Nst; fearless february

MagicCat

Oooh, NSK! :money:How exciting to 'see' you! Hope travelling is fab!

Thanks guys, I'm feeling a better today - less cold and more cheery. A SFD Monday yesterday for me and should be today as well, so hoping to start building up the SFDs again. Have also sold some books to a trade in place (only 6.81 but it all helps!) and I'm starting to get back into doing surveys on sw*gbucks everyday - I was doing well at this before Christmas and saved quite a bit using vouchers, so need to make a start again.

Thrifty - hugs, I have no useful advice, but I can't imagine how hard it must be with two little ones, as everyone else has said, taking time for yourself is so important, even if it means the house things get done more slowly.

Cupcake - Sorry to hear you're not feeling great - but recognising it and going back to the doctor is so important, I know it's a hard and scary frog but well worth it in the end. Take care of yourself.

Calling14 hope you're feeling a bit better and having a nice day off.

Sazzlebegood - great news on being able to pay for boiler with savings, this is where I am determined to get to one day!

Lilt - sorry to hear there's no sign of the card. Well done on the oven though. I fear my frog may need to be the oven as well...sigh.

Welshkitty - :jfor ebay sale, sounds like you're having a lovely HT, making me homesick for wales!

It sounds like everyone has been doing some lovely MSE half term stuff - bobarella, your ideas for London are great, I only wish I still lived there!

I was wondering if any of you lovely people can help me out with some recipe ideas? I bought possible the world's biggest bag of red lentils back in January, have been using them to bulk out soups, mince sauces etc, but I wondered if anyone had any tried and tested recipes for using lentils themselves? I had a google and tried some lentil burgers last night but they were a bit of a disaster and ended up a lentil mush. Any ideas for recipes that work gratefully received!

I always give up chocolate for Lent - this should help both my waistline and savings!


Have a good Tuesday all.

SFD: 8/15
Groceries: £209.80/£200
Dentist/optician £5/£20
Petrol and travel: £51.05/£110
Birthdays: £25.76/£30
Social: 0/£40
Food bank donation - done
15 mins/day - this will be decluttering or mindfulness meditation 7/28
Exercise 8/25

Bobarella

Morning All

Its ok, the grumpasarus has now left the building re YNAB. I dont have it, & dont know how awesome it is, but equally, it feels gimmiky that the world and his wife have to have it, you know?

The sun is out, and despite the fact the house next door is drilling, again, against my kitchen walls, and sounding like they'll come through at any moment I am feeling quite happy.
We had an early start & OH has gone off to work, but I think me and son will head out in a bit to buy some nice fruit to go with our pancakes tonight. And we are out of golden syrup too.

Advice if you dont mind. A few months back, we were doing so well on our budgting. I set up a savings DD. I then increased the amount every time something good happened, so say an insruance policy was bought for cheaper elsewhere, I upped the savings amount. I did this for lots of things we have saved on or gotten rid of altogether.
At present we are up to £180 a month to our emergency fund.
However, our energy supplier messed up back in August, and gave us a rebate of £250 which they shouldnt have. Because in December we ended up with a bill for £300. Directly because of the rebate.
This meant we had to up our energy DD from a very manageable £75 to initially £130, then they agreed that £105 was ok. I had hoped that as we are very good with our fuel management we'd soon be back in credit, but last months bill was £102, god knows why. I havent touched the tumble drier in months. And the heating is on for 3 hours a day, which we desperately need to dry clothing. Anyway. Really I should amend the savings DD back down to accomodate the £35 extra going to energy, & actually it was £65 extra until they agreed to put it down.
What is happening, is our OD, which was sitting at a very comfortable £150 per month, I know its not great, but it costs us about 6p. And I'd rather pay off my CCs first.
This month however, its creeping. At the moment as of today its £200. We have to get to the 27th before pay day.
Sorry this is such a long rambling post, but would you
A) Carry on as is, because the heating will go off in the next month & then our bills will go down, and we can reset the DD amount
Amend the DD for the savings account to avoid seeing our OD rising each month?

