth 65p. Not three bad?

Sometimes its worth buying newspapers for the freebies, alone.

That was a bargain! I have wombled a couple of receipts worth about 40p - beats me why people throw them away, it's like dropping cash and not picking it up. I haven't managed any free meals, though.

Hope you enjoyed yours - and the chocolates!

ani_26

I enjoyed the chocolate, i have'nt tried them, before.

The pasta bolognese, i am having tomorrow. Something quick and easy for tomorrow, whilst i'm in agony

miggy

Ani, is this the steroid injection? Apparently the worse it feels,the better the result. Does that help? Okay, I'll shut up for now.

miggy

A very business-like day today and I need to get it straight in my head.

1. Caught up with a couple of friends - not ones on my list but friends none-the-less.
2. Went to the bank and had a meeting about finances: quite encouraging!
3. Shopped.

The friends bit doesn't really belong here apart from spending on coffee, bringing my entertainment spending this week to nearly £10 which is very unusual unless you count the piano lessons, they being for my pleasure but probably no one else's!

Bank: we had a look at where we are, what's coming in and our major goings out, discussed getting a travel card for cash while on hols and extending the CC limit (don't go :eek: - it's only so we have access to cash if anything untoward happens. We pay it off the same month).

The bad news is that we had been more overdrawn than I'd realised in the last 6 months (usually leave it to DH to check statements). The good news is that we've substantially reduced that so far this year, we go into the black regularly and our credit rating is good.

I'm going to make a separate appointment with her to talk through Mum's finances - I think that will help. Knowing she is planning to ring me in a week to arrange this gives me a deadline and will help me focus on sorting Mum's paperwork. I might even post separately about that to keep my head together.

Shopping: this felt a bit mad today, especially after being pretty good all week. We've had a series of irregular spends this week as follows:
£4 window cleaner
£4.95 fish and chips
£30 DD's driving theory test
£4 antihistamines
£5 coffees
£3.50 gift
£6 DD's school trip.

Total so far £57.45.

Regular non-food spends:
£10 piano lesson
£10 DD's allowance

Food Shopping today: went to Sainsbug's which is a bit of a walk but I wanted to look for their cheap brands since I've discovered their cheap pasta! Came away with a spend of £6.22 for 15 items, though that includes £2 on high juice drinks - I'm trying to reduce the amount of pure juice we get through as it's such a lot, both for health and in cost.

I noticed the freebie Sainsbury magazine has a code for £10 off a first online shop of £50 or more (use by 9th August) and am wondering if I can organise us so we could take advantage of it - though of course it would be less once delivery was taken into account - and I'm sure they will run the offer again.

There's also a Facebook code for £15 off a Sains. shop - I wonder if it works?!

Ahem. I then went to Mr. T's for the other bits and pieces - another £7.77 for only five items! However, that is about buying different products not about price differences.

Tea time: had one of the oat bars from Sains for lunch - not inspiring but edible. Tasted like golden syrup and oats. Maybe it was. Came home and made three lots of sandwiches out of the remainder of the chicken - DD had already raided it so I reckon we got four light meals out of what DH said was a used-up chicken! LOL. :rotfl:I will admit I can't use any more chicken stock so the carcass went in the bin. I had treated myself to 'nice' bread at Tes** (£1.35 - standard for a grainy wholemeal loaf now, alas!), added the chicken, half of a 15p basic pack of Sains sage and onion stuffing, and bit of well out of date cranberry sauce. One of these for a very late lunch/tea and two wrapped up well and frozen to take to work. This probably came to around 20p a sandwich - less if you count the chicken as 'rescued', even though it wasn't strictly so! Anyway - tea - DH had found mince on discount at £1 a pack so I used one of these and Mr T's 80p bolognese sauce which I now know is an acceptable alternative to the posher brand, and cheap (but still durum wheat) spaghetti - and the remains of yesterday's roast potatoes for DS2.

I think that post belonged on the leftovers thread or something.

I am putting off doing that list for mum...

miggy

A start on a list or two:

For us:

• add clubcard points off receipts to my card
• check Freecycle for any replies to my request Nothing yet
• Do a bit of a graph to help me understand our money.
  

For Mum:

• set up her bank card
• bring accounts up to date DONE
• get all shares documents together to wave at poor bank person who may not know any more about them than I do.
• (The dreaded one) Get the uncashed cheques together, compose lettes to the issuers and get sent off. Doesn't have to be perfect; the aim is to set the ball rolling. If they need moredetails they can ask me.
• Order the two items of clothing she asked me to get - oh, and the shoes.
• Pay her cleaner.

I think there are more, will add if I think of them.

By the way, I spoke to the other attorney today and agreed how I will record certain items: I want to leave a 'paper trail' so everything is not only honest but seen to be honest. It would be so easy to forget something!

miggy

Dd has passed her theory test - woo!