Always Pass on What You Have Learned

angela110660

and as well as Hugh tonight I believe there is a prog on Channel 4 about Aldi - wonder what that will tell us??

wishus

Awesome suggestion, Angela110660, thanks! We watched the Aldi programme while we had our dinner on our laps (we were still in the midst of the huge lounge/diner sort out).

Talk about compare and contrast with HFW's message... whilst I agree that the supermarket expects far too much of its staff, generally, and that their policy of coding the fresh fruit and veg on display makes it more difficult all round for both staff and consumers to judge the display-until dates of packaged fruit and veg, I don't see a huge problem with selling veg past this date now. That said I do think it should be marked down because you have less time to use it, and I know Aldi just won't do that. The odd split packet will happen, so no great shocks there, and I've never seen my local Aldi staff throwing bread. However, allowing staff to stand on freezers to change stock and blocking fire exits is unforgivable. It might seem common sense to most of us not to do that, but just in case you have a real thickie, there should be a full health-and-safety conscious induction.

I only worked for one day at a friends and family day in Next, and we had full H&S training, and I recall going over not standing on things that weren't designed for it, and not blocking fire exits. It really isn't rocket science. Either the Aldi stores looked at need some refresher training, or the managers should be disciplined for not providing the basics, or not seeing that basic standards are maintained.

Even though it meant we were running late, we watched HFW too - with a pang of guilt on my part as I had just had to throw some sour milk. :eek:It was a couple of days past its use by, but didn't pas the sniff test. I cursed my gullibility for buying 4 pints instead of 2 as the difference in price was only 10p. I know you can freeze milk, but I've never managed to get it thawed and still tasting as nice, so I try to use it up. Last year I had switched to whole milk to be able to use it up in yoghurt and cheese making, but I've had too much on my plate to do that lately. So I need to rethink my buying to be able to best help our farmers. ( notice Morrison's price pledge for the farmers has also disappeared from the bottles. Mmm... :undecided)

As to what happened to the Hammonds who grew the parsnips for Morrisons... :mad: It makes me want to not shop there, but I find I want to persuade them that they should just waste less. I have been thinking about how I spent 9 months trying to not use supermarkets at all, and how successful that was on the whole. Another project perhaps? :think:
Well the War on Waste is very much underway in our house. We have done so much recycling of our hoarded tat! I drew a blank with a pair of OH's old socks though yesterday. Very much beyond darning. I'm afraid they've been put for landfill as I don't know where else to put them.

Project unclutter had another leap forward yesterday. Unfortunately OH was feeling very down and spent most of the day in bed, but he did manage to sort out the books he had put in his den. Together we cleared and scrubbed the shelves in the living room, cleaned the back fireplace, put more things in the recycling box, and arranged all the nooks we had put aside for that room. The shelves are looking very tidy now. Everything by genre and then by alphabet. :A

I made another trip to the compost bin this morning. :A

I also managed to pack my own lunch, rather than buying at work, though was horrified when I was trying to ram my salmon paste sandwiches in the clingfilm and one fell on the floor. :eek:
... Ah well, I grabbed a cup-a-soup from the cupboard instead. Mozza basics chicken and veg. It'll do! :rotfl:

wishus

So, my shelves are all built and in place, but my office still looks like the scene from Ghostbusters in the library as I have to maneuver round piles of books on the floor to get into my office.

A bit of a blow to progress last night as OH was in a post-doctor's surgery-funk (he went for his cholesterol test and wanted to request a prescription review, but can't as we have no doctors at the surgery yet again _pale_ - honestly, the last one was only here a couple of months. That's the NHS in 2015 for you!) and went to keep our friend company as she has post-surgery enforced idleness cabin fever. As he left the house, OH had eyed the YS mackerel fillets I had put to defrost ready for our dinner and saw they were still icy, so he called me on the bus and got us to meet in town where we went for a huge burger meal at O'Neill's.

