Enjoying the Sunshine whilst Saving for the Rainy Day

slm6002

Same here with kids - driving me potty these past few days. Neighbor has just taken them all to park for an hour or so - feels like heaven here. I was so grateful

Not long to go - keep going

hohum

slm6002 wrote: »

I will be watching and waiting to see what you do with that bulgar wheat as i had some sent in a lucky box from approved foods

Hi, just thought I'd stick my oar in re bulghar wheat because I do like it.

I pretty much just use it for tabbouleh (salad with herbs, lemon, tomatoes, cucumber)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tabbouleh_91782

You can make a good pilaf with it.

Or kibbeh if you eat meat/ are prepared to spend ages making little minced lamb patties. There are versions where you mix the lamb and the bulghur, and there are fancier versions where you make a bulghur wheat shell with minced lamb inside (I file these under 'life is too short' )

It also appears as stuffing for vegetables eg aubergine in various middle eastern recipes.

Claudia Roden and Yotam Ottolenghi have good recipes are worth googling in conjunction with bulgar wheat

abba1772

When do you kiddies go back to school dfw321????

Ours have been back for two weeks now and it's great :j as ds1 gets bored and misses the routine of school bless my little geek lol xx

debtfreewannabe321

Good Morning all, kids went back to school yesterday and can you believe it after 6 weeks of lie ins we were up and ready to go by 8.30 :T we had 20 minutes to sit around doing nothing :j today went the same way too! Not having to make the lunches in the mornings helps massively I think as that is what would make us late before, me trying to gather everything together to put in their lunch. Free lunches are very much welcomed here at the moment they are getting free sandwiches, fruit, yoghurts and juice as their servery won't be ready for a couple of months yet.

Yesterday was a total rush after the school run though all the way up to bed time! I had my home start visit and then as soon as I got home a friend asked me to go with her to the local cafe's new opening so we went there before the school run instead of me putting my feet up with a cuppa . After school was the swimming lesson which is 20 minutes away (in traffic) and ds2's teacher was being her usual laid-back self and hadn't sent him out by 3.20!! I had to be at the swimming lesson and have them changed by 3.40 :eek:. After I'd gone in to remove him from class myself we made it there by the skin of our teeth! After returning home, i'd taken my bag off my shoulder and someone had come to take my old garden table & chairs, they are a recycling company and pay you to take these things......I made *drum roll please* £1.08 :rotfl::rotfl:. Luckily dh was home before us and had made dinner (his usual of convenience carp out the freezer) but I was thankful as I was exhausted by then :cool:. DH & DS1 made a nice profit though for playing rugby as someone in their team came round last night with envelopes with cash! They'd made £80 each :eek: I'm trying to talk DH into using this as his pocket money this month but he's already earmarked it for a new rugby shirt (Grrr!).

Anyway today I have got up, done the school run, walked the dog and put a wash on and sat down. And sat down is how I will remain until lunch. At lunch i'll get up to feed myself then come back and sit down until school run time ;)i'm feeling utterly exhausted and so run down,am convinced it's to do with the weather changing! Tonight we have the circus trip too so i'm looking forward to that i'm sure i'll need my energy reserved for that won't I ???

Oh forgot to say yesterday was a NSD too :j I took £10 out of my account to pay for the tea & cake at the new cafe opening but it was all free :T so I ate one cake and nicked two more for DD & DS2 (energy boost for after school and before swimming!). Talking of free food i've been out for blackberries again this morning and have a good hoard in the freezer now so will perhaps make a big crumble or pie or perhaps some more ice cream with them

I made a tabbouleh with the bulgar wheat as when g00gling it that was the most common recipe! Everyone liked it so I think I may do the same as you hohum and save that for salads, everyone loves salad in this house especially when it's not your boring run of the mill cucumbers, toms, lettuce sort of thing. I made a Dhal with the red lentils which was also delicious and may be my lunch later on as there was quite a bit left over :T. Everyone also loved this so i've had a successful week with new recipes :T Tonight I think we may be grabbing a grilled chicken kebab/ chippy on the way home from the circus as I won't have time to feed them after school and before we need to leave. I'll bring them snacks for in there and probably treat them to something there so hopefully they will last until afterwards for dinner!

