Posh De-scaler, Random Meals and Happy Finds

 

This is possibly the poshest de-scaler that I have ever used.

My kettle was suddenly furred up, a very rare occurrence here in the north-west of England, so I rummaged in the cupboard for some bog standard vinegar.  There was none to be had, I checked Alan's under sink cupboard as he tends to have sachets of de-scaler under there, nope none at all.

So I bit the bullet and tried it with some of my very out of date Apple Cider vinegar.  Oh well better for it to be used in some way as I had never gotten around to using it much in recipes ... I hate vinegar flavours. Why had I bought it then, I have no idea!! 

It worked but it took four boilings of the kettle whereas malt or white vinegar takes two at the most.

Making Alan's dinners and teas while he has been working so hard at the bungalow, means that I am going through the contents of the freezer satisfyingly quickly.  The bottom drawer is now full of homemade items rather than convenience foods and as they are used up only a few of them are being bought again.

Fish fingers are a good emergency standby for a quick and tasty, even if slightly naughty lunch, so they will be replaced ... occasionally. 😁 

These garlic Plant Menu Kyivs are also a good standby, but I don't eat them very often these days, so again another occasional purchase from now on I think

Rummaging around definitely has it's advantages, as I found a single block of homemade soup and half a garlic baton yesterday ... it made for a very tasty lunch.

Sue xx

You Win Some, You Lose Some

 

I was stood in Morrisons in Morecambe, just inside the doors where there was a huge display of doughnuts.  Ooh, I thought they look nice, what a lovely sweet treat.

Then I looked at the list of ingredients ... and immediately changed my mind. 😐

So when we got home I rewarded myself, and Alan, with a nice fresh salmon and pasta salad.  It was so tasty I didn't even need a sweet treat of any description.

Later on determined not to waste the crusts off my loaf of bread, I made some garlicky croutons to go into a bowl of soup for my tea.  I left them slightly too long and had slightly charcoal-y croutons.  Still edible but not the luscious little pillows of bready garlic-ness that I was hoping for.

You win some, you lose some.  😄

Sue xx

It's the End of the Month Catch- up

 

It's been a strange sort of month, hot, hot weather, Mum in and out of hospital like a yoyo ... currently in once again.  The garden looks lovely ...

... and you would be able to see it, if the washing wasn't out on the line making full use of the glorious sunshine.  

I'm funni-osity ... as my Nana used to say,  I love pegging washing out but hate bringing it in and folding it all up, I think I need staff.  😄

Some meals have been so simple you can barely call them that.

Shopping has been bought, stored and in a lot of cases just eaten and then re-bought, I seem to be on a wine and fish repetition phase at the moment, well it's been hot weather, and cold wine at the end of a long and occasionally stressful day is sometimes just really necessary.  When the things that were bought to replace the contents of the jars were stashed in the lower food cupboard, they were dated as usual.

Fathers Day came and went, and as usual Alan got a card off each of my sons, and of course one off his furry Ginger son ... who also bought him a jar of Plum Jam and a few 'fingers of Fudge'.

As usual nothing off his own grown up children or his step-daughter.  He is used to that, but it still annoys me on his behalf.

The final things from the bungalow were put up on Facebook Marketplace for sale, but there have been no takers up to now.  I did have one woman from York ask if the gates were fifteen foot wide each and not in total. 

 Wow, that would be a wide driveway!!

My favourite read of the month was this book.  

As a few people warned me, it did take some getting in to, but once I did, wow it was good.  And I didn't see the twist coming at the end at all.  I have now re-donated it to the charity book table in Booths.

Talking of Booths, we have eaten and drunk in there far too many times this month, but Alan likes to get away from the bungalow and have a coffee and a bacon bun there.  I did offer to make both of the aforementioned at home for him, but I think he is afraid of then falling asleep on the sofa afterwards and not ending up back at the bungalow.

He was eyeing up the sofas in Booths café as we left today, so I think maybe he actually has a point.  Although I do keep pointing out to him that each time we pay for food in the café that is basically the cost of two floor tiles for the bungalow!!

Talking of the bungalow it has come on in leaps and bounds this month.  So here is the one and only time I will be showing the front of it on my blog.  

The plasterers are currently inside plastering the bedroom ceilings and walls, and Alan has been busy on the outside setting out the framework for the front garden.  It's been all go after a long time of planning and we are starting to see the fruits of our labour, our planning and our money ... which is very quickly running out.

Here's to July and hopefully more sunshine, more foody talk and more progress on our future home.