A conversation was had at home about spontaneity and budgets, and some shuffling about done in Excel today. It's fine... Provided I don't spend any more than I planned at the social events in my calendar, I've got £50 for groceries for the rest of the month. Doable, if not generous. Hold the truffles and caviar, my friend, my arms are tired. :rotfl:

Anyway, I have a work thing next month which will involve hotels and travel and I think I've been dead canny. I just used Quidco to book the room I was recommended, and went via Expedia to get 7% cashback and Nectar points. A pretty good return! The room was £85. Also looking through Quidco, the same room on Booking.com was available but of course I wouldn't book with them there as there were no Nectar points on offer and only 2% cashback. But looking up outside of Quidco, Booking.com has the room for £80. Got a screen grab, went to the Best Price Guarantee form. Worst that can happen is they can say no to refunding me £5, and then I still get 7% cashback and nectar points - still a pound better off eventually, plus Nectar points worth another pound. Then, they could refund me, and only give me cashback on £80, which will also be fine. Best case scenario 7% cashback on £85 + £5 plus Nectar points.:money:

...and it's a jolly nice hotel with a real ale bar and lots of history to the building, as well as being only "stumbling distance" from my event. Happy days!:beer:

Also, back on the train today rather than the cheap but unreliable bus. It will be weird getting home before the day's over.:)

wishus

Day 2 on the trains - it was so weird to be able to snaffle a few more minutes' snooze, albeit hampered by having a cat on my head. The cats love me because I cooked fish yesterday and let them have a bit, so they must sit on my head and purr louder than OH snores... :rotfl:

I've been having conversations with my brother about Christmas... he is of the same mind as me, that eating out on Christmas Day is more expensive than getting lots of grub in from Aldee, but OH wouldn't have it and our friend backed him, so that's why I booked it. Perhaps I've lost my assertiveness? I've been so soft... the fight has gone.:(

OH keeps asking, what can I buy to have something for me, as he has had everything he wants, and I think he feels guilty. But no - that's not the way I work. There's nothing I actually want - maybe some socks? Spending money makes me miserable. I want the debt gone... that is all. I don't want to have to be worrying that after Christmas it's just going to get worse because he won't even have a job to fund his fripperies. But I can't make things change. Not quickly, anyway. When oh when will he have his LBM?

My office is still in chaos, as I got sucked into catching up on Masterchef the Professionals. I'm not overwhelmed with the bunch so far this series. Hopefully that will change. I hope they do the leftovers round again - that's my favourite bit!;)

Talking of Masterchef, last night's dinner was almost entirely YS/free - all but for a glug of Aldi olive oil, a crushed clove of garlic and a spoon of sugar - let's make those 10p. 2 x YS whole headless mackerel £1.49 + YS Albert Bartlett Potatoes 19.25p + YS carrots 3p + YS runner beans 4.5p + YS spring greens 1p + gooseberries 0p and rosemary from the garden 0p.

I boiled the spuds, steaming the veg up top, while cooking the frozen gooseberries in a little water with a spoon of sugar. I pan-fried the mackerel in a lidded pan. When the spuds were cooked, I crushed them in a pan and tossed in crushed garlic and rosemary, crushing them, then added olive oil at the end (don't cook with Virgin olive oil - it has too low a smoking point). Finally I sieved the gooseberry juice and squished some of the pulp through the sieve, putting back into the pan to reduce a little - eh voila, gooseberry sauce, great with mackerel. A lovely, healthy meal for 2 for £1.87 or 93p each! :money:

I also thought I'd try a batch of my chestnuts last night, but I flipping burned them! Good job I didn't try doing the lot. I'm going to whizz and freeze them to add to a stuffing or cake mix.

As I have been thinking a lot about HFW's War on Waste, I have been feeling more and more angry, and wondering what I can do. I did try not using any supermarkets at all for a while, which worked except access to good meat and fish was poor. I'm thinking about restricting purchases to YS and ugly basics, and going to the independents for the rest.

I also found out about The Real Junk Food Project There's a cafe in my town I'd like to try, and would like to help with if I can. I would willingly go skip-diving for them! I've done it for me before. :A..only, just the once, from outside Burger King when they'd dumped a load of burger buns. I have to tell you, they are not real bread. They do not go off. Ever. :eek:

I emptied my pockets of roadkill money last night and added 54p to the HOOF. Today, I've been able to pick up 21p already. Nice one! :T

wishus

Well my lovelies, I think I've found the secret of happiness. Happiness is a figure coming in under budget! My meeting last night (in a pub) I had budgeted £10 for. But I decided to cycle there :A and drink only diet coke :A and so only spent £4 the whole night! :T

Just as well really... I had budgeted the same for tonight's book club (At last - a book I didn't have to buy as I'd already read it! ), and I think nursing a couple of cokes while being all literary would have been easy peasy to repeat.

