NST February frugality and frolics

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for having a good long night's sleep, for waking up to lots of sunshine, for easy clearing up and packing to come back home, for opting to walk the 1.8m to the train station instead of taking the bus to the city centre (wasn't sure I had the right change for the bus; paying for the bus would have been extra as I already had the return train ticket; paying for the bus would have used all my change, leaving me with nothing to give the man/men at the Lunnon train station), for the walk helping to clear my head a little, for seats on every train, for just getting on with it and doing a workout before dh and dd returned, for dd loving her new - short ! - haircut.

misstara

Food expenditure - £111.53/£170

Budgets - YNAB updated

Useful leftovers - no frogs ticked off

Aim to take your lunch to work every day - off usual work until Monday :j

Remind yourself of what you have and be grateful - some really good chats with OH, an extremely lazy day, a takeaway for tea (for OH's birthday)

You should pay to your debt or savings first and live on what is left - £1.15 paid to the debt today

Spend Free Days - now on 10/18

Exercise is important - kettlebells class yesterday

sashanut

Hi all :j

This is how I make risotto Toni'sfriend (all risotto making purists please look away now)…

I use a frying pan, first of all melt a bit of butter & a squirt of oil in pan, then fry gently a chopped small onion till softened - whatever sort of onion you have in. Currently I have shallots - special offer a while back in Lidl - and one of those is about the right size. Once the onion is softened I add risotto rice, normally about half of one of those small packets, stir around till it is coated in the oil/butter. Meanwhile make up a couple of chicken stock cubes or melts to about 1.5 litres of stock & add a bit of stock at a time whilst stirring. It will absorb the stock very quickly, so keep adding. If you have a bit of leftover white wine (!) you can add that too. When the rice has absorbed most of the stock, chuck in your chicken chopped into chunks. You could also add some precooked bacon or ham. Finally throw in a handful of frozen peas if you like them, you can also grate some parmesan into there as well if you have it. We normally have grated cheddar on top, and serve with garlic bread which I make by creaming soft butter/spread/marg with mixed herbs & garlic granules/powder. Then I slice a part baked baguette lengthways, spread each half with butter/herb mixture & cook in oven. If baguette is too much for one sitting the bread freezes well before cooking, or you can use part baked rolls for individual portions. You can add other vegetables as well, mushrooms are good & then sometimes I substitute a mushroom stock cube for one of the chicken ones. HTH:D


Back out into the garden again & started removing some of the massive bushes from the side of the house that have grown on the rockery. I couldn't believe how out of hand it had got, don't tend to go round that side much & it shows. DH cut down all but one & we still have to drag them to the back of the garden so we can cut them up & dispose of them. Looks like a job for tomorrow.

F Food Expenditure Aiming for £225 for the month, down from about £275.. already done a bit of spending so no NSDs as yet. Shopping already spent £139.56/225 . Made some purchases today/yesterday so need to add those on. Still to do. No spends today.


E Excursions and entertainment should be planned. ...No excursions but planning a trip to Ireland before B-day but looks like they have changed the ferry crossings to make it vastly more inconvenient for us. However, DH is on the case & looking at alternative routes. Will be in March. Looks like we can make an alternative crossing & even though we need to stay overnight in a B&B it will be cheaper, so should book this week. Trip out planned for Monday to collect car.

B Budgets None set as yet - other than food - & all DDs already out.

U Useful leftovers Will also carry on with frogs. Need to make a list for DH also, there are plenty of things he can be doing. Garden frog started today, will probably do this every other day whilst the fine weather continues. DH decided to crack on with outside stuff today so I needed to help. Unfortunately he also managed to knock tea all over the living room rugs, so had to mop up & then get carpet cleaning machine out, not my favourite but had to be done. Really tired now!

A Aim to take your lunch
Don't work outside the home other than volunteer at a CS but will aim to take snacks/lunch/etc when we go out. Didn't eat whilst out but waited till we got home, sandwich then. Will do.

R Remind yourself Another lovely day, discovering new plants on the rockery that have been hidden by the overgrown bushes, happy dogs & cat.

Y You should pay your debt or savings first Have no debt other than a cc paid off in full each month. However, savings needed for dental work & also for house renovations, so will take care of that. Paid back joint account for dental work again. Will make another payment after this post. Still to do.

