NST November: battening down the hatches!

liltdiddylilt

Evening all

Caeraugirl :shock: £130?!? That basically makes me want to become a vegetarian. I have found the chicken breasts in Mr L to be the best around and the cheapest too. £6.39 for 1kg. Their whole chickens are the best too. And I can heartily recommend the chorizo. Not really sounding very veggie friendly am I? :rotfl:

Applemuncher Parsnip soup recipe please! ASDA substituted my 'root veg stew pack' for a swede and a pack of parsnips, even though I had a pack of parsnips on my shopping list. I have a rather large amount to do away with!

Calling you are welcome. Kat has indeed trained us well, but I am a bit fed up of walking everywhere looking like a scarecrows younger sibling with scarecrow hand-me-downs.

LoveaDove I laughed so hard at the idea of a bamboo stick by the front door. Epitome of cuteness!

moohound I am so sorry to hear you have asthma. I have had it since I was a baby and struggle with it on and off, especially in the winter. Make sure you have your flu jabs nice and early each year as you are entitled for free at your doctors, and also ask the surgery about the 'Smart' system of inhalers. I use 1 inhaler, called a Symbicort, 200/6. It is the steroid inhaler, but you use it morning and night as a preventer, but also as your emergency inhaler. It works far better than my rainbow of blue, brown, green, orange and purple ones did. Not to mention it is one prescription charge instead of 5, and you can ask for 2 inhalers at once, to come under 1 prescription charge..

To everyone with sad puppy dogs tonight, bless. Give them a squeeze from me, poor creatures. I know how they feel. I HATE fireworks, and loud bangs! My work colleague has got a new puppy tonight of all nights. Methinks she may be a bit tired tomorrow.

SFD #4 here. Tomorrow and Friday should be the same. Fridge, freezer and cupboards groaning. Milk, bread and marg all plentiful. I always find it easy not to spend money in Winter. Apart from the heating that is. Blimmin freezing here tonight! The gritters have just skidded out from the depot near to my flat.

Walked 4 miles today and lunch was leftover chilli and bread.

Had a horrid letter from HMRC this evening. No warning, no explanation, just a demand for £257 and a cheque payment slip. Apparently it relates to an overpayment of tax credits from 2013, however, I made them aware of every change on the day it happened, and they totalled up the figures for my June 14 renewal and it was all correct. Why they think they overpaid me now I do not know. I hate this stupid system. It has left me quite down in the dumps, especially considering they just dropped my tax credits by £380 a month last month. I wasn't getting that much more than that to start with and my income hasn't changed. :wall:

Off to sulk/cheer myself up looking at the cashback due to me soon.

Have a good night all.

stewby

Aw lilt, that sounds so unfair. And such a lot of money to have to try and find!!!!!
:eek:

Today is a spendy day as OH text me to say we needed bread. I have been out all day (didn't eat at home) so nipped into the shop to buy bread... got home to find at least six slices left. So it could have waited. I should have checked but am blaming OH for telling me we needed it when we didn't.
:doh:

This evening is being spent looking at recipes and adding them to my online recipe folder. Will write them out properly once I have assessed them fully. I might be a bit of a geek, did I ever mention that before??


Away to go and add £1.45 to my total. Boo hiss.
Hugs to everyone.

liltdiddylilt

Super awesome recipe for the album Stewby - and apple!! -

I am ignoring the letter until Saturday when I will ring them and ask what it is all about and why they think it is ok to send it 12 months on, just before Christmas when it is their own error.

Dottydaisy

Thank you to Stewby and Speakingofart for their comments re my debt, and also everyone else for the warm welcome. I am trying to cope with the debt on my own, I have down shifted all my utility bills, Sky, car insurance, house insurance and started to be more pro-active in my spending. I am putting £107 per month in a pot for chiropody{6 weekly, hair cut 6/7 weekly and one to two Acupuncture sessions monthly. I have various things wrong with me - don't we all- and as I have scalp psoriasis the couple of hairdressers where I was hoping to get a cheaper cut wouldn't do it, so I've gone back to my hairdresser of 15years who will, but it is dearer. These three I could not do anything about, chiropody is done at my mums residential home and costs £12, I cannot do it myself because of arthritis. My mobile is pay as you go and I hardly use it. I don't really go out often, but I'm a member of a culture club and we go out once a month and have a meeting once a month, event tickets we usually get free or reduced price. I have asked dd2 and dd3 to try to use less water and turn off electrical items when not in use.


