Fresh Start At Fox Towers.

kayannie

The pecan puff biscuits sound lovely, but I usually substitute pecans with walnuts if I need them for cooking. Usually much cheaper & I don't think you'd notice much difference in the taste.
KA

foxandflowers

@kayannie its a recipe from my Dorling Kindersley Children's Cookbook - so very few ingredients! Butter, whizzed up pecans, a little flour, 2 teaspoons sugar and some vanilla essence. Makes around 20 biscuits. Delicious and not too sweet. Pecans in Lidl are currently the same price as walnuts - £1.45 a bag.

Went slightly over budget yesterday - but have got enough food in now to make dinner for the next 2 weeks, plus got a nice stripy laundry tub that will double up as a washing up bowl when we go camping for £5. Mini Fox was at her friends for dinner, so we had sweetheart cabbage fried up with onions and bacon lardons, and a steak each. I also got a XXL duck pancake for the freezer, so when the takeaway craving hits, I can cook that up instead (£10). I have £294 left in the grocery budget until the 26th May. 

Mr Fox has requested coffee and walnut cake with buttercream and coffee icing for his birthday. Puppy woke up only once last night - and then got me up at 5.50am. I am TIRED. Used my 'free' Monzo coffee this morning to try and wake myself up, debated getting a pastry, but then remembered I am supposed to be NSD'ing today. Am having a banana and leftover easter egg chocolate for breakfast instead. 

I have left it too late to transfer my other pensions into my workplace one, however some phone calls yesterday revealed that I have another small pension (sub £200) that I had no idea about. I am now transferring the two smaller ones into my Nest pot, so at least everything will be in one place. Then come retirement, I will have my LGPS pension, my AVC, and the tiny Nest pot. I have been meaning to amalgamate them for months, so its nice to have got the process started! 

Here is an interesting website that estimates what you need to retire on annually - Home - PLSA - Retirement Living Standards - although frankly the idea of replacing a kitchen/bathroom every 10 years is crazy to me! 

kayannie

Those biscuits sound delicious, I'll have to make some! I was buying walnuts from Lidl today & noticed that pecans were the same price but craftily there were less in the bag!
KA

foxandflowers

@kayannie I looked up the recipe! 
4oz butter, 5oz pecans, 2 spoons caster sugar, 5oz plain flour, drops of vanilla essence. I also dash in a glug of maple syrup. Beat butter and sugar together, whizz up pecans in food processor until like breadcrumbs, mix everything into the butter and sugar mix, then roll into balls around size of walnuts. Bake on baking tray at 150C for around 35 mins. Roll in icing sugar once cooling and then eat all 20 at once.
Let me know if you make them and how they turn out  

Happy May everyone. Very much looking forward to the bank holiday on Monday - hoping the weather holds long enough for me to spend some time swimming in the sea this weekend. I am putting myself on a No Buy for May. I ended up buying 11 things for myself last month, which averages a thingy every 3 days which is not good at all. I'm going to spend May decluttering and selling things, and then I can revisit in June what I actually need.

Wanted Things that have been on my list forever are a long handled bristle shower brush, a black maxi skirt from Lucy & Yak, and a digital camera. My phone camera is not great, but now my phone is paid off, I don't want to upgrade it and tie myself into a new contract. I am keeping an eye out on eBay/CEX etc for the camera, as I definitely don't want to pay 'new' prices, but I also think I am capable of generating enough funds to buy myself one just by selling some clothes. There is a Canon 750D in the Cash Gen near me, for £250. So that's sort of my quiet target to raise for May. It will be a tight month anyway, so no personal spends will help the budget stretch further. 

I'm also going to use it as an excuse to finally get around to organising and categorising my wardrobe in a spreadsheet. I'm aiming to keep my entire wardrobe at around 50 items. It should be a fun way to see what I actually have, and what I don't wear. I definitely have way too much. 

I can't quite believe a third of the year is gone already, this year is absolutely flying past. 

foxgloves

I bake a very similar recipe to that at Christmas, @foxandflowers - the version I have is called 'Snowball cookies'. Lovely with a cup of really decent coffee.
F

foxandflowers

So far I have added 62 things to my Wardrobe list, and the total cost spent is £1234 which works out to approximately £19.90 per item. This is since January last year, I have loads left to add on. Ugh. I am nowhere near done. This is WAY too many items. On the plus side, I am having fun charting my data. 



