So ... How's My Shopping Budget Going?

 

We're halfway through January already, so I thought I would have a bit of a catch up of the shopping that I have done up to now this month, check my diary where I am keeping totals, and also count the money in my bag to see if it matches up and that I have left to see me through the rest of the month.  As you can see from the top photo out of my monthly £50 allowance I have a total of £17.71 left to spend, not too bad and if I am careful I think that I am on track for a good month.

I shopped for the first time on the 3rd and spent a total of £8.60, that's pictured on THIS post.  

4th  Rivington Services - £1.59

Then I had to dip into my money again when we were at the services as I needed a bottle of water.  I don't like paying service station prices for things really, but needs must occasionally.

We had gone to visit Mum and I only had one bottle of sparkling water to take with us.  I usually buy a pack of six small bottles of San Pellegrino every six months and then refill them from either a big bottle of sparkling water or from the tap for travelling in the car.  But I had thrown one away as it was in a bit of a state (aren't we all) not realising that I only had one left.

 Oh well, we were thirsty and we paid the price. 😄

9th  Booths -  £8.95

Then when we went shopping on the 9th, along with yet another loaf of bread, and a birthday card for my brother I bought my next pack of six so I don't have to buy an individual bottle again.

9th Aldi - £1.15

Also on the 9th as I was in Aldi with Alan, I treated myself to a pack of crumpets.

They are now split and in the freezer in two-crumpet sized portions, so they should last me a while.

Of course the odd one had to be sampled along with a cup of coffee.  😄

12th  Sainsbury's - £12

Finally to get us right up to date, I went to Sainsbury's at the start of this week to get my brother a card off my Mum, and happily the tissues are still on offer.  I had managed to get through over half of the last lot of eight boxes over the Christmas and New Year lurgy period.  Thank goodness I had bought them when I did.

This sort of bargain are the reason I have given myself an extra ten pounds each month, it's always nice to have some spare money when a real bargain is available.

I have a very small shopping list up to now for this weekend, so I think I will be able to stay easily under a £10 spend.

Sue xx

Filling Up Jars and Other Things

 

I find it really satisfying to use up the last of anything, so when my big jars are depleted of all their food supplies I take an unusual amount of pleasure in washing them and refilling them the next day after they have had time to thoroughly dry out.

I know ... I'm sad, but it floats my boat.  😄

It's even more satisfying when the contents of the new bag of something all fits neatly into the lovely clean jar without any leftovers.  But sometimes you have to make the best of it and have a big jar and a little one for things like my lentils.

Other things that Alan ... with a lot of help from the builders ... has been filling up this week include the foundations of the garage.

The builders filled with concrete and Mother Nature added two inches of rain.

 

The hole where the front door used to be.

The final thing filled up this week was the hole where the bathroom window used to be.  Our fridge freezer will be stood in this space, sometime in the future.  

I can almost see it now, well when this floodlight is switched on that is, without the light the old bathroom looks more like this.

We are making good use of the old front door and bathroom window as they are going to be used on the garage once the walls start going up next week.  We have also managed to save the original garage door, which will be going back on.

We are trying to make use of as much as we can both in a bid to save money and the environment.  The brick and block mountain currently in the garden from the demolished garage, is going to be used to bring the floor level back up before the top slab is laid, and the interior walls of the bungalow that are being demolished will be used to infill some of the floor cavities inside.  

The good stuff such as the old kitchen, the electric cooker, the interior doors and even things like the lightshades have now been sold and the bungalow is pretty much an empty shell.  Today Alan is up in the loft rolling up the insulation so he can get access to all the electric wiring up there to strip it out, and of course that is going to be reused too, with an additional layer on top to make sure we will be well insulated.

Sue xx

Gadgets ... and Simple Meals

 

I claimed the soup maker back from Alan a few months back, he wasn't using it at all ... the level of dust on top was amazing.  😄

He regularly makes soup but he makes a humungous pot full at a time, and he loves it so thick and unblended that his Granny would be proud.  She used to say that a good soup was one that the wooden spoon stood up in the middle of pan all by itself.  His soups are just like that.  I like mine in smaller quantities, blended and liquid enough that you can dunk your bread easily and even occasionally drink it out of a mug, and the soup maker is very easily controllable for all these things.