Sue xx

Seven Different Ways I Have Saved Money This Past Week

1.  Making one meal go further.

Alan was feeling exhausted after working with at the bungalow all last week, so we splurged and had a chip shop tea to round the week off.  It was just too much for me, so I saved half of my fish and chip meal for the next night.  It warmed up beautifully in the Remoska, but it's always a shock to see how much fat comes out of fish and chips when it's reheated.  😮

Enough to put you off getting it again?  No not really, once in a while it's perfectly okay to have a little treat, especially when it actually lasts over two meals.

2.  Using up sad looking vegetables.

I've been using up the contents of my fridge this week, so the tail end of carrots, celery and onion were roasted together, to make us a sort of carrot wellington.  It's on the menu every week at Mum's care home and we have always said that we should give it a go.

Once cooked it was all wrapped in some homemade pastry and cooked until beautifully golden brown.

  Unfortunately, my camera has been playing silly b*ggers recently and deleting random photos, especially the last one in each series I take ... so my gorgeous pastry extravaganza has now vanished into our stomachs and the ether.

I thought I had  gone mad so I did test it out, and yes out of a set of three photos, the last one vanished!!

I am now double checking and taking duplicate where needed ... another money saving thing as I really don't want to have to buy another camera.

3.  Making good use of free food.

I had half a sachet of a 'freebie' tomato ketchup, so I found a burger in the freezer and made sure I used it all up.  It might have been free, but even so I wasn't going to waste half of it.

4.  Using what I already had open.

I wanted a bit of sweetcorn to add to my tuna salad sandwich mix, so rather than open a full can I stood at the worktop and picked some out of the frozen mixed vegetables.

5.  Shopping Lists

A letter came for me with a blank A4 sheet of paper added for some reason.  As I was just about to write out my shopping list, I turned it into six shopping list sized pieces of paper and used one straight away.

6.  Replacement for breadcrumbs.

There were a lot of Weetabix crumbs left in the tin last time I refilled it, so I tipped them all into a jar ready to add to banana and walnut muffins ... I forgot to do that.  So instead I thought I would try them as breadcrumbs to coat two mashed potato and tuna fishcakes.

It worked a treat, and surprisingly didn't taste too much of Weetabix.

7.  Free guilt-laden napkins.

On Sunday when we were getting our motorway services lunch on the way back from seeing Mum, I headed back to the table before Alan, telling him that I would get the napkins.  I had forgotten that he is a bit deaf in one ear at the moment and he didn't hear me ... so he too picked up some napkins.  I felt guilty but there's no way to push them back into the dispenser, so instead I will make good use of them at home.

Just seven of the ways I can think of that I have saved us a little bit of money this week.  Of course there are probably many more, but so many things are done without even noticing yourself do them after a lifetime of watching the pennies.

What have you done recently that helped out your budget in some way?

Sue xx

Catching Up - Bread, Doughnuts, Fights ... and Experiments

 

It was a tough visit to Mum on Sunday so the doughnut on the way home at the service station, eaten after the lovely, and for once hot, vegan sausage roll was definitely needed ... although, wow, they are super sickly sweet.  Thank goodness for a lovely black coffee to take the edge of it.

We both ate up, and then sat and people watched for a good ten minutes just to decompress.  You do see all sorts of folks at the service station, I do still get cross with the messy ones though, especially when they have children with them and just wander off leaving all their mess for someone else to clean up.  Just what sort of an example are they setting for their kids?  

Yes, I will be turning into a loudly tutting old lady soon.  😞

We got home on Saturday after a couple of hours picking up building supplies ... yes most weekends are now spent browsing the delights of Wickes or B&Q ... to find that Ginger had just been in a spat with another cat defending his garden.  His poor little nose was dripping blood and over the course of the afternoon his face swelled up quite alarmingly.  He looked like he had done a round or two with Mike Tyson.  I had washed it thoroughly, he's a gentle cat and he let me do it with only a minor wriggle and complaint, and we both spent the rest of the day monitoring it closely.

By bedtime he could see out of his eye again, and these photos were then taken the next morning so I can monitor if any infection sets in.  I think for his first ever cat fight he has gotten off quite lightly.

19th  Booths - £1.60

This was literally my only shopping for this week, and sadly it is not very nice bread.

As they were much larger slices than the bread that I usually buy, I thought I would have a little play this morning.  I made myself three mini 'quiches'.  I cut out circles, pressed them into my muffin tin and left them in the warming oven, while I chopped some pepper and let an egg come to room temperature.

You can see each stage in this photo.  First chopped pepper dropped into the lightly toasted bread base, then a little sprinkle of cheese, and then finally one beaten egg divided between all three.

