The First Shopping of the Month ... and How the New Kitchen Actually Looks Today

 

Well this is the first shopping of March and as you can see I am still in a very random shopping mode. 

 It's a good job I still have a freezer full of vegetables and a cupboard full of tins that I am determined to use up before we move house.  All I am buying at the moment are things to plug gaps and things that I really fancy.  We are taking it in turns recently to buy a cucumber, and this week it was my turn.  We just have half each so it makes sense to pay for a whole one rather than two halves ...  which being more expensive I always think that this is very cheeky and unfair to single people!!  😄

And before you get too excited about my soon-to-be lovely new kitchen, that I showed on Saturdays post ... and which is actually pencilled in for installation in September ... here is this months walk-through of the bungalow, made possible this week due to the slightly more level surface that has been created, because as well as the floorboards having gone, all the floor joists are now out.

https://youtu.be/ZeWLlploSsg?si=nP3eNIWyGyMqWyDO

It's nowhere near as light and airy and gorgeous in reality is it.  😄

Oh well at least we have the images to keep us heading in the right direction.

Sue xx

Renovation - Computer Images

 

Here it is at last, the kitchen that I sat and designed with our brilliant kitchen guy.  He did his magic and got it all pictured on his computer programme, and now at last Alan can see what has been inside my head since we first looked round the bungalow.

While Alan is the technical guy, I am the one with the vision for what could be in a place, so we work well together ... once we both get the other's vision. 

The kitchen is the same colour scheme as the one I currently have in the annexe, as we both thought that it would suit being in a kitchen/dining/living room space.  But it has a lot more units and a built-in washing machine to the left of the sink.

The table and chairs are just an 'artists impression to show how the space will be used.  We will probably have to make do with our old dining table at first, but may change it when funds allow.

Of course, I will still have some open shelving for my cookbooks, is a kitchen even a kitchen without cookbooks on display!!  😄

We are going back to our old 'American style' fridge freezer but without the water/ice dispenser shown in this picture.  We loved this free-standing design when we had it in our Welsh kitchen.

The French doors on the left of the picture lead to the garden, and will eventually open onto decking with steps down to the garden, and the glazed door on the right leads to the small hallway, the front door and both bedroom doors.

I have to say, I am really pleased with how it all looks and the sheer amount of storage space we are going to have behind all those cupboard doors and large drawers.

Finally here is an 'artists impression' of the dining and living room end.

The main differences are, that we will have our main television on my sideboard as we are not 'television on the wall' type of people, and my bookcase and Alan's tall lamp will be in the large alcove.

  The multifuel stove we are getting is a more traditional design, and Alan is treating himself to a smaller leather reclining sofa, as his current one is too big for this space.

But the main thing is that Alan can now see my vision ... now if I could just learn to understand the finer points of underfloor heating, solar panels and their batteries, and having three water heaters it would be perfect.  😉

Sue xx

Final February Shopping - Blowing the Budget ... and Family News

My final shopping of February, and sadly I really blew the budget this month with a total spend of £70.07, meaning an overspend of £17.70 ... there are far too many sevens in that little round up.  😄

For the first time that I needed to buy toilet rolls the ones I like weren't on special offer.  I honestly can't remember when I have got my timing wrong before.  But hey, I bought them because I needed them and happily I have my emergency Facebook Marketplace sales money to top up my usual monthly budget money.

Happily it's a new month and a fresh £50 for my purse on Sunday, where on earth is the time going!!

It's been a day of bad news today, so my blowing the budget is neither here nor there really.  My eldest grandson found out his fiancée, who is the mother of his two younger sons, was cheating on him and they have split up, with her throwing him out of their home.  My second eldest grandson has split from his long term girlfriend just before his 21st birthday, in a fit of spite (I don't know what happened as she dumped him), she cancelled all his birthday party plans and his Mum had to ring around everywhere to reinstate things.  Then to cap it all my older son's fiancée's grandad died last night so she is devasted.

On the bright side my younger son and his partner have just had their offer accepted on a lovely little bungalow in Thornton-Cleveleys, their first ever home purchase.  Their survey is taking place today.

