Frugal, thrifty, make do, mend! Let this debt come to an end!

Elisheba

Oh for goodness sake!  My soup maker just stopped working and started letting out smoke.  It is the gadget I use the most, so I have gone online and ordered a new one straightaway.  I remember paying about £50 for mine around 10 years ago.  Same model is selling now for £82.  

I didn't buy the same one again although I considered it.  In the end I got a slightly smaller one which is only £50.  I could have gotten it slightly cheaper secondhand through Amazon warehouse, but I thought I would rather have the 2 year warranty in case anything goes wrong.  You never know with electrical things.  So that's £50 just to stay still, as it were.

Thankfully I was able to salvage my soup and have transferred it to a pot to cook, so at least lunch isn't ruined 

Elisheba

Makingabobor2 said:

Sounds like a great day. Just a thought, do you have any neighbours who you could ask to save newspapers for you? 

Afraid not.  The neighbour I knew fairly well has just moved.  I have some friends locally so I might ask them though.

missymoo81

Just caught up @Elisheba sounds like you’re doing well. Loving the sound of the dishwasher and sorry about needing a new soup maker, very annoying! Hmmm saving money is hard when you don’t have a goal. Stupid work getting in the way of things 😁

Elisheba

Evening all, and lovely to hear from you @missymoo81 😁,

It has been a bit of a weird day today as I've been feeling really rundown and tired. No idea why as I've been eating loads of fruit and veg, I take a vitamin supplement which has vit D in it, I've not been that busy and I have had lots of sleep. But everything I've done I've felt like I needed a sit down afterwards, from very first thing when I had a shower. After a fairly short walk I had to have a lie down and I slept for an hour and a half! Not good for my flexi hours at work at all 😱.

I've cancelled my planned swimming trip tomorrow morning, and am already in bed, so hopefully that will all help a bit and I'll have a bit more energy tomorrow.

The cream of celery soup for my lunch worked out very nicely indeed, and I should have another two portions there. I threw in some old salad that I'd made but not finished as well, so it was a thrifty soup. Dinner was veggie chow mein using frozen cabbage, peppers, carrots, onion, Quorn chicken, and some non frozen reduced beansprouts I picked up yesterday and some noodles. It was so good. I didn't realise you could get veggie chow mein sauce until recently, so this was the first time I'd made it, and it'll definitely be going on my standard meal list. I might have to buy a wok though as it was all a bit much for my frying pan and veg went everywhere.

I'm looking forward to the new soup maker arriving. It may not seem very frugal spending £50 on something that makes something you can make so easily in a pot. But it's so much easier in a soup maker. You don't need to peel anything. It does all the blending. And it is so quick. Pop it all in, press a button, and come back in 20 minutes and voilà. It jeans I eat a lot more soup which is a good way to get veggies in me, and I'm never tempted to buy tins. They are so expensive these days - it's over a pound a tin normally I think, and way more for the cartons of fresh soup.

Since I had no energy I didn't go to the Lent group I had planned to this evening, and instead watched frugal videos on You Tube. Nothing new under the sun on them, but they are good motivators.

I'm reading Jack Munroe's Thrifty Kitchen cookbook, which I've borrowed on my elibrary, and they have a similar meal planning and store cupboard system as I saw on a Under the Median video a while back. Basically list all the ingredients you have under protein, carb, fruit and veg, and snacks. Then meal plan across the 4 columns heading your meal around a protein. Where you have a gap of something you would need for a meal then you can add it to your shopping list. Jack calls it the Quarterhack. I'm going to give it a go when I get a chance to do a stocktake.

They also mentioned in Under the Median to write on the top of pantry goods the expiry date, so you can easily see it and know you are circulating your food stocks properly, which sounds like quite a good idea. 

I ended up putting my heating on about 10am this morning. I don't know whether it was just that cold, or it was to do with the tiredness thing. It doesn't bode well for testing frugality for the rest of the week though which is forecast to be pretty chilly.

Oh and just as a bit of a funny story, my crazy dog broke into the fridge and ran off with a bag of beansprouts 🤷🏼‍♀️. He burst open the bag, got bean sprouts everywhere and then decided he didn't care for beansprouts and wandered off! I'm going to be finding them for days as they really do seem to have gotten everywhere!

Elisheba

Howdy, frugal friends,

What a difference a day makes (and about 11 hours of sleep!).  Feeling much better today thankfully.  I think I am just going to have to accept I need 10 -11 hours sleep, and change my flexi hours to suit that - working till 7 or 8pm if I start late.  Its not ideal, but I do a dog walk midday so do get some daylight, and if I go to bed at 10pm and need to sleep until 8.30am then so be it.  Trying to get up earlier just seems to be well nigh impossible, and makes me feel rotten, so other things will need to change.

I had a Doctor's appointment this morning - in person no less!  The poor Doctor looked in a lot more pain with sciatica than I am!  Anyway its not sciatica I have, which I knew because it is in the wrong place.  Its a different nerve - the femoral nerve which is down the front on the leg.  He says its something called meralgia paresthetica, which I also suspected as a colleague had it and it sounded identical. Its basically a general name for the sort of pain I have.   I was never sure though as on Google it says it should clear up in a few months, and it has been 17 years! 

Doctor suggested I might have a touch of arthritis that is pressing on the nerve which is causing it.  Anyway he has referred me to orthopedics and said they will do a few scans but they have a long waiting list, and also the local physio team in the mean time.  Annoyingly there is no way to reduce the amitriptyline (which is causing my need for very long sleeps) without the pain increasing, so long sleeps it is.  But hopefully some appointments should come through the door fairly soon.

