on the mend

Hells teeth

ive been so ill the past 4 days

thank you for all the well wishes 

....

Several years ago i had the flu, people who say they have flu really haven't had it until you've had it!!

This viral infection has left me feeling like i did from the flu, it took me months to recover from that, its taking all my energy just to walk from room to room, my leg muscles start to cramp instantly, its left me with an  horrendous chesty cough, it was so bad last night i was coughing up blood, im back at work tomorrow morning but may ring the GP to see if i can get an appointment.

Even my taste buds are shot, everything tastes funny, ive managed some tomato soup and a slice of toast today but even the thought of food turns my stomach.

I thought id make a loaf so theres fresh bread for the morning, searched everywhere for the paddle............................while i was ill in bed and OH cleaned up she binned the last loaf i made................it still had the paddle in...............

i have no words

Sammie xx

sickness

Oh dear sickness has struck our house

its me thats got it ive had to come to work this morning but no way i can stay this afternoon

been up since 5am being sick etc

i feel like crying!

catch you all later

sammie xx

Oh bugger!

In my rush to bake a loaf tonight I must have got my measurement wrong lol

Slightly over rissen and stuck to the pan lid funny loaf
Ah well

Sammie x

Happy Wednesday everyone
a massive welcome to two new followers
Frugal Queen and Amanda Green
thank you millions <3

So ive decided to do the penny a day challenge, and working out if we could manage the 52 weeks challenge too, my thinking on this is if we try and follow it week by week, or have more money than other weeks pick and choose what we can afford to pay at that time ..hmm i might give it a go..we shall see as im putting all the extra into paying of  the debts we owe too, but if we can manage it and pay/reduce the debt this year then what we have saved from these pots can be used to finish the final payments or go straight into savings either way i will try try try 

spent nearly all the weekly shopping budget £4.91 to last us  until Friday for the weekly allowance to start again, sheesh had a bit of  a wobbly moment at the beginning of the week, but im plodding on and will get there, its all pay out at the moment, constantly checking the gas and electric meter to make sure we are on track, my DS is the worst for coming home from school and turning the central heating on full whack,even thou ive told him not to he does it anyway,hmm may have to switch the actual heating off on the boiler so it doesn't come on lol, i do put the heating on of course but only when its 'time' certainly wont sit there freezing but it doesn't need to be on all willy nilly .

Ive been watching a bit
of that extreme couponing, wow, i wish we had extreme coupons here, one woman's total grocery bill came too just over $2000 and only spent 1penny i just couldn't get my head around this at all totally gob-smacked
they have masses of stockpiles of food and non food items in their homes, like their own little mini marts most donate to food banks and the forces but hells teeth its crazy its on YouTube if anyone hasn't seen it ..this brings me on to my shopping, and its nothing like theirs!! i was thinking when i do my weekly shop and i have some spare change like this week then use it to buy bits for the 'store' cupboard, long dated items  and keep it for either when times are even tighter or winter or whatever, just to know we have some stores, things like tomato puree, garlic pastes, tin chick peas, tinned veg etc just build bits up, nothing like these extreme couponers lol i couldnt cope
 with all that in the house

and this is nothing to what ive seen on the programme (image borrowed from Google)


il be happy with just one of my little cupboards filled with extra staples

Very cold in Lancs this morning, im at work with gloves on sipping a hot coffee, may have to put the jacket on soon, needs must an all, but its dry and very sunny so not a bad day at all.
Theres leftover pasta bake and plenty of salad in the fridge for tea tonight, im having spaghetti on toast -i fancy that, cheap an easy.

And just one more thing, 
i cant wait for the £5 off Aldi voucher to arrive in the newspapers,worth a few newspaper purchases i reckon, does anyone know when they start?


until next time my friends
sammie x

A bit of this and that

hells teeth is still very cold up north, snow melted and its still wet and grey out!

welcome to some new followers

Thrift Delux, Sue in Suffolk, Lizzy Bee, Jules

thank you all very much

So not much happening over here at the moment plodding on with cobbling up meals from the freezer and cupboards, made a scrappy pizza on Sunday with lots of bits of things, was very nice, OH exclaimed better that those bought in ones ..great, thats what  i like to hear :)

Cheap egg chips and beans last night chuffing well enjoyed it too, we had
homemade microwave syrup sponge for pudding with a packet of instant custard
blinking lovely

(2oz sugar, butter, flour, 1 egg splash of milk 3.5 mins in microwave, put any topping in the bottom of the container and the sponge mix on top -thats it)

Ive got about £30 something left for shopping to last us until Friday when my weekly budget starts again, need some bigish bits this week so will be thinking up some cheapy meals to compensate for the rest of the week, im not working utill 2pm today so il walk to Aldis then onto Tesco for a few things and do the same tomorrow afternoon for the other bits.

