Going Back to My Old Ways

 

I bought this washing up liquid back in November (see here), and because I quite like the simplicity of the bottle I left it out on the sink, and I used the liquid directly from the bottle instead of my usual decanting into a push top dispenser.

You'd think that by now I would know better wouldn't you.

Even though I thought that I was being careful with my little squirt into the washing up bowl each time I used it, I have already used well over half.  So the rest has now been decanted, where hopefully it will last me a bit longer.

Of course I managed to get all of the washing up liquid out of the bottle, first by pouring, then by turning it upside down and pouring a little bit more, then by balancing the bottle directly on top of the dispenser for an hour so it could drip, drip, drip.

Then finally by rinsing out the bottle and dropping the top into the bowl before I started on the teatime pots.

I will now see how long the second half of the bottle lasts me with dispensing rather than squirting.

Riveting stuff eh!! 😁

Sue xx

On the Porch, Drinking Coffee

 

This came up on my feed the other day and it really got me thinking.

I think it's all about the time of your life that you are in isn't it.  It's also that some people need to be busy all the time, some people need to be seen to be busy all the time, there is a huge difference.

I was the former, then I was the latter, then I felt guilty for doing less, then the guilt stopped.

Now I would rather be on the porch drinking coffee.

Ooh ... should we build a porch on the bungalow? 😀

No, I think decking or a patio at the back would suffice.   

Sue xx

Look After My Sink ... You Have Been Warned!!

 

We went shopping for some of the light fittings and shades that we will be needing for our new home on Saturday.  It was nice looking around B&Q and choosing a few new things.  They were all things that we needed as well as wanted, so I wasn't too unhappy about the splurging of cash.

We were going to try and reuse the old white plastic ceiling fittings for the main room lights, but when we called to the bungalow on the way home from Blackpool we realised that they are all different designs and sadly very yellowed.   So that is something else that we will have to pick up along with the light switches and plug sockets.

We are not doing brilliantly at reusing things that were already in the bungalow, but the whole place was in a very bad condition when we bought it.  Sadly the toilet that I was going to keep is now cracked, Alan was a bit miffed as he discovered this after giving it a really good clean before it was removed from the bathroom.

 

I have told him to warn the builders to really look after my sink.  Once the garage is rebuilt it can go and live in there while the rest of the building work goes on, as I doubt it would survive the removal of the floors once that starts.

But the garage is still a couple of weeks away, so I have my fingers firmly crossed that it survives.  

Sue xx

Did She Stay or Did She Go?

 

I used the last of the Lemon and Lime marmalade yesterday for my 'second breakfast'.  I had forgotten that it was even there, lurking as it was behind the large jar of silverskin pickled onions in the fridge.  I wondered when I had bought this as I really couldn't remember it appearing on any recent blog post, and I have been pretty on the ball with sharing my shopping for a long time now.

So I have just used the Search box and scrolled back, seemingly I opened the jar in August last year, (on this post) but there is no record of when it was bought.

Before I washed the jar out properly I added a bit of water from the kettle to it and gave it a swill, the liquid was then added to the curry that I made last night.  I don't know what difference it actually made to the flavour, but it made me happy that absolutely nothing had gone to waste.

Then I washed the jar properly and the label soaked off like a dream.  

With this fact, and with it being such a lovely jar it seemed a shame to put her into the recycling bin.  I tried to be hard hearted and tell myself that I had more than enough empty jars of assorted sizes.

You've guessed it ... she now lives in the cupboard with her friends, awaiting some random contents of some sort, one day.  😁

Sue xx

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

Gloomy Cupboards ... and Moneywise

 

I tried to take a couple of photos of the inside of the food cupboard yesterday, but it was so gloomy that this one was actually the best of a bad bunch. 

 It shows in a small way that I have been pretty successful in eating my way through the mass of out of date tins of food that I had in there.  In another week or so I will spend a few hours sorting out the food from the bottom cupboard and moving most of it up to where I can see it properly.  Reacquainting myself with the food that I have had for quite a while, but that was moved down to the lower cupboard so that I could keep my eyes, and my mind, on what needed using up first.

Virtually everything in my cupboards now has the date that it is supposed to expire written in black marker pen, which will save me a lot of time looking for dates and putting my reading glasses on and off.

Moneywise, I think I mentioned the other day that I would talk about my little cash stashes that are going to be a bit of a back up for my miniscule £10 a week (plus an extra £10 a month large purchase) shopping budget.  

I think most of you know all about my little change box.  It's not got a huge amount in it, just odds and sods of small change, and in fact since the other day when I shopped for a bottle of San Pellegrino water at the services and had to borrow 19p off Alan as I had already reached this weeks £10 limit, it has gone down ... by 19p.

To the right of it is my little drawer of FB Marketplace sales money.  Somehow, just selling my French bedside table and some little odds and sods before Christmas I managed to accumulate £73.  I was pleasantly surprised when I counted it up.  It's a handy amount to have for an emergency back up.

On top of it is the £50 a month for the next three months, January's cash was photographed as you can see below and is now in my purse.

All neatly organised.

Sue xx

My Diary ... and a Warming 'Mince Mix'

 

For many years I kept a diary, a large A4 page to a view one usually.  I quite enjoyed the start of the year filling in of all the names and addresses, some personal information and any things that I needed to pull forward from one year to the next.  

Then I started finding that process tedious and slightly ridiculous so I reverted to my old, old way of a personal organiser.  It had been vital to have one of these when I managed two shops in two different towns and needed lots of information about both at my fingertips as I travelled between each of them numerous times a week.

