Living on next to nought - is that the key?

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Pipster - *high five* to DD for nailing a cheese sauce, and I agree wholeheartedly about the bonding opportunity of learning 'crafts' (and cooking is craft) with others. I'm hopeful it is the same for brizzle.

Well, I went to bed early(ish), slept like a log the whole night through and have woke up feeling better than last night - no aches - so hopefully I've dodged 'whatever it was'.

So, Wednesday........ Well, I'm going to aim for a NSD as if I get it, I will of achieved 20 nsd's for the month - which is by far the most ever. Plus it will of paid dividends in *saving* me money - although the savings have been diverted into *charity* expenditure this month, as mentioned previously. However, if it can become habit........AF goes without saying, as the budget got blown on a car part *weeks* (seems like that) ago :rotfl:

Dinner this evening. Mmmm, not sure. I want to make what was on the planner for tomorrow night, as I have seen a good variation of it on the internet. So I'm truly not sure yet. Perhaps my *GA* will have a rifle through the cupboards and rustle up a *little something* :rotfl:

Right, I better get shifting. There are no snap bags packed yet and the flasks are cold......

Thanks as ever for popping by, reading and commenting. Y'all know I appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying (not grumpy )

miss_empty_piggy

Totally agree with the bonding idea. Am planning on spending time with DDs today baking and possibly teaching eldest DD how to do lasagne but might just start with the sauce first. Don't want to go in too much all at once.

hope you all have a lovely day.
x x x

Karmacat

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Well, I went to bed early(ish), slept like a log the whole night through and have woke up feeling better than last night - no aches - so hopefully I've dodged 'whatever it was'.

Good to hear, hope it stays dodged, so to speak

And roadkill of 3p being a return of 1%, since you had £3 in your purse - I'd like to point out that thats 1% in one day :j:j:j which means you could easily be a millionaire before long :rotfl: I'd like an autograph now please

Do you have any sweet chestnut trees round you that you know of, Greying? I just checked one of mine locally so I had a target during my walk to get some fresh air, and they're really starting to plump up. Picked a double handful, and I'll be able to go back on Thursday and get loads, I only mooched about with my bare hands for ten minutes or so, gardening gloves and a bag will net me a lot more

EssexHebridean

Morning! Very quick catch up here - all seemingly good at Greying Towers, and I'm impressed to hear how thoroughly DP has "got it"! Good training there!

Food is all looking yummy - chickpea curry too - haven't done that in ages. It's something I often do when I have the end of a Butternut squash to use up - chickpea & butternut squash curry is gorgeous!

Fantastic to hear of people cooking with young people too - the very fact that so many folk didn't a few years back is what's causing a lot of the heavy reliance on convenience foods now, I'm sure. I've said for a while that each and every food bank should have a cookery workshop attached to it, so that those who have no idea can be taught the basics of cooking from scratch.

And...that said, I must check our meal plan to see what we're eating tonight! :rotfl: Happy days all!

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Loads of visitors - how lovely and thank you for taking time out in your day to comment on this thread

miss empty piggy - well done you - I didn't learn to cook lasagne until I was at Uni, a fellow student taught me. I always use J's tip and put a little white/cheese sauce on the middle layer of pasta, it makes the meat or veg sauce just go so creamy and tasty.

Karma - Ain't no chance of me becoming a millionaire anytime soon - I found 'nowt' today Still, looking on the brightside, I found 100% of what I had in my pockets today - I'm getting better! :rotfl:

Yes, we have a sweet chestnut locally, but it has yielded very little this year - it is in a very public place and it is amazing how 'popular' it is for foragers, but this year it's given up very little, most of the nuts were unformed and the casings dropped early. When we went on our circular walk on the 6th, I spotted 2 sweet chestnuts and they were absolutely loaded with fruit - much, much larger casings. But they obviously weren't ready, as the one or two that had dropped were impossible to prize open with bare hands - gloves needed, you're right. I'd love to go back to investigate, but it's unfortunately in the section where we got a little bit 'lost', and DP decided he'd seen enough of those farm fields to last a lifetime - I can imagine something of a 'hard sell' trying to get DP to see that as a walk option this weekend :rotfl:

EH - how wonderful to *see* you. Loved, loved, loved your capturing of the essence of 'wellifest' - well done you

I wonder how 7 week wonder is getting on in the new job? And how everything else is?

Well, today has gone well - I hope it has for you too I chalked up another NSD - my last of the month, but I have reached the goal of 20, so I am well chuffed Today was also AF. I'll alter the siggie later.

