So ... What DID I Buy with my Vouchers

After the last post I thought it only fair that I came back on and tell you what I did actually decide to buy with my Tesco and M&S vouchers.  I had no fixed idea of what I intended to get until I got to Tesco and then I thought what would give be the absolute best value for my vouchers in terms of food shopping that would be useful for next year when we have decided to scrimp and save on the housekeeping to help us save to pay off the mortgage.

Dried goods it had to be then.  

The Basmati rice was £5.70 for 4kg, the Red Lentils £1.80, the Pearl Barley and the Yellow Split Peas came in at 55p each .... just 10p over my £8.50 worth of vouchers.

I could have gotten more rice for my money if I had gone for the Everyday Value long grain rice ... a whopping 12kgs in fact ... and we might be eating that by the end of year, but how much better to start the year with a decent supply of our favourite rice.

Today I nipped into Marks and Spencer while I was in Llandudno and decided on the spur of the moment to get treats with the £6 I had in vouchers from there.  So mince pies for Christmas for Alan and some sweets for the cinema for me.

My trip to Tesco also threw up some yellow stickered bargains.

A selection of meats for the freezer ...

... a tray of Mediterranean vegetables, that worked out cheaper than buying a couple of courgettes to go with veggies I already had at home.

And a bag of nice baking potatoes ....

... that will be in use as soon as we have finished the last of our homegrown ones.

Not a bad little shopping spree :-)

Sue xx

Ladies Who Lunch - Round Two

It just had to be done, the 'ladies who lunch' struck again :-)

Once again at the Wyevale near Mum's the offers were waiting for us.  Everything was down by 70% and the 'Maypole plant supports' that I had been keeping my eye on since they were first put out at half their usual £18.99 price tag were reduced to clear at £5 each ... so I got two.

They will be brilliant on the Veggie Patch next year for the broad and runner beans.  I also managed to find another tomato hanging basket at just a pound, it was lurking on a shelf all on it's own ... so I rescued it!!

There was only one thing that fell into the trolley that wasn't strictly useful, and that was this glass sign ... I just had to have it ... and at just £2 it would have been rude not to.  Between us we got £71.93 worth of goods for just £11.76.

Mum was very restrained this week and she just treated herself to a little solar powered owl light, to light up her tiny garden at night, the neighbours watch in amazement as she squeezes so many lovely little plants and accessories into her tiny patch, it looks wonderful.  I'll get a couple of photos next week if I remember to take my camera.

That should be it for sale goods at the garden centre now .... I think they are making room for all the Christmas decorations that are no doubt waiting in the wings ... there I said it ... the dreaded C word.  I'll go and stand in the corner and repent  ;-)

Sue xx

Right Place, Right Time

I was in Manchester with Mum yesterday, one of our lovely 'ladies who lunch' days together.  We went to our most frequently frequented place her local Wyevale Garden Centre, well I mean what's not to love there, there are plants, vegetables, pretty things to look at, posh food to drool over and a restaurant with top quality well prepared food.

And the brilliant thing was as we walked in to head straight for our lunch and a cup of coffee, there was a table right by the door full of absolute 'reduced to clear' bargains.  At first we just quickly scanned the goods and I said  "if LH was here he would be buying the lot", and then we looked properly ... and I went and got us a trolley.

We both got these ... I got two .... well it would have been daft not to, reduced from £19.99 to £2.  It was a real no brainer.

I also bought two of these.  I got one last year in the same sale and the tomatoes in it are doing brilliantly in the polytunnel at the moment.  These will be saved for next year, as will all our purchases.

I also got a Sunflower in a ceramic pot, the pot alone would cost more than the £1 purchase price, as would the herb seeds in terracotta pots, which were just 50p each.

And a brilliant purchase, and something I've resisted buying up to now, I have managed with my oven gloves or tea towels to fish out the jars when I'm having a bottling session.  Now at last,  I have the right tool for the job, and it only cost me £2.09.