For the past six years now I have just purchased a new 'diary section' for my organiser and all the other pages stay the same.  The names, addresses and phone numbers, the banking pages, the Christmas lists and birthday pages.  It also means that once I slip the new section in, I can put the previous years into the plastic bag the new one came in and my history takes up very little space in the drawer of my sideboard.

My old A4 diaries made a spectacular little bonfire before we moved house from Wales.  😀

Today has been bitterly cold so I kept myself busy in the kitchen making a 'mince mix' from store cupboard items.  Nothing complicated, just a bit of chopping then a lot of slow simmering to let the flavours develop.

It might not look much, but it tastes delicious.

Hopefully it will be nice and warming for Alan when he gets home later.  He's been out in the frosty, snowy weather helping the builder demolish the garage at the bungalow, ready for it being rebuilt next week.  He must be chilled to the bone.  I gave him firm instructions to take a break and either call home, which he hasn't done, or go to Booths for a fresh cup of coffee and a warm through.

I was going to turn the mix into the base for a Shepherdess Pie, but after being reminded in yesterdays comments that I have a couple of part-baked 'cook at home' baguettes waiting to be used, I might just serve it with one of those each for dunking and scooping purposes.

Sue xx

Shopping for My Daily Bread

 

I didn't really need to shop at all this week.  

True I was a bit low on bread or so I thought, I knew there were buns in the freezer.  I had totally forgotten that there was also a loaf purchased just before Christmas, so when I went to put the new one into the freezer ready for use as and when needed, one slice at a time, I found the older one. 

 I somehow managed to squeeze the new one in too ... the freezer is very full.  😐

I have a budget for the first half of this year of £10 a week for shopping, including food and toiletries etc. and a spare £10 each month to make a large purchase if needed, so a total of £50 a month as it were, with any change leftover at the end of the month being carried forwards.

I do also have an emergency 'pot', but I'll post about that another day. 💰

And while I didn't really need to shop for any food this week, I thought I would get myself some flour while we were in Booths for Alan's now seemingly regular Saturday morning bacon butty.  I have been itching to get back to making my own bread, possibly because I seem to have been watching lots of people making their own on various social media platforms.  I also watched a YouTube video about all the additives in so many of the breads we eat, including the seemingly healthy baked in-store loaves.

I think I have been influenced!!  😄

But there's something very satisfying about bread made with just flour, yeast, oil, water and salt isn't there.  So I now have all that I need to get back to my bread making roots.  

Anyway, even if I am going to be making some bread of my own, I did want a sliced loaf in the freezer for any toast emergencies that may arise.  So now I have two.  😁

 I was determined not to waste anything of the loaf currently in use.  I had eaten the last two slices for breakfast before we went to  Booths, so when we got back I crumbled up the two crusts of the loaf by hand and popped them into a tub for the freezer.  They will come in handy for coating something or adding to homemade burgers.

Alan purposefully said yes to a tomato ketchup to go with his bacon bun, even though he knew he wasn't going to use it.  I quizzed him about that and we had a really interesting conversation about the prices of café food and the things that are built into the prices that you pay.  We both agreed that anything that is usually offered i.e. sauces with buns or hot food, and sugars with coffees etc are most definitely included in the price you pay, and we should continue to say 'yes please' when asked.  But if they are not offered, we will not ask for things that we know we won't be using in the café at the time.

Doing this will continue to help me out over the course of this years extra frugality, but also salve my conscience twinges about taking too much.

Sue xx

The Year of the Horse

 

I've always had a passing interest in the Chinese years, also a slight interest in astrology, made more profound because virtually everything that I read about Aries people, of which I am one, seems to be so spot on.

I used to read the horoscopes in the paper many, many years ago.  Now it's just a passing interest if something comes up online and catches my attention.

Back in the days after my divorce had been finalised, and just before I met Alan I signed up for Yahoo Personals, the online dating site ... yep that's how we met, we were pioneers of online dating.  Back when it used to be a much safer place with no 'catfishing' and very little scamming.  One of the adverts that I replied to was from a guy called John, who advertised with:

Pisces Monkey seeking Aries Rat

I was intrigued, as no doubt was his plan, so I responded, well I am an Aries rat!!  We had a couple of dates, and the main ... no the sole ... conversation was about astrology and Chinese years, calendars, animals.  

I moved on as rats tend to do when there's nothing of interest on offer.  🐀

What is your astrology sign and Chinese animal year?

Sue xx

Same Old, Same Old, But in the New Year

 

There's definitely no New Year resolutions here, yes there are plans, but they pretty much are the same as they have always been.  

Take part in Veganuary, reassess my eating habits at the end of the month.  Spend as little money as possible to try and survive until the pension kicks in, so basically all the same old, same old that makes life easy, bearable and with a bit of a challenge.

When I was getting the grand and great-grandchildren's Christmas and birthday money out of my savings account I withdrew some extra cash for myself.  So I have a budget of £50 a month for the first four months of this year.  I have the usual couple of pounds worth of Nectar points that I will make use of in Sainsbury's, and a really useful £15 worth of M&S vouchers.

I also have £100 worth of Riverford Organic Veg Box vouchers that I won in a competition last year via the Vegetarian Society.  So I should be eating pretty well. 

I will be tipping any money that I have in my bag or pockets into my little emergency stash, which I have built up over the last couple of months from little sales on Facebook Marketplace. There's not a huge amount but it will all help, and of course there's my little 'change box' for when things get really tight.

So now it's time to do the start of the year financial housekeeping and check the bank balances, start a new page for monitoring things in my diary and pay off the credit card for the year.  Then we have a blank slate and a fresh start, it's a good feeling isn't it.

Sue xx