we need
 cat food and biscuits (big T)

dog food (bigT)

chicken breasts  (frozen farmfoods)

tea  (any tea thats not 1cup from the 99p shop-usually 40 bags)
coffee (Aldi)

biscuits for the DS 

fruit squash 

fresh fruit wherever cheaper (Aldi)

a few vegies  wherever cheaper
a couple of onions

butter Bertoli or Clover (99p stores)

milk £ (Aldis)

cereal for DS (Aldis)

yoghurts (Aldis)
toilet roll
yeast (Aldis)
eggs (Aldis)
pastry (Aldis)
oats( Aldis)
still have spuds,loads of salad and some cheese
not a massive amount of shopping needed i was telling a patient thats all i need this week she couldnt believe it telling me her weekly shop is at least two A4 pages long !!!!!! i wouldn't want to shop like that every week, i bet she wastes loads too.

Anyway hopefully we can stretch the weeks food out there are bits in the freezer so il have to dig it all out and concoct some meals
I found a frozen tub on pasta sauce so thats tonight's tea sorted , pasta, and salad.

Another £10 saved as i did last week not massive but a saving anyway, paid some money of the CC and Catalogs unable to modify that tracker thing on my side bar at the moment so need to have a play around with that later.


Thats all for now
Sammie.

A bit of a rant?, makes me feel better at least.

We have had a few shop leaflets through the letterbox,

 junk mail really, i was looking through while drinking my coffee last night,

'This weeks food offers'

3 bottles of wine for the price of 2 - £9 each

10 cans of lager for the price of 8 -  £10 each

3 packets of biscuits for £1.00

mega selection box of crisps £ 2.50

2ltr bottle of fizzy pop £1.00

harribo only 89p a packet

????

so imagine buying crisps sweets and pop for the kids = £ 4.39

and a bottle of wine for one person at £9.00, oh they on offer might as get two then the third is free,  = £18.00

and a box of beer for the other person = £10.00

total spend in the corner shop £32.39 thats nearly a weeks shopping money for us, say for instance chuck a packet of fags in with that, how much are they £7 odd and there goes £40 quid in the corner shop.............. c r a z y  

 this really done my head in thinking this over!! i see family's and couple doing these things constantly, dont know how on earth they afford it

dont know what others think?

excuse my french but what a load of old shite, why waste money on those non food, suger filled crap items that people think are a bargain? ooh 2 cans free best get a box of beer in then? wow really doesn't make sense to me, i know i have debts to pay off but we never would have spent like this on stupid things.

And dont get me wrong we all like a tipple now and then but i honestly think we have enough alcohol  in that was bought, given and left by visitors to last us nearly a year. We wont be buying any thats for sure.

Here's another, for pizza, spend £40 this weekend on one food order and get 20% off next time with free delivery?
i wonder how many people would spend £40 on a flipping pizza?

The only decent one was farmfoods and most of that was processed stuff, came with money off vouchers but I doubt il be spending 25.00 in there in one go so even that one went in the bin.


My OH was telling me just the other day that a co workers OH smokes 40 cigarettes a day while at work and 20 a day when not working, so work 5 days a week = 200 + 2 days at home is 40 so
240 cigarettes a week and spends £91.20 a week for the pleasure

needles to say my mouth was on the floor after discussing this we just couldn't believe it
what a waste of money and your health!

chuffing eck

sammie

A normal Wednesday and ramblings

A wet morning again up North today, grey but with a slightly warmer feeling to the air

only working till 1pm this morning ive taken my breakfast and coffee to work, the boss isnt in on a wed morning so im here on my own, no patients to sort maybe a few phone calls and booking to be made but thats about it

I need to get some milk after work for the next couple of days so 89p spent.

On Wednesdays my DS goes t-o the X's after school for tea and stays the night i have him all week and we share out weekends and holidays, so Wednesdays are 'our' night, we make a fake away meal and snuggle up with blankets and watch films with microwave popcorn.

No one wanted pizza last night so we'll either have that tonight, or stir fry an easy £15 saved on what a take away costs and much nicer too.

I do love Wednesdays <3 il drink a cuppa to that.

you can tell why my friends call me Sissy lol

 Ive got DS this weekend and he's asked if a friend can stay over- i said yes with gritted teeth lol last time they were up all night didn't go to bed at all, ate many chocolates and snacks, and  looked like zombies in the morning haha such fun i dont know how they do it, brings back memories of doing the same i remember giggling away telling tales and who fancied who secrets were made and kept, much simpler back then, i bet we will hear the playstaion blaring out and il have to frighten them to death by telling them to shush it knocking on at 3am with dressing gown and rollers in (i dont ware rollers really) hahaha

Hoping to take Nipper for a walk later today he hasn't been out for a day or two so really needs walking so im sure we will both be covered in mud later and he will then need showering, thats the trouble with Jack Russells you let them off and they're into everything little legs mean very muddy tummies! 

while we were away at my parents over the xmas period Nipper stayed with friends, we had a text saying please dont panic but if you get a phone call from someone saying they have found Nippers collar its because when we were out he put his head down a rabbit hole and got it stuck, so we think its down the hole!!