I worked it out on my calculator that I spent £10.59 ... but I got £81.91 worth of goodies.  Wow, I wouldn't have dreamt of paying that much for these items .... some folk must though!!  How nice that for once we were in the right place at the right time ... oh and we had a lovely lunch and a catch up of family news too, before going back to Mum's lovely little bungalow and doing a spot of gardening with Suky watching on and entertaining the neighbours. 

Lovely Hubby is on his way home from work tonight and we have lots to keep us busy over the weekend, but all these purchases will be safely stored until next year.   Although I am going to open everything and take the compost out, storing it from last year meant it dried out too much, and I guess it would have lost it's nutrients.  I did use it and added it to some fresh stuff, but it will be far better to use this new compost now and use fresh with the seeds from the packs next year.

Sue xx

The Freezer is Full

I spied a few bargains when I was out and about the other day.  

Not vast amounts of money off as I was shopping quite early in the morning, but the coincidence of finding some reduced British and Welsh lamb only hours after Lovely Hubby's admission that he would prefer some lamb for Christmas rather than the chicken he usually gets, meant that these packs on the reduced shelf caught my eye immediately.

We don't have turkey in this house .... ever.  I have a 'thing' about the way they are handled and treated in the processing plants.  I saw a programme back in the late eighties when my turkey ban began, and the images have lived with me until this day.

We have talked a few times about raising a few turkeys ourselves so that Lovely Hubby could eat a home reared one, but he has a fear that we would end up with half a dozen of the ugliest pets ever running around the paddock until they finally keeled over from old age.

A turkey is for life .... not just for Christmas ;-)

I got a couple of other things alongside the lamb.

The cheese was a fantastic reduction and is now nestled in the freezer, grated and boxed and ready to last us for a long time.  The beauty of buying mature cheddar is that a little goes a long way in the taste stakes, and as I try not to eat too much cheese, although I love it, that suits me just fine.

The fish pie selections are also in the freezer, which is now full ... to the very top.  Usually I have a  bit of room for Christmas purchases but unless we eat a lot over the next two weeks there is no room.  It is not a worry though because at least this means we are going into next year with a good selection of food, both bought in and home produced.

All in all not a bad saving, what would have cost me £41.77 actually came to just £27.44 a saving of £14.33.  I've got to get in the habit of bargain spotting  even more than I currently do if we are to survive next year with our limited housekeeping budget.

I'm ITCHING to open the Sealed Pot to find out what cash we will have to go with the Nectar points and the vouchers and coupons that I have pinned to the notice board in the kitchen, but I've been told to wait until LH is home for the Christmas holidays so we can do it together.  I do keep picking it up and marveling at the weight .... I hope it's not all coppers!!

Reverse Advent - Day 8

Three unused make up items.  

Never has my make up bag been lighter!

Sue xx

Kale, Sweet Potato and Pot

I was in Tesco last week for a top up on Sparkling Water (yes, you know I'm addicted) when I spied some bargains on the reduced to clear shelves.  

There were lots to be had actually but I was very restrained and only got a couple of things including these two bags of Curly Kale.  My plants were heavily picked from last week and while I have these in the freezer it will give them chance to recover.  Obviously they are very slow growing now the temperatures are so much lower and at just 55p a bag this little stash should keep me going for a while with my new Pesto, Kale and Pasta obsession.

I also decided to treat myself to this, it just looked so tasty.

It was really delicious, but I doubt I would ever pay the full price for it ... £6 ... gulp!!  

But at £3.54 it was worth it, and I have kept the nice sturdy foil dish it was in to make my own version which will no doubt cost me much less to produce.

I should have read the ingredients list before I bought it though, it contained a lot of milk and milk products which was obvious when I woke up the next morning and was 'dawking doo by dose'.  Yes milk and milk products completely block up my sinuses, I really do need to learn my limits properly AND read labels better!!

