The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

apple_muncher

I too bought myself some socks for cmas. Lovely and warm in he house yet perfectly good in my walking boots and shoes. I love them!

I'm not doing UFM officially, but am certainly living it vicariously though you and pippi.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

apple - aren't you running the NST challenge? You've got your hands full with that - never mind UFM Besides, folk who have been around the frugal scene won't find much new content in Liz's challenge - and that's not meant critically of Liz, what I mean is, is that there are a certain number of 'first bases' that you have to cover in order to get your finances into shape, or your debt shifted. It's not rocket science, neither is there any 'new, improved' whizzy whizzy technique that can make debt vanish over night - how we all wish there was! I'm just doing the challenge to sharpen my thinking a little. I think being frugal each day does sometimes get a bit wearing. Sometimes you just need a reset, or to know that others are trying to live as you do. Not everyone is maxed out to the hilt and living the glossy magazine lifestyle, going to 'it' parties and drinking bottles of champers that costs the same as a small car.......even if sometimes it seems like it.............

Well here we are again. Funny night's sleep. Woken twice by frankly awful dreams - very realistic and featuring real people and places as well as me (and BG in one......) but lots of features wrong/unrealistic too. All very, very odd How I could have done with another night sleeping through. And annoying as I didn't eat or drink anything that is connected with bad dreams - not even a crumb of cheese!

Right, I've had a very slow start, again, and DH has been a trooper with our little bundle of energy

I hope we can get out in the sunshine today. There is a charity shop that I want to go and see. So any expenditure is 50/50, as you never now what you may find. Just the thing, or nowt. i'm also going to start looking at storage items - in the vein of chest of drawers/wardrobe, as we were looking in a chazzer yesterday, and I thought the prices they were asking for 'flat pack' wobbly stuff was outrageous. But, having said that, I don't know how much furniture costs anymore, so they might be asking a reasonable 'slice' of money on something that costs £££'s new.......

Tea this evening will most likely be cardboard box cod, oven chips and mushy peas, unless we're only out for 5 minutes and I get inspired to cook something else. I am, however, very low on onions, and fArmf00ds had no nets yesterday

I could do with sorting out some financials. Following the UFM, I know there are some bits of money sitting in places that are not yielding much interest and aren't particularly easy to get hold of, so I must rectify that. We have decided to amalgamate our CU accounts. I find the PO obstructive to having an account, so I'm going to close mine and we'll do a D/D each month into DH's CU account each month and withdraw by telephone instruction as and when. This money covers car maintenance and our holiday or mini excursions, so it is important that we keep saving it.

I must also have a look into energy bill and submit some readings. if I 'owe' I want to pay them now, rather than let them muck about with the D/D. I have set some money aside for this purpose. As I'm sure I've mentioned, heating is a priority expense for us.

Right, can't think of owt else. Best go and shift-a-tail-feather, as I've let daylight burn as it is......

Ta for popping in. Appreciated.

Greying X

beanielou

Enjoy your day GP

Pippilongstocking

Just wot she said up there enjoy that there day of yours.



PS most cish and fips from them there posh chippes come in a box now too, so you're well on trend. I do prefer paper I have to say.

Greying_Pilgrim

:hello: to beanie


Pippi - I hadn't thought of that - you're right, *posh* fish & chips oft does come in a box :rotfl::T

Well, the chazzer didn't turn up any 'must haves'. There was a contender, and it was fairly priced, for the condition it was in, but...... I did drop on some lovely valencia Oranges in fArmf00ds - 7 large oranges for £1. They hadn't re-stocked their veg though so no onions, but I did pick up a net elsewhere, £1.99 for 4kg, which I think is a little on the pricey side, but needs must.

I did venture into B&M, looking for bags of dates. They didn't have what I wanted (will have to go to HB), but i did buy a jar of wh0l3 3arth peanut butter (340g jar) for £1.89, BB october 18, - most places it retails for about £2.99, and they also had the big 1kg tubs for £5 which is quite the cheapest i have seen. They also had mArm1te (conventional size) for £2, which as it was only something like 12p dearer than the mrA own brand, I bought, especially since it means I don't have to go to mrA.

I think BG and I might go out for a potter this afternoon and get a few more rays - we'll have to wrap up warmly tho' - and DH will probably hit the hay, as he's tired and grumpy. I'll allow him a bit of leeway on this, as he's picked up plenty of slack lately. And he did say that my dreams were horrible.......

We saw several people that we knew and had a nice natter. Which was great and cost nowt.