I am also trying to have as little food waste as possible, today I made Shepherds pie with yesterdays left over veg and a YS minced meat, I made less than normal and there is one portion for the freezer. My new way forward - think about things beforehand so don't buy take away.


NSD no 2 today- I am basing things up to 20th November when my budgets will start properly.


I am going to finish a baby cardigan I started months ago as my pursuit and will then look around for something new to learn.


Hugs sticks and healing vibes to everyone who needs something

Dottydaisy

Thanks for my number Speakingofart, I have just seen it and what better than a duck with a crutch {bingo speak} number 27. The duck can sail around looking cute and the crutch can prop me up through my journey.
dotty

apple_muncher

Parsnip soup

Fry onion + 2+ cloves garlic in a good glug of oil.
Add 2 tsp garam masala and 1/2 tsp chili (I was rather generous!)
Add peeled and choped up parsnips (recipe said 500g, I did all I had, substantially more!), stir to coat, .
Add chopped potato (recipe wanted flour, but this was yummy), stir to coat
Add boiling water (sort of to cover) and 1/2 stock cube
Simmer for 20 mins. Zap. Eat. Try not to dribble any down clothes.

Enjoy!


Ya boo hiss to HMRC.

speakingofart

Morning everyone! Just checking in quickly before I go and defrost the car to go to work - watching the most wonderful frosty sunrise through my window!

dottydaisy - it sounds like you're taking lots of positive steps! One other thing I did when I started trying to get out of debt is batch cook, so I had portions of things in the freezer at the start of the month and I wasn't tempted to eat out I've never heard the phrase duck with a crutch, so I'll remember that one!

lilt - that's truly rubbish, and right before christmas as well! They really are so incompetent. At one point last year they lowered my tax code because I was IN RECEIPT OF A PENSION. Which would be fair enough, except that I was 26 at the time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Top up shop yesterday, hoping for a SFD today although won't manage a walk as I'm meeting a friend for coffee during my lunch break, so will have to make that up over the weekend instead. Happy turtling everyone!

£100/ £150 groceries till 15th November
£0/0 petrol till 15th november
Outings £0/£20 (takeaway with friend, trip to see Levellers play)
NSDs 3/20
3/20 exercise sessions (lunchtime walks)

Caeraugirl

Thanks for the chicken advice Lilt, will investigate once current stash gone. Chicken breasts are £9.40/kg at butchers, which is similar to Mr T prices, but the quality is poles apart. None of us could eat the last lot we bought there, it was all gristly and stringy textured (don't rate any of their meat very highly tbh) and pay them more than enough of my hard earned cash as it is so now draw a line at paying for carp. DH in particular is committed carnivore, sure he'd go into shock if he had meat-free meal more than two days in a row, so have always accepted that our food bills will be high for a family of 4. And as well as the chicken breasts (12) there was 10lb minced beef, two large joints, pork & lamb steaks, sausages, and of course the turkey so I can see where the money went - just seems an awful lot of money when put in the context of my overall food budget.......

Boo to HMRC - how unfair!! Can you make them wait for it by paying in instalments? Still flipping annoying that you need to pay it at all though!!

Good luck with your debt-free journey Dottydaisy - sounds like you've got some good plans already.

Hoping for SFD today but don't want to claim it this early, the day is young yet.

Aphidgirl

Morning all,

Positives:

NSD 3 achieved yesterday
Also went for a run and been meditating daily.
I've not touched the food budget this week and have lived out of the cupboards

Negatives:

Made a lovely big pot of bolognese last night with mince and veg, ate some for dinner then forgot to put the rest in the fridge so it sat out all night and had to be thrown in the bin this morning Oh well! I do have more mince so maybe I'll make another one tonight!

Hope you're all doing well!

[Deleted User]

No NSD for me yesterday. Had to buy Sister birthday card. I really must get back into making cards again once I have more time in the New Year.

Shouls be a NSD today though. No exercise plans today as I have to head to sister's straight after work and then I have college.