There are always chinks of light even on the saddest of days, you just have to look for them and cling on.  

Now after all the phone calls ...

Sue xx

Bungalow Renovations - Where are the Floors?

 

Yes, that's me stood on the 'floor' in what will be our living room, I can just about see out of the window.

And that's Alan stood in the only room that still actually has a floor.

Come into the living room he says with a smirk!!

The fireplace shows the level of where the floor was until Alan took out first the floorboards and then the joists.

Everything just looks so strange.

Alan has been working really hard over the last two weeks to strip everything out ready for the next stages of the renovations to take place.  He's exhausted every afternoon when he gets home for a hot bath, but he says he's loving it.

Gosh, men are strange. 😄

The room that I was stood in when I waved out of the window.  

So, where are all the floors and joists then?

They are in the garden under tarpaulins, ready to be chopped up one day to give us years and years of kindling for the log burner. 

 Another job that crazy Alan says he's looking forward to!!

Copper pipes in the kitchen waiting to be taken, along with the old copper water tank, to the scrap metal merchants.  Seemingly the price of scrap copper is at an all time high at the moment.  We are just clawing back some money whenever we can.

Hope you have a lovely weekend. 

Sue xx

Adding to the Cash Stash

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I was singing the praises of the soup maker that we have had for years (see here), but then I had a change of heart while I was washing the pots.

The one downside to this particular model is that you can't submerge the glass part in water to give it a really good clean and with my back issues I was struggling to lift it.  The only way to properly get it clean was to lie it on it's side leaning over the washing up bowl of soapy water and scrub it carefully.

So I lost patience, and after a chat with Alan who said he didn't want it either, I advertised it on Facebook Marketplace.  It sold within two hours to someone who really needed it, and I was very happy.

Ten pounds to add to my little cash stash, which while I am currently managing on such a tight budget is a nice little back up so I can buy anything big that I might run out of.

Or, as I have only £3.28 in my purse to last me until the end of the month, it might have to be used sooner.  😄

Sue xx

Valentines Promises and Freebies, Shopping ... and a Health Explanation

 

We didn't do much for Valentines Day this year, with health and bungalow 'stuff' going on and family visitors for two days last week, it sort of slipped under the radar a bit.  So, we exchanged cards and I promised to buy Alan an axe when he sees one that he likes, he needs one for all the wood chopping he wants to do now that virtually all of the floors in the bungalow are up and the joists are coming up next.  

Once he gets chopping we will have enough kindling for the log burner for the next five years at least!!

He went to Booths to get himself something and was supposed to be buying me a sliced loaf while he was there.  Instead he got distracted by a pretty girl giving out samples in store and offering free toilet rolls to anyone who bought a box of the 'Cheeky Panda' tissues.

He said he knew that this would appeal to me, I laughed and agreed and said it could be my Valentines Day gift ... and then asked where my bread was.  😄

Booths - £8.65

We did go to Booths the next day for a coffee and a chat after meeting with our kitchen designer, so I bought some buns instead, along with some eggs and biscuits.

I didn't need anymore shopping as I am still barely eating properly at the moment.

Yesterday, after a very painful visit to go and see my Mum, I was feeling sorry for myself and toying with the idea of not blogging anymore as I am currently finding it so difficult to do so, but after a comment from Sue this morning I had second thoughts.  So many of us have been blogging friends for years now that it seems wrong to just vanish.  So instead I thought I would share what I am currently going through so you have some understanding.

During lockdown in 2020 I had a lot of back pain and it was discovered a year later, when I managed to get to actually see a doctor face to face and have various tests, that I had undiagnosed osteoporosis in my spine.  This had led to a thoracic wedge collapse and three other broken vertebrae, along with two nerve impingements.

After diagnosis and trying lots of pain relief medications, it turned out that most didn't work for me, the ones that might have I was allergic to, and the only pain relief in the short term was Naproxen and in the long term paracetamol.  So basically, on doctors orders, I have been on eight paracetamol tablets a day for the last five years. The gastro-enteritis that we both suffered a couple of weeks ago completely knocked this finely balanced pain relief out of sync, including my blood pressure medications and has led to this health crisis.  The doctor at the hospital prescribed Naproxen again and said that I should see my own doctor about future pain relief, and maybe a further round of scans for my osteoporosis.  It is all this pain that has sent my blood pressure sky high again, so I have had to take readings ... yet again ... for a week before this weeks visit to the doctor.

