How to Get Through The Tough Times The Old Style Way.

jediteacher

Finally got my car back from the garage although I had to leave my hubby's there to collect with him when he gets back from work. I did only pay £135 in the end and got a personal apology for yesterday. All the checks were done and the extra which I did not get charged for. No use bringing hubby with me as his knowledge of cars is far far worse than mine. At least I know my basic way around an engine and where these checks are carried out - my usual mechanic always goes through everything with me and shows me where things are and what they are called.

Spent my first double the difference voucher from Tesco today. They have a baby event on at the moment and their boxed nappies are a good price so I have stocked up on those, bibs, colic bottles and a new Fireman Sam T-shirt for my daughter all for the grand sum of 58p after the voucher total was taken off. A little saving there as just about scraped together the money for the car and I was lucky in that nothing needed doing to it.

Need to get petrol later and out local Tesco from this morning has gone from 129.9p to 131.9p this afternoon. :mad: I now only put a maximum of £30 in the car a week (it would cost £50 to fill) and watch it very carefully as I will not put in any more - cannot afford to.

Feeling pretty rotten today and even the chiro today commented how drained I looked. :eek: Luckily this week I'm only working two days as my class are on a trip tomorrow and I'm just not up to going so my jobshare is taking my place. However, this does mean that I have a four day week next week which in my state will be a struggle. I know others work full time but at the moment it is very painful just standing up and sitting down let alone having to walk anywhere. I am on a double dose if iron tablets as I am anemic again in this pregnancy which is what I had been telling the midwives and doctors but they only believed me last week when my blood tests showed that I was really below the normal levels!:mad:

Enough rambling. I really must do at least one thing to tidy this house up today.

sandraroffey

i shop in iceland, and i am there, waiting at the door every morning, for them to open at 9am. the reduction on the fresh meat is amazing. if its on or nearly the sell by date, everything is half price or less. £5 and i have meat for two weeks. a tray of 4 rump steaks was £2. thats 4 meals for me. large pack of minced beef, £1. thats a shep pie, a spag bol and a small curry, or maybe some home made burgers. and so on.

however, i will ONLY buy if its reduced. some days, like today there wasnt a thing:(. but you have to be there waiting for them to open: by a few mins past 9 and its all gone.

silvermaid

I too am very upset that Frugalqueen is no longer blogging.
As I said on another thread, these blogs that take us back to past wisdoms are an inspiration and help us to tread lightly on this earth.
My heart goes out to Frugalqueen at being hurt by unkind comments. I do not understand some people. If you can't say something positive say nothing at all. Silver x

zarazara

((((((FRUGALQUEEN))))))) what a shame unkindness has caused this. I agree with others about food prices. I envisage less choice and more seasonality,hopefully. At least that would be a plus out of the whole situation.

Larumbelle

Hello all! Well, you probably won't recognise me because I had to change my username (long and tedious story involving person I know in real life figuring out who I was and attempting to use the info to ridicule me at work... :mad: ). Anyway, the lovely MSE peeps changed it for me so here I am back. Glad to see so many people from before are still keeping their heads above water :grouphug: and posting and hi to the people I don't know yet. If you've been posting on the tough threads since last summer and want to know who I am - was - whatever! - PM me and I'll spill the beans

Anyways, I am currently laid up following major surgery, so I'm utterly helpless on the moneysaving front right now. I don't even want to think about how this op has cost me in mine and OH's lost earnings, let alone the fact that, while OH is happy to cook, he's no home economist and I think the household budget may have gone to pot

I can't even sit at the computer for very long. It was bowel surgery, so you can guess the rest. I have to lie down much of the time. I want to do some constructive things so far as I can, though, so I am knitting a big fat snuggly jumper with some bargain wool I got. It's baby pink wool and very thick. I have a feeling I'll look like a giant blancmange whilst wearing it but at least I'll be a warm blancmange :rotfl: Also have been looking through my recipe books for frugal/adaptable recipes and copying them into my new recipe book - an A4 page-a-day diary for last year that someone abandoned unused at work at the beginning of this year. I fished it out of the recycling. I figured that reuse is better than recycle!

I haven't had a chance to read back more than a few pages, but frugalqueen, it's awful that you've come under attack. Don't let the bu@@ers win! :grouphug:

Pink.

GreyQueen wrote: »

I've come to think of this thread as the source of all wisdom so I'm sending out a flare about the chili peppers.

I bought these as a bagful as part of a 3 bags for £1 deal in the whoopsie section of my greengrocer last Friday. Used 4-5 of them in my chili last weekend but now have 12 left. I don't want to make another batch of chili as have no freezer space and equally don't want to waste them. It's hating the thought of the waste more than the money and I've tried giving them away but no friends in reach have a chili pepper deficit at the moment.

All ideas gratefully recieved....

Hi GreyQueen,

These threads should help you to use them:

recipes for chillies

Preserving chillies?


Edit:
While I'm here, I don't think I've seen any mention of anybody taking advantage of the Tesco price promise to double the difference if your shopping can be bought cheaper in Asda?

With a little work, checking out both Asda and Tesco websites, you can decide what to buy and make a profit on your shopping. They will allow you to claim back vouchers of up to £100 per household. So far this month I have managed to get £98 of free shopping! :j Although obviously I have paid over inflated prices in the first place, but still a great saving and a good way to stock up those store cupboards.

