It's now officially Autumn, not just meteorological Autumn, but the real thing and the time of year when lots of bills start coming in including renewals. I don't just pay the renewal price but do lots of research to try to get things cheaper.
My car is due it's annual service but it's almost £350 for a major one and I do so few miles that I'm thinking of leaving it until the Spring. That will help keep my budget totals for 2017 in check. It will need an MOT in December though and as the dealer has increased prices I intend to shop around for that too. Every pound saved makes a difference.
OH is also checking broadband deals. We are with BT and the contract expires on 23rd December when the price will increase from £28 per month to £54.99 per month :/ We use freesat for TV viewing so only need a fair broadband speed for emails and browsing. We also pay 12 months upfront for the phone line (£205.08 last January) OH is wondering whether we can cancel the phone line and use our mobile phones to make calls instead but I'm unsure of the practicalities of doing that. Has anyone else done away with their phone line? Is it possible to use a mobile instead of a fixed line on a long term basis? The jury is out.....
Bloggers have been commenting on the rocketing food prices in the shops. I totally agree. I seem to get less for my money every single week and many of the Basics and Savers brands have disappeared from the supermarket shelves altogether. Mr M's basic butter has increased to £1.35 a pack. It seems only a short time ago that it was less than £1. I bought one of the last few packets of mixed dried fruit on the shelf this morning. I really hope they are not discontinuing those as I use them in lots of HM cakes and puddings :(
I am trying to cook simpler food to keep the cost down too; more jacket potatoes, soups, baked beans on toast, slow cooked casseroles etc and OH has meat of some kind only two or three times a week now. Fish makes an appearance once or twice and it's often just fish fingers or fishcakes so that I can eat it too. Hubby says he doesn't really miss meat all that much and it's more of a treat when he does have some.
The family came to visit at the weekend and I was unsure what to feed them on. Mr M is selling packs of 4 x Estima baking potatoes for 50p and they looked lovely so I bought 2 packs plus a large block of mature cheese for £3.50. Tea for 6 of us consisted of baked potatoes (microwaved then crisped in a hot oven) and I put out a bowl of grated cheese and some hot baked beans along with a bag of mixed salad (43p) From the bottom of the fridge the remains of some YS'd cucumber (19p), sliced YS'd radishes (35p) and a red pepper. Every bit was consumed with relish. Even the children, who can be very fussy eaters, cleared their plates. Result!
A meal plan for tonight onwards is my next task. I spent very nearly £40 on the food shop (including £5 on a big pack of washing powder as it was on offer) and need to stretch everything to last for as many meals as possible. Wish me luck....
Thanks so much for popping in x
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Prices are getting absolutely shocking aren't they.
ReplyDeleteI am making any meat we do have do for two meals and we are eating more meatless meals which much to my amazement Andy is enjoying too. All leftovers are saved and frozen to be recycled into another meal and we are eating some really nice things for not a lot of money-x-
Now that the weather is cooling down I am adding more vegetables to a stew/casserole and making it last 3 days instead of the normal 2. The dried soup packs with lentils and veg are a wonderful cheap addition, they do need soaking overnight but are perfect for the slow cooker.
ReplyDeleteGood luck Angie, everything is going up and up we bought a second hand freezer at the weekend so I don't have to leave any yellow stickers behind, and can do more batch cooking saving on the cooker and washing up. Times are getting harder for sure x
ReplyDeleteI also wish you good luck. Our prices in Florida are staying the same, although I expect produce to jump due to the hurricane damage to the crops. We dropped our landline home telephone about 3 years ago and use only our cell phones. We pay $104 a month for two cell phones with plenty of data to use when we're not on wifi. Our house has wifi and my work has it, so we don't usually even use the amount of data we have on the plan (it was a special amount due to us having a 5 line family plan, my sister has the other three lines). Of course that $104 figure also includes paying for one of the phones monthly (!) because they are so expensive now. We have Samsung Galaxy 7s, I think.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment Amy. It's useful to know it is possible to live without a landline. I do hope you don't suffer too much from price rises. I saw the hurricane footage on TV and it looked horrendous x
DeleteWe thought we were going to have mobiles only when we moved up the end of the lane but the signal is so poor we had to use the fibre connection that was here already.
ReplyDeleteOver the past few months my cooking has become more simple and we're both loving it. I enjoy cooking more for the colder weather so I'm looking forward to making the most of the root veg, hopefully that will keep the costs down a little.
ReplyDeleteFeel the same. Strangely the food may be shrinking as we get less but I am not losing weight.
ReplyDelete