Coffee and chocolate

miggy

Good job I'm off to work this afternoon: £35 petrol (& coffee money) for DD yesterday, £10 each in Primark and Iceland this morning and £4.20 at the chip shop. This afternoon DD and DS2 get home so food spending will return to normal...
I fell asleep on the sofa in the middle of the afternoon yesterday, and am yawning already today. I wonder if it's time to get my thyroxine reviewed yet?

MatyMoo

miggy wrote: »

I fell asleep on the sofa in the middle of the afternoon yesterday, and am yawning already today. I wonder if it's time to get my thyroxine reviewed yet?

Hi Miggy

Mum used to get hers checked 6 monthly if that helps.

Maty
-x-

miggy

Hi MatyMoo, sorry, just missed you when you posted!
I had it checked sometime this spring but maybe I'm due one soon? The alternative is either something post-viral which is why I had it checked last time, or some bug that's going around, seeing as lots of people seem to be in the same boat!

miggy

Spent £23 on food today! The homegrown potatoes were very dodgy so I bought a bag for mash, lots of sausages, etc. to make dinner for five of us. There's enough left-overs in the freezer for a meal for me sometime, and plenty of sausages and more potatoes to feed DS (who loves them). I made apple & blackberry crumble (blackberries from the garden, first of this year) which was plenty for all of us and extra helpings for the boys! (The only ones not watching their weights).
The freezers are still very full, and so is the larder, so I need to plan around eating from them again but I'm working mainly evenings this week so it might be best done in consultation with DH.
No other spends today - just as well!

miggy

My spends yesterday: £8 for windowcleaner (2 lots of cleaning, he lives near us and if we don't see him to pay him he lets it run till we meet), £8.96 at supermarket, of which £4.99 on Marmite (a staple food!) and £3.97 on things for DS but I notice most of those count as legitimate food stuffs so will go on our bill!

• £1.37 for bananas (they're getting more expensive)
• £1 on yogurts)

and for his bill:

• 18p value jellies x 3
• £1.42 Sprite

Today I need to get back to the freezer and eat up some of that! I am not spending a lot on unnecessaries but haven't made any really good savings to set agsainst the mortgage repayment for a while. To be honest summer holidays break up my routine and I need to challenge myself because I'm getting some depression. Mild but unwanted and it means I am wasting a lot of time.
I'm wondering if this is some sort of reaction as I've been seriously worried about my mum's health for months and right now she seems to be doing better?
This reminds me, I said I'd write to her doctor with some insights about her health, and I've been putting it off. Where to begin? I think I will challenge myself to write a paragraph right now, then at least I've domne the most difficult bit, i.e. starting.

miggy

I made a good start on the letter but got interupted by a call from work, needing me to put in a report at short notice which took up the rest of what was supposed to be free time today. Don't worry, I'll claim for the time.
Two spends: they were selling off reduced fat dips, original price £2, now 50p each. This should mean I save £3 but in fact I bought two and only need one! So I spent £1 when I should at full price have spent £2 - so saving of +£1.
I also spotted some little yellow fruit, either tiny plums or cherries which regularly fall into the path near us. I rescued a handful and I'll try to find out what they are and if I can do anything with them.

miggy

Confession time: £2.99 on an impulse buy on ebay! Worse, it took me a minute to remember what it was!!!
It's a green and white cotton top - nice for really hot days and yes, I still believe we may get more this year

miggy

I've started a spreadsheet. My spreadsheeting was never proficient, now it's rusty as well. What's more I'm not sure where I got some of my early diary totals from!
The good news is, there are definitely some monies for the mortgage.

P.S. Got to clean out the fridge again and eat from the freezer - this is not an option simply because both are packed too tight to get anything more than a matchbox in!

miggy

Well, I'm back to saving by spending, LOL.
(Need to think about that).
I finished work at 9 last night and for once was efficient and left straight away, enabling me to get to Mr. T before they threw out the reduced items. For once I didn't meet other members of my family there. A couple of times recently I've been down late for work and bumped into DH and DS buying fizzy pop and stuff. So long as this comes out of DS's pocket money, this spending doesn't worry me financially, though I'd rather he ate more healthily. As he's 14, though, it's not possible to police all his food intake, and I think he's improved over time.
Anyway... last night the chilled food discounted items had all gone, but I bought an organic melon reduced to £1.19 from £1.99, so +80p. Then there was the bread!!!

