My Soa - Any advice welcome

the_cat

Best to get over to the Old Style Board. Loads of recipies and ideas on there.

My fave is to use it to make Spag Bol. Mince, lentils, different types of veg, passatta, herbs and garlic (or Dolmio type thing if feeling lazy!) Often after cooking I make half into Chilli (add kidney beans, chilli powder) as this is then 2 meals in one

caeler

Hi,

Re: slow cooker, I brought one and love it. for beef stew - 2 options, brown meat, dump veg and stock and cook for 6+ hours, or dump everything in cold then cook for 12+ hours. (I add in a cup of peas and dumplings at the end for 20 mins) Check the manual it will tell you. I brought a cheapy one from Argos, £9.99 and its great. removable crockpot for easy cleaning. http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4207490/Trail/searchtext>SLOW+COOKER.htm

One thing I hope you don't mind me saying, but you appear to have a very long journey to work. Is there any way you could live closer, I'm worried for your work life balance?! I know moving home is probably not part of the 'reduce debt' plan.

catlover1_2

bluefuzzybug wrote: »

Hi,

Re: slow cooker, I brought one and love it. for beef stew - 2 options, brown meat, dump veg and stock and cook for 6+ hours, or dump everything in cold then cook for 12+ hours. (I add in a cup of peas and dumplings at the end for 20 mins) Check the manual it will tell you. I brought a cheapy one from Argos, £9.99 and its great. removable crockpot for easy cleaning. http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4207490/Trail/searchtext>SLOW+COOKER.htm

One thing I hope you don't mind me saying, but you appear to have a very long journey to work. Is there any way you could live closer, I'm worried for your work life balance?! I know moving home is probably not part of the 'reduce debt' plan.

The work journey to the office is actually only 34 miles but its the traffic ... (london) unfortunately it would cost (petrol paid for train not) too much to train it and take longer as would have to go to central london and then out again ... also I would be too far in travel time from the horse... I also think it would cost more to live nearer London.

Most of the travel is visiting customers and 2nd job ... was in Nottingham twice last week, mancester and Bristol plus Colchester !!!!

xx

liz105

Re savings - once you'd made all your cut backs, got into a good pattern with food debt payments etc, would it be worth setting up a standing order (or perhaps do it yourself on internet banking) of a fixed amount to go into a savings account. that way you wouldnt look at your bank balance and say 'oh its ok, I can go out, I've got £300 left' you'd say 'cheap night tonight, cos £250 goes into savings tomorrow'. ?? it would help you to focus on the goal (house) and remind you why you are batch cooking at all hours!! potentially you could save a lot on a good month.

chevalier

I think the thing with the food is to change a bit at a time. Only you know which is the easiest bit to change. I would go for dinner to change first.
Quick recipe number one

1 tin tuna
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 onion
half cup(small one) of rice
pepper and herbs
chop onion put in frying pan with oil fry until brown.
Once brown add drained tuna and tomatoes bring to simmer
then put the rice onto cook.
This takes me about 20 minutes especially if you put the rice on whilst the onions are browning. Cost is peanuts and would probably do you for tea one night and lunch the next day.

In order to really crack this you have to devote time to it just like anything else! So pick a weekend and diarise it to be cooking weekend. Then the week before you can plan to get the raw ingredients in so you know you have them to cook. If you did really big pots of stuff, you could only do this once a month!

chev

catlover1_2

chevalier wrote: »

I think the thing with the food is to change a bit at a time. Only you know which is the easiest bit to change. I would go for dinner to change first.
Quick recipe number one

1 tin tuna
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 onion
half cup(small one) of rice
pepper and herbs
chop onion put in frying pan with oil fry until brown.
Once brown add drained tuna and tomatoes bring to simmer
then put the rice onto cook.
This takes me about 20 minutes especially if you put the rice on whilst the onions are browning. Cost is peanuts and would probably do you for tea one night and lunch the next day.

In order to really crack this you have to devote time to it just like anything else! So pick a weekend and diarise it to be cooking weekend. Then the week before you can plan to get the raw ingredients in so you know you have them to cook. If you did really big pots of stuff, you could only do this once a month!

chev

thanks will try the recipe this weekend.

Liz, the savings scheme sound a good idea will have a look into it

Will post more in the morning have just got back from job 2 and need my bed as am up about 6 tomorrow xx

GettingThingsDone

Hi - what really helped me was thinking about my goals in life and working out whether what I was doing was moving me closer or further away from those goals.

For example, I've spent a lot of time on the road, but I've stopped eating crap as that moves me away from my goal of losing weight.

Some of my goals are completely arbitrary but just the fact that they exist means that I am doing something positive (if I remember that is )

Sounds like you're earning fab money (would love to know about the 2nd job too ) but what is it you actually want in life?

Anyway, keep posting!

gtd

surfer_chicky

Id love to know what you do as a job!! It may be time for a career change

Good luck with things.

gems2381

Yeah I'm intrigued about the job too!

tyllwyd

One thing about Job No 2 - you haven't told us much about what it is, but if the money coming in is so variable I'm guessing that it is not something where you'd be paying PAYE tax? If not, and the figures you've mentioned are gross, you need to be very careful about saving up for your tax bill, because it looks as if you are in the higher rate tax band, so that is going to be a significant amount of money to pay.