S Spend Free Days SFDs now 9/18

U Use it up Keep using up what we have, have done some shopping already but should only need fresh F&V & bread, plus animals food/litter. DD donated some of a cooked chicken she bought so made risotto from that, still enough to make soup left.
Plus LO risotto so arancini to come later. DH made supper from a jar of jalfrezi curry with chicken, I made a curry with paneer that we had in needed using up, voted a hit. Pudding was frangipane tarts, also from store cupboard ingredients.

R Regular check ins Here

V Cards only .. in the nut household. Well it should have been but a plant mysteriously appeared with the card!

I Indoors/outdoors My only regular exercise is gardening, which I try to do most days. Walked a lot when away need to have slightly better weather to do much around here. Much time spent outdoors again today.


Indoors - being a hermit. Some more of the complex knitting stuff done, just realised I made an error in the pattern (colour). Will just knit the other side to match (design feature). No knitting just reading of the papers & watching a bit of TV.

V Vending machines etc Rarely use but do have the occasional takeaway as part of family meal. Maybe once a month, but no plans so far. Had family meal out yesterday, no plans for a takeaway AFAIK. none planned.

A Advance planning This is a problem for me, I don't plan in advance but decide what to have on an almost daily basis. I know I have to get more organised, so will inventory both fridges...as a starting point. Have not inventoried yet , will do tomorrow. Done Fridge one. Fridge 2 to go. Done fridge 2.....have a loongg list on my phone. Need to see if I can meal plan for this week now I have an idea of what we have. Wont need tomorrow as we should be eating out, but for rest of week. Still WIP. Friday will be inventory day & meal planning..there, I said it now. OK I lied, it was garden day instead. And today too....and tomorrow as well I expect.

Garden prep - up to today - has been going on apace, not with planting as the ground has been frozen but with pruning & some greenhouse stuff. No veg as yet but it's a bit early for here. Will go through seeds - I have loads - and see what I need if anything. Also have lots of pots of paint for projects inside & outside the house - once decluttered enough to decorate.. Mulching borders is in hand although it will take me forever. One more load done. Amazingly DH has offered to help...well he will cut down some stuff that is too big for my loppers to cut. Fills me with fear tbh...he's not handy! Scheduled for rest of week if fine, dependent on car viewings too. Looks like Friday..weather predicted to be fine so it will happen. It happened! But lots more need to happen, to keep the momentum going..More done, we will lick this garden into shape, otherwise it will get away from me..

Go Turtles!!!

mothernerd

Let's take our hearts for a walk in the woods and listen to the magical whisper of old trees.

May you twinkle like the stars
Shine like the moon
Give warmth like the sun
Sway like the trees
Flow like water
Travel like the wind
and glow with passion like a flame

Don't let the winter months of life make you forget that spring is just around the corner.

It's going to be one of those days. The voices in my head are fighting, my imaginary friend is running around with scissors and at one point one of my personalities wandered off

Fmess

Hi all,

I seem to have turned into a lurker these last few months. The maternity cover I am doing is even more work than anticipated and is knackering. I’ve also had issues with a room renovation that has became a nightmare (9 weeks I’ve been sleeping in the spare room with 2 rooms worth of furniture) and just general winter blues. I’m going to set myself a reminder to logon everyday as I do much better financially when I’m on here with all your positive influences

Today will be spendy, quarterly meal out with friends but nothing apart from that. Need to add another coat of paint to the skirting, walk the dogs, go to the gym and catch up with my parents and sister. Thank goodness it’s half term, I woke up at 5.25am!

dolly84

Dawn - I had ruled out Amsterdam as a colleague has just been there and said it was lovely but super expensive and that there were live shows of a certain nature going on in most bars, now I wouldn't be taking DD into a bar but I really didn't want to go somewhere that seedy but you paint a different picture of it so maybe I should look into it further.


I ordered some darning needles on ebay last week and they came yesterday so I darned one of my slipper socks last night. It was not easy as it is one of those socks with the fluffy lining which is attached to the outer knitted part plus it was my first attempt at doing it. Anyway one of the socks now has a multicoloured wool patch, the other sock has two holes to do:eek:.

Fmess

Dolly my parents and separately my sister and her friends have been to amersterdam and all loved it. Neither of their trips involved anything seedy, my parents said there were certain streets to avoid if you don’t want to be near those types of cafes/bars. But they loved the canals and culture

Toni'sfriend

Hi Dolly

I am just back from Amsterdam. I would agree to avoid the red light area but there are lots of lovely restaurants and cafes, nice shops and general just walking around. I would also agree that it has become very expensive especially hotels. We visited six cities on our trip and Amsterdam was by far the most expensive.