Here is one of my perennial difficulties - how to work out what I've saved if the item I've bought is a luxury that I wouldn't usually get? Methinks I need a budget... this really is tricky as we have a joint account and both of us shop for bits and pieces most days - and DH isn't naturally into buying and using efficiently. He's gradually getting there with looking at shelf labels but he hates shopping so much that he wants to spend minimum time at it. I do feel sorry for him, married to a bargain hunter and father of another!

So - a budget would help me know whether I'm spending or saving, but right now I can't see how to do that.

• Me taking on the shopping isn't going to happen - work patterns and my not driving mean some shopping has to be done by DH, and besides, as we've discussed it in the past, he would be disenfranchised by it so that's simply not going to happen.

• We've tried having a 'kitty' purse and putting a set amount in each week but that fell to bits for some reason - the practice, not the purse. We could give it another try but not till after holidays, which are due in a little while. Holidays are never typical spending anyway. This year there'll be extra for oldest DS who's staying at home too.

Okay, so no budget to work with. Where's Martin when I need him? There's just me talking to myself and trying to work it out...

I decided if I had bought a typical loaf of bread I would probably have spent £1. I can therefore set this as a budget. There is a little more room in the freezer than I thought (yay!) so I can freezer some and set this against future spends. Ideally this should be done as a costing per calorie, as our calorific needs don't change much, even if the form we take them varies and the cost varies. However for various reasons this can't be done - why don't all packages have calories on? And why don't loaves of bread show how many slices and how many calories per slice? Sooo - guesstimate time again.
I reckon I have about the equivalent of four large loaves, so would have spent £4. Instead they cost me £1.44. Hence saving of +£2.56. Actually if I had bought these goods at the original price I'd have spent £7.20 :eek:. In the past I'd have thought that meant I'd saved £5.76 but alas, not so. Never mind, if this creates a more realistic picture and I can make use of all I bought (!), I am still quids in - plus the family and I get some nice treats (chocolate brioche - yum, yum!)
Oh, and I bought carrot batons which are usually £1 and are currently 80p, so +20p there. Also didn't have my packet of cappuccino - daily treat to myself - so saved +14p.
Total savings of £3.70.
And a lesson learned "When buying luxuries at discount, work out what I would normally spend on the equivalent non-luxury items and set against that". This is probably elementary to most MSE-ers but it's a step forward for me.

miggy

The garden is still feeding the rabbits, and us too. I did a quick calulation on how much I saved by picking homegrown soft fruit yesterday - I think about £6! However, I wouldn't have justified that. I would have bought when the punnets were down to 50p each and just bought one, not four, so realistically a saving of +50p.
Yesterdays' bargains are doing very well - the melon is gorgeous and the rabbs and guinea pig are loving the rind, so happy all round. The chocolate brioche rolls are, for some reason, no more...

Now about a week ago I decided to get rid of all my well-out-of-date seeds. They were up to 15 years old! Even so I couldn't bear just to bin them so they went on the little corner of ground which I've just cleared of potatoes, and got rained on. It's just as well they were so old, or they would be massively overcrowded.
Yesterday I heard the garden laughing at me - several hundred seeds have decided it's time to sprout! From what I can see so far, they might be poppies or lobelias. Perhaps they will do well enough for me to get a few flowers later?

And today I went shopping... I had a list and I got everything on it. I also went into Wilkos - a good place for saving by spending!
Washing powder +£2 cheaper.
4x hanging basket liners at 75% off (none to be seen when I wanted some last week) +£2.92.
Seeds for next year (must admit I really want more, so I may go back) at 75% off, a saving of +£2.06.
I also got a couple of little pressents to put aside till Christmas - total £1.30, which is saving future spending, especially overpriced panic buying nearer the time, but I don't know how much it saves so a token £1 each = +£2.
The other things I bought were planned but not really savings.

Wilkos also had bulbs in stock for next spring - I had a look but the ones I want most aren't there. I will check Poundland when I'm next in there, as all the bulbs I've had from them have done beautifully. In fact I now have a great many 'peacock orchids' thriving in pots and waiting for a permanent home. When I bought them at the end of their sell-by dates, I didn't expect to get 90% germination! (They aren't really orchids, they're a variety of gladiolus. The woman I got talking to when I was buying them said that hers hadn't survived the harsh winter, so I need to find a sheltered place for these).

Ohhh... I must go back for more hanging basket liners! :cool:

P.S. I didn't mention that the seeds included perennial sweetpea! I've wanted some for ages. Dad gave me some seeds but I didn't plant them soon enough and they never came up. In fact the last of them probably went in the mad patch the other day. Dad's been gone four years now but I know he'd have rejoiced with me over them - though he'd have been buying veg seed for himself and would have grown it a great deal more successfully than I do!

I have no idea where I'll put them!