Lilt and Jellytots most excellent adventure...

giblet1979

Aww lilt,

Even more grrrrr.... at OH from yesterday, and sorry to hear you've had a crummy start to the day.

Hope you managed to find something else to do. Could they not have sent you home early if you couldn't actually do your job? A few months ago, we had a power cut in our building for two days. Only managed to access our offices through a building site with flashlights as the electronic keycode doors were all stuck.Then, shock horror, we realised there was no kettle. Cue mass exit over the road to the cafe, and sitting on backsides until it was time to go out and about. They joys of work hey, lol

You are very good planning Christmas in so much detail. I will follow your lead...I know we'll need about £200 for close family / friends kids and we try and have a pact to just 'go out' with friends and have a drink / meal.

Hope the rest of your day has improved x

apple_muncher

Almond milk.

Costs an arm and a leg to buy, but peanuts to make. And a bit of time.

The ratio is 1:4, so 1 cup of almonds and 4 cups of water.

- Soak almonds overnight in plenty of water.
- Drain them.
- Put them in a food processor (I've not got one of these), or hand blender (trickier, but still do-able), or such like. Add the water. (I tend to only add some water as my gadget isn't that big, and an almond milk/soggy almond grounds explosion isn't good).
- Zap them till all milky.
- Leave to settle - I think you can be keen and use a muslin and sieve to drain so you just get milk, then can use the grounds in cooking.
- ooopsie - you may want to add 4 dates or so in the blender, for sweetness.



Don't know if this is any use to you, but you've mentioned the cost of soya milk, so I thought I'd post this and leave it with you. x

killerpeaty

That would explain why there was very little happening at work on thursday. o.O Hope your day got better.

I'm guessing you're going to get the pram with argos? (The voucher is why I'm guessing) Be careful, my sister just had her phone order cancelled after telling her that it had been delivered twice. (Also you can get cashback /cough)

Fmess, that's some cheek. Tell him to be more better!

A work day without a kettle giblet! :eek::eek:

I thought almond milk would be much more difficult apple, would you mind if I forward your instructions to my sister-in-law?

apple_muncher

Go ahead Peaty! Glad to help. The dates are flexible. In fact, I guess the whole recipe can be adapted to taste!

killerpeaty

Thanks Apple, my sil is intolerant of almost all enjoyable food! Hopefully she'll be able to have this.

please-let-me-be-lucky

Hey Lilt, just catching up with you after going AWOL to Legoland!

:mad: to HIM! Star points awarded last week have now been deducted for bad behaviour!!

Re Christmas, I put a minimum of £20 a month away to help towards presents and then buy things (bargains!) as when I see them too. It makes November and December less daunting! Xx

liltdiddylilt

Helloooooooooo boys and girls. You lot have been busy in my absence! Applemuncher thank you so much for the almond milk recipe! Who knew it was so easy although at the age of 28 I still have never had a muslin for straining things, just one for wiping sick from my shoulder

Lucky, I aimed to do the same with Christmas, but I seem to have saved an awful lot of money that I can't touch til the 5th January due to that being when I started it last year... I have pots of money stored for 'other things' but to be honest I mostly allocate them to Jellytot. For instance my child benefit of £82 every 4 weeks is hers. And she gets a minimum of half of my housing benefit which is £166 odd every 4 weeks. I have in the last month and a half managed to add £227 into the 'Christmas' fund and can hopefully add more shortly. Maybe the £52.19 winging it's way back to me from BT, plus the £40 that I would have spent paying Septembers bill as this is covered by over-effusive refunds and a goodwill gesture. Not to mention todays mystery shopping money I hope to wrap Xmas up by the end of this month, literally... actually WRAP it. Peaty no issues with Arg0s. £5 voucher obtained, delivery tomorrow as planned, confirmed by text today. Have never had issues with them!

Sooo onto my day. I discovered BT owe me another £17.99 that the woman, although repeatedly asked, did not manage to refund me for charges that should never have happened. I have got her contact details so dropped her an email this evening and can call her if necessary. BT also dropped a final bill for my old account in today. It was £28.09 in debit at the last bill, right in the middle of all the mess. It appears this has been refunded... twice, with an extra £24.10 refund of charges for the time I was without my service. £52.19 coming back to my bank shortly, so that can go in a pot somewhere...

I also had a fabby time mystery shopping the Hal bank. All cloak and dagger, I went in with one recording device concealed in an envelope addressed and even stamped, and another on my keys. Both were popped casually on the table with my purse as I walked in. Wore my leather jacket which had just enough room in the inside pocket to conceal the jiffy bag to send my devices back via Special Delivery right afterwards. I thought my mystical 'credit rating' would have ridden off on its unicorn this year, leaving me open to a humiliating decline on tape (anything for £50 :rotfl:) but, the woman was lovely, did her job perfectly anyway, and my requested £800 limit was not declined, but in fact doubled! Now tomorrow, once the recordings are received, it will be spirited off my credit file and cancelled as if it never happened, leaving me free to apply if I do indeed choose to, knowing that I can get it Nice to know all the applications for different current accounts over the last 18 months, plus closing my oldest account has not impacted too badly.

Spend day today. £7.15 on the recorded delivery, which will be returned to me. £12.04 in Mr A's. On top of the delivery tomorrow afternoon of £80ish :eek: £5.98 on household from that. £3.71 on 'naughties' (a ready meal for Jellytot that she adores & 8 bars of chocolate). £2.35 on essentials that I forgot on the main shop.

I am counting many many blessings today. My mum starts her holiday in Newquay tonight. Texted me to say they are there safe, with a pint in hand. She's there til Sunday, comes back the Monday for a pre-op assessment and then has a couple of days to get her house and my grandparents house to rights before she is laid up after the op. Money is plentiful. Jelly finally cut her two bottom canines yesterday after lunch - so she now has a grand total of 10 out of 22 teeth she should have by now.... :rotfl: I had a migraine over the weekend, complete with sickness, but I am feeling a lot better now and had an awesome stuffed marrow dinner again with a free marrow from MIL. Have so much left over I need to go and find a marrow in a greengrocers!

Off to do my YNAB although I can't play properly until Thursday when the last bit of my money comes in.

Night peepities.

giblet1979

Night lilt - will catch up properly soon x

dawnybabes

That meal fills me with dread, my mum force fed me stuffed marrow as a child and I loathe it, even the thought makes me feel sick !

liltdiddylilt

I find that a lot of people tell me this. I wasn't as my parents were so avoided it like the plague! Same with MIL and FIL so I get all the overgrown courgettes!! Having never had it and having had lovely advice on really adding flavour to the mince until it's virtually inedible it makes an incredible meal for very little money I make a very hot and spicy chilli, stuff little rings of marrow and cover them in cheese after 25 minutes baking. Lush!!

Gib...