Vienna is beautiful (as is Salzburg) but might be difficult to get to depending on where you have to fly from.

mothernerd

Hugs Fmess. I have been thinking about you but didn't like to interfere. As you can expect, I am well versed at the sleeping surrounded by piled up furniture but I prefer to see it as a burrow with the bed as my nest (even had a set of drawers and a small wardrobe alongside it at one point with a little 'doorway' for me to crawl into and hide away from/ have my back to all the rest.

I think we all have times when we overwork - it helps with the money situation so we feel we have to take it on and then lack of time starts to drag us down.

Am I right in thinking this will help your future prospects (or strengthen your determination to leave)?

My worst experience with a builder was having my windows and doors replaced (by my plumber but he had a gang of people to take on larger jobs). Asked for an estimate and he turned up when I had specifically told him I was at work at my evening job and measured up (has caused some ongoing problems as I think there is a problem in the brickwork surrounding the window, which should have been tackled).

I told him I did not want the work doing until the start of the school holidays (I was studying for my foundation degree) and he turned up at the start of the exam period (May), took off the front and back doors and then they all went for a lengthy breakfast in their van, so I was left patrolling downstairs as it was completely open to anyone wandering in off the street. Computer monitor got broken in the move and I had to replace it with an older one (only shop near enough for me and DS3 to carry it and needed it for end of year assignments).

Was hoping he was only doing the doors, which were the most urgent part, but the windows arrived during the day. They let the cats escape from the back bedroom and one of them left home for several weeks.

Then he started on the much needed roof replacement, put up scaffolding, stripped all the tiles off (I insisted on them being reused as it was only the holes that were going) then left on holiday for two weeks with the back half covered with thick polythene, easy burglar access via the scaffolding and it scared me half to death when I was wakened by a noise in the night - luckily it was just the end of the roll of polythene which had fallen from the scaffolding into the back yard.

When they finally left, I had less than a week to move all the furniture back where it belonged and prepare the largest room for DS2 and his gf (his first year at uni one, whom he is only just getting over).

This involved stripping all the wallpaper off down to the ancient mottled yellow (that stuff they had before painted walls, name has gone from my brain - distemper) which I decide would look okay (fashionable even, though there just was not time to do any more), buying and putting together a large bed (DS2 and his friend were doing it but abandoned it when the rugby started, having done little more than carry all the boxes upstairs).

Went with DS2 to buy matching curtains, bedding and duvet cover (gorgeous chocolate brown and deep turquoise with an embroidered flower pattern embellished with the odd sequin bedding), plain turquoise curtains and bought some tiny votives to enhance the mottled distemper.

After gf went home, (to posh ex-farmhouse in far south of the country - DS2 came to me in utter bewilderment during his first term as fellow students kept going on about their agas) I got the bedding as DS2 declared it was too 'girly'. Curtains are up at the window as I write and the pillowcases are beside me (13 years later).

Hope that cheered you up, it does end eventually and sharpened my resolve not to use workpeople who will not listen. To be fair he was a good plumber and came straight away in emergency situations. Nowadays I stick to Mr and Mrs builder. Their work may not always be cosmetically perfect but they know how to do most things (and know who to call if they don't) and any problems that arise they discuss with me and we come up with a solution between us.

More hugs Fmess, just keep going wit' yead down.

f0xh0les

I would love to go to Amsterdam, the museums and art galleries there are supposed to be really good, and the bulb fields when in bloom are supposed to be stunning. Let's face it, most cities have certain streets we all know not to let your guard down on, at least Amsterdam has the decency to hang a red light, as it were. I mean people live there, with their families and children, and must get quite miffed at all the student trips and stag do-s. You know, I feel a trip to Amsterdam coming on! Might even take the boat. Then I could say I was going on a cruise:rotfl: although I doubt one night on a boat, a cruise doth make:rotfl:. To misquote Aristotle.

NSD yesterday 7? and today will be too, as I am not standing up if I can help it. Lots of laundry, lots of PE kits. lots of tea.

Today I am grateful for; pain relief gel, it being sunny outside and me being inside, the birds twittering about a bit , Endeavour, the sap rising, the strangest urge to spring clean (?? I am resisting), a full fruitbowl, half term, and finding a 2 hr a day football club at the bottom of the road for DS3 and DS4 for £1 each next week. :j If they are running around for 2 hrs a day, they can play on their idiot boxes as much as they like, and for me having a plan!!!