That's it ... health update and recap for anyone that didn't know about my condition, and I will try not to mention it again.  Other peoples health issues ... as far as I am concerned ... can be quite boring at times, so if I start moaning shoot me!!  😉

Sue xx

Catching Up On This Months Shopping ... and Riverford

 

Aldi 1st  February - £21.20

It's time for me to try and have a catch up of everything that I've been missing, but I can only manage a short while on the bar stool that I have to use when I'm on the computer, so sadly it will be brief.

February started with me back eating fish, but I have to say I have really gone off fresh salmon, so I think breaded fish will have to be the way forward, and these Aldi fish portions are reasonably priced and very tasty.  

It does bump the cost up though doesn't it when you buy a few fishy products at once!

There's not been a lot of shopping up to now this month, but then there's not been a lot of eating either.  😞

Booths - £4.30

The second shopping of the month contained no food, but my favourite washing up liquid was on special offer at 25% off, so although I needed one, I bought two.

I have decided that from now on I am buying quality and ethical products rather than quantity and cheapness.  It seems to actually balance out ... well up to now anyway.

The three napkins were from the café in Booths, Alan took me out for a coffee, but the tablets I am on are making everything taste foul, so there's not been much coffee drinking going on this past week.  I must be saving him a fortune.  😄

11th Aldi - £14.94

To bring you right up to date, this morning we had a quick trip to Aldi as we have family coming to stay for a couple of days and Alan wanted to get some things in.

Looking at the photo it really is a very random basket of shopping isn't it, but I was just going for what I really needed and what I fancied.  But when everything tastes awful you just have to try ... I won't be munching on the floor wipes though!!

The receipt from Aldi.

Happily just before we left for Aldi, this weeks Riverford box and Salad Bag arrived so we could check out what we definitely didn't need to buy.

Again it was all beautiful quality food, and once we had shared it out we set off for the other things that we needed/wanted.

I changed the order a bit this week and went for a Seasonal Vegetable Box rather than the mixed fruit and veg box.  I have to say that this suits me better as I do prefer vegetables to fruit, I always have. As there wasn't a cucumber in this weeks salad bag Alan bought a large cucumber from Aldi and said I could have half, so I have some lovely salady things to eat.

 Once again this order was paid for by my prize winning vouchers, and I have enough left in the account to get one more totally free of charge order and then something off a fourth.

As it was pouring with rain first thing this morning the delivery driver left the order on the doorstep and ran back to his van.  Happily they have a 'Box Brolly' to put over and around your box to keep the cardboard and the contents dry.

I would actually call it a polythene bag ... but hey now it's a box brolly. 😁

Sue xx

Bungalow Progress ... All Mod Cons

 

I've not been on my computer since last Sunday, so I apologise for a complete absence of blog posts.  I tend to post a couple of days in advance and set to automatically publish, hence there being a couple of posts last week.  I was sent to hospital in the early hours of Monday morning and spent all night in A&E before being kept on the Urgent Care ward all day Tuesday.  Things are slowly getting back to normal, so there's no need to worry.

Anyway I thought I would do a little update of the bungalow progress.  We are having a little breather between builders etc while Alan gets on with some labouring and they work on another job that is much more urgent.

As you can see from the top photo, the garage has now been rebuilt and has walls, a roof and a door and a window.  There's still a bit of work to be done, but it's nice to see it up instead of us just having a hole in the ground.

Our mod cons consist of running water from the outside tap.

And toilet facilities in the front garden.  Of course we also have a bank of five electric sockets in the old hallway so that lights, tools and kettles can be plugged in.

On the downside, thanks to Alan's hard work, we no have virtually no floors.

Oh well, one day we will live there.

