Missy Moo's got a bit lost but with copious cups of tea, I'm finally finding my way!

kavics17

I wouldn't .You could but fresh onion is much better:).

missymoo81

Erm..... seem to have devoured the chocolates!!!!

missymoo81

am exhausted by all my planning today, am in bed with a cuppa..... ahhh bliss.....

missymoo81

morning, goodness knows why I am awake so early, too many ideas whooshing around my head probably.

cuppa tea me thinks

missymoo81

Just braved downstairs, and my goodness, it feels like winter already!!! brrrr....... hotfooted it straight back to bed!:D Not that I needed an excuse lol

missymoo81

Have been thinking, as my pay cut kicks in at the end of November, I will be paying £100 less into the bills account, this account is for all household bills, petrol, food, toiletries, chicken food and bedding. Now the bills acount is usually a little bit over anyway, but I don't want OH to have to pick up the downfall, so I am on (yet another lol) mission to tackle it. Have come up with ways in which to save on things.

• Use my bike instead of the car to get around (so no petrol or parking charges)
• Try to save on water where possible, only wash up in small amounts of water, turn shower down, I don't need it to blast me out the room everytime I get in it!!:rotfl:
• Get Chicken food when I go to my dads, as it is much cheaper where he lives. Also feed them scraps where possible.
• When i do have to use the car to travel the 25miles to see family, I'll try and see them all in a day so that I don't have to drive backwards and forwards. Or instead invite them to mine!

A lot of my ideas are for energy saving, as I have not long got my eon monitor that shows you what you use etc. so from that, here goes:

• Only have one light on at a time (sounds obvious but was by habit turning all 3 on every time I went in the kitchen)
• Wrap up instead of putting heating on.
• Try not to use the oven.... this will make such a massive difference, the monitor goes ballistic every time I turn it on :rotfl:. Instead I'm going to try and use my actifry (bought with wedding vouchers) and slow cooker.
• If I do have to use the oven, I am going to fill it up and batch cook, rather than turning it on just for chips for me!!:eek:
• When cooking rice etc, turn the heat off 5 mins before finish and let it continue to cook under the lid.
• Don't put TV on for company when I'm not even watching it.
• Don't leave laptop/mobile phone charger plugged in and on when not using
• Turn TV's off standby (biggest hate, OH drives me mental with this!!)
• Try not to use my hair dryer until last minute, so is only on for a couple of minutes as hair is practically dry.
• Iron a pile of stuff, rather than switching it on and heating it up every morning.
• Try and wash on quick wash if things aren't particularly dirty.

I'm hoping a lot can be saved on food too. My plan is:

• Home make bread, just got new tin for this.
• Don't buy biscuits/cakes for OH, make them.
• Use up what is in the cupboard before buying more!
• Yummy porridge for breakfast
• try and bulk out meals with rice/pasta/bread/potatoes instead of meat.
• make yoghurt and crumbly cheese
• Not being a greedy monster and eating everything in sight!
• Check deals online every week for different supermarkets to see where is cheapest to shop
• Buy big sack of potatoes from farm shop
• downgrade on brands where possible (have done this a lot anyway but will look into, OH is very fussy!!)
• Use up stock of toiletries then source out the cheapest/most MS options.

When it gets colder, in the rooms I don't use, I'm going to close the door and turn the heating off in them.

I'm going to put a lot of these in place right away, especially the water and energy ones, obviously am on my store cupboard challenge so the food part wont kick in yet, it's more for when OH gets back.

So there's my list to be getting on with, am pooped after that, think I need another cup of tea

missymoo81

going to risk biking in to town today, its about 5 miles, never done it before, so wish me luck, really should get up and get dressed, need to take my primark stuff back!! also really need a jacket for work, as literally don't own one, so I am going to counteract this by taking one of the jumper dresses back to Primark which is £7 and scouting the charity shops for one for the same price or less!!

