woah... are those MY finances??

Tinytott

stewby wrote: »

Night shift threw me a bit. Completely different to my normal nightshifts at the big hospital.

However, I made a loaf of bread and a rustic cob (only had one tin) and they turned out pretty well. Gave my mum a taste and she has come back from her "friday flea cup" with some more yeast and some more strong white flour as she wants me to make her a loaf too. (woohoo, free yeast and flour).
:rotfl:

Not really done anything to day but might attempt something else bakey. I am really enjoying baking and learning to cook. Hopefully I can get on to baking something a bit more useful such as chicken or stuff.
:undecided

Hope everyone is having a great day.
Hugs.

Hi, just been reading your diary and see you're doing your own baking. I don't know if you know this but apparently, if you ask at the bakery section of Asda, they will give you yeast for free - I saw this over on the old style board, so if they're wrong, it is their fault lol!

Tiny

stewby

Tinytott wrote: »

Hi, just been reading your diary and see you're doing your own baking. I don't know if you know this but apparently, if you ask at the bakery section of Asda, they will give you yeast for free - I saw this over on the old style board, so if they're wrong, it is their fault lol!

Tiny

Oh wow!! Thank you very much for the tip. I will see if my mum can get some at the weekend. (Asda is 18 miles away from me but at the weekend my parents go to their "holiday home" which is only three miles from one and that is where they do their shopping).

Thanks again for your advice.

stewby

So... today is a new beginning. I was noseying online and seen that we can get meat cheaper from the butchery counter in morries than from the shelves at tescimos.
This is probably not news to anyone else in the world, but to me it is a revelation. So our first stop today in the cooking world is morries!!
:eek:

We are going to go around 16:00 as that is when they do their reductions (according to another thread on this forum) but we are mainly going for meat.

Some other things I am buying include:
* Lurpak butter... tescimos has this 2 for £5 but morries is doing 2 for £4!! Same size and everything so we are going to stock up as I am doing a lot of cooking/baking just now. Going to have a nosey to see if it freezes okay.
* Allinsons strong flour... 2 for £2.50 so 3kg for £2.50. That is the equivalent of nine loaves of bread (roughly). We are starting to make our own bread so we will get this and it will do us a few months.

Those are my two major buys this month apart from all the meat (I say all the meat, we are buying mince, a sirloin steak, a couple of porkchops and some pork ribs. hardly all the meat).


Thanks to Tinytott, I have sent my mum away to asda to ask about free yeast.


Oh... and today is a baking/cooking day so off to make chocolate biscuits, brownies, more bread, something delicious for lunch and batch cook lasagne and macaroni cheese. Oh, and whatever else takes my fancy.

stewby

So... here I am back again.

Always knew today was shopping day so wrote out a list with our plan. Went to tescimos and stuck to the plan religiously, almost. The internet tescimos had different deals on to the store so I ended up buying different skinless sausages. We now have 20 walls sausages which I am going to split up into bags of 4. Was really proud as we bought £3 of stuff (4 x tinned soup and tinned peaches) to the food bank and still only spent £9.15!!


Off to morries as I had been playing about on the internet last night and their meat was cheaper than tescimos. Went a bit OTT on the meat but OH is very happy as he now has about a month's supply of pork. Also bought bread flour as it was going cheap at £2.50 for 3kg (allinson brand). Bought some sandwich bags as they were 120 for £2. And got my kitkats as they are my work lunch necessity.


My favourite butter wasn't on offer at morries (although it was online) so off to the wee shop at the top of the hill which had it at 2 for £4.50!! Bargain-ish. Also got scones for 30p and a 'neep' for 30p so that wasn't too bad either.


Total spent today is £37.83 and we almost completely stuck to a shopping list (except the neep, scones and buying the wrong sausages). I am feeling pretty pleased with myself today.


Ginger nuts are now out of the oven. Next step is to seperate out all the meat whilst making lasagne. (I bought take-away tins recently so cook them all in those which allows me to regualate portion sizes and not have much cleaning to do).

Fmess

hey stewby

Well done you on the bargain shopping! I'll have to investigate morries meat counter next time I'm near one. We use a lot of mince because it's cheap but that price is brilliant!

I have to avoid that butter, I love it so much that I spread it too thickly and it's very bad for me in such large quantities! I now have a cheap Ald! One that I don't particularly like and therefore never use much of it. Just realised how stupid this logic sounds!

