A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

paidinchickens

Worktop or Kenwood or slow cooker :eek::eek:

Family of five with four males in the house the kitchen is never off duty.

No room in dining room as that is where the homebrew is.

Under stairs cupboard is full and no inch left unfilled :rotfl: store cupboard essentials also live there.

We did think of moving the store cupboard items onto shelves in the porch but DH said we would become the free supermarket to the rest of the family so we decided against it.

Every nook and cranny in this house serves a purpost, I even have a room at my old next door neighbours filled with stuff until I find room. The conservatory is the Ebay shop of all the stuff I am trying to get rid of and until that's clear I can't fetch no more

kidcat

My DD school put huge pressure on her over prom - they spent five years telling them how it was the culmination of five years and vital. Was massive pressure on parents. Cynically I think its about making the school look good, they make a huge splash in the paper and hire photographers to get best pics for press!!
We did the dress from ebay made in Chine which kept costs down, didnt do a limo (although hiring it with a group makes most sense if you can do that), my parents paid for her make up and nails to be done and we paid for the hair. We were fortunate in that financially we were able to do it. I think the trick is to make it unique to your child at a cost you can live with.
As someone says ask friends about cars, maybe even ask if anyone has a bridesmaids dress. Get the girls together in a group and have them get ready together to do hair, nails and make up together.
Odds are one parent is great with nails but rubbish at hair, so a skill sharing session would be great fun.

prepareathome

argg I used the state pension calculator to check hubbys pension date the other day, but didn't check mine again as did so a few months ago and it said I would be eligible at 65 but just now was telling hubby his new age and he said maybe should check in case mine has changed, it has gone back another year till 66. so heaven knows if I will ever live long enough to claim it, as its gone from 60 to 62 to 65 and now to 66 in the space of just over a year.....

greent

Just looked at mine - I'm going to be 67 before I'm of pensionable age!!:eek::eek::eek:

Am annoyed because when I left (redundancy) a good job, I could have claimed that pension at 50, but chose to defer it until 60 (DH did the same with his) - wish I'd taken the option of 50 now, at least there'd have been some income coming in for 17 years before state pension! How we're all expected to be fully capable of working at 67 is beyond me - and where are all the jobs going to come from, and how on earth will the younger ones get jobs if people don't retire from them...??:( Our youngest one is only 2 1/2 - what hope have that generation got

3v3

prepareathome wrote: »

argg I used the state pension calculator to check hubbys pension date the other day, but didn't check mine again as did so a few months ago and it said I would be eligible at 65 but just now was telling hubby his new age and he said maybe should check in case mine has changed, it has gone back another year till 66. so heaven knows if I will ever live long enough to claim it, as its gone from 60 to 62 to 65 and now to 66 in the space of just over a year.....

Whoa, sounds a bit like a retirement Ground Hog Day!

Evening Toughies

Not much to report today, just wanted to pop in and say hi. It's been a very long day and I'm particularly tired. No freebies to boast of and the only act of kindness I managed was to teach someone how to use a referencing programme while we shared a coffee (no, wait, he bought the coffee! So, free coffee in exchange for free demo )

Made a huge pot of basic mince when I got home - bulked it out with a goodly portion of soya mince; half tonight as a chilli, other half tomorrow will be a lasgne. Saturday will be an egg based meal (probably as basic as egg n chips!) and I still have some chickens in the freezer so Sunday roast chicken, Monday chicken biryani and Tuesday Chicken broth with homemade bread. Phew! Means I don't have to think about food for almost a week.

We do enjoy a bottle of wine once or thrice a week (ok, sometimes four) but with it being expensive and now on the luxury list, savings have been made as it's now officially off the shopping list. Going to keep my eye out in the charity shops for any home wine making stuff and then dig out my mother's recipes for nettle wine (my garden grows those in abundance) and pototo peel wine. May take a while to hunt down the equipment via charity shops but I'm not prepared to pay full whack for it; plus, it will cast me back to my childhood and the rhythmic: plop-plop-plop-plop of the fermentation process :rotfl:

G'night Toughies; another day survived, sleep until revived

Byatt

prepareathome wrote: »

argg I used the state pension calculator to check hubbys pension date the other day, but didn't check mine again as did so a few months ago and it said I would be eligible at 65 but just now was telling hubby his new age and he said maybe should check in case mine has changed, it has gone back another year till 66. so heaven knows if I will ever live long enough to claim it, as its gone from 60 to 62 to 65 and now to 66 in the space of just over a year.....