Nipper and Pixe laying together-rare sight she hates him lol

 I did panic a little good job he couldnt fit down the bloomin hole-typical JR and typical Nipper

oh and just a silly thing i couldn't find any matching socks this morning no idea what's happened ive a pile off odds

see you soon

Sammie 

Shopping

Hi again, thank you for all the comments i keep getting, lovely to hear from people

welcome to a new follower Sue :) again chuffin thrilled to bits :)

Popped into town this morning we needed some fruit and salad bits so i walked to Aldis bloomin freezing but was warm after walking for 20 minutes :)

super 6 this week all have been 29p

now thats a bargain

i bought a large cucumber 6 salad tomatoes, an iceberg lettuce and spring onions, now i would usually have bought a different lettuce and vine tomatoes from big T but not any more these im sure are just as nice and less than half the price i also picked up two 1kg banana packs total spend in Aldi was just £2.52

if i had bought in big T i would have spent £4.56

 i crossed over the road and nipped in to the little S'brys  i wanted some plain pittas, their basic pittas used to be about 23p now they dont do a basic range and only had pittas at 50p a pack, hmm no thank you,

so i walked to big T , basic pittas are 35p i checked the reduced section as the dates were coming up on the ones on the shelf, score.. found pittas reduced to 23p a packet so i picked two up, im happy paying that, while i was looking there was a Hovis seeded granary loaf reduced to 49p great il stick that in the freezer too, i mooched over to the fresh isle and there was spinach reduced to 75p i needed this item  so grabbed a bag ill lightly blanch and roll into balls for the freezer,
total spend £1.94 should have been £2.95 not great savings but saved a pound and it all helps

while i was in big T i walked round to see weigh up some of the value products, some i buy and some ive not tried yet, first went to the stir fry section, no value stir fry, asked someone , sorry we don't stock it anymore...pfffft next over to the baking isle, value instant custard? nope don't have that anymore just the more expensive  big T one.....pffft.. ok maybe il try the carton orange again, walked to drinks isle, 65p? hells teeth it wasn't that long ago i bought it for around 34p, Tesco value my arse, looks like even the value products are getting hiked up as much as the regular ones are...meh.. really got my back up it did lol.

im making homemade pizza for tea, i have  a base mix in the cupboard, mixed peppers onions motzerella mascrepone and spinach in the freezer, tomato puree, pesto and garlic paste and cheese in the fridge, that's that sorted

il make some potato wedges with some spuds ive had in the fridge for about 2 weeks, nowt wrong with them, they'll  do 

maybe a bit of salad or baked beans with it, see what everyone fancies.

Thats all for now

Sammie

Ooh its brass monkeys- if i had any :) cheeky i know

Firstly a massive thank you again and welcome to my 4 new followers -chuffed to bits i am

Simple Living - John Gray - Milly & Me - Janice

Thank you to Milly & Me for the Facebook pages, very interesting to read, and some great tips, i think they will be very useful.

I've had some great advice already and feel motivated to get myself sorted, i've added three trackers to my side bar so i can visually see the pennies coming down and the savings going up, i had a spare £10 this week so its gone straight into savings yippee

So i was up at 4.45am with the OH this morning she leaves for work at 5.20am and starts at 6am so we have a cuppa together in the morning then i usually tidy around when she's gone, wash the cups, put things away feed the animals put a load of washing on etc

it was so dark this morning it didn't come light until just after 8am, not good when you've forgot to top the electric up and its on 27p, i was walking around the house in a pair of pyjamas covered in fleecy track pants, and full length dressing gown and bobble hat lmao, would have been easy to switch the central heating on but i didn't, I managed to have a quick shower blow dry and straighten my hair and iron my work clothes with  7p to spare as soon as i was dressed i nipped across the road and topped the electric up-phew

working all day, the shop is freezing, dry but so cold the little wall fan blower isn't doing much good, i feel i may have to put my jacket on soon to warm up brrr...

 with all the bad weather we have had up north the shop roof gave way and so we have had pouring water coming in since before Xmas, boss still hasn't had it fixed, its smelly damp and looks a mess in the practice im sure if he doesn't pull his finger out soon he will start to lose patients from the books. Not my problem and think i need to start looking for a new job i worked extra last week and he forgot to pay me the extra when i asked he said he couldn't change the DD  payment just like that and id have to wait till next week, wouldn't even give me it in cash...pffft to that i though, i wasn't happy.

i always bring my breakfast to work if im in in the morning, today was jam on toast, accompanied by my thermocafe coffee mug full of coffee, we have a tassimo at work but im not paying the price of them pods, and a slice of flapjack for elevenses lovely jubly, im lucky in the fact i work about 10 metres from home so i can nip back at lunch time and grab my lunch and a cuppa before heading back to work.