Only when I got home, our friend was in the den space watching OH's new home cinema (my projector, his aunt's old screen - it's really fab! ) and she invited me out to the pub tonight as well. You know what happens when you go to the pub with your usual mates? :beer: There is no question: cider and beer will be consumed. It is the law! :rotfl:

But I need to be at my book club for 7.30, so I think if I buy my round of 3, that'll be £9, then 2 cokes at book club, £4 again... If I take last night's remaining budget and tonight's that will be plenty.

Or, you know, I could not go. Or just drink coke. _pale_
Nah!

Oi am a zoider drinkuuuuuur!

Well, maybe a lifestyle change is in order. OH had his cholesterol results back and it has actually gone up to 7.3. :eek:That's really bad. Mine is fine... but then I try to eat well most of the time and am pretty active. I met a friend of his last night who wants to go cycle training with him, so I shall do my best to encourage them to buddy up.

Ooh forgot to mention - my Parkrun T-shirt has come from Wiggle. Yay! All free bar the posting... and the having to run 250km!

Last night's dinner was accidentally low fat as I defrosted some 'mystery mince' from a tub in the freezer. Would it be turkey or pork and beef? Well it was turkey (YS and portioned up, of course) and I made it into a lovely healthy ragout sauce to eat with spaghetti, packed with plenty of onions and mushrooms - no cheese!

I thought I'd cut through the park and visit the chestnut trees on the way to the station this morning to do a bit of foraging if I could. The trees are all bare now, but some shiny, fat chestnuts were poking out of their cupoles hidden in the leaf litter, so I grabbed a handful for my pocket. Looks like I picked the very last opportunity, too, as two gardeners in seated lawnmowers came vrooming down the grass at me, before spiralling around the trees of my chestnut patch. I'd just noticed a load of mushrooms there too. Ho hum... all looks like the aliens have been now, leaving pretty patterns in all the shredded mulch.

My other trees are quarantined behind tape and cones as the footpath has been all dug up. Foraging: not quite so simple sometimes.

wishus

Well I went to my book club last night, and ended up taking a friend with me so she wouldn't be alone, as OH had been meant to meet her and was running late. Well, he was in fact AWOL, but we heard from him eventually. He has been very anxious for a few days and had to build up to being social quite a lot.


The book group was great. I loved the book and I think only one other person felt the same. Everyone else was a bit meh or absolutely hated it. Already signed up for the next one! And I love the premise of the social meet in December - we will take a copy of a favourite book as a Secret Santa for someone else in the group. Ooh, what book would I choose?


It was grim afterwards when we saw the news about Paris on the TV in the bar. My heart goes out to Paris, to the victims, their families and the survivors.




Today, I've been to the library, taken two back and picked up the book we are reading for January. OH and I also took two massive bags of books (by no means all we sorted for charity) and donated them to the library, either to put in stock or put on their sale table. The library assistant saw there was a lot of SF and found some out from the pile already there, and so we came away with a China Mieville for 50p... I kind of sussed that this was the deal for leaving our books.


As OH was with me, he wanted to come shopping with me after which is always fraught. He veered towards Waitrose rather than Asda - but luckily I had some vouchers on me for there, a 5% cashback offer from my bank, and I tried to be minimal - I'll just have to go shopping again for other stuff I need. As it was I was unable to escape the store without OH having picked up proper brand teabags and a £3 bottle of brown sauce. :eek: Wow - it would have to be brown sauce made of truffles and champagne for that price! Now he thinks I'm crazy for thinking that's a crazy price! :rotfl:


House progress: OH did a lot of painting yesterday. Somehow a bit of paint ended up on the settee, even though that's nowhere near what was being painted, and I blooming sat in it this morning. We cleared the books from the lounge and put a lot more stuff for recycling. It was looking pretty tidy until OH's brother came tonight with a couple of trees chopped up and these are now all round the dining table. Free firewood from OH's parent's garden! Project next week: getting them dry and in storage in the wood shed. It's a bit damp out there to be doing anything now. Project tomorrow: my office! :eek:


Having perused a Jamie Oliver magazine in the station the other day, I saw an idea I thought I might use on a wrinkly dessert apple, save it going to waste, and so this is what I did for today's lunch: I made a parsnip soup, slightly spiced with garam masala and grated nutmeg, and topped it with fried apple croutons and a few crispy sage leaves from my garden. Try it, it's really nice!

wishus

I was a bit of a chicken yesterday... I thought about perusing some bins round the back of Waitrose that weren't locked up, but I thought I'd have someone running to yell at me, so I just walked on by.

Having popped in (no spending), just to see if there were any YS offers, I noticed a few but they all had the next day's date on.

