My Week

I get the feeling that we should be hibernating at this time of year. The daylight hours are short, the weather has been either freezing cold (-2 on some days this week) or grey, dank and drizzling. It does not lend itself to making me feel like bouncing with enthusiasm for anything apart from sleeping.

I find that it is just a little flat at the moment so I don't feel that I have had much to write home about,   but here is what has been happening in my last week.

I am carrying on with my plan to empty the freezers an pantry and spend less on food. This week we had a traditional Burns Night meal (well traditional in our house) of haggis, home-made mashed potatoes (tatties) and crushed carrot & swede. I know it should be turnips (neeps) but I would much rather have carrot & swede so that is what we have. Of course the haggis was reduced to 70p and out of the freezer, as was the whisky sauce which had been reduced from £1.50 to 45p. This made three meals, one large portion for David and two smaller portions for me, one for the evening and one for my lunch next day.

We had an M&S reduced apple pie, 85p instead if £3, warmed through in the oven and served with single cream.

I had two M&S Gastropub meals of Venison Hotpot and Empire Pie which we had with new potatoes and green vegetables (reduced of course) one evening. Of course I saved money by using just one gas burner by using a pan for the potatoes with a steamer held over it to cook the vegetables. I prefer cooking my veg this way as they don't go soggy and retain some bite.

We also had two duck breasts reduced from £8.50 to £4.59 one evening served with potatoes and fresh vegetables.

The only things I seem to be  buying at the supermarket these days are vegetables, bread, milk and butter etc. I used a £5 off a £25 shop voucher on Friday and the balance of £36.40 on a gift card that I had received for Christmas. This meant my shopping bill was small change despite treating myself to some fresh flowers - white oriental lilies (my favourite) and a bunch of daffodils for the kitchen windowsill. Oh and a couple of bottles of fizz.... As part of our pantry and freezer clearout we have been using up some rather dusty bottles of red wine. I'm not a massive red wine fan so I decided to treat myself to some fizz, and my fizz of choice is a very dry cava.

eBay sales have been slow but steady this week with five items sold. These were a silk camisole style top which is now too small for me, a pair of sandals that I bought at the Cheshire carboot sale without trying on and found they were too small for me and a pair of briefs that were new and bought for me as part of a gift but we're not my style or colour at all. There was also a boxed set DVD and a no longer wanted black backpack.

I received a freebie Fitbit type monitor in the post this week. It is called a Moov Now and when I went on line they sell for around £50 so this was an excellent freebie to get. I know I applied for it on line but can't recall where. Anywho thank you to which ever company has sent it to me. I thought it might be like a Fitbit but on further inspection it is specific to using when exercising in the gym or jogging etc. I think this will be listed as I am not an exercise nut at all.

I also received free tickets for the BBC at media city. They are starting to film a new series of Porridge written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. I appliced for tickets to be in the audience for the filming of the episodes and got two free tickets for myself and David. We'll tie this in with a meal in a nearby restaurant beforehand and make this a great date night. I feel quite fortunate about where we live as it is only a 5 mile journey for us.

We are very slowly clearing out the house of unwanted items and I will be listing mainly clothes today. I reckon it will take me the full 2017 year to get rid of our excess clutter so I have to be in this for the long haul rather than wanting speedy results. I'll keep you all updated with how I do.

End of the Sales Bargains

Since David retired he gets stir crazy every so often and has to get out of the house. On the other hand I love nothing more than spending the weekend at home. We made a compromise and popped out to the Lowry Shopping Centre and Booths supermarket at Media City for just a couple of hours this morning.

I found a great t-shirt style top for £4 from Marks & Spencer and also some suede slippers for just £2.49. The slippers should be £19.50 a pair and there were four pairs at the £2.49 price all in my size. Now I go through slippers fairly quickly. I don't know whether I am heavy footed on them or if working from home for a couple of days a week means they get more wear than usual. I decided to buy two pairs and then showed them to David while still in the store. He immediately went back to the shelf and picked up the other two pairs and said I may as well buy them all at £2.49 as this was a bargain. So I now have four new pairs of slippers. Even better was that I bought them all using a Christmas gift card from my sister.

David wanted a coffee and as everyone knows I won't pay an extortionate price for one in Costa Coffee in the shopping centre, we called over at Booths supermarket in the nearby Media City. As we both have a Booths card we can get a free coffee every day from them (we can get the same deal at Waitrose) so I had a quick look around the store to spot any Christmas deals while we were there. I found a stack of £10 Christmas crackers reduced to £2.50 a box so bought four boxes of them which should last for the next two years. We both got a lovely free latte each too (normally £2.05 each)

I also found some cute chocolate and peppermint candy cane lollies for 49p each at half price. I bought these for my nephew and niece who still get a kiddies goody bag whenever they visit. They are twenty and 18 years old now but have asked me to never stop the tradition of the goody bags as they love them. 

I had already bought reduced tins of hot chocolate from M&S for them. These were £1.50 reduced from £8 each and some bags of Santa marshmallows for them to have in the hot chocolate. These were reduced to 25p a bag in Tescos. The lollies will go in the same goody bags for them.

