Making chicken feed of my mortgage

muddywhitechicken

Thanks BW. Miss F is much brighter today, she is eating well and is currently digging a hole in my flower bed

muddywhitechicken

So here is my analysis of the £71.42 I spent in town this morning:

£14.50 on chicken treats (dried mealworms, sunflower seeds and spinach - I won't need to buy the first two again this month)
£4.26 on food for the wild birds
£16.07 on vegetables (including chestnuts and dried porcini mushrooms but not the spinach)
£9.00 on fruit (apples, pears, oranges, persimmons, pomegranates, grapes and orange juice)
£8.75 on dairy (12 pints milk, gruyere cheese, butter, natural yogurt, single cream and creme fraiche)
£0.00 on meat/poultry/fish
£8.18 on toiletries (not needed this month but items that we normally buy that are on half price offer this week)
£2.39 on cleaning products (including less than half price Ariel liquid in Wilkinsons)
£4.58 on storecupboard items (pasta, honey, free range chicken stock cubes)
£4.10 on Christmas (gift bag, gift box, tissue paper and raffia ribbon)

I know that this is pricey compared to a lot of people but I'm quite pleased. It doesn't include any meat etc but I would usually spend twice this much!

muddywhitechicken

I filled up with petrol (£35.61) and got a couple of interesting nectar card coupons...

£8 off £80
9p off/litre fuel when you spend £25 on toiletries and healthcare

I already had a double points coupon and 300 bonus points when you spend £20 on wine.

So now I'm planning a shopping list for Thursday evening when the only things we will really need are razor blades for Mr MWC and teabags!

We currently have £74.22 of nectar points - not bad considering we haven't shopped at Sainsburys as often this year.

Fish & chips for tea (Mr MWC paid from his winnings at the races last week)

2 eggs again today

muddywhitechicken

We have a dad-free Sunday :j as we saw them both on Friday

Today's plans:

a NSD
lots of laundry - 1 load of whites already done
go for a walk
rake leaves and tidy garden
clean chicken coop
orange, honey & parsley buttered chicken (we don't eat chicken very often but when we do it is organic free-range) with potato, cauliflower & leek gratin and roasted carrots and onions for lunch
make soup for lunch tomorrow

muddywhitechicken

Lunch was delicious and (because there was only the two of us) I got a leg! The recipe was from the Sainsbury's magazine 2013 cook's calendar (March) as was the sausage & butternut squash toad-in-the-hole we made last week (November). Also looking forward to February's recipe (crisp duck breasts with rosti cakes).

My 2 ebay items (colleague's DVDs) end very soon. No bids or watchers on 1, 2 watchers and 3 bids on the other.

muddywhitechicken

No last minute ebay bidding unfortunately - sold 1 DVD for £2.71. That's £1+ more than I would have got from music magpie for it so I shouldn't complain! Sold the other 27 DVDs to music magpie for £10.64 (I told you my colleague had a load of tat!). So my 50% = £6.67

Spent an hour in the garden this afternoon. The leaves are raked off the lawn and are now at the bottom of the garden for The Girls to dig around in. There are still a lot of leaves on the trees so I will tidy up properly later in the month.

Decided to make Hugh F-W's pearl barley broth (pearl barley, onions, carrot, parsnip and celery with vegetable stock, bay leaf, thyme, ground coriander, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, mace and parsley).

1 egg today

BookWorm

muddywhitechicken wrote: »

Decided to make Hugh F-W's pearl barley broth (pearl barley, onions, carrot, parsnip and celery with vegetable stock, bay leaf, thyme, ground coriander, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, mace and parsley).

Mmm that sounds yummy - have you made it before? Let me know how it turns out?

muddywhitechicken

The soup was delicious BW - it had a nice kick to it

Just walked to the village PO half a mile from where I work to post the ebay DVD. It cost me £1 more than I thought (and I had charged for) because although it went through the hole in the template-thingy, she had to push it through :mad: Still made more profit than if I had sold it to music magpie though and colleague has said I can keep all the money

moneycurious

mmmm soup, think i mite do one this week. It really bugs me when that happens with the postage , they always say "do you want to risk it" , and my response is yes!!
Have you put any more bits on ebay?

muddywhitechicken

Soup again for dinner as well!

(one of our favourites - Bill Granger's chicken & ravioli - recipe taken from Waitrosedotcom and using leftover chicken from yesterday)

No, I haven't put anything else on ebay moneycurious. I'm not sure that a) I have anything to sell and b) I want the stress...

Earlier this year (before I decided to be a MFW) I had a bit of a clearout and gave my brother a huge pile of stuff to sell as he needed the money

My only spend today was £2.20 postage