In good news I have had an email to say my phone should be delivered fixed to me tomorrow.  Woo hoo!  I have gotten used to just using my work phone, but it is very limiting and will be great to be able to get on to my banking and things again.

More of the celery soup for lunch today, and wraps tonight with some sort of beans, mushrooms, peppers and onions with fried with some fajita spice, and Greek yogurt and grated cheese in them.  Nothing planned for tonight so I think I'll read a book i started in the Doctor's surgery - The Sty's the Limit by Simon Dawson.  Its the third book in a series about his life as a self sufficient smallholder.  I must say the first two put me right off the idea of a small holding as anything but a hobby.  It sounds backbreaking, and they seem to live in dire poverty.  

Hope everyone has a great day 

Cheery_Daff

Ha - backbreaking dire poverty certainly fits my idea of a full time smallholding life - one of the main reasons I rebuff all suggestions and doing any more if it with the space we have here! 😂

Glad there's a bit of progress with your pain, although those waiting lists do sound awfully long 🙄 Good news on the phone too 😊

Elisheba

Evening all,

It's ten past nine and I'm already in bed. I started reading but felt tired so put on some You Tube videos. I started falling asleep then so gave it up as a bad job.

I've got a telephone appointment with the local physio next week, so hopefully won't be too long before I see them. Will he much longer for ortho and scan though.

The wraps for dinner were really nice, and much less messy than usual strangely enough. With the mix for them cooked, and stir fry left over from yesterday, that's all my (albeit rather limited) cooking done for the week. Friday is a prepacked lasagne from the freezer with garlic bread and salad as on office days I never feel like doing much when I get in.

Tomorrow I must remember to put some washing on - it's something I always put off, just because it's so faffy in my weirdly designed house. I do have my nice new washing basket though, so that will make it a bit easier.

A no spend day today which is nice. I'll be good to get my phone back tomorrow and see all my money again. I can then actually talk a bit about finances on here again 😂. First task to do will be to sort out February's finances, and then transfer money over to my 5% interest account. I think this year at least that won't put money in my LISA as I don't know what I'm going to do about buying a house. It'll be good to have it accessible just in case as well.

I checked my state pension today, and the only years I don't have full contributions for are 3 of my University years. I even have credits for a year I was at school! Apparently when they went to the current contribution system everyone was just given credits for 3 years as it was easier than working out who had actually paid. So another 10 years full time working will have me up to the full pension contribution, which is good to know.

Didn't put the heating on today until 5pm. I think it was actually colder than yesterday, but I didn't feel it as much. Don't think I'll be getting snow here, just a bit chillier than usual, which will probably mean day heating. As long as I'm feeling fine the heating only goes on during the day here if my hands feel really cold - can't type if they are too cold. Otherwise I'm fine in my heated hoodie with a blanket over my legs.

Sleep tight everyone 😃🛏️

SuzeQStan

Hi Elisheba - sorry to hear about this pain - Like you I’m also on amitriptilene (but for me it’s been long term - 10x years and slowly built up to 50mg per day).  The sleepiness wears off very quickly as you become habituated to it. 

17 years of pain is a lot - I’d be requesting a referral to a combined therapy pain clinic. I got some very interesting help when I went a few years back that were quite effective. And most of them did not involve medication! Combining heat/cold therapies with special exercises, making sure vitamin d levels are good etc. highly recommend it if you can get a referral.

Hope this eases soon for you
take care xx
SQS

Edit - thanks for mentioning the extra years state pension  contributions - my OH was wondering why he had gotten some years of contributions when he was actually at school!/uni.  He had wondered if his dad had paid something towards it - but I just told him what you said so thanks for clearing up the mystery. 

Elisheba

Thanks, Suze. I'll hear a combined therapy pain clinic in mind, and ask about it if this latest round of poking and prodding comes to nothing. I've been on the amitriptyline for about 18 months I think - so far no abatement to the needing super long amounts of sleep 🙄.

Yes, it was someone on another thread that told me about the 3 years of pensions credits we all got. I was very confused before that about why I would have contributions for a year of school, college and Uni. When I think on it though I can't see why we don't get pension contribution credits for being in full time education.

Elisheba

Evening, all,

Absolutely hideous day outside the Maison de Elisheba today. Went out for my lunchtime dog walk and promptly decided it was going to be half the length I had originally planned! It is snowing, which wasn't forecast, but no sign of it settling so far. But cold and windy as well, so not nice at all and I've very glad to be toasty and warm indoors tonight.

In phone news, it did get delivered but with no battery 🙄. So that is now being delivered tomorrow morning. This 4 year warranty sounds a lot better than it's proving to be in reality. Altogether it must have taken 3 weeks to get this sorted, and it has meant I have had to have access to a different phone and way 5o access emails. Not everyone has that, and if I had had to go to the library everytime I needed to email to get this sorted out it would have taken a lot longer.

In better news my new soup maker has arrived 😁. It looks half the size of my old one, but apparently only makes 0.2 litres less soup. We will see. A smaller amount in general isn't a bad thing as I get bored of it after 2 days, but never feel like it is worth freezing the rest.

I very naughtily popped into Waitrose on my walk and bought sweet things. Also got some veggie chicken reduced. I ate too many of the sweet thing and then couldn't get anywhere with dinner, so I've put it away to have for lunch tomorrow.

Hope you are all staying cosy and warm in this hideous weather 😁