You can tell we're at the end of the month, we're definitely out of the 'interesting' bits in the pantry However, I rustled up 'pizza and penne pasta' for this evening's dinner. The pizza was a piece that was frozen from Friday night - so red pepper 'flavoured' and I made some tomato sauce with onions, garlic, celery, carrot and passata - threw in some balsamic vinegar and a few dried herbs and then combined it with some penne pasta (mrT EDV). I didn't take a pic - as I didn't want to insult your intelligence as to what pizza and pasta looks like :rotfl: It did taste nice though

I'd better finish up, someone wants to watch TV with me again .... So Hugh F-W better be worth it :rotfl:

The 3 things I am grateful for today are;

'ordinary extraordinary people' - you won't find them on 'celebrittee' shows, nor in the pages of newspapers, but they are the people that make a real difference everyday. They run challenge and support threads on here; support, comment or advise fellow travellers along the DFW road; pick up litter as they walk along; pick up the person who stumbled in the town centre; push the broken down vehicle to a kerb to help a stranded motorist and unleash the traffic backlog....... plus a million and one other 'small things' that make the world a better place each day.

that I have enough - enough for me, enough for 'us' and enough to share. This month, whilst not over yet, has proved that point over and over again

to be wanted - my power supply company sooooo doesn't want to lose me as a customer, they wrote and told me so...............:rotfl:

Thanks so much from dropping by, reading and commenting. It really makes my day and I appreciate it greatly.

See y'all later.

Greying

beanielou

Your power company made me laugh :rotfl:

miss_empty_piggy

Greying, I couldn't cook anything when I went to Uni. I remember ringing my mum to ask her how to boil an egg. She was horrified, but I didn't like eggs then so didn't need to know (BF wanted one). I'm still not a great cook but then DOH is a fantastic cook and loves to do it so I guess I'm very lucky. I'm a better baker and my girls (9 and 14) both love to bake probably as it's something we've always done together. However, I am mindful that I don't want them to be in the same position as me when they're older.

I totally agree with EssexHebridean that we should help our children to be able to do these things. My mum didn't cook much with us, she's a pop it and ping it queen but she hates cooking and always has done so I can't blame her, but I would like my children to be able to cook with proper ingredients rather than microwave meals.

We didn't get around to the lasagne today due to various unforseen circumstances, but it is on the agenda tomorrow. My only top tip was that I use condensed mushroom soup instead of cheese sauce. I used to hate cheese sauce and it was quicker to just part dilute (plus I didn't know how to make it!!) plus it had less fat in. I might teach the eldest to make a cheese sauce though as I won't be having any unfortunately.

EssexHebridean

Morning! Brilliant stuff with the NSD's - brilliant stuff! :T Thanks for your kind comments about Pippi's wedding photos too - the "album" arrived with me yesterday and I have to confess to being very pleased - and rather relieved - that it all went so well! I have NO idea how proper wedding photographers can do that sort of thing all the time! :rotfl:

Miss Empty Piggy - entirely understandable not being able to boil an egg if you didn't have any need to know - should have told BF to do his own!

Oddly one thing we don't seem to have many of locally are sweet chestnuts - although we do have a number of Hazels and those have barely fruited (nutted?) at all this year. We're over-run with crab apples, rosehips (huge ones too), and sloes though. Also Quinces - we know some folk with a tree locally and they don't use them - they gave us another crateful at the weekend too. There are now 6 tubs of Quince cheese in the larder... :eek: Very lovely but lord knows what we're going to do with it all! :rotfl:

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Beanie - what made me laugh even more was on the back of the letter was a section 'what to do if we've upset you' listing that you should contact one of their agents, if they couldn't help then ask for a manager and if the situation still wasn't rectified, then phone the Director's office (number given). When they were being complete and utter ****holes, a couple of years ago, where was this information??? Still, to be fair, they had upped their game and weren't too bad to deal with for the last 12 months or so.

miss empty piggy - it's never a crime to 'not know'. And I think it's wonderful that you want your children to know how to cook - along with a whole host of other 'life skills' I am quite sure

Essex Hebridean - I read somewhere once, I can't remember where - I'm leaning toward Roger Deakin or Elspeth Thompson, but I really can't remember - that the author put a quince in their car (glove box I think) just to be able to drive around with the intoxicating aroma, 'at their disposal'. Mmm, I've only been lucky enough to get some quinces once - and didn't want to use them...... because I'd lose the smell....

