Weekend Whoopsies

Its been really wet and horrible here today, its hard to believe that its May next week, where is the sunshine ?

I managed to have three big bags of shopping today for £10.02, and the freezers filling up again but I can't resist the reductions. Luckily we caught the shops at just the right time, here's what I snapped up;

Sainsburys £5.49;

Sausages........................................... 30p from £1.29
Two cheese and potato bakes............50p each from £2.15 each
Two packs of Asparagus...................50p each from £2 each
Limoncello Cake...............................99p from £4.79
2 cheese and potato pies....................50p each from £1.89 each
Cream Horns......................................40p from £1.50
Pork pies............................................50p from £2.12
English muffins.................................30p from 80p

Waitrose £4.53;

Two packs of Aloo Gobi Saag ...............................39p each reduced from £2.09 each
Seven curries, Jalfrezi, Tikka Masala and Korma...39p each reduced from £4.17 each
Single Cream ..........................................................25p from £1
5 pack of sesame seed bagels..................................39p from £1.31
Houmous.................................................................19p from £1.67
Smoked salmon pate................................................19p from £1.67

This should have cost £61.60 purchased earlier in the day. A few minutes earlier and I could have snapped up the reduced fresh meat, some students beat me to it and made their way off to the tills with baskets full of chicken breasts at 59p each from £5. .... TTFN xx

Meal out

Hello and welcome to a new follower ' Cheap Chick', thank you for joining.

Feeling a bit of cabin fever this week as I have not gone out at all. My daughter was sleeping over at a relatives last night so my husband decided we could go out for a meal, partly for a treat but partly because he has been head chef all this week. We went to a local Indian restaurant where we have been before. However last night it was really busy, they had two big parties in there. Consequently it took us almost two hours to have our starter and our main. The food was nice but it took too long. The starter took nearly an hour to come out but this is where common sense should kick in. If I was the owner would send over a few complimentary poppadoms, smile and explain the delay, try and keep people happy and distracted so they are not ravenous by the time the food arrives. After we ate the food I must admit I didn't feel full, and the bill was over £30. Years ago I would have not given that a second thought but nowadays I do feel cheated. Never mind :-(

Sunshine at last

Today its been really sunny so we have taken advantage of the good weather and get some washing on the line. The basket has been piling up just lately due to bad weather and my bad foot ! Unfortunately for my hubby, pegging out washing is a job he hates but someone has to do it and I'm resting my foot per doctors orders. Tonight is another oven full of food cooking. Its a bit of a mix up for tea tonight, using up odd bits from the freezer that are just lingering around. Its going to be more like a buffet, chicken goujons, ribs, chips and a few other bits. I want to use it all up so I can defrost the freezer and then restock with some home made meals. I am getting bored being off work , sitting around all day but on the plus side its given me chance to catch up with blogging and read other blogs. Today I'm looking at the bank statements on line and planning our spending for next month. I got paid today and I still had some money in the bank yesterday , only £12 but it was my £12, all mine. That has gone into my bank holiday fund, but that is another story. TTFN xx

My wasteful past

Last night whilst cooking dinner, I thought about my wasteful past, in particular with food and shopping. Last night I had the oven on with lots of stuff cooking inside. I cooked chicken and haggis and also Yorkshire puddings. There was some mix left over , previously I would have poured it away but now I keep it for breakfast pancakes the following day. There was enough haggis and mashed potatoes left for my husband to have some at lunch and my daughter to have some tonight for her dinner, previously after the evening meal any leftovers would have been binned. My daughter made Angel Delight for pudding, again we had some each but there was enough left over for her to have a portion for desert tonight. Also last night I made a chili to freeze. In went the left over onions, peppers and mushrooms. The chili was then portioned up and frozen for quick meals on busy evenings. Years ago, and I remember this quite distinctly, on a Sunday evening anything that I had not used over the weekend I would bin and then buy fresh in the week. How much money and food must I have wasted over the years ? Nowadays anything gets kept and even the odd left over bit of onion may get thrown into an omelette or a toastie. Another thing that gets eaten in our house now is the crust of the bread. I usually toast this but in bygone times it went in the bin as well. My favourite thing that I have rescued from the plug hole is the vegetable water. I use this now to make gravy and it so much tastier. What did I do before ?, flicked the kettle on and boiled more water like I imagine a lot of other people also do !

Larry Crowne

Watched a good film last night, for free , Larry Crowne. I'd seen it advertised at the cinema last year but at £8 a ticket I don't often go at full price. This was a film we watched via our free film subscription. Its about a middle aged man who gets made redundant and starts college. Its a feel good film and he basically makes new friends and turns his life around. I read a review of the film today and one person described it as a real view of America not glamorised by Hollywood, where people are too rich for welfare but too poor to save. I thought that last sentence was quite indicative of how people are today in the UK with the way things are going.