I had to laugh, I was talking about a project on p1nt3re$t that I'd seen and pricing it up, the materials would have been £30 - although the original project used high quality materials costing $415. Well, I've shelved the idea, but interestingly I saw a scarf (that's what the project was), that was emulating..... the colours (but not stitching) of this project, from a 'well known' country clothing brand, , and they wanted £32.99 for it - in a 'discounter' type retailer........ It just shows doesn't it. It you want quality and precision, you have to make it yourself at high cost in materials and time. You can substitute and get cheaper quality materials and still have to put in the time, or you can just walk up to the shelf and pick something 'in the vein' for a similar amount of dosh outlay......... Or you can remember you're a frugal womble, particiapting in UFM, snap your purse shut and wander off to stand under the overhead heater in the shop for a de-frost of your extremities

Greying X

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

...Or you can remember you're a frugal womble, particiapting in UFM, snap your purse shut and wander off to stand under the overhead heater in the shop for a de-frost of your extremities ...

Well done GP that would have been my choice too! xxx

Greying_Pilgrim

rtandon27 wrote: »

Well done GP that would have been my choice too! xxx

Ha ha - you are too kind, it wasn't an awfully hard decision to make, as I didn't actually *like* the factory 'emulation' version........

Well, we've had a spiffing time this arvo. We nicked out - walking very quickly to pump the auld blood around the vessels a bit - and dropped via the high street to pick up the needed dates from HB. I may also have bought some *valerie* tea ..... zZZZZZZZZZzZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Then we went to the municipal park and had a wander about. It was lovely, as it was quite quiet and BG could safely toddle about. We caught some rays of sunshine and exchanged pleasantries with several folks, then hot-footed it back to the towers before the sun totally disappeared and the temperature really started to fall. I am currently glowing - for all the right reasons - and feel like I've had the best walk/exercise in absolutely ages. I'm so glad we went

And we've still our *emulation* chippy tea to look forward to

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

Sunshine

Exercise

Family time

Ta for popping by. It is greatly appreciated.

Greying X

WannabeFree

The sun has been nice here too, it makes for a good change and I'm wishing time away to Spring

Sounds like you had a good day too.

I have a stupid question and you seem best to ask with all your delicious food. If a recipe calls for shallots can I use 'normal' onion? Or not? Told you it was stupid :rotfl:

Greying_Pilgrim

WannabeFree wrote: »

I have a stupid question and you seem best to ask with all your delicious food. If a recipe calls for shallots can I use 'normal' onion? Or not? Told you it was stupid :rotfl:

It is NOT a stupid question. It is a perfectly GOOD question. My instant MSE answer is YES, because I do it all the time. The reason (excluding any ponce factor for any particular recipe/ponce factor for any chef or recipe author) that shallots are normally specified is that they are normally a milder (sometimes sweeter) taste than 'ordinary onions' can be. But if it is fancy, I would just cook ordinary onions for longer (taking care not to burn nor brown them). But ordinarily, there is no need. If you happen to be using the large ('spanish') onions, white onions, or in some cases red, you'll be not having harsh onion-i-ness anyway.

I bought some of the shallots that were 'cheap' in mrL before Christmas. I used them in onion gravy with our toad in the hole, for the lasagne for Christmas eve and something else I can't recall. Did I realise I was eating shallots? No. Did they make the dish nicer? Well, the gravy was nice, but not michelin starred.

So in a word. No, it don't matter 99.9% of the time. And if the federation of shallot growers and marketers wants to take issue with me, then I invite them to a cook off to prove to me that making ordinary teas, in reasonable amounts of time, on a daily basis, to fill the tummies of our loved one, needs shallots. Onions for me, the majority of the time.

Greying X

WannabeFree

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

It is NOT a stupid question. It is a perfectly GOOD question. My instant MSE answer is YES, because I do it all the time. The reason (excluding any ponce factor for any particular recipe/ponce factor for any chef or recipe author) that shallots are normally specified is that they are normally a milder (sometimes sweeter) taste than 'ordinary onions' can be. But if it is fancy, I would just cook ordinary onions for longer (taking care not to burn nor brown them). But ordinarily, there is no need. If you happen to be using the large ('spanish') onions, white onions, or in some cases red, you'll be not having harsh onion-i-ness anyway.

I bought some of the shallots that were 'cheap' in mrL before Christmas. I used them in onion gravy with our toad in the hole, for the lasagne for Christmas eve and something else I can't recall. Did I realise I was eating shallots? No. Did they make the dish nicer? Well, the gravy was nice, but not michelin starred.

So in a word. No, it don't matter 99.9% of the time. And if the federation of shallot growers and marketers wants to take issue with me, then I invite them to a cook off to prove to me that making ordinary teas, in reasonable amounts of time, on a daily basis, to fill the tummies of our loved one, needs shallots. Onions for me, the majority of the time.

Greying X

Ahh thank you, I admit I've never had shallots and I never follow a recipe usually :rotfl: so I wasn't sure. I'm glad though as I have onions so I can avoid the supermarket

Thank you for not laughing too x