*** *** ***

Reverse Advent - Day 2

A little Laura Ashley pot that used to contain some of my jewelery before I bought my new jewelry/sewing box for Christmas.  Although it's very pretty it's not really needed, and someone else will no doubt love it even more than me.

Sue xx

Bleak Friday

It's today, the American import called Black Friday. 

A day of mass consumerism and in some cases buying for buyings sake.  After the debacles last year some shops, the more sensible ones, are changing their 'sales' policies this year, thank goodness.  Fair enough if there's something you need and you have the energy and good temper enough to brave the crowds go for it, but we won't be joining in.

The truck is booked into the garage for the repairs after Lovely Hubby's minor accident the other week, while it's being repaired we'll walk the dogs and then take them home.  A trip to the builder's merchants will see us ordering the wood LH needs to make the doors for the workshop, we might even treat ourselves to a coffee while we are out, but we will not be shopping. 

 He got a quote for doors to be made for the workshop a couple of weeks ago, the price that came back was £2,500 for hardwood and £1,500 for softwood.  He reckons he can do it himself for around £500 so that's the route we are taking.  He had never made a door frame and hung a new door in it before, so he practised on the interior control room door, it worked and is almost finished.  So now he has the confidence to tackle the outer doors to the workshop and he's going to go for it.

Bleak Friday ... a day to do what you normally do or just stay at home cosy and warm and wait for the mayhem to be over.

Sue xx

A Productive Day

Yesterday I finally got round to prepping the Bramleys harvested last weekend.  I was going to do it much earlier in the week but I cut the base of my thumb opening, of all things, a bottle of sparkling water.  There was a nasty piece of plastic sticking out on the thread of the bottle that I didn't notice until I twisted the top off with full force and it got me!!

So apple prepping was put off for a few days as I knew it would sting, as I worked my way through the huge pile of apples yesterday I managed to get right to the last half a dozen before the cut opened up and yes .... boy oh boy did it sting  :-(

Still I managed to get them all cooked down, into jars and then canned, so they should last us for quite a while.  I added some cinnamon to this batch and used up some powdered sweetener I found in the cupboard in place of sugar.  I'm trying to rationalise what I have in my cupboards and odds and sods of what I won't be buying again are being used rather than wasted.

The jars are just waiting to be labelled and then they will be added to the stash of chutneys, pickles and jams in the cupboard. 

Talking of jams I got fed up with all the little pots and half jars of jam in the fridge this week, so the other day I whipped up a few simple Jam Turnovers.  A totally cheaty, but delicious snack, I managed to eat my way through two last night but the others I stashed in the freezer.

I have another sheet of 'yellow stickered' ready rolled pastry to use up, so the half jar of Apple Sauce will make another batch of turnovers today.  I usually make them triangular, hence the filling being off centre in the top picture but decided at the past minute to go rectangular, purely because they fit better in my freezer box that way.

Ready rolled pastry, a dollop of jam .... I'll never win the Great British Bake Off will I ... but then again I'd never enter ... even Nigella Lawson has admitted that she doesn't have the precise baking skills needed for the competition these days, so I'm in good company :-)

Have a good weekend everyone, if I can push Lovely Hubby of the computer for a while, I'll be back with another post on Sunday.

Sue xx

Just One Day Later

Just one day later we have 45 solar panels in place and ready for action, and the only worker left on site is Rob the painter, all by himself painting in the workshop.  I had to nip into Llandudno and get him two more 10 litre tubs of masonry paint this morning, he had used up the five we already had.  I was shocked to find out they have gone up from £35 each to £43 each ... an £8 increase in just a couple of weeks!!

The top photo was taken on the panoramic setting on my camera, it kind of makes it all look a bit weird but shows the garage and workshop roof in relation to the things around it.

Then I backed off up the hill a bit more and got this one, which makes everything look much more normal  :-)

The animals seem to get into most of my photos don't they, I really didn't see Ginger approaching until I clicked the camera!!

