Mountainlioness' diary: the MFi3 journey

mountainlioness

Just a quickie to say we have our first let on our spare room :j Only a couple of weeks while a new lecturer finds a flat but it's a start. The deal is once the cost of fitting out the room is covered (only an IKEA wardrobe and chair left) the rest goes off the mortgage.

Really hope it all comes off!

mountainlioness

Dear All

Mr Lion and I were in Calais yesterday for the bi-annual booze cruise having been left in the lamentable position of not having a drop of wine left in the house:rolleyes:

Anyway, here's how we got on:

€261.10 on 60 bottles of wine (3 for 2 etc) = average of €4.35/bottle or just over £3 - brilliant! We buy quite nice stuff too, not from the aimed-at-the-British-market stuff so this is a great buy!

€41.98 on other booze from the same place - Bailey's, Creme de Cassis etc. (£29.31)

€97.01 in a supermarket (pastries, chocolate, coffee, cheese, ham, beer, Kirsch... and loo rolls - found them for €2 for 12 rolls, what MSEr could say no, DH just shook his head) (£67.73 - a bit much here)

and finally €36.70 on diesel. It's €1/l over there so might as well fill up (£25.62 for 3/4 tank of a Mondeo)

If you add in the cost of the ferry (£29) and lunch (£20) the total cost comes in at about £355.

Which, OK, is a lot of money (all bought on 4% cashback Capital One card, which should give us a profit even with the overseas transaction charge) but it does save us in the long run (on the wine anyway). We can definitely keep our weekly grocery bill at under £40 this way, often under £35.

Brilliant trip to Waitrose on Friday - 3 packs of line-caught Icelandic Cod and 2 packs of wild alaskan salmon for £1.10 each! Straight into the freezer, will see us good for 3 weeks of fish consumption :cool:

Hope you're all well - off to pack up our apple stash in paper and make some MSE crumble...

Kaz2904

Mountainlioness we didn't look in the supermarkets in Calais but we did find that the ones in Normandy that we went to had exceptionally cheap whole salmon.
We bought 3 home with us and they each cost us less than 3euros per fish.
With the drive being 17 hours long the fish had defrosted by the time we got home so we ate it all in the first few days but next time we do it I will package it differently. SIL has a different shape of freezer bag and I reckon if she had filled hers to the top with frozen fish and then wrapped it with her duvet or packed it in the middle of the roof box then hers would have stayed frozen.
That may be worth a consideration for next time you go.
There's also the possibility of using clubcard points to pay for your ferry- is that worth a consideration or do you not shop in Mr T's?
DH, BIL & SIL were all drinking boxed red wine. They all liked it but I hate red wine so don't know if it would be any good. The 10l box was costing 14.95 euros. It's about 13 bottles of wine but like my SIL pointed out it's much less weight to bring back because you don't have to account for the glass weight.
DH brought one back and it took him 2 weeks to drink it.
If I lived closer to Dover then I would absolutely do it more often. The cheeses and stuff we brought back are fantastic.

mountainlioness

Thanks Kaz, that's a great tip. As you've probably realised we're big fish fans (especially Mr L) so that would be a good move.

We don't shop 'there' but I hadn't realised you could do that - maybe I'll do a deal with the parents or something for the clubcard points!

Cheese is my big love but you need to put in some serious eating when you get back, which is probably not the best plan (have noticed a tadge more lard around the middle so must take some action!) Having the fresh croissants with cheese this morning was a real treat

Kaz2904

The cheese that we bought is still going strong, just did the usual buying stuff with looooooong dates on it!

mountainlioness

Hi All

Just had a mega freebie-grabbing and comp-entering session having seen the note about Martin's appearance on Radio 1... free teabags, bath bubbles, money-off vouchers and shampoo samples coming my way soon I hope

I also used the BBC website to find a recipe that used the random ingredients I have... am making a spicy lentil bake for when hubster comes home (am working at hom meself today so can play wifey for him (we have an standing joke that he kisses me goodbye and tells me someone has to go out and bring home the bacon so I can be a lady of leisure...) though not sure am going to repeat his apron-only antics!! Have also marked the Old Style recipe-finder as a favourite on my laptop so can pick their brains about slow-cooker recipes... managed to get a slo-cooker off Freecycle so keen to get stuck in to some minimum-effort cooking!

Anyway, back to the grindstone...

catshark88

Let me know how you get on with the slo cooker. They sound a really good idea but I've never quite dared to try them out (bad memories of childhood stews)!

inkie

I swear (well, I would if I did IFYKWIM), by my slow-cooker, just bang everything in in the morning and come home to tea already done!

Christina_F

I swear by mine too. I put it on in the morning and tea is ready when I come home from work.
Tonight I am cooking leek and potato soup in it for tomorrow's lunch. Very OS as the veg were given to me off my FIL

cazmanian_minx

mountainlioness wrote: »

Hi All

Just had a mega freebie-grabbing and comp-entering session having seen the note about Martin's appearance on Radio 1... free teabags, bath bubbles, money-off vouchers and shampoo samples coming my way soon I hope

Oooh, thank you for the reminder - I did OH's Christmas stocking this way last year, I must start again!

Caz