'supporting each other through really tough times'

Popperwell

It's taken all day but I have found a contents policy offering £60,000 cover(£45 excess)£48.99 standard or £94.99 with accidental cover...(I'm going for standard cover)

That beats the first quote from Mum's company(A bank actually)£87.52 and they wrere only offering £50,000

and the Housing Association Insurance doesn't cover for £60,000 the highest is £40,000 and that comes in at £201.61 standard £287.67 with accidental cover...

I could save perhaps £1 with the HA but would only have £9,000 cover but if I do accidental cover that would cost me £30 more but again I only have £9,000 cover

So I am going to go with £48.99. over all I have saved approx £150 on the worst quote and another £40 on the best quote.

Right, I will not mention insurance again and I really want to thank you for your help...I was still tempted to do without it but things can go wrong as you have all said. Unless a lot of items were destroyed I probably would still not claim because doing so increases the premium but I have peace of mind.

I pay no fee if I pay weekly/monthly either but I will pay it off in one go then if money gets tight or something goes wrong in the future I am covered for the year.

Approx £3 a week. I haven't much to break and...not much to spill on carpets and they are so old, it might improve the look of them. I might do accidental insurance if/when I get new carpet in at a future time.

Possession

7WW I touch pastry as little as possible, if making manually I use a knife until it's impossible and then put my fingers under a really cold tap to make them cold. I also use very cold water in the mix.

Popperwell

I said elsewhere regarding my food store, my Christmas yellow stickered turkey joint has frozen solid in the freezer compartment that I am unable to remove like the drawers and I cannot free it:mad:so I may not be able to have it for Christmas and I will have to eat everything else and make the fridge/freezer empty, switch it off and let it defrost. It has frozen to the wire shelf:(

kidcat

havent quite caught up yet but wanted to post quickly about household insurance. I worked in insurance before the kids so cant quote prices etc but I can give basic facts that have not changed firstly - it is important not to under insure, if you are under insured you will not get the amount you are insured for, you will only receive a percentage. For example if you are insured for £10000 but actually have £20000 of contents then you will only be able to claim £5000 ie if you are only insured for half your contents you will only get half the amount you have covered. It is therefore vital to make sure the amount you are covered for is more than enough to cover absolutely everything you own.

I have seen many cases where people have lost everything and then the claim comes in and they have forgotten loads of stuff they had and are not claiming for - I have in the past helped friends write their claims after a major loss and its silly things people forget.

Please please please make sure you count everything in - better to have too much cover than too little. Its always an idea to have a photo or two of each room and its contents on a disc held somewhere else - or even in online storage - open a photo account somewhere and upload the pics - it wont give you exact details maybe but it will help you get started.

kidcat

Slow Cooker Rissotto Recipe

The original recipe was sent to me a while back by someone here and I have adjusted it - its a fairly forgiving recipe so can take a few adaptions

Sautee 3 leeks with 2 cloves of garlic, a packet of chopped bacon and 1 & a half cups of long grain rice (I use easy cook)

Throw into SC on high with 400ml white wine and 800ml veg stock. I add a few tomatoes, couple of TBS of dried herbs about 300gm mushrooms chopped. (as long as the total hits 1200ml ratio doesnt matter)

When rice looks almost done I add a couple of handfuls of cheese, stir through and leave to finish off.

It takes about an hour in my large SC but longer in the small one for some reason.

[Deleted User]

Hello all, gosh you lot don't bounce very well do you? KATIEOWL and GINNY - hope you are both at least comfortable now, and have started to heal, ouch,ouch,ouch!!! JEM - glad your finger is healing, I love the sound of your kitchen decorations, you are clever!! BYATT - I'm so glad you have made friends with your lovely woodburner, glad you found a trivet, bargain price too. Someone suggested making firestarters from nice dry pinecones drizzled with melted wax from the tail ends of candles/tea lights and left to harden. That would be free, maybe worth a go. When we light ours we put in 4 sheets of scrunched newspaper, them some newspaper twists about 4/5, then half a dozen pieces of kindling. We make paper logs and one of those goes at the back and a slightly larger log at the front. We light the fire with the bar fully out at the bottom and the wheel fully open, when the kindling has caught, we close the bar and shut the wheel down a bit, by the time the fire is going well we close the wheel almost all the way. That seems to get the temperature nice and high, and we burn less fuel that way.

FUDDLE - Nell and I did a little happy dance round her study when we heard about your good news, so happy for you,so very happy pet!!!!

The concert was wonderful but I was poorly and ended up at the out of hours GP service which is a wonderful place and ended up on anti biotics, which sorted everything out. Had a lovely easy day on Sunday and sat by the open fire in the evening reading, no tele, no music, no radio it was heavenly. Nice to be home again and my puppy was so pleased to see me, he keeps coming and leaning on me and asking for necky scratches. He also had half my toast which he seemed to enjoy, little perisher. Talk tomorrow, stay safe all and stay warm, Cheers Lyn xxx.

kidcat

Byatt - your insurer would send out a loss adjuster and they will look at all your contents, if its obvious that if was over then the adjuster will set a sum and thats the figure they use. Dont forget that usually things like clothes, textiles etc are not new for old!
I wish they made this clearer to people who take out cover.

Have finally caught up, ginny I hope you are ok after your fall, I tripped over the dog today and was not very complimentary about him - he is a huge great big lab and should know better

jem - so glad your finger is feeling better.

kittie - thank you for the warning about the storm, I have noted it on my diary just to be sure

fuddle

Kidcat, I don't understand I've got home insurance to sort next month. As long as I get cover for what I need I will be ok? Will my clothes be insurable at all?

Hullo Lyn So sorry to read you've been poorly while you've been away. At least you were with Nell.

kidcat

Fuddle - look at everything you own, add up how much it would cost to buy everything brand new again, dont price up cheapest price up the equivalent, so if you bought a really good John Lewis sofa from a charity shop for £50, that would actually cost maybe £2000 to replace. You should price up like for like quality.
Clothes are the exception as they knock off wear and tear etc as do most companies with curtains and bedding etc. Be on the safe side though and price the lot up new. That total figure is the sum you need to insure for - there is a tool somewhere that helps you.

I look at my house room to room, my sofa would cost £3000 to replace (I paid £75) my carpet would cost £1500, my desk £100, bookcases £200 and so on. Add all the large stuff then generalise the smaller items ie books £100, DVDs £500 until you build up a picture of the room.

Add all the rooms together (dont forget stores - 100 toilet rolls, 350 black bin bags etc) then you will have a figure. Then all you need to do each year is consider which items you may have added and any you no longer have.

The number of particularly older people who are under insured is shocking and the way insurance companies get away with it isnt good.
Remember that whilst insurance is supposed to put you back in the position you were in before the incident - an insurance companies main aim is profit so reducing cost of claims is in their interest.

2tonsils

7_week_wonder wrote: »

Please can I pick everybody's brains again on my favourite problem: pastry!

I'm still having problems rolling it out - as soon as I start rolling I get cracks at the edge that start spreading inwards so I end up rolling the pastry out far bigger than I need to take account of the cracks. And nothing I do seems to enable me to stick the cracks back together. (Is this making any sense?) Does that mean I'm not adding enough water to my pastry? I've looked at lots of youtube videos etc of pastry and they all seem to have this perfect lump of pastry that rolls out into a perfect circle and I just can't get that.

Cakes and biscuits I can do, pastry just seems to be beyond me!

You could try a different brand of flour as sometimes they vary. I would also suggest you could try about half a teaspoon of xanthan gum. Its used in gluten free pastry to make it more flexible. You can buy it at Asda etc....