I would hazard a guess that the store had binned anything with that day's date on already, and had marked up stuff for the next day already.

My cupboards, freezer and fridge all have plenty of food in at the moment, but I am aware I have only budgeted £120 for this month, which leaves £20 only for top ups on milk, bread, cat food, fruit - and the toothpaste I forgot to buy yesterday.

My Sunday was not really day of rest. I lifted some spuds for dinner, arranged all the books on shelves in my office, went to the shops for cat food, cooked a roast chicken and apple pie (from scratch - with free apples), sorted all the recycling for collection this morning, cleared the upstairs bins, and re-started my vintage collar knitting pattern.

We started and ended the day quite chilled though - I had defrosted some YS bacon for us to have in sandwiches (with the gold leaf brown sauce, which tastes no different to the flipping 29p basics one, if you ask me!), and we had breakfast in bed, perusing the 'Saturdays' (the previous day's paper - free with Waitrose shopping). The headline on p.1 was about the death of Mohammed Emwazi, as the paper must have gone to print too soon to pick up on the Paris atrocities. Nice to imagine a world where that hadn't happened...

And we finished the day watching a couple of movies. Our double bill was the classic Taxi Driver (pound shop DVD), followed by Hector and the Pursuit of Happiness on Netflix, which was a nice story, pretty funny. Oh, with a little glass of vino and some peanut brittles (free snacks from work!). Ah well, I earned it - I have worked flipping hard this weekend. Bliss! :beer:

wishus

Uh-oh - I think some honey and lemon is needed tonight, as I feel wrecked and my throat is sore. I have to go out and perform for job3 tomorrow night, too!

Feeling quite pleased though as I had a pub meeting last night, and even though I had the extra expense of going there on the bus as OH didn't feel up to accompanying me, I came in under budget! :j
This means, I have a bit more to play with for any expenses around job3 tomorrow. I think food might be one, as it's quite a long way we need to go. I am going to get paid, but I've no idea how much, but apparently more than the ten pounds I got last time. :undecided Well, let's hope so!

Also managed to do my tax return this week for the rent and jobs 2 and 3:dance: Crikey, I think the taxman owes me!:rotfl:


Just ten pounds left in the grocery kitty too... wonder if I'll make it? I have asked my bro if he'll meet for coffee or something this weekend too. I just want to escape my troubles a bit. So worried about OH. I think the big bad work talk is happening next week. What will happen? No idea...

mothernerd

Look after yourself. I always think of sore throats and similar minor illnesses as signs that I am run down. However I had sore throat / cough / tight chest / temperature in September (had to postpone my flu jab) and still cannot get rid of the cough - it's driving me mad. Have been back to the doctor's today and had an x-ray. Probably nothing but good to check it off my worry list anyway.

I hope the big bad work talk isn't too bad - but try not to worry too much. Deal with what happens when you know what is happening. My life has always felt like one of those juggling acts where you get all the plates spinning at the same time, except at the moment I keep forgetting things and lots of my plates aren't spinning.

wishus

Bless you, Mothernerd! Still full of cold, and I wanted to spend the weekend in bed to sort it out, but not a chance! Hence, it lingers... _pale_

The big, bad, scary work talk happened this morning, and went well, so OH still has his job and can concentrate on getting better. There is a point in the future where that may change, but it's not so much a Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads (stop thinking of Rocky from the Rocky Horror Picture Show in gold underpants. Stop it. Stop it!:rotfl: :dance:)

So, this was what my weekend was like: Friday night I went and did my performance, and although there are things I would definitely tweak I think I availed myself quite well, and the audience liked what I was doing. :T We did spend a bit on grub in the garage on the way home, and unfortunately I could taste none of it due to this blooming cold, but it's a tax-deductable expense at the end of the day.

On Saturday morning I wanted a lie-in, but couldn't have one as we had people coming over to help us clear our garden of tat. We had a yard like Steptoe's, full of old bikes and boiler bits. All gone now! :j I also got on with doing a little bit of office-tidying. However, I have not as yet manged to find my passport which I need for ID in a couple of weeks, which is a tad worrying...

On Saturday afternoon I ended up going to help a friend who was stuck at a family do and needed help minding shop. She had an event on as well on the night, so I was running the joint from 4-11, and then again 12-4 on Sunday, followed by some door-minding for a comedy gig. Fun job, and hopefully I was a help.

Not much rest though! And I need to get on with job 2 pretty soon. :undecided Might need to shift this cold first!