Sue xx

Our First Riverford Fruit and Veg Box

 

Our first Riverford Fruit and Vegetable box along with the additional Salad Bag that I ordered, arrived as promised last Wednesday.  

Sadly, being poorly I couldn't chat with the delivery guy and find out his name etc in case I was still in any way contagious,  I hope to remedy this next week when he brings our second one.  We may decide to change to a different box next time, once we have gotten around to browsing the website again. 

 You can chop and change your orders as often as you want and add things to any delivery right up until the day before delivery, and I think it will be good while I still have the value of my prize vouchers to use up, to shop around the website a bit.

It all looked amazingly colourful and in brilliant condition.

I almost felt guilty that I couldn't get stuck in straight away with cooking and tasting everything, but I was not eating any food at all even by the Wednesday delivery day. 

The contents of our Small Seasonal Organic Fruit and Veg Box.  £17.95

As I've written below for the salad bag, I did a trial order of organic produce from Sainsbury's to see if we were getting any value by ordering from Riverford.  I was able to almost get the same items in the same weights for just over £11, including a couple of 'Nectar price' offers.

This was the contents of the Salad Bag.

It was all beautifully fresh, and that cucumber was the first thing that I did eat when I was back on food.  It was as tasty as a homegrown one ... which in a way I guess, it is going to be.  At first we both thought that the price tag of £11.50 for this amount of salad was a bit steep, but then I sat and did a trial organic order of the same things from Sainsbury's and the cost even with Nectar discounts came to over £7.  

So when you consider the ethics of Riverford, the supply chain, home delivery etc we both decided that that the small additional amount for both items was totally fine.

I felt almost guilty that I couldn't set to and make good use of everything straight away, but the mere sight of food was making me feel worse, so my half of the delivery was very quickly stashed into the vegetable and fruit drawers of the fridge out of sight.  Alan was made of sterner stuff and he made himself a big pot of soup to start with, and then a lovely looking pot of vegetable curry.

Here is a link to the Riverford website - Riverford Organics UK

And here is my referral code if you would like to place an order - Share the Happeaness.  

Using my code means that I get a referral fee ... and you get £15 off your second order with Riverford.

Now I'm just looking forward to seeing this van pull up outside our house again next week, and being able to enjoy the contents of whichever box we decide to choose much more quickly.

Sue xx

Last Day of January Catch Up Photos

 

Aldi 24th January - £9.34

I couldn't let January fizzle out without getting up to date on my spending progress, so here is a quick post showing what else I have bought with this months money since THIS post.

Booths  21st January - £5

I decided that eggs had to be back on the menu, so these were purchased.

Charity Book Table - £1

It was a good month for the finances really, helped in a weird way by us being too poorly to actually go shopping until earlier today ... that food is for next week so was paid for out of my February cash.  We didn't need to go shopping any earlier as we had almost a week of living of the tiniest amounts of food so nothing was used up.

I also had to cancel a hair appointment, so I didn't need to take any money out of my little emergency stash.

The cash left over at the end of January was £2.37, which will be added to next months allowance.

Freebies for January included a number of serviettes, a few sugar sachets, a little pot of Flora spread, a tomato ketchup sachet, two free cups of coffee at the garden centre, five bin liners, a vegan sausage roll, a coffee and a doughnut ... all from Greggs, using the app ... and a bag of coffee grounds for the garden, picked up from Booths.  Quite a good month for gathering things in and making the budget stretch just a little bit further.

I'll hopefully be back on Monday with a update post on the bungalow, although I can't do a walk around this week as a lot of the floors are missing.  😄

We are both on the mend now, thank you so much for all the well wishes.  It's been a tough one though and I wouldn't want to go through that again anytime soon.  Ginger also recovered very quickly and is now back to his usual self, thank goodness.  🐱

Sue xx

Oh Woe is Me!!

 

Just me, stood on my doorstep, pondering life.

Sorry to be missing in action, but Mum's care home went into lockdown due to Norovirus on Monday, one day after we visited on Sunday.

Guess what?

Yep, we both started with it simultaneously on Monday teatime ... thank goodness we have separate bathrooms.  Ginger started the next day, poor thing.  There's nothing worse than listening to your beloved pet yowl while jettisoning liquid from both ends.

