The Matrix - Re-Evolution!!

Memory_Girl

Got an answer -eventually from the Big Horse Bank.

Amount to be paid off still on the Personal Guarantee is £1283.35 - so only about £300 interest added on top of the original amount.

Onwards and Onwards

MG

clairewop

OO has posted on face book about kits for kids, the bill is £500 does anyone have any ideas how we can help her pay this??

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kits-for-Kids/120253084700023

I don't mind coming up with more kits for kids jewellery, but there's no way just the jewellery will cover the cost.

Perhaps this should be over the other side, Mods if I have done wrong putting this here then please remove, although I won't gain from this monies would be going to the kits for kids charity.

freshair_2

Hi All,

I have been told by Mrs Moo that I should get on over here so I have.

Should be working really but had such a good day, won a contract that we thought was well out of reach so big smiles here, there are a few other things as well but not really important.

So as not to bore you too much, if you want to know the background of how I got here, then https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3496503, if not will sumarise to say skint, difficult decisions to make that have been made, and my fingers toes and everything that crosses is crossed for the outcome.

In the meantime I really could do with a bit of help, moving back into my house, empty it will be but at my disposal currently I have a well stocked kitchen that I have created, but I don't want to leave OHish with nothing as would like to try and sort this aspect of my life out, sounds daft but I thought I had found the missing bit, another story.

God I ramble

The long and short of it is I need to know what you all would consider to be basic / essential store cupboard items so I can take what I want and have a less cluttered kitchen and leave the rest with him :rotfl::rotfl:.

DS has hot school lunches everyday, then I know that no matter what time I get home sometimes not till 7.30!! that he has had at least one hot meal that day. Brekkie is always a cereal affair. I do have a slow cooker and did use to use it, I have a breadmaker but can only make bricks, (thinks to self that maybe useful if I ever want to make the house bigger). I can cook, just don't very often. DS would live on jacket pots, pasta and roast dinners and isn't too fussy.

So after all that my question is what do I need in my kitchen cupboards????

Thank you

clairewop

Welcome to the matrix Freshair, MG is the best at store cupboards.

Horace

Welcome to the Matrix Freshair.

Well ladies and gents I am now back from my trip to the NT property, it was well and truly mystery shopped by moi:rotfl: I came away brimming with ideas. Instead of having proper food for lunch I had the largest piece of coffee & walnut cake imaginable and a latte cost £4.83:eek: but I enjoyed it, it also gave me an opportunity to observe goings on and what was needed where. I went around the house too which doesnt feel like a stately home because there are seats that you can sit on although you must avoid the ones with the teasels on them as you are not allowed to sit on them.

The Throckmorton family stills lives there and they manage the gardens (need to pay extra to go into them) and they have a honesty box for their plant shop and this time of year for their fruit. I came away with 10 Howgate Wonder cooking apples for £1. I chatted up the chap who was putting out more fruit because there were some wierd looking yellow pears which I found out were not pears but quince so we chatted about quince and he had a tub of tiny yellow apples which I thought were another variety of quince but they were apples an ancient variety called Ingeus Gold the skins were quite sticky and apparently they are very sweet. I asked after the quince too because I wanted 1 not 10 so he said here you are stuff this in your pocket and gave me a quince which is now in my living room because it has a nice scent.

I am off to the house again next Friday as I am taking a load of books for their 2nd hand book shop (1 spent the grand total of 20p in there today) - all monies raised from the bookshop are used on the estate.

I know that I want to work there even more now despite being told by one of the volunteers (an old chap who had been there 10 years) that staff are employed for 6 months only.

Bitsy_Beans

Horace I toyed with having my wedding there, it's a lovely place

Dorastar

Today I have been a good boss - spent time with infant peeps today as they are a bit down and then time with a few needy juniors spreading a bit of happiness and positive "you are all doing really well" type vibes - the matrix has far reaching effects, thanks peeps on here:beer:

Have almost finished the school papers from hell and then can really focus on the stuff I need to do and the new wall is well and truly finished and looking good. Winter reading is going to be garden ideas - want to really sort it out and have some planting beds so going to get down to library over winter and get planning MSE style. If anyone knows any fab ideas feel free to point them out as I am a complete novice.