I've had a bill from my rental house, the last tenant not only left my house in a mess, didn't pay her rent for however many months but has left a gas bill :mad: It's only £25 but after all the grief she caused me i'm pretty mad about it. I have paid it from my current account but am going to log on now and move money from my rental fund to cover it (grrrr again!!).

I think that is all perhaps will be back later but for now i will catch up on all of you and watch my film in peace and drink my tea whilst it's still hot Bliss :A

brizzledfw

Grr to carp tenants

Great news re your mornings! Fab news. Bulghar wheat does make a great salad/tabbouleh but we are now big fans of quinoa and as Granny says, use a bit like rice. Middle Eastern recipes should provide lots of ideas.

debtfreewannabe321

Hey Brizzle! You've just reminded me about the quinoa, I will use that up next the bag was so small I just sort of put it in the cupboard and forgot about it! So thanks for that

Well I have had a lovely relaxing afternoon, I feel slightly rejuvenated after my rest on the sofa :T The film was absolutely awful so if you see a film called abandoned, avoid it at all costs!

I've printed off the tickets for later after having to find and change ink cartridges (thankfully I had some in as I left it a little late if I had to pop out and get some ) . I've also just hung out my first wash using soap nuts! I did what it said on the pack and didn't use any clothing conditioner just the soap nuts. It's come out looking clean, but it's wet so the real test will be once it's dried I guess. I chose lots of dirty clothes too for the first test just to see how it came out (i.e DS1 & DS2 & DH's clothes :rotfl: ). If they do work well it's much easier than making soap powder and much cheaper too

DH came home at lunch (before he disappears for a few days) and told me he had used his CC AGAIN!! I just don't know what to say to him I am not paying it off again as it will mean jeopardising savings again this month. I've sent over £60 to it which was put aside for his 02 bills (2 months worth) and I think he still owes around £70 on it which he can pay himself. I didn't want to argue with him over it but I feel so frustrated, I am budgeting for EVERYTHING and yet if he fancies a bottle of wine/ snacks/ whatever he just sticks it on his CC if he doesn't have any money on him. I want to save for a house and he doesn't care....I wish he would grow up just a little bit sometimes. We were talking about moving next year and I said to him we need to see if we can get a mortgage soon and for how much so we can start looking after xmas to which he replied, ok and if we can't perhaps that £10k we have saved will get us a nice rented house for a couple of year so we can save again :wall: I told him under no circumstances (well ok maybe a real emergency) are we touching that money I have saved!!!! Jeez louise someone tell me what i can say to him to make him see sense!!!!!!!

*rant over* sorry

debtfreewannabe321

Hello all, was about to say G'Morning until I realised the time ! :rotfl: I've been up since around 7 when one of the smaller children screamed up the stairs at me " Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum!!!!!!!!!! The dog has been sick everywhere!!!!!!!!!!! Ewwwwwwwwwwww come and clean it!!!!" Urgh. So that was the end of my lie in. For the record it wasn't sick it was poo. The joys! I think he was paying me back for leaving him alone all day with ds1 yesterday instead of taking him out with me. He also refused to eat his food for ds1 and refused to go for a walk with him (just laid down and refused to move!!) DS1 called me up panicking at around 5 pm yesterday saying he hadn't eaten a thing and was just laid there sulking! That dog! There is nothing wrong with him either as he's eaten his food this morning and was jumping about all over the place?! Perhaps just an off day or just was missing me (hope that's all it is!).

