Library's Closing

Well I don't know how I missed 4 yoghurt's in the fridge about to expire today i wasnt going to bin them so I emptied them into a Tupperware and popped them in the freezer ill use them in smoothies and shakes..strawberry and cranberry, and black cherry..waste not want not..

I was reading our local newspaper online and was saddened to read that the council are planning to close approximately 240 libraries up North due to council cuts, one of them is in a new state of the art college that cost 10 million to build and only been open 2 years..Bloody madness.. for want of a better word, pissed me right off!!

There are a total of seven library's in my area alone that are closing, what about the people that rely on these services, the elderly, parents and children, community groups, the old chap that goes to read his newspaper in piece every day the decent folk who use the computers as the can't afford their own, the people who do actually read and look forward to checking out new books every week, not to mention all the workers who will be out of jobs..I honestly feel left confused by this news, what are things coming too.

Hells teeth

Another story was apparently one million people have decade old food in their freezers! My freezer gets checked every week and drawers wiped down regularly a decade old? Chuffin eck not in this house! my mother says 'you lot are bloody gannets in that house' lol we're not we just like our food.

ha ha ha

working this morning then i have a list of things i need to do .. (ooh i do love a list)
- finish the ironing
-walk the dog
- cut the hedge out front
- hoover the draping cobweb off the ceiling that i noticed last week ..huck hum
- tidy spare room for parents arrival - thank the lord i have 2 weeks its full of things ive been clearing out for charity and the tip! my mother would literally die if she saw it id get a clip around the ear, apparently not too old for one of those either at 36 

ha ha ha

Catch you all soon

Sammie xx

Its been a while

Hello everyone

well its been a while

- broken internet

- laptop virus

- illness

blimey its been one thing after another here

but im back

ive missed bloggy world

So nothing major really here, still plodding on, scrimping, saving, being frugal and paying off debts

but we are all happy so no problems here

all the illness has finally decided to bugger off- thank chuffing goodness :)

such a lovely weather change to, that really brightens thing up no end

My son was desperate for some new t shirts and he had some money saved from christmas/birthday/easter  and it was burning a hole in his pocket, so i allowed him to spend it on what he wanted too....shock horror he has taken a liking to R*ver I*land, he came home with 1 pair of jeans and 1 t shirt for £50 chuffing pound...thought id taught him better but i allowed him to go and enjoy his spend

yes it was a lovely t shirt but not worth the £16 price tag, since discussing with him the cost of living and the price of fashion i asked him if he'd like to look on ebay with me to see if we could find any R*ver I*land t shirts that took his fancy, i assured him they would be well washed by me and would be like new one laundered and ironed -ok mum was the answer so we looked

we managed to find 4 lovely t shirts all in the style he loved and we got the lot including postage for £12.50

winner

one happy mum and one happy son

phew

a mighty saving from new of £64.00 we saved £51.50

my kind of shopping

(3x RI 1x N*xt)

Whats on the menu plans this week?

Its farmoods cod in batter tonight with peas and new potatoes, and cheese pie for LS

i always make a meal plan for the week so i know exactly what to buy and exactly what im cooking everyday, starting to run out of different meals weekly, dont get me wrong we sometimes have duplicate meals and that fine but i need some inspiration..so fire away with any meals ideas you use and love.. sons a vegi and myself and OH happily eat vegi, or meat dishes.

Well il sign off for now and catch up on some bloggy reading.

See you all again soon

Sammie x

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.