ETA: Have missed that shocker on the news Firewalker thanks for letting us know .

groatie_queen

I've been aware of the changes to benefits for people with health conditions professionally, e.g. DLA changing to PIP, the very unfair changes to ESA, and like many other charities my organisation made detailed submissions and pointed out the injustices etc at the 'consultation' stages. Many very disabled people made their way to London a few weeks ago at no small cost to themselves in pain and in sheer logistics, and there was the largest disability protest march ever - did it make the mainstream media? Not much, sadly.

Some sections of the MSM are far more focussed on regularly reporting the tiny percentage who scam the system (less than 0.5% - government's own figures), and their inflamed language about "disabled scroungers" makes life that bit more difficult for many truly disabled people, in being believed to be disabled, specially those with a hidden condition - of which there are many.

The fact of the matter is that Labour started this review process off, a lot of these pernicious ideas were theirs, and the Coalition are merely continuing with a few more embellishments. The political class (with a few honorable exceptions) are very remote, on the whole, and feather-bedded from the realities of what life is like at the sharp end.

The terminal illness issue is being addressed and lobbied about by the cancer charities. Not my area, but I'm sure they would be glad of any support and pressure brought to bear. Many of the seriously ill have no one to fight their indiviual battles for them. They are often too sick, and why should they need to expend precious energy this way. It's disgraceful to have this worry and hardship.

This could be any of us.... our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, sons.

Triciaxx

Welcome, Freshair. I've been over to your diary to get the background to your query and you certainly seem to have your feet firmly on the ground. Well done on your decisions.

The first point I would make is that you probably need to decide what OHish would actually use. If you have been doing the cooking, will he cook when you have left or will he be a take-away, microwave kind of cook? If so, there's no point in you leaving ingredients which need preparation - in fact I'm not that sure what you can leave except tea, coffee and cereals.

As for a store cupboard, I try to buy when things are cheap and squirrel them away for later so I rarely buy staple goods at full price. Really, staples (for me) are anything with a long shelf life which can be kept out of the fridge or freezer. So, I don't worry about 'best by' for pasta, rice, beans, etc. - after all scientists have successfully germinated beans from the pyramids. :eek:

I've also got loads of tins of tomatoes, Passata, tins of oily fish (Pilchards, Mackerel, Sardines and Tuna. Tins of corned beef, jars of pesto (I make my own mostly but it's good to have them for busy times.

Things like salt, pepper, herbs, spices and so on - well, if he would use them, I'd be inclined to leave them as a £5 would easily stock you up.

I keep my storecupboard in my study on bookshelves :cool: Some of my books I sold on Amazon and some went to the Charity Shop in a mad declutter a few years ago freeing up some shelves and I can see what I've got easily - I found things migrated to the back of kitchen cupboards and hid to avoid being sacrificed on the kitchen stove .

I do try to always have an emergency supply of food which would last us 2 weeks at a pinch - we might be bored to tears by the end of the time but we wouldn't starve. We live quite high up but the only way out is up hill and the last two winters have seen the roads blocked by abandoned cars!

Flour, sugar, biscuits, and so on will depend on your tastes.

I hope that gives you food for thought (pun intended) and come back with more queries when you have them. Someone else will have other suggestions soon.

freshair_2

Thanks Triciaxx, very helpful, i have no idea what he will do proabaly toast and takeaways, but i know he can cook think he just chooses not to, can wash up aswell but same applies:rotfl:

Best before dates on tins n pasta really don't bother me, when I was a kid we used to have a saying that if it wasn't out of date then you couldn't eat it!! I'm still alive i was going to say ok but think that would have wrong:D

Have already squirrelled coffee and tea when was on bogof so thats ok.

Has really helped me start to think about packing stuff more clearly.

This evening after DS has gone to bed I will be returning to page 50 of the matrix to continue forward, i was going to have a glass of wine or 2, to do this but seeing as today has officially now become an NSD i'm not tea will do just fine :T