This has been a funny month anyway, we had an additional £40 to find for another bill, which hasnt helped. Im loathed to reduce the savings DD if Im honest as I want to get to £1000 as soon as i can in our EF.

Advice turtles??

shyspender

shyspender wrote: »

1 onion, chopped
1tbsp olive oil
1-2tbsp thai red curry paste
300g red lentils
1.7l vegetable stock
200ml coconut milk
spring onions, chopped, to garnish if you want

Fry the onion in the olive oil until soft. Stir in the curry paste.

Add the red lentils and mix to coat in the paste. Pour over the stock and simmer for 20 minutes until the lentils are tender.

Blend with the coconut milk and reheat if necessary.

Now, what I do, since having made it a few times, is chuck it all in the slow cooker. I use frozen onions, because it's one of the few things I actually use onions for. I don't add the oil in the slow cooker. I don't make veg stock. I throw in a veg stock cube and the equivalent of just plain water. I leave it on high for about two hours or so, or I guess on low four or five hours. Stir once or twice an hour so it doesn't stick. I stick blend in the coconut milk but you could leave it chunky.
It normally makes 4-6 portions. I bag mine and freeze them. They just need a good stir when defrosted because it separates a little when it thaws. I like mine fairly spicy so I'm a little over generous with the paste, but you can add to your own tastes.
I also like to tear up a chapatti into little bits like croutons.

MagicCat Here is a Spiced Red Lentil Soup Recipe that I posted in the July thread. It is my staple work lunch and I still love it. I've now taken to putting a whole jar of sainsbos red curry paste in, which is about three or four tablespoons.

thriftylass

Good morning! After being a wee Sh*te last night DS was his angel self this morning and we all had pancakes for breakfast - yum. Made some extra and got some left for tomorrow morning. Can't wait for tomorrow. Will get our new mattress delivered, hopefully OH will bring the other one to the dump soon and take some more stuff from under the carport too.

Not much else to report today apart from SFD again.

Fmess

bobarella as a temporary measure I would decrease your savings contribution and then you could increase it when the heating goes off and the bills go down. Do you pay your exact bill per month? We pay a set amount every month to our energy supplier, doesn't matter if it's winter or summer and I find this helps me not notice the massive change in bills with the seasons.

liltdiddylilt

shyspender yet another legendary food post!! Thank you I will be doing that very meal tonight as my works lunches were lacking in thought for a new soup!

Bob unfortunately it is no mistake that the utility company paid back your £250 credit. I get a once yearly bill and in September I was credited £171 back from NP0wer. I rang to ask what the heck they were doing and the girl on the phone advised that OfGem have added new rules to say that if you are more than £5 in credit at the time of billing, they have to refund you the full amount of your credit. So despite the fact that I had tirelessly added that up by overpaying during the summer to give myself a winter credit... I ended up having my DD upped to £93 to *cover* my extra usage. I was fuming, and the only help I got from them was, 'well you can pay it back to us?'. My response was to whack it in a high savings account in case they sent me a whopping great bill. Figure it was better earning me interest than them!!

Stupidest rule I have ever heard about the £5 credit, but people had better get used to it although the energy companies are appealing the decision.

Today wasn't a SFD. Bought £2.25 of anti-sickness tablets and some bits and bobs for picnic, as well as fabric softener and washing up gloves I needed. In Canterbury I got a couple of bottles of water for £1. Also bought the bus tickets but they were refunded by Him how nice! Lovely and cheap day out in Canterbury in glorious sunshine and avoided sickness in jellytot by the skin of my teeth... myself not so much. TMI so won't elaborate.

Hope everyone has had a lovely Tuesday. It is purely the thought of losing £80 that will get me to work tomorrow. Not looking forward to it one little teeny weeny bit. Still.. I have a job.

stewby

Hiya.

Tried to post last night but lost it and decided to go to sleep instead. Sorry.