What dates r u off the Disneyland? I'm so jealous, I've always wanted to go. I once went to Orlando and the ppl I was with didn't want to go . Maybe I could go for my 30th, not very MSE though

Enjoy your baking

Fmess

Forgot to mention; have you noticed on the NOvember thread that everybody is spending money and saying its a SFD as they budgeted for it? It's driving me crazy! Lol, rant over!

stewby

Hey fmess. I think either nsk has changed the rules for November or people are going to reach 25nsd on the 25th November.
Well, apart from you and me anyways. We will still be on 18 and trying to work miracles.


This should work I think. If you click on the link below, it takes you to their online butchery bit and if you pick a meat and a "cut", then it takes you to a weighing counter and you can pick how much you need for 1 adult, 2, 3, 8, etc and kids as well. It is good quality looking mince so I am hoping it tastes nice.


http://www.morrisons.co.uk/Market-Street/Butcher/

Will give you an idea on prices. considering tescimos is doing 1.5kg for a tenner, then I think this is a lot better value.
:undecided

The butter is delicious. I used to love "gold" by st ivel when I was younger as an old neighbour of ours used to put it on pancakes and give me them fresh off the girdle over the garden fence.


But they have stopped selling it and I can't find anything that tastes as good... so lurpack is the next best thing.


Disneyland is the 25th -29th November. We got a really good deal where you pay for two nights and they give you two nights free which is why we are going for four nights.
Maybe you could put your extra pennies leftover from shopping into a jar?? You know like if you spend £8.23 then put £1.77 (if that is the right amount) to take you up to a tenner. It will soon add up, I'm sure.

I would love to go to america. I have been fascinated by new york ever since I saw ghostbusters as a child. I want to go see their firehouse. It is still standing and unchanged outside!!


That's probably why I can't decide whether to get a new carpet or go to new york to celebrate being debt free.
:doh:

You should go for your 30th!! I am hoping to do new york for mine next year. (well, later in the year now as I need to save and get the debt sorted out).


Fingers crossed you manage to go then you can tell me all about it. My brother went for his honeymoon and loved it. He wants to go again but stay in the safari park hotel. Giraffes come up to your balcony!!
:rotfl:

Fmess

Sorry for the moan re SFDs. I'm very pedantic about rules, everything should always be fair and equal for everyone. I'm a bit OCD. My OH hates it as I'm like it with everything, and he never a sticks to rules

I would love a giraffe coming up the my balcony! I need to stay there!

Think your saving idea is a great one, I will probably do it at the end of the month. Anything left in the budget goes to the 30th birthday holiday fund (although think i'll have to extend it to 31st or probably 32nd as I'd want to go debt free and care free). I'm sure if I asked nicely people might give me foreign currency for spending money as a birthday present too

You should plan to go to NY as soon as you are debt free. Especially to see the ghostbusters firehouse! You should definitely go at Christmas time too.

Thank you for the morries link, I'll investigate

stewby

Don't worry about the moan. I agree completely. But then it is others who miss out in the long run as they won't get the same sense of achievement when they reach their goal as we will.


To be honest, I am just grateful you came back. Was beginning to think I was a bit crazy just writing back to myself.


Can't find the picture now but this is google images for the hotel they like:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=disneyworld+florida+animal+kingdom+hotel&rlz=1C2FDUM_enGB472GB472&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=XHt1UrDkAo6UhQe_-4HgBw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=643

Is it nice at xmas time?? I was looking at going in April (when it reasonably cheap and not roasting hot or freezing cold and wet). Oooooooooooh, what a good idea about asking for foreign currency for your birthday.


I am not sure what I am getting yet. I am thinking about a new set of cutlery as my newer set is getting rust spots and obviously wasn't as good quality as I thought. (the joke being that my older set is still good and was eight years old before I even bought the new set and it was cheaper).

cottage_retreatist

I agree too people!!! Haha! I only count NSDs as days where no money has been spent in any way (except direct debits or debt repayments)!! - ooh look, I have my own caveats too!! haha!!!!

It does mean i wear tights to work with massive holes in cause I don't want to buy any new ones so I keep a NSD intact!!!!

Well done on your shopping skills Stewby!
and I agree with Fmess - very jealous about you going to Disneyland Paris - are you going with the OH? Mine hasn't even seen the Lion King so I doubt he'd ever let me drag him to Disneyland but do have a great time!!! I've been reading all the secrets of Disneyworld - might be worth doing some research and seeing if there are lots of hidden aspects to Disneyland as well? Those little added extras?

hugs xx