We've had this particular gadget for well over ten years now, we bought it when we had an Aga and wanted to be able to turn it off in warmer weather if necessary.  So we cooked with our gadgets anytime that the Aga was off.  We used the soup maker, the Remoska, the microwave, the rice cooker and the toaster, sometimes gadgets are very handy and it's always good to find the ones that work best for your needs isn't it ... as long as you have the space to store them when they are not in use.  I still use all those mentioned.

Anyway, with all this chilly weather the soup maker has been in weekly use, it makes me three good meal sized portions at a time, I usually have a couple over two or three days and pop one into the freezer for future use.

Other simple meals, not done in the soup maker, have been simple noodle dishes to make good use of bits and bobs from the vegetable drawer in the fridge.

And a really simple red kidney bean, cumin and onion mixture served with brown rice, using the rice cooker.

It's good over the years to whittle away at any gadgets that you might have bought and rarely used ... my brief foray into having an air fryer springs to mind ... but when you have limited space everything that you have really does have to earn it's keep.

I would say out of all my gadgets, my Remoska* is the one I would choose if I could only have one ... what would yours be?

Sue xx

*Gosh they are expensive now though, but currently on special offer.

Preaching to the Converted, and Rifling Through Bins

 

I seem to have a plethora of little cut in half tubes of various things around the place at the moment.  But as you can see from this photo of the mini travel sized hand cream, originally picked up from a hotel stay, there is always a lot more in tubes than you can possibly squeeze out in the proper way.

I wonder how many years of throwing away nearly a quarter of my products I had!!

I know so many of my readers already do this, so I really am pointing out the obvious, but if it helps one person to see the light and save some money in these price rising times then it worth a bit of repetition.

This particular one looks so cute now that I have popped it's 'top' on.  😄

There's an even tinier one in the bathroom.

My lips really suffer in the Winter months, and even more so when I am constantly blowing my nose when I'm not well.  So having a few tubes of this in the bathroom cabinet has been a godsend.  But I'm not wasting even a drop of it.

There was a tube of toothpaste also chopped near the bottom, after I had scrapped all the contents down, but that is now all used up and it was the dropping of it into the bin that inspired this blog post.  

Yep, I get my ideas from everywhere.  😁

Alan asked me the other day if I had bought any kitchen paper yet. 

 As you can see here from the kitchen roll holder under my wall cupboard the answer is still no.  I think the last time I purchased a new roll was probably in either November or December of 2024, so I am doing well with my paper napkin saving from cafés etc.

I do have to admit to carefully retrieving Alan's thrown away cardboard roll from the paper recycling bin yesterday ... he had thrown away the cardboard roll off his kitchen paper with two pieces of paper still attached. 😧  

I will make sure to use them for peelings or wiping up and not for anything to do with fresh food making, although they were sat quite neatly on top of an empty box of assorted chocolate biscuits that Alan had for Christmas.

Sue xx

Latest Bungalow Update - Devastation and Demolition

 

Where once there was a garage and a garden there is now a hole and two mountains, one of soil and one of blocks.

Things have to get worse before they have a chance of getting better, and now perhaps we can all see why this is going to take us at least a year of taking down and rebuilding.

The bathroom is now mostly out, just the toilet waiting to be removed.

https://youtube.com/shorts/5NM9o5LiLrE?si=5WWIOV6HWO68Ry4y

And to keep everything nicely up to date here is a quick walk through that I did yesterday, while we were waiting for the builder to come and have a look at the hole that will be the new garage foundations.  

Alan planned to have the garage rebuilt first so that we will have secure storage for any of the building materials and tools needed on site.  The old garage was unsalvageable as it's concrete pad had cracked and the walls were in a terrible state, in fact Alan said that once the roof was taken off the lefthand wall came down all by itself.  While we don't actually need a garage to put a car in, as we will have off road parking for at least three vehicles, we do need it for the storage it will offer us as there will not be much in the bungalow.

Sue xx