Anyway back to Friday, we went to the circus! It was great but I got very upset when I saw they still used animals and that the animals didn't look happy ...I haven't been around horses for a few years but they didn't look good to me and it really upset me. Aside from that I thought it was amazing. We managed to spend around £25 in there on food/drinks and souvenirs :eek::eek:. I also spent £18 in @sda on dinner for that night as we had to get petrol anyway. Yesterday was the family party and it went well, it wasn't as far as I thought so didn't take long to get there :T (petrol saved too to last the week or maybe 2 weeks if careful :T ) We went for a drink afterwards to catch up as party was manic (lots of screaming kids) and DSIL paid for ours which was lovely of her, and for which I truly am thankful as it would have come from my food budget had I paid for it . Only spends yesterday were £4 on tolls! I didn't have to cook either as kids just filled up on party food (as did I ) so win win and a nice day out

After my lazy day the other day I have already put 2 washes on, swept up & mopped kitchen (after naughty dogs poop!), cleaned cooker and done 3 loads of washing up :eek: (think DW is broken AGAIN :mad:). So reviews on the soap nuts....I think they are fantastic! And for anyone who does as much washing as me I suggest you give them a try and see what you think . I did what it suggested and held off on using the conditioner for the clothes too just to see what would happen and everything has come out soft & clean so i'm impressed :money: They work out to be very frugal in my opinion and have no nasty chemicals so i'm sold and think I will use these instead of usual HM soap powder from now on :T.

Right off to have some lunch, might be back in a bit!

debtfreewannabe321

We've had another nsd here a nice two hour bike ride (with the dog and two kids I don't cover much more than 3 miles:rotfl:) we've picked another load of blackberries which are soaking. Dog is nice and chilled out now and has forgiven me for yesterday and dd is peeling potatoes (well she's trying! ) whilst ds2 is building a house (shame it's just with lego :rotfl:). Although it rained this morning it's been nice this afternoon so I've also got two washes drying/dried on the line :T i feel much better today too so must remember to keep up the liquid iron I've been taking! hope everyone is having a nice day :A

debtfreewannabe321

Just ordered my first Christmas present! :T

Dicount code if any one wants it for the book people. ..SPECIAL £5 off a £25 spend I think it was and if under that it was £3 off. I got the 50 ladybird book collection for £30 delivered :T

debtfreewannabe321

Morning, bright & sunny here today :j We used up the lentil/bean shepherd's pie last night with sliced potatoes on top instead of mash and I have to say it tasted nicer than the first one i'd made...perhaps the trick is to eat old food?! Anyway dinner today will either be some concoction whereby I find a use for the tofu I bought (but have never eaten before and therefore don't really know what to do with it :rotfl:) or pasta bake as it's a pretty busy afternoon later after the school run. I've put my two smaller kids down for activities here and there and was filling out the calendar last night and realised they have something on nearly every day which will probably be too much for them :eek:...
Monday's so far are dancing (in school hall) then rainbows for DD (DS2 is just doing the dance)
Tuesday's is youth club
Wednesday's is gymnastics
Thursday's is swimming
Friday is FREE :j,
Saturday i've put them down for a football club (which i'm beginning to regret after neither wanted to play football at their cousins party just gone!)
Sunday is FREE :j.

Secretly i'm hoping they will want to drop the football anyway as it's the most expensive alongside the swimming (which I class as an essential). The other clubs are all cheap or free apart from dancing which is £6 every week for the two of them. So we will see...i'll give it a few weeks and i'll be back telling you they've quit them all (I hope not though!). Next month I may need to up the budget for clubs slightly though if they do want to keep them all up :eek:

Anyway today is a housework day for me but i'm going to have to take it easy as i've really bad cramps that are doubling me over this morning (hurry up Aunt Flo and do your thing :mad:) The sun is shining though and my mission is to:
*Get to the bottom of the washing basket (:rotfl: haha yes I know probably impossible)
*call v1rgin and give notice to leave :T
*Hoover
*quick tidy around
*washing up and clean kitchen
*walk dog
*sort a dinner out of some kind :cool:

Jobs that need doing before the end of the month:
*find a suitable alternative for landline/internet and have a look for cashback
*find a freeview box!
*fill out my expenses & HS diary (keep forgetting to do this )

Not too much to do and hoping to do it all pretty quickly (aside from the washing which will probably take all day :rotfl:). Hope the sun is shining where you all are Make the most of it