PAH, I may be stating the obvious but did you make sure your checked the box for being a woman? I know when I did it the other day I forgot and of course it was higher for being a man. I nearly had a fit! :eek:

scrabbles_2

3v3 wrote: »

We do enjoy a bottle of wine once or thrice a week (ok, sometimes four) but with it being expensive and now on the luxury list, savings have been made as it's now officially off the shopping list. Going to keep my eye out in the charity shops for any home wine making stuff and then dig out my mother's recipes for nettle wine (my garden grows those in abundance) and pototo peel wine. May take a while to hunt down the equipment via charity shops but I'm not prepared to pay full whack for it; plus, it will cast me back to my childhood and the rhythmic: plop-plop-plop-plop of the fermentation process :rotfl:

Ask on your local freecycle / freegle? I did that and I was inundated with demijohns and bottles, also got some fermentation buckets, a capper, a heat mat, siphoning tubes, even a few tins of beer and wine mixes... pretty much everything we needed except yeast and sugar IIRC. There are a LOT of people who buy all the stuff, make one quantity of vinegar then give up :rotfl: I have to confess to not having made wine for a year or so (can only drink tiny amounts so tend not to bother) but OH brews his own lager and made turbocider for Christmas.

debtfreenow

I can sympathise with "Tiny Kitchen Syndrome".

The way I see it is that there are two basic kitchen "sizes" - that is: absolutely minute and decent size.

I tend to think that "food assemblers" can manage with an "absolutely minute" kitchen. They only want enough space to get out a readymade meal and stick it in the microwave at one end of the day and make some instant coffee and toast at the start of the day and that's about it.

"Proper cooks", on the other hand, need a decent-size kitchen. They tend to cook from scratch a lot more, are genuinely interested in food, etc. "Cooks" need a decent size kitchen.

End result is that somehow most builders (both of present times and past times) have decided that the majority of people are "food assemblers" and those of us who are "proper cooks" are often in the position that we have to try and deal with the tiny kitchens that a lot of homes have because they weren't designed with us in mind:(

shegar

mardatha wrote: »

I've got a big kitchen with room for everything. It's easy to keep tidy but hell on the feet wandering round it to collect everything for the dinner !

Ive also got a big kitchen with table and chairs in and a huge range, I think most woman want a nice big kitchen, ive also got 2 largish windows so I get plenty of light, loads of cupboard space because weve got a utility/wash room for most of the white goods go in there accept the fridge which I do like in the kitchen, like you say I spend most of my time walking around the table and chairs to get to another cupboard for contents............Thats where it must be so nice for people when they build their own home, oh to have the rooms exactly size you want ......

Ive been so busy today, firstly I was up at 6 cos carer in at 7 ,I painted the living room ceiling at 7.30, got our breakfast done, lovely porridge, then I went to work for 3 hrs, come home at 12 done sandwich for lunch, painted the ceiling second time, whilst that was drying I done 2 loads of washing/drying, /ironing/, made the bed up with clean duvet/sheets..........Went back and done 3 rd coat on ceiling, went outside done chickens, come back in and done 4 th and final coat on ceiling, done :eek::eek:The reason the ceiling had 4 coats was because we had new plaster board and plaster done on Monday, it is pristine white and im so pleased /relieved..........Had quick shower, then had app at Drs for hubby at 4.30. home, had another sandwich for tea no time to cook today, and here I am sitting down on puter for a half hour, so Id say id packed quite a few things in to today, I go mad like that at times when Ive got something I want/need to do its full steam a head, ive just got hubby changed and ive put him to bed..................................The weather will turn quite a lot colder from next day or 2, also saying theres a lot of frosty nights next week and cold day time temps.........

So all of us that have stored some surplus food for the bad weather we maybe able to get stuck into if we end up with snow................Hope you are all doing ok out there, hugs to all that need them and there are quite a few of us with different problems to contend with, and above all keep warm....

Kimsmum

[QUOTE=scrabbles;50539251

Changing the subject completely - I don't suppose anyone has ever come across skimmed evaporated milk have they? Would people mind looking out at their supermarket of choice?[/QUOTE]
Scrabbles. I get semi skimmed evaporated milk from Asd* its from there good for you range 410g for 52p. Hope this helps.