Jam on toast and hot coffee

lovely elevenses 

something OH made me laugh about today, i got a random text about 6am saying 'il have that chicken tit that's in the fridge for dinner with some plain pasta' cool ya jets i thought, hells bloomin teeth! what she like lol ;) haha she'll be at the gym after work as training for the Navy-more on that another time.

Bit of a ramble today but its a no spend day yahooooo

Until next time
Sammie

p.s OH also rang me this morning to tell me her weekly bus ticket had gone up by £2.60 i was so angry as i thought well our shopping money will be down by that much each week then from now on, OH was pulling my leg -thankfully- had to calm myself with a choccy biscuit or two ;)

Google+ this and that Followers buttons-my mind is boggled lol

Firstly im chuffed to bits for the comments on my first post thank you so much to everyone

ooh what a toodoo been trying to find my way around this blogger lark, a followers button and a reading list is all ive been trying to do only taken me a blooming hour or so, still don't know if ive managed it lol we will see.

I fancied something sweet so i  made some flapjacks with value oats last night they were lovely, took the edge of and nothing spent as i had everything i needed in the store cupboard, just a simple recipe i use but oh so good and just what was needed.

I baked the first loaf of the year this morning- smelt lovely whilst it was baking, couldn't find my measuring cup so the pan cupboard got emptied, thus a clean out started, more Tupperware lids than tubs! how does that happen, then i couldn't find the paddle so emptied a kitchen draw, found it then the draw bottom fell out- hells teeth its been one of those mornings haha anyway finally found everything and got to it

Taadaa 

I forgot the cat food with the weekly shop so picked that up when i went hunting for yellow stickers this afternoon in big T, i didn't go out at 3.30 and thought it would be better walking to the further small T as its open to 11pm on a Sunday in the hope of better reductions, i didn't come away with any yellow stickers as i think i was too early, everything was priced very high still, so no thank you.

i did get the cat food which i forgot with our main shop, whiskers was on offer for 2.50 and i needed some egg noodles so spent 3.50 altogether and the dog got a long walk too.

We have set a budget for £40 a week for groceries, there are 2 adults 1 teenager 2 cats and 1 dog in our house, so far we are managing with that, i do need a few bits in the week but have money left to do that.

Only two adults for tea tonight so cheese and pesto on toast was had, blooming lovely it was too.

its been dry but so so cold in Lancs today been walking round the house with layers and a dressing gown on, think an early night with plenty of blankets is on the cards, thats all for today folks

Until next time

Sammie

First Blog Post..getting real

Hey there

Im hoping this blog will help us get rid of our debt, save some money. buy less, waste less, shop frugally and help me work towards being comfortable for our future.

Im trying to pay off the debt we have accumulated and save at the same time even if its only pennies as they do add up eventually. (so i keep telling myself, found 5p today)

Im laying it all on the table, time to get rid once and for all, and boy do i feel silly getting like this, never again

So here are the figures

Amount to pay off as of the New Year

Credit Card 1-                   £2030.00

Credit Card 2-                     £967.19

   Catalogs                          £2013.53

£5010.72

Amount in Savings

£0.00 as of now as i emptied the jars and used the money saved towards xmas

At the end of a shop or payment for something the change goes into 3 pots, the flying saucer for large silver and gold coins
the old Vodka bottle for 5p pieces
and the old large Bells Whiskey bottle for 2's and 1's

Will add these up at the end of November 2016

******

I get paid Friday and the OH on a Thursday 

so going to chip away at everything weekly, i have my banking apps and CC apps stored on my phone so i can keep a check on when payments are due and make sure i dont receive any late payment fees or more added interest.
We have started with OH full wage apart from the weekly bus ticket needed to get to and from work the whole lot has gone on paying chunks off these debts, my wage is paying rent, bills, and food, no luxury's, takeaways, or clothes from now on, we have our frugal heads screwed firmly on.

Hoping to find some support on here, i have been lurking for a while and read alot of blogs which have helped me already in sorting myself out and giving me the push to do this, so have decided to pop over and add these to my reading list and say a quick 'hello'

Picked up some salad bits from big T today 39p each lettuce, vine tomatoes and large cucumbers so healthy salad for tea with jacket spud and a sprinkling of cheese.

The price of the big T and such like supermarkets are getting ridiculous.. it will be next year before the local Aldi appears at the end of my street 30 meters away..we cannot wait. :)

Off to big T tomorrow about 3.30 to see if i can find some yellow sticker bargains-fingers crossed

On a brighter note its time for dog walkies, we have food to enjoy and plenty of snuggles with the OH await, money cant buy that.

Until next time

Sammie