I was asked yesterday if we will be off-grid now we have these panels.  Well once these are connected they should be supplying all our needs electricity wise, we have also installed a battery backup system that kicks in when they aren't generating any electricity for any reason (night time, excessive fog etc) and the workings out show that we should also be generating enough power to be able to feed it back to the National Grid to generate a small income. 

Lovely Hubby is a stickler for workings out and planning ahead, it's the engineer in him,  and now this system is in place he's worked out that it should pay for itself completely in the next ten years and then give us some completely 'free' years of power before we sell up and retire to a love nest by the sea.  After all even Hannah Hauxwell gave up her rural lifestyle before it finished her off completely  :-)

Yesterday on the way back from Mums I called in to Tesco to pick up some dried dog food and of course I had to have a quick glance at the reduced to clear shelf ....

I was in luck.

Four packs of cheese at much less than half price and a pack of two Salmon En Croute, saving me a total of £6.66  (oooh the mark of the devil).  The salmon went straight into the freezer and I'll grate the cheese later on today and do the same with that.

I love a bargain .... whether it be electricity or cheese  ;-)

Sue xx

La la, la, la, la, la,

I have my head firmly buried in the sand .....

... next time I go out I might just have to wear blinkers.

Or maybe even a blindfold.

I went shopping yesterday and in the charity shops there were Christmas cards and in Tesco there was a huge humongous display of tubs of sweets.  You know the ones, stack after stack of Heroes, Quality Street, Roses etc etc.

It is not nearly Christmas, it is not nearly Christmas, for goodness sake we have Halloween, Bonfire Night et al to get through first.  And the kids have only just gone back to school .... is society really trying to ramp up the excitement four months before the day, the poor little things will explode before  then in an excited fireball?

I'm going into hibernation (it's currently cold enough to make me want to), well either that or absolute minimal shopping so that I don't have to see the first outbreak of tinsel and sparkle.

Bah Humbug!!

Sue xx

All pictures taken from Google Images.

Ladies (and Man) Who Lunch

Last week while Lovely Hubby was off work we both went to Mum's for the day.  We nipped out as is our usual very nice habit, to the garden centre for a spot of lunch and a good natter.  Me and Mum do this regularly and it was nice to introduce Lovely Hubby to the concept of 'ladies who lunch'.

We also introduced him to the concept of ladies who like shopping at garden centres after lunching, and he was only too happy to join in with the bargain hunting.  With the end of season sale now on, which means they are making way for  shhhhh ..... Christmas decorations, I've put in small so as not to alarm anyone ....  there were lots of bargains to be had, but my best bargains were some packets of seeds to plug the gap in what I already have for next year that I've been collecting on my magazine each month and ....

... I might have been tempted to stock up on gardening gloves!!

These should see me through a good few years and at just £2.50 for three pairs,  reduced even further from the usual offer price of £4.99 for three pairs, I think it was a worthwhile purchase.

He enjoyed being an honorary lady who lunched and even bought us an additional coffee to refresh us after a really good shop  :-)

Sue xx

Prepping for the Freezer

As well as growing our own food there is always some foods that get bought from the shops, markets or supermarkets near us and I always try to make full use of everything I have to pay for as well as that which I grow.  

Nothing should go to waste with foods, it's a crime to  hand over your hard earned cash for anything and then not make the best use you can of it.  So with this in mind whenever I shop, whether I pay full price for things or manage to snaffle some 'yellow stickered bargains', I always spring into action as soon as I get home .... well as soon as I've put other things away and enjoyed a reviving cup of coffee, ..... we have a good drive to all the nearest shops.