Mr Fox asked me if we could go through his clothes later and put the stuff he doesn't want on Vinted. I think I am going to be doing the same thing as I have identified 4 things while adding them to my list that can go. 

foxandflowers

Morning!

Hope everyone had a nice bank holiday - ours was lovely.
Saturday we ran errands - I listed 21 things on Vinted, did laundry, returned things to Next and went to M&S for our 2-4-15 dinner (we had pate to start then fish pie and gastro pub greens for mains - delicious).  Sunday we took the puppy for his first walk and got him a pup cup - it was super cute! We've moved his crate into the kitchen and I deep cleaned the downstairs part of the house. I set my Switch up on the telly, and then spent most of Monday just vegging on the sofa. 

I've sold 4 things on Vinted, so another £22 bringing this month's total to £40 so far. I've got them with me today to post on lunch. I woke up a bit later than I usually would as puppy is finally sleeping through (11pm-5/6am) and almost didn't take a packed lunch in to work - lazy non MSE mindset! - but I raided the cupboards and threw together a bag of bits. I have leftover ginger cake, dried banana chips, an apple, crisps and a yogurt, so I'm hoping for a NSD today, although I need to pick up some birthday bits for Mr Fox, I am using the budgeted Gift Pot savings for this. (I am sure you can hear my shock through the screen at how sensible I am being). The plan is aftershave & a dog walking bag!

Going to be listing all my furniture that is still in the storage unit for sale this weekend at ridiculously cheap prices just to get it gone. I hope it will feel like I can breathe once that's done.

Love, Fox.

kayannie

I have just made your pecan puff biscuits (or, in my case, walnut puff biscuits!) as I had walnuts in. 
Instead of blitzing the nuts, I put them in a zip lock bag & rolled them, it worked well. I found the mixture quite dry & was worried it wouldn't come together enough to roll into balls so I added a dessert spoon of honey. 
They taste delicious although a little crumbly. I'll certainly make them again. DH's had 2 already!
Thanks for the recipe.
KA

foxandflowers

Morning all.

@kayannie - I'm glad you like them! Crumbliness can be fixed by baking longer or adding more butter - it's a bit of trial and error but they are very moreish.

Today's plan is to use up some food that is on the verge of turning. I cooked two bits of pork belly last night in oven, whilst making salmon poke bowls for dinner - added them to the leftover rice & edamame beans and have brought that in for lunch today. 5 brown bananas - 2 have been blitzed with oats and milk for a breakfast smoothie, and 3 will go into banana bread tonight. 

My garden waste bin arrived yesterday, so my afternoon once I finish work, will be spent chopping up various bushes and shrubbery and putting it in there, instead of in a heap on my lawn. I'm going to need to get my lawnmower out of the storage unit soon as the grass is on verge of becoming unmanageable. Trouble is I'm not sure where the rechargeable bits are for the mower and strimmer - and without them they're useless! 

Finally put my net curtains up yesterday - they were a Habitat markdown with a lovely bird pattern - and now can leave the shutters open during the day without the world and his wife peering in. Excellent news as it means I don't need to have the lights on during the day any more. Still £58 on the Electric meter, and £30 on the Gas. I am hoping to get to the end of the month without having to top it up again. 

Mr Fox is planning on going to the football parade in Liverpool at the end of the month. He is going to camp out in the van, so thankfully only spends will be food and petrol - and I will have two days to myself at home. I say to myself... to myself with the puppy and Mini Fox. Am thinking of craft projects we can do... shrink plastic maybe? Or maybe I'll get us a new-to-us puzzle from the charity shop. And hopefully the weather is nice so we can go to the beach.  

Mini Fox needs new trainers and something to wear for VE day. I will have a look in the cheaper shoe shops & charity shops today. Kids are so expensive! Constantly growing. 

Love, Fox.

birdsfoottrefoil

Hi Fox,

You sound so much like you are in a good place now! The pecan biscuits sound fab! 

I’m not sure if you mean a compost bin or wheelie bin the council takes away? If it’s a compost bin its International Compost Week Awareness next week! So if you google it there’s quite a lot of free events etc. I totally realise that might not be your thing, but since we’ve started composting I’ve got slightly geekily obsessed!

xx