Pink

BitterAndTwisted

Grey Queen: if you don't fancy the chilli jam, dried chillies or chilli oil linked to earlier you could consider making Harissa. It's a rather nice and piquant condiment from North Africa and I've made it several times. I have about 20-odd Scotch Bonnets to use up myself which I bought for a quid in my local market yesterday so am about to make another batch:

Chopped de-seeded chillies (the recipe calls for 2oz of dried ones but I've only ever made this with fresh ones).
4 cloves of garlic
1 tsp ground caraway seeds
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp salt
Olive oil.

I just chuck everything in together and give it a whizz with the old hand-blender thingy but I expect you could use a food-processor or even a pestle and mortar if you're keen. The end-result should be a stiff paste and will keep in the fridge for several weeks. To ring the changes I also throw in some cumin seeds sometimes. I've got some mustard seeds in the cupboard and have been toying with the idea of experimenting by replacing the caraway seeds with it. I got the recipe from Claudia Roden's "Invitation to Mediterranean Cooking".

GreyQueen

Wow, I had no idea that so many of us were following Frugal Queen down in Cornwall; I found her blog months ago at random by Googling "frugal" and loved it and visited everyday. I'm so saddened that someone has been spiteful as she seemed such a lovely caring person. Gawd, I've seen this woman's dogs, dinner plates and poly-tunnel; it feels like losing touch with a friend to have her driven out of sight like this. My morning internet routine is to check my email, my Freegle group, read FQ and HH and then come onto the forums to see what you're all posting.

((Hugs FQ)) if you read up here at all.

Some good news on the toothy front, or at least less-bad-news than I spent the last few hours dreading. My lovely dentist thinks all is not lost. The tooth is "vital" which is clearly dentist-speak for "If I touch the centre lightly with a probe and the patient levitates from the chair, the nerve is still alive!" Sorry for the dental-phobics who may be reading but it was exactly as unpleasant as it sounds. I have had it gently dressed and temporarily filled to see me to my proper appt on 30/3. Subject to X rays, the cunning plan is to place a large white filling in it and maintain a watching brief to see if the pulp (the nerve) which is a bit traumatised right now will recover. This is called "pulpitis" and I didn't just make that up. There are 2 kinds of pulpitis, the kind the pulp recovers from and the one which is fatal to the nerve. We will hope that it is the recoverable kind. Worse case scenario is that it isn't and the tooth will have to be root-canalled and crowned in a few months' time. Dentist said if the nerve doesn't recover he'd rather drill down thru a white filling than the expensive custom-made crown or overlay. He's given me a treatment plan and the worst case will be £318 and only be that much if we have to go to the crown imediately.

Floss2 he has also told me not to floss around it until the proper filling is in place so we have been warned!

So, I feel much heartened as I was very low last night but had to put my game face on just after it happened and just after I'd had a phonecall from Mum to say an elderly great auntie is terminally ill with pancreatic cancer. Had to rally fast as the book group was coming to mine at short notice after the hostess went down with a bug. Life smacks you about some days, doesn't it?

Freezing chili peppers Do I just chop them and put them in a container or is blanching involved please?

sandraroffey Mucho thanks for that tip about Iceland discounting meat first thing; guess what I shall be doing tomorrow....;)

I have been handed a letter at my desk which seems to have the word "pay increment" in it and I'm trying to work out what exactly it means and how much. I'm part-time and have to pro-rata anything but to a person who had nil increase this financial year and is due to get more nil the year about to start, it is wildly exciting....think it might be about £5/ week so starvation is not imminent. I'm expecting to get smacked by the budget tomorrow as every other one has left me the poorer but who knows....

((Hugs to everyone and I hope poorly cars come back without gigantic bills in their wake.))

helen_jelly

Hello everyone


GQ - glad to hear the news about "the tooth" - hope it works out to be the cheap route

MOT - DH's car failed and the garage quoted £442 [inclusive of MOT and VAT] to get it on the road but .......... we found a little back street garage who is doing it all for ...............£162 so by Monday when it has its re-test it will be back on the road and fully MOT'd and at a cost that can be justified. Next week will be my time for the anxious waiting as mine needs an MOT but hopefully not alot of work

Went to MrA today so need to work out spends and put them on the GC and see if it was cheaper there or at MrT

Have a good evening

Helen x

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

Softstuff wrote: »

Today has been a "novel" one. Tumble drier is dead, but at least I found out where the lumps of plastic in the laundry had come from. A very kind new neighbour who is an electrician came to look at my oven which is dodgy, and my hob where only 1 hotplate works. As a result, I have still one hotplate, but my built in oven is now disconnected and sitting by the bin waiting to go to the tip.

So all recipes for microwave baking or cooking with 1 hob gratefully received :rotfl:

I still have no job and am becoming pretty disheartened. Since I resigned from the job from hell we've been statistically very unlucky. The TV, laptop, xbox, extractor fan over the oven, the oven and the tumble drier have all broken in that period of time (the hotplate died long ago), and the bedside lamp is looking pretty perilous. Try as we might to budget and live on sod all, I'm starting to think my household appliances are just out to get me!

sorry to hear about this, could you get anything off freecycle?