Meat is always packaged in serving size portions, always ones ... if Lovely Hubby is feeling extra hungry it's easy to take out two portions but sometimes not so easy to separate two chops that have frozen together.   So meat in single pieces,  

Bagels are cut in half and then put back into the packs they came in.  That way the halves can be popped straight into the toaster without risking slicing off a finger whilst cutting in half a frozen or semi frozen bagel, and if I need just a half with a cup of coffee it's there for the toasting :-)

Sausages are taken out of their packets, cut into singles and then open frozen before being bagged up and labelled.  

I always find it is easier to cut off the label from the pack of anything, as well as having the description of the product on it, it has the date you bought it ..... and to give you a smile in the case of bargain buys, the nice cheap price you paid for it in the first place.

I've done this for years now but I find I'm doing it more and more these days.  It's very rare for anything to be bought and simply put in the freezer, even something that you would think would always be eaten as a whole, say a pizza is first unpacked cut into wedges and then frozen, that way it's available for us both to eat, one of us to eat or if we have a guest or two, we can simply take the lot out.  But the main thing is that we have the option of any scenario with any of our foodstuffs, especially the bought ones which have cost us good money.

It just makes sense doesn't it  :-)

Sue xx

Cosy Puss

After Jason's visit last week I had left the bed in the spare bedroom unmade to air while the bedding was put through the wash.  I had thought the door was closed but when I went to put the freshly washed covers back on the bed look what I found.

Although I don't usually allow the animals on the beds unless they are covered with an additional quilt .... I really couldn't tell off such a sweet looking face now could I, I left him there and he slept the day away in blissful cosyness  :-)

In other news .... look what arrived in the post yesterday.  

A whole £53 worth of M&S vouchers, if I had still been on target with my mini Challenge, (which ended without any fanfare last week when we went shopping at the weekend, totally forgetting about any challenges in our upset over Charley), these would have kept me going for weeks.

How did I mange to get so many .... well our builder let us pay for all the building supplies ourselves as we are VAT registered and he is not, so we paid on our M&S card, which bumped up our total spend for the month on it by rather a lot.  Of course the money was sat in the bank waiting to be used for the conservatory job, so we used some of that to pay off the card when the bill landed in my inbox and the builder was paid for his labour separately.

With those vouchers came these, but I doubt they will be used.

But I will use these.  

By timing when I use the other vouchers to stock up on things we love from M&S, I can get additional points ready for the next lot of vouchers.

It all helps.

Sue xx

Shopping ... but not on a Sunday!!

I decided to go shopping yesterday to buy some more fresh stuff to compliment the food in our freezers, cupboards and the fridge.  The fridge was looking very sparse and nothing like the photo I put on the blog at the start of the week, so shopping really was a necessity. 

I kept it to all healthy things and the only items I bought that weren't on my Capsule Kitchen shopping list were the milk for Lovely Hubby, the Butternut Squash and the Quorn Cottage Pie .  I don't normally buy these but at the checkout after paying for everything else I got a 47p coupon off my next shop and a 50p coupon off any Quorn product, which I had noticed on my way round the store were on special offer.  I had thought I would be able to use both coupons off it but it turned out that the 47p coupon was only valid from 17th January ... one day later ... sneaky, sneaky T*sco.  Still it did mean that I got the Cottage Pie for just one pound, which made for something quick and tasty for lunch when we got home with the shopping.

So I still have a 47p coupon to spend on some more shopping .... and next time I will read the small print more carefully.

The shopping above cost me £11.16, which means I still have £37.81 to spend.  

It's going quicker than I thought it would, but then I've not really been making an effort to use up the vegetables in the freezer, I think I should be brave, put some gloves on and have a good sort through the chest freezer to see exactly what I have in stock before I do any more shopping.  At least there's a bit of room in there now for me to be able to see what I've got and have a sort out.

Did you set yourself any challenges for the New Year, and if you did ... how are they going?

Sue xx

Meat for Christmas, Money for Christmas

Did you shop yesterday, I didn't!!

