Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Irenadler

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I'd agree IreneA re checking you are getting the best possible deal on utilities etc - as hundreds of £s a year can go down the drain on paying over the odds on things.

Other thought being whether you can get a part-time evening/weekend job on top of the "day job" until things ease a bit (ie whatever is causing extra expense vanishes off the scene or you can manage to get a better-paid day job). Not a lot of fun I do know - as I spent years doing a variety of things to make extra money on top of the "day job" until things eased. Just remembering how many years I'd permanently got my eyes out for opportunities to earn extra - the price of being single eh?! But I did manage to stop extra money-earning interfering with my (quite a few) years of being an activist at least....

Thank you MITSTM

This is the main problem - I have a part-time job now, and am still applying for jobs full and part time. The slight catch I am finding is that part-time ones want you to be 'flexible' which is a euphemism for only work for us, and fill in for people that are sick/on hols/didn't turn up. They don't want me to be only available for the contract hours....

Getting a bit norty and not saying I have another job now, to try and get the ones that do fit round the current one!

moneyistooshorttomention

There's a blog I've read through a couple of times and thought "If I ate that way - then I might give those recipes a go". She reckons they eat for £1 a day.

I don't eat that way in the event - as we know - but the recipes looked surprisingly tasty for being so cheap if they really are. My own take is to regard it as literally impossible to eat at all for less than minimum £20 per person per week - but I may be wrong - so you might like to take a look:

https://eatnotspend.wordpress.com

Irenadler

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

There's a blog I've read through a couple of times and thought "If I ate that way - then I might give those recipes a go". She reckons they eat for £1 a day.

I don't eat that way in the event - as we know - but the recipes looked surprisingly tasty for being so cheap if they really are. My own take is to regard it as literally impossible to eat at all for less than minimum £20 per person per week - but I may be wrong - so you might like to take a look:

https://eatnotspend.wordpress.com

Thanks MITSTM

Didn't know about this one, added to my favourites!:T

Have been delving around my recipe books, but, some of the cheffy ones have pricey ingredients. Might be best to stay simple, soups, stews, curries, and such.

Have taken my eye off the ball, and, don't want to get into debt so it is going to be tight. Bought the [STRIKE]food hoover[/STRIKE] some special diet meat from RSPCA but that was £1.75 for 395g.... I mix this with complete dry food otherwise she gets bunged up too much - if you have ever heard a dog moan when trying to poop, you would sympathise! Don't know whether to chuckle or what...

Farway

Back again, lunch expanded to include a packet of crisps, eaten during onion cooking phase of PIE:o

I've never heard of Amazon Pantry, must check that one out, more on a just in case basis, sounds like it could be a handy standby one day. I have used T8sco in the past but found it more bother than actually going shopping

Dahlias sown, in 6 months time I'll be glad I did

Time to trot off to grate the cheese, roll the pastry and assemble PIE

spirit

Sorry been MIA for a bit, often read through though and glad people are ok (by and large and weather etc permitting)


Well DD finally gave birth to grandson - 2 weeks late and had to be induced. He is 10 days old today. He's a wee poppet.


I've been a bit silly in the past, spoiled DD with things for her and the baby - lots of things bought willingly. Now however I think she and her husband have taken me for granted. I'd previously been invited on shopping trips with them knowing I'd put their things in my basket to pay for. For the record SiL is paid at least twice what I am so can well afford things - he is a bit tight though.


so fast forward to Friday when they were discharged from hospital. SiL rang me to ask if I had a pillow thing I'd washed by hand for them - took forever to dry, even when placed near the de humidifier. Anyway, this was about 5pm on Friday, so I said I'd pop it over to them. they live about 7 mins drive away, so not far.


Evidently they'd just plonked everything on the floor when they got in and sat down. so I offered to hold the baby whilst they sorted stuff out. Next thing SiL was on his phone, asked DD what she wanted for supper, then ordered it. I sat there not knowing what to do and couldn't look at them. I wasn't expecting to eat with them, they could have said something.


so I made a hasty exit. then yesterday DD messaged me to ask if the local supermarket (that is 2 mins walk from me) if they would sell laundry baskets. The subtext being that would I go and buy it. If it had been something for the baby I would have bought it, but I'm being taken for a fool here. there are 2 of them with salaries, his more than double mine, and I'm obv a single income. Ok I'm not destitute, but then neither are they.


sorry for the rant, just fed up now of being used!


food wise, I have a beef casserole in the SC

PasturesNew

Irenadler wrote: »

.... 'flexible' which is a euphemism for only work for us..

This is the trouble. Years ago you'd get a Tue/Wed job and a Thu-Sat job ... knowing the days. Nowadays they say "flexible" and they mean "we want a list of people willing to call at short notice at any time of the day and any day of the week ... on call". So even if you just suck it up and pretend at the interview and get onto the list, then find something else you've lied to get ...not only do you live "in fear" of making a mistake in conversation and/or being seen/caught out - but once they've phoned you a few times and you've said "no" your name's at the bottom of their list and there's a new ad in the papers.