It made for a very tasty little breakfast, eaten an hour after my Weetabix, yes I am still on Hobbit breakfasts.  😄

I've been doing quite a bit of playing with my food just recently, and it's always nice when it works out.  

Sue xx

Saving Money - Absolutely No Waste

One of the first steps to saving money is to have absolutely no waste.

To use everything up of everything that you buy, whether that be eating all the leftovers and composting all the vegetable bits that are inedible, or making good use out of every last drop of something in a tube for instance.

I have spent years now cutting the ends of tubes to get out all the hand-cream, face cream or as in this case toothpaste.

It's surprising what is still left in there after you have already spent a week squeezing, shaking and scraping down the tube for all your worth to get the product out.

Of course I don't want the product to go hard or go off with the tube cut into pieces, so I always cut out a middle section then use the bottom as a top.  It works a treat.

My little nail pencil, which was once the length of a normal pencil, is now just over an inch long, it's hard to sharpen it these days, but I will persevere.  While it is still there, I am still using it.

All I ask of life at the moment is to live simply, to have enough of what I need, to make the best of what I have ... and to be grateful for each and every day.

What is one money saving tip that you would add in the comments to help others that might not have heard of it?

Sue xx

Tomato Ketchup Jackpot ... and Books

 

Alan hit the tomato ketchup jackpot today when we went to Booths for breakfast.

The guys that are rendering the outside of our bungalow couldn't come and do anymore today due to the heavy rain that we currently have.  So Alan said he fancied a later more leisurely start to the day, and a bacon butty and a coffee in Booths while we had a catch up on all things renovation related, before he headed to the bungalow to continue stripping the wallpaper off the ceilings.

He ordered his usual bacon bun and was given two tomato ketchup sachets without asking, and as I have him so well trained he just accepted them without question.

They were added to my little stash as soon as I got home.  I haven't had to buy ketchup for a long time now.    

Yes, they are all lined up in date order ... I am that organised. 😁

On the way out of Booths we have to pass the charity book table, and after weeks and weeks of me being very good and not buying anything, suddenly there were four books that looked well worth a read.  So they came home with me too.  It was only when I got home that I remembered I was being so good so that we would have less books to move house with.

Oh well, at least I have my reading mojo back at the moment, so I will continue to donate all the books that I read that are deemed not really worth keeping.

The book I am currently reading, which also came from the book table a while ago.

What are you reading at the moment?

Sue xx

Kitchen Paper, Freebies ... and Pension Payments

 

It had to be done.  😄

This weekend's little shopping trip included a twin pack of kitchen paper. 

 My roll finally ran out on Friday and as I had just one napkin picked up from a café left, so I thought it was time to make an extravagant purchase.  I last bought kitchen paper in November or December of 2024, so picking up all the leftover napkins from cafés etc has really worked out well for saving me money and stopping wastage.

 

This photo appeared on my blog in May 2025, and shows the roll still looking very healthy then.  I can understand why I ended up running out in May, we just haven't really eaten out as much and even our coffee stops on the motorway have not given me as many napkins to bring home, Alan spilt some of his coffee on two occasions and we had to mop it up.

Out of interest here are my May freebies ...

Two sachets of sugar from breakfast in Morecambe.

Brown sauce and two napkins from Booths.  

Alan now admits to always fancying some brown sauce when he's ordering his bacon bun, but once he sees the bacon in front of him he can't bear to slather it on.

Napkins from the service station.  

Alan said there was a wad of napkins on top of the dispenser and the lady handed them to him.  I was over at Subway and just picked up two.

Free coffee from the Greggs app.

 

These are representing the two monthly free coffees we get from Dobbie's.  I forgot to take a photo, we actually get a latte for Alan and a black Americano for me.

Sauce and a sugar from Booths.

From Burger King at the services, I fancied chips and they do the best ones, I did pick up two ketchups but one was more than enough, so the other came home with as well as the salt.  I didn't realise that the chips come already salted.

A free steak bake for Alan from Greggs at the services.

Our two free coffees from Burnside garden centre.

Also a leftover Flora spread pot from my breakfast.

And then finally, a few napkins from the services yesterday ... so maybe I could have held out on buying the kitchen roll.  😄

Looking very full ...what's the betting this has to move house with us.

So I can keep tabs on it I have written the date on the inside ... a bit like when I 'dated a toilet roll'.  

So my first shopping for June from Aldi looked like this and cost me £11.22.

The receipt for posterity.

I am now officially a UK pensioner as I received a pro-rate pension payment last Friday.  My next payment will be in four weeks.  It's so nice to have some money coming into my bank account again, but I'll still be watching the pennies as avidly, and collecting as many freebies as possible when we are out and about, you can count on that. 

Sue xx