Right, so today is another AFD, so my siggie stands at 20/20 NSD and 30/31 AFD - and the 'lost' AFD was down to purchasing a bottle of wine - at a good price - that won't be consumed until NYE. So technically, the spend was on alcohol, but nothing consumed all month

So, what did I think of doing these challenges and would I do them again? Well, I've done the NSD and we've both achieved the AF, so I think that's a success and yes, I'd do it again.

The whole intention of the AFD was to save the 'social' budget to buy a 'want' rather than a 'need'. I had my eye on saving toward a bike carrier for the car. But fate intervened and we needed a spare part for the car. Dear Reader, I cannot tell you how good it felt to be able to dip into the 'social' envelope, withdraw the money and pay for the part with cash - knowing by that stage that we were happy to forgo a bottle of wine or some beers each week. It helped that we are not big drinkers anyway. I don't think we'll ever go teetotal - a glass of wine with a meal is nice, and we like tasting different real ales, there are some pretty funky craft brewers and brewsters out there But we've not had alcohol for over a month (we actually 'unofficially' started this in September) and I think AF months will feature in our money saving adventure again. Let's hope we don't keel over sozzled, the first time we sniff alcohol fumes though

The NSD have been very good. I think that whilst I had previously been buying YS'd things, and bits here and there, I was spending the budget too readily. OK, so I could argue that I bought food items etc that we used and that were all used up, but, having notched up 20 NSD's, I think I need to look very hard at whether I truly needed to buy as much as I was. Is there room for reducing our grocery budget without causing us to go hungry?

Now, it's the end of the month, so let's have a look at the 'scores on the doors'. Dear Reader, I have a grand total of......30p left out of my household budget for October.

My goodness, I can hear the wails from here, 'Call yourself a moneysaver Greying...', '30 poxy p - our pub footy team's goalie can save more than that....' Ah, but wait, of course, I would agree that 30p, even in cold hard cash, doesn't seem a lot. But, I was also able to 'divert' £35 out of the social fund to buy a part for the car that was an unexpected expense. Furthermore, I spent £10.19 (but we'll call it £10 for ease) on purchasing items for, and postage of a parcel to support Memory Girl's tedsforzimbabwe charity. This charitable donation was made after the month had officially started, it was not budgeted for so the money had to come out of the grocery fund. Also, technically, a further £3 came out of the grocery money to buy items (Long life milk) for the local foodbank. However, as this was a food item, was 'planned' and hopefully has been consumed by someone, I'll not add that in to the total. So, actually, Dear Reader, I have been able to divert or utilise £45.30 of my household budget for *other purposes* this month. That is 28%. I'm quite chuffed. Imagine if I was here before you saying 'I've put 28% into the 'key fund' - or my Credit Union account as it now is

Now, whilst I clearly haven't been able to put this *saved* money in the emergency fund this month, I have been able to prove that we at Greying Towers can do it. We've done it once, we can do it again. We've not starved during October, we've certainly not missed drink - although both agreed we thought about having a beer when we struggled with the fence panels/gravel board a couple of weeks ago, because we worked so hard... but the moment passed and we had a cup of coffee instead

Anyway, dinner this evening was 'entrail and kidney' stew and green monster mash. I saw something on the internet that inspired me, but clearly didn't have time to implement it, as my version looked suspiciously like a poor imitation of 'Orville'. I would show you a picture of this monstrosity, but even the camera baulked at it's hideousness and wouldn't take a shot. Sorry It tasted fine - I can't tell you how I got the mash green, because I'll make EH ill, and I don't want to scare off visitors to the thread

So, today I am grateful for these 3 things;

challenges and budgets - the first for inspiration and the support that MSE'rs readily give to each other and the second for providing the framework within which to have fun and enjoy life - either in the present, or future (delayed gratification)

that 30p is just the tip of the iceberg - the possibilities are there, and DP and I are capable of seizing them.

for sharing - we were able to benefit others less fortunate than ourselves, through the donation of time, effort, goods and money. Humbling and gratifying.

I'm sorry my recent posts have been a bit 'picture - lite' (or maybe that is a good thing?). I intend to try working on my 'food styling' for November......:rotfl::rotfl:

Thank you so much for popping in, reading and commenting. I greatly appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying

brizzledfw

Love the posts Greying... they make me smile and feel happy.

Very pleased about the 30p. That and all the other contributions you have been able to make to assist other people from your tiny grocery budget (well by the Brizzle spend that is!! ) is truly an inspiration. Thank you.