Those who haven't been at the "grunt end of life" have no idea how tough it is to get the simplest of lives pulled together.

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

.... thought "If I ate that way .... I don't eat that way in the event

I plough my own furrow because I don't "eat that way", the way many people these days eat...and a lot of these "look we live on thruppence a day" blogs do it by only eating oats and lentils, which I don't eat

I keep things cheap without YS and without vouchers or coupons or cash backs or apps. I do it by being tight and reading the price labels

Most other people's recipes etc are usually "serves 4+" as well as having nasty ingredients.

mcculloch29

Farway wrote: »

Back again, lunch expanded to include a packet of crisps, eaten during onion cooking phase of PIE:o

I've never heard of Amazon Pantry, must check that one out, more on a just in case basis, sounds like it could be a handy standby one day. I have used T8sco in the past but found it more bother than actually going shopping

Dahlias sown, in 6 months time I'll be glad I did

Time to trot off to grate the cheese, roll the pastry and assemble PIE

Amazon Pantry is exclusive to Prime members, but you can often get a free thirty days with Prime.

I took out my Prime in June 2015. Amazon messed up two Prime orders in the first year, so I was given a free month each time as compensation, making it renewable in August 2016. I duly renewed, but then there was a steady stream of hiccups over the course of the next year.
The net result of this was that I got another six months free, and it renews this month, unless they mess up between now and then.

Note, the compensation was not given automatically, but following a polite complaint, and my suggestion that I wasn't being given the service I had paid for. I have never asked for the extra months, they were always given by Amazon.

[Deleted User]

I got amazon pantry once, I think I got the maximum I could for the cheapest delivery. It was a girl who delivered it. without a trolley, I don`t know how the heck she carried it from the road but it was good value

Pies are baking in 2 shifts, I made 2 x 10" and 2 x 8". Thin pastry, cornflour sprinkle at the bottom, then a layer of blackcurrants with apples heaped on top. They look very nice and will last me the whole month. Tbh no different to a sandwich with butter, so I`ll make sure to have something fat free as the main

Ahh PN I don`t half empathise re the sweets. I went to post a parcel this morning and walked past the sweeties twice, I had to force myself to the counter without any

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

This is the trouble. Years ago you'd get a Tue/Wed job and a Thu-Sat job ... knowing the days. Nowadays they say "flexible" and they mean "we want a list of people willing to call at short notice at any time of the day and any day of the week ... on call". So even if you just suck it up and pretend at the interview and get onto the list, then find something else you've lied to get ...not only do you live "in fear" of making a mistake in conversation and/or being seen/caught out - but once they've phoned you a few times and you've said "no" your name's at the bottom of their list and there's a new ad in the papers.

Those who haven't been at the "grunt end of life" have no idea how tough it is to get the simplest of lives pulled together.

I do recall being shocked some years back when one of the cleaners at work explained to me that she really intended to have a full-time job (or thereabouts) but was having to cobble together a full-time amount of hours from doing that cleaning job AND part-time job 2 AND part-time job 3 AND part-time job 4 and so on. I worked it out at the time that she'd be spending a lot of her free time on getting to and from all these mini-jobs (compared to where I got myself to work once a day and then got myself back from work once a day). Her response to my "How do you have A Life with all that to fit together then?" was "You don't - as you spend so much time doing all that".

I thought that was terrible at the time and was so glad that, if the worst had happened to my job (and gawdknows I had to "fight" my employer more than once to make sure it didn't:cool:) that I didn't have a mortgage any longer and could hold out on the Dole Queue for however-long-it-took to get a Normal Job again (ie 9-5 Monday to Friday or thereabouts) and was under no illusions whatsoever as to just how low my chances were of ever coming off the Dole Queue before I got to retirement age and could give up applying for jobs (as I had a list of "things to put employers off" a mile long if any of them had ever tried to give me a job that wasn't a Normal Job - as I had made up my mind I wasn't going to go there....).

I do read about a noticeable number of people that are perfectly capable of having a job imo now having the even worse situation of these "on call" set-ups and struggle to get my mind around how they're supposed to earn any extra income on top of their Main Income if they decide to - if employers are going to take that "Be available - or else" attitude. Plus, of course, the "How are they ever going to be able to study to try and get better qualifications and get out of that situation? How are they going to Have A Life? Get a mortgage etc?". At that point it does my head in and I can't think of how they're supposed to do so....and try and have a normal life.

PasturesNew

I just had more food .... as I've just bought in bread rolls, eggs and tomatoes, I made up a boiled egg/salad cream and stuck that in a roll with half a tomato

When I bought the cubed beef back in December, I had in mind a SC beef/orange thingy.... so I've just removed the beef from the freezer and tomorrow morning I'll slide it into the SC with the leftover Xmas parsnip, a small carton of orange, that tin of butter beans I just bought .... and some other bits and bobs/spices/herbs etc.