Spend free day yesterday and the day before which brings us to 10 out of 15!!
:j

Need to double check if I posted over the weekend as I had two spend free days over there I think.
:undecided

The wedding planning has gone into overdrive and I have finally realised just how expensive weddings are.
:eek:

Hope everyone is doing well.
Massive hugs to you all.


edit: just realised my signature didn't save so I have altered everything to match up.

Bobarella

Fmess -we pay a set amount. The problem was caused because when we moved to first utility from EDF they got our start read wrong. It took months for them to finally re bill us. All the while no one was talking to us about it and we were supplying reads every month. Thanks for your advice.

Lilt - wow. That is news to me. It feels so counterintuitive. I suppose it stops them having stacks of cash sitting on deposit but having been through this it's very frustrating. I'm down to £142 owing now. Hoping to clear it within the next 3 months and go back to normal.
I think I am going to pause my savings for 1 month. That should sort the OD out.

liltdiddylilt

It was news to me too. I guess they kept it quiet because although it is a *win* for OfGem it puts some families in dire straits. What about parents who get a bill just before Christmas, have all that cash dumped in their account, spend it on presents, and then have a whopping great bill and a direct debit they can't pay next time around! Defeats the entire object of paying a set amount monthly for sure.

And First Utility also screwed up my starting gas read. So much so that by the time I went to give a new read 2 months after I switched, I still had not passed the starting read they estimated despite me giving them one :mad: - I chased both companies repeatedly separately and they both took the reads from me and recalculated quite quickly. They have a YEAR to sort things out between them, but by acting as a go-between it *only* took 3 months.

I hope you can clear it soon, and yes I think it is a good idea o pause the savings. No use saving if you have the same amount of debt on a probably higher rate as our :money: would likely say. You will have it all sorted out very soon! At least utility debts are not interest-chargeable! xx

mothernerd

Thank you for the portrait lilt, it's very flattering.

Bobarella I don't have YNAB either. I get annoyed enough by the constant exhortations to download my favourite games to my phone and various other gadgets that I don't have.

Thanks for the Ofgem info. I will add it into my e-mails to the energy company (futility again). I worked out that in the first week of January I was approximately £250 in credit on one account and £150 on the other as they haven't accepted my readings (or photographic evidence) when I have supplied them. There was no boiler here for about three months (broken, got my builder to check if fixable, then plumber to give estimate for new one, installation postponed for the three weeks my mum was in hospital, installed 31 Oct and moved back in Nov 5). Other house has been empty and up for sale since then and heating has only been on for the three viewings. Have explained all this (plus mobility problems and recovering from major surgery) multiple times and specifically asked for money to be returned to my bank account.

Breathe. I will get my money back from them. Just so annoying and has been extra stress when I could have done without it. I understand about you using the dd to get in front for the Winter months but there is no way I will use the gas they have charged me for - one of their selling points was that by giving regular readings I would only ever be charged for what I have used yet have been charged 'estimated' amounts when no/ very little gas has been used. I need that money now (£400) is nearly enough to get me through a whole month.

The sky is blue, the sun is out, all the little crocuses were fully open. I've dried lots of washing outside. Completed 10 x 15 minutes of housework for today and extra for yesterday and currently have 6 different lots of food cooling (well one is marinading).

Spent a bit of money. DS3 always has takeaway pizza (2ferTuesday). I sometimes get leftovers. Half a pizza the last two weeks. I am not allowed to ask, I have to wait. I was so hungry and could smell the pizza. But he was really hungry and I only got 1 little piece. So I set off to buy a SM pizza (£1 one but they were on offer at 85p). I had other food but had let myself get so hungry waiting that I couldn't get the idea of pizza out of my head. calmed down and didn't buy it but bought a couple of other things including pasta for DS3 (to go with all the curries I have just made) and diet decaff coke (would have bought two last time but couldn't carry them.

Today I am grateful for a glorious day, for making headway with some unglamorous but necessary jobs and gorgeous cooking smells 9and the odd nibble to make sure things were done).