On that note I will leave you, I'm not a sympathy seeking person. 😷  

See you next week, when hopefully I have more energy and brain power to write a proper blog post. 

 You would not believe the amount of corrections I have had to make on this little post!!

Sue xx

It's Time to Dig Out the 'New' Food ... and Exciting News

This is my main food cupboard, over the years I have called it many things, but these days it's just known as 'the food cupboard'.  (See HERE for when I acquired it in 2016.)  

It's always been one of the most useful parts of our home as it holds such a lot, and over the past day or so I have been finding out just how much food there has been stashed away in the bottom cupboard.

Over the past year or so I have been eating through all the tins in the top part of the food cupboard, alongside the few fresh things I was buying each week.  Finally, last week this shelf just had a few tins of salmon and a couple of very out of date green lentils, so it was time to start moving things up from the bottom cupboard and having a good sort out.

I was amazed at how much was in there, so much so that I am still in the process of sorting through them all.  Last year I moved all out of date food upwards and left the things dated 2026 and after in the bottom cupboard.  Doing this worked really well and it has meant that I could use things up in chronological order and therefore nothing has been wasted.  It also meant that anything that I bought and didn't use straight away was added to the lower cupboard if their dates were post-2026.  Gifts of food were added, things that I brought home from Mum's bungalow were added.  All added ... and then forgotten about until there wasn't even a tiny bit of space after Christmas.

Now obviously it is 2026 and with all this space in the top cupboard I am currently in the process of pulling out most of the foods with these best before dates to move them upwards ... and there is a lot more than I thought.  

So I decided to move up what I could and then make an inventory of what will still be in the bottom cupboard, so that I don't go out and buy any duplicates of what I already have.  I am on an extremely low budget until May of this year, so this brilliant stock of food alongside my Riverford veg boxes, that I wrote about yesterday, are really going to see me though nicely.

I'm hoping to finish off the sorting today, so if you are interested I will take a photo of my nicely restocked top cupboard and show it soon.

Talking about being on a super strict budget until May ... look what arrived on Saturday morning.  

I can assure you that I was on the computer and applying for my State Pension within minutes of this invitation landing on my doormat.  To be going from £77.45, plus the interest from my savings account, to £1001.18 a month is an amazing thought.

What will I be doing with all that money? 

 Well I can assure you I will not be wasting a penny of it and frugality will always be the name of the game in day to day life.  Just so that once our renovations on the bungalow are complete we will be able to afford some lovely little holidays.

Sue xx

Claiming My Riverford Prize

 

Now that I've virtually finished all the vegetables in the fridge drawer ... just five of the 9p Christmas potatoes and a cabbage left ... I thought it was time to cash in my competition prize from last year.  See HERE.

I enjoyed browsing the website and then picking which of the organic boxes that I fancied, and in the end I decided on the small seasonal fruit and veg box which seemingly is enough for two to three people, as an extra I added as organic salad bag.  I have opted for fortnightly deliveries to start me off and I will share some things with Alan.  

My prize will cover the cost of over three deliveries of the size of boxes that I have chosen, and will see me nicely through to the end of February.  Which is going to be very helpful while my budget is so low.  Sadly, I don't think it qualifies me for the current promotional offer which is to get a lovely hardback book with your first order for all new customers.  I should have thought on my feet and had a paid for order first and then used my prize vouchers.

But I have now got a Refer a Friend code to give to family and friends.  This will give me a bonus of £15 to my account and also give anyone who takes it up £15 off their second order.

My code is : www.riverford.co.uk/refer/6itkSKBZfVX_et22tQqIPQ

It's available for anyone in the UK to use as long as Riverford deliver to your area. You should also qualify for the free cookbook if you enter the cookbook code on your order.  

Visit the Riverford website for all the information you need, it all makes for fascinating reading anyway, even if you don't decide to sign up.  What a brilliant company they seem to be.

Riverford Organic Farmers - Organic Fruit & Veg Box Delivery

My first delivery will be on Wednesday of this week, I look forward to seeing it and letting you know how it is.

Sue xx