I think most stores have cleared their Christmas stock now so I was lucky to find the last few reduced items. I suppose I will have wait for the carbooting season to start for more bargains hunting.

How has everyone else done with their final sale reductions?

Spending Less on Food

I can't believe how much less I am spending on food since I decided to clear out my stocks of food in the freezers and pantry. I know this is stating the obvious but I now find myself in a no spending cycle. I used to be always popping into the supermarket for a "few bits" but always ended buying more than I went for as those strategically placed offers always tempted me. Because I am planning meals around my stocks of food I am buying just what I need and no more, and I am planning my shopping trips on the days I am going into the office so I am not making an additional journey to the supermarket.

This week we ate Thai one night made up from numerous appetisers found in the freezer plus two green curries also from the freezer. We had a Greek night with a ready made Pasticcio and Greek Salad. Other meals were freezer pork steaks with freezer ratatouille and on another day with freezer broccoli au gratin.

When I called into M&S for fresh bread and vegetables I was very good at buying nearly just what I needed but decided to splash out a couple of £s on their mega reduced Christmas treats. Who is going to be able to resist family sized packs of crisps at just 15p a bag? The fancy name of Blacksticks blue cheese and Figgy pickle just hides that they are cheese and onion really.

I also bought four bags of mint chocolate balls at just 25p a bag and four cute hessian sacks containing white chocolate covered toffee popcorn for 25p a bag. The sacks have already been stored away in my Christmas wrapping box for next Christmas. These will be great to wrap up little stocking fillers. The popcorn is delicious too. Luckily they were not too big a bag as once the bag was opened there was no stopping it being emptied by both of us.

I am still listing items on eBay and have managed to sell 9 items this week ranging from shoes, books, DVDs and some unwanted nail items (file & top coat) from one of the Christmas beauty advent calendars that I bought. I have spent an hour or so this afternoon listing more items ranging from a Versace rucksack to a dress that I bought in the sales and then changed my mind about it. To be honest it was a little tighter than I would have liked and even though it looked okay I think I would have felt uncomfortable wearing it. It would have ended up being worn once and then put to the back of the wardrobe. It made sense to list it and I should get my money back.

I called into Tesco on Friday to buy cat food and vegetables and nearly managed to buy just these items alone (what did I say in my first paragraph?) but could not resist these Yankee Candle votives at half price. These were £4 for the six different scented votives. Some are Christmas scents but I think some of the others can be used during the year.

When I was having a clearout I also found quite a few Yankee Candle wax melts but could not find a plain wax melt burner. I only had Christmas ones with snow flakes or holy leaves etc on them. So I was pleased to find a simple white burner also from Yankee Candle which came complete with some cinnamon spice melts. This was also half price at £5. Once my pantry spice candle has come to an end I think I will open this up and get some of the melts used up.

Finally I saw this photo and it really put a smile on my face. Being a cat lover who can resist the cuteness of cats paws? Hope it makes you smile too.

Back to Routine

So this last week I have worked on clearing out cupboards and putting the unwanted items that I have found on eBay. I am starting to get a little weary of having too much stuff and I really do need to get rid of it. Luckily I can sometimes have patience and will wait for the items to be sold to clear space in my home. I have bought some storage tubs that are clear plastic so that I can see what is in them and they also have clip on lids so that they can be sealed up and then stacked on top of each other. I am storing items in the them in the garage. I have been finding all sorts of things that I had forgotten I had. I was pleased to find two Yankee Candle jars of Pantry Spice. These smell delicious and as I had just finished one candle they were found at just the right time.

I have over 100 items listed on eBay and am working hard on getting things listed every day rather than them waiting to be listed. I may as well have them available to buy rather than just sitting in a box. Sales have been slow but steady.

I have been working my way through the box of DVDs again this week and watched four films with two in particular that I really enjoyed. These were Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. This was just a charming film starring France's McDormand and Amy Adams. I lovely love film.

The other film was The Young Victoria. Brilliant acting my Emily Blunt. I just loved this film.

The other two films were both thrillers and starred Lian Neesom in Unknown and Firewall starring Hartison Ford and Paul Bettany. These two will be passed on to my dad as I know he will enjoy watching these. There is little money to be made in selling on DVDs so I'll tell him to just past these on to a charity shop when he has finished with them.

I am still using up freezer food with freshly bought ingredients to make up meals. This week we have had a beef casserole using reduced price beef and vegetables and a casserole mix. I added a good glug or so of red wine and some mushrooms towards the end of slow cooking in the oven.

Pork loin steaks with new potatoes and mixed vegetables. I cooked the steaks in the oven with some rosemary and thyme.

A Chinese meal made from all freezer items. A starter of duck spring rolls and prawn dim sum. We had these with some chilli sauce. These were followed by beef in black bean sauce and sweet and sour chicken.

A delicious chicken and leek pie which had cost just £1.40 served with new potatoes and vegetables.

I am working my way through one freezer at a time rather than flitting between them. I have four although two are very small freezer boxes parts on a fridge/ freezer. The other two are small chest freezers. Too many really.