[Deleted User]

Hey missy
all sound like good plans (which I am sitting here reading about with a cuppa of course!! ) just off to do some baking myself too (for OHs benefit of course )
am contemplating seriously living on a pay cut (but hopefully much happier and fulfilled life) ... I think it is doable and have learned so much from this site so good luck with it too! (ps. if you look on the freebies board or google "free food" there are a couple of offers (hopefully still on) that give free teabags (twinings and yorkshire tea) and free chocolate (seeds of change on facebook -may have run out now tho!) ... they might help!

good luck with the primark hunt!

missymoo81

Well I am back!!!

I survived.... but am absolutely cream crackered!!!!!

Took all of my stuff back, so £38 back on card, although I was going to take one of the jumper dresses back but it was on a different receipt (which I couldnt find) so they wouldn't take it back!! But I found some lovely things for my step mums birthday in there. And bought my little nephew 2 pairs of jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt.

I soured round the charity shops bought didn't find a jacket at all. But I did find some wonderful birthday presents for my nephews, 2 brand new 2010 annuals and a couple of dvds!! Also found 2 mini books for 50p each which will be good for Christmas pressies, and a little game thing for 30p. Going to see if i can get big nephew a jumper on ebay for the rest of his pressie as I don't think primark would quite cut it for him, he's a bit fussy and it going to be 12.

So I have so far on nephew number one spent:

Book £1.25
dvd £1.50
jeans x2 £6.00
t-shirt £4.00

Which equates to: £12.75 :T

I will get him some sweets and put them in a jar for him and find a cheap card shop to get a lovely card. I'm so pleased, so little for so much:T!!

For lovely Step mum I have bought:

hair clip £3.00
Scarf £3.00
bracelet £5 (really big chunky one that she'll love)

So so far £11, not sure what else to get, need to have a think.

Nephew number 2

Book £2.25
dvd £1.50

So far £3.75

My sister said he is in desperate need of some jumpers so am going to jump on ebay and see if I can get any BNWT jumpers for him. ooooh just had a sneaky look and found a jumper of his favourite brand for £7.50 brand new with tags and I can collect so save £4.00 in postage as it is in the town I live in, result :T

So his presents will come too £11.25, and I'll get him some sweeties too, and a card and wrapping paper for both with the rest to make it up to £15 fantastic!!!! Well under my £20 budget and well under the £30 spent last year!!

And do you know, I have spent so much more time and effort and thought choosing them things, and I know they will like them much better than random presents I've spent a fortune on as I haven't had the time to think about them! This year is so much better!

I do have a small confession to make... well 2 actually..... there was a new sweetshop that had just opened one of those oldey worldy ones..... and I bought £1's worth of boiled sweets..... but in my defence... I was starving!!! And in the charity shop I found a little tiny piglet book, and i love piglet and it was only 75p :obut it Isn't going to help me pay off my loan though I know .

I have learnt a few things on my trip to town:

• be careful not to panic when you see a dead thing in the road, only makes you swerve feel a bit sick and nearly drop your bag:rotfl:
• Don't think that biking up hill and eating a sweet go together because they don't, breathing gets somewhat difficult with a huge sweet lodged in your cheek!
• Take something to eat or atleast have brekkie so you don't walk past the bakers salivating and then go off and buy sweeties! and then try and eat 2 at once and walk around looking like a hamster!

I did however take a little drink with me so I didn't need to buy one. and I saved myself about £4.00 on parking, and atleast £3.00 on coffee which I would have usually bought, not to mention all the clothes etc I would have mindlessly bought without thinking.

I got given 2 teabags in one of the charity shop as a incentive thing too.

I also actually got to spend time looking around, as I had comfy shoes on for a change, and actually had the time to wonder around and not be worrying about the car parking totting up. I found places I didn't even know existed!

I am just so so pleased!!!!:T

Right off to make a sarnie and a cuppa.

Back shortly

A very happy Missy xx

missymoo81

thanks the youngone will definitely have a look into those.