Trying to keep my chin up

Hello and welcome to a new follower ' Mabel and Maisy', thank you for joining.

This post could very easily turn into the moan zone. In the last week or so I have had a few negatives happen; a funeral,  was put in an awkward situation, my holiday has been double booked ( and guess who has lost out ) and I am off sick from work. Its hard not to let things grind you down and especially other peoples actions and attitudes get you down.
On the optimistic side of things though, prior to being off work, I was able to do some overtime so that will go into the house moving pot. We saw a house and made an offer. The offer has been accepted but although the people say they want to complete quickly , things seem to be going slowly. In my head I am mentally redecorating, perhaps I shouldn't but its nice to look forward to moving on. Last week I went to the shops and snapped up a few bargains; a summer top for my daughter from Tesco £1.50 reduced from £12.Some stuff from Debenhams which will go into the gift stock for others; Ruby & Hammer 5 lip gloss pack £2.10 reduced from £7 and a Betty Jackson skin care set £7.50 reduced from £25. Also from Debenhams on line I bought a Christmas Tree ( sad I know as we are still in April) but it was £5 reduced from £40 with free delivery.
We are still enjoying our free lovefilm trial, its quite exciting when the postman delivers the discs. You chose the films on line and they send them out. We have about 40 films on our list so we don't know what film it is until it arrives. Once the free period expires we can sign up but we are still debating that one.

Freezer Audit

I'm feeling a little bit better each day and have tried to get things done. I'm back to work on Monday and back into the routine of school, activities etc so I want to be organised up front. The ironing and clothes mountain I intend to conquer tomorrow but today I have ventured into the freezer to check on whats in stock. Again, I am trying to use everything up before buying more however sometimes you go shopping in autopilot and buy more stuff that gets thrown in. I did throw a couple of suspicious looking items away but here's what I have , all listed, present and correct;

2 gammon steaks, packet of turkey mince, 2 packs of beef mince, 2 tuna steaks, 3 salmon steaks, box of spare ribs, pack of beef stewing steak, chicken, haggis, packet of spinach tortellini, 2 packets of pesto ravioli, 1kg gammon joint , tray of garlic potatoes, pack of chorizo croquettes and a Jamaican beef pattie.

This evening I have also made a big cottage pie for our dinner. I have also made enough for an individual portion and a double portion - and guess where the extra portions are going - straight in the freezer !! These will be good for midweek meals when I am pressed for time and the individual one , my daughter will eat when we eat chilli as she is not that keen on it. I hope to get through that food stock in the next week of so and try not to go to the supermarket.

Feeling yuk and free films

Hi everyone and welcome to new follower Michelle1973Cooper, thanks for joining.

The weather over the weekend has been dreadful but today it has been quite sunny and pleasant, however I am home feeling ill with a bad cold and headache. I slept til nearly 11am today and then went back to sleep just after 2pm till after 6pm. I feel thoroughly rotten. Luckily my daughter is at her friends today & tomorrow so I can be ill alone and not hamper her fun. I hope that if I can recuperate today I can be back to normal tomorrow, I hope !

A kind friend gave us a two month free trial of Lovefilm recently and my husband set it up yesterday. You can get DVDs sent through the post or streamed to the Xbox. There is not as much choice on the Xbox but we did watch a few things yesterday and we have ordered other films to come through the post. We have made a 'watch' list so we can take full advantage of the free viewings but typically we have gone blank on what we wanted to watch ! I have managed to remember a few films, any suggestions of good films to watch ? I like more of the comedy genre, Will Ferrell and Steve Carrell but my husband likes horror movies which are frankly not to my liking. Any ideas ????

Happy Easter

Hi people and welcome to some new followers, they are Caroline, Julie , Never too old and VW Paul. Thanks for joining!

Apologies again for the lack of posts recently. Time is flying by and its hard to believe we are now in April ! We are settling into the new place well. This week I had to go back to the old house and collect some mail. It was weird in that it had no hold on me, I didn't feel sad or sentimental. In fact I felt rather glad I no longer live there. We have seen a house that we like, but time will tell and so many things are out of our control, I'm conscious not to get my hopes up. We are still saving where possible and trying to keep an eye on the finances, any spare cash gets put into the moving house pot. This sounds ridiculous but I find it hard sometimes to stay focused. When we were paying off debt we could see it coming down but now we are saving, sometimes it is easy to get carried away and think ' we can buy that, it'll be ok''. Saying that it is very satisfying to see the balance grow , just need to keep my eye on the prize.

Have a Happy Easter and a great Bank Holiday weekend.