The thought of shopping was so far from my mind yesterday, and watching the pictures on the news at teatime last night, it was enough to make me decide that I will NEVER shop on Black Friday.  I understand that some people need a bargain so much that trying to get that television for £250 instead of £400 must seem like a 'must do' type thing, but it's not for me.  The scuffles, fights, injuries and arguments are just not worth it in my opinion.  Anyway it seems like there was no rush for the majority of bargains, a lot of the shops in Llandudno, which we ventured into to get the car checked over for Winter today, were having 'Black Friday Weekends' ..... which made us laugh!!

I did my bargain shopping earlier in the week.  Thanks to Lovely Hubby filling the truck with fuel at Sainsburys last weekend he had a voucher for £3 off a £30 shop and one for double points.  So I decided to shop there this week, and for once struck lucky.  The reduced price section had just bee restocked and I was the only person there.

What I bought -

4 packs of Mackerel Fillets

2 Packs of Steak and Tomato Burgers

2 Packs of Salmon en Croute

1 Smoked Ham Joint

2 Welsh Frying Steaks

2 Pork Loins

1 Beef Roasting Joint

and

1 Pack of  Organic Pork Sausages

That little lot came to £34.45 and with a few other things that we needed I paid up and was given another voucher at the till for next time,  this time it was £10 off a £70 shop .  My first thought was that I wouldn't use it but I put it into my purse and headed for home.  On the way home I realised that I still had over £30 available in Nectar points so I've made my mind up to shop there again before the date is up on the voucher, get everything we need for Christmas and use the voucher and my Nectar points to pay for it.

All the meat, except the steaks which Lovely Hubby had for his tea last night, has been stashed into the freezer and will be used over the Christmas period.  In fact between that and the chicken and salmon fillets we already had in the freezer I don't think I will have to buy any more meat products until well into the New Year.... unless of course I see a real bargain.

We also have our Sealed Pot to open this weekend, which we decided this year to use for Christmas, so that's us sorted money-wise for the festive season ..... I wonder how much is in it?  I might just take it to the change sorting machine in Sainsburys when I go and tip it in, it's all in small change this year so I'm not expecting anything like the £371.27 that inspired my '365 Days - £365' Challenge of this year.

I'll be back tomorrow we some more conservatory roof pictures, we have some tiles on the roof now, not many ... but some, we're getting there at last  :-)

Sue xx

Treats for the Doggies .... and For Us

Every time a parcel is delivered to our house the dogs rush eagerly into the kitchen to supervise it's opening.  

It all started when Rosy was a puppy, we lived at Jointers Farm and our track to the village was almost two miles long, she had a thing for chasing cars off our property and I quickly had to find a way of making her more interested in the parcel than she was in the delivery van.

And so was born .....  "Oooh what have we got, what have we got?"

It caught her attention immediately and she followed me into the house to see what treat for her the delivery man had brought.  All I had to do was surreptitiously sneak a doggy chew into the parcel and let her discover it lying on top of the things for Mum.

The other dogs quickly picked up on this surprise tasty snack, so I do it to this day, we all need a tasty little surprise in our lives from time to time.

This time it was my parcel from Approved Foods.  I had placed the order to take advantage of the low priced tins of tomatoes, six tins for just £1 and the catering sized bags of Crumble Mix, although they made a mistake and sent me just one instead of the four bags that I ordered.  They have refunded my money as they have now ran out of it .... I would rather have had the other three bags  :-(

I don't order from Approved Foods as much as I used to, but sometimes when the email drops into my Inbox and it's something that we need and is a real bargain I will succumb.  This was bought and paid for before the start of Stoptober so I have no guilt to feel either!!

I added some Gingerbread Mix to my order as it was on offer at three boxes for a pound.  I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually an M&S packet mix .... ooh err proper posh!!  There is even a proper little man shaped cutter in every box.  I think I'll tie them all together on a length of tinsel and turn them into a Christmas garland.

Oh no ..... I said the 'C' word.

Sue xx