Blogging Block & Final Big Shop of January

Golly but have I had a problem with Blogger. I have been unable to access my blog anywhere but on my phone.  Norton suddenly doesn't like the site and has blocked it saying it has a known problem. I have no idea what has changed 😒so I'll do a quick update to finish my January challenge then I'll have to take a blogging break as it's far too fiddly to write posts on my tiny phone screen .

Anyway, we tootled off to the nearest Iceland store clutching the remainder of the gift card and stocked up on lots of fish products, fruit squash, tinned rice pudding, ice cream and treats as well as a bit of veg and the usual milk, bread, cornflakes etc. By shopping on Tuesday, we requested (and received) the 10% pensioner discount meaning that we got £77.69 worth of shopping for £62.86 after all discounts had been applied, then using the gift card, it came to   £0.00

There was still £1.77 remaining on the card and I didn't see the point in making yet another journey to use it up so I popped back into the store and bought some biscuit-y things totalling £2.60. With the discount it came to £2.34 minus £1.77 left on the gift card so a total of 57p cash left my purse 😊

This means that only £2.07 in cash was spent on the January shopping and I have some Boots points left. To say that I am grateful for the vouchers/gift cards is a massive understatement.  They have helped enormously, especially with G's car service looming, and which has come in at much more that budgeted for 👀   The garage freezer has been topped up in case of more bad weather and G is happy to have lots of sweet treats to indulge in!

Reasons to be thankful:

Free food for a whole month

A healthy DD and family

The sun is shining and the bulbs are showing!

Although not blogging I will still be able to pop in to yours and leave a comment on my phone so please excuse any typos in advance!

Are you having any problems with Blogger?

Stay safe everyone wherever in the world you happen to be x

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100 /  £100 spent       

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50/ £50.00 spent

Nectar points  £15.00/ £15.00 spent

Boots points £5.19 / 0.98p spent

Nestle voucher £5.00 £5.00 spent

Cash spent £2.07

A Very Chilly Weekend & Planning For Snow

photo from Google

Gosh it was so cold again over the weekend.  There was an antiques and collector's fair nearby on Sunday but I couldn't summon up the courage to go out.  G was at work on both days so I stayed home and did lots of housework instead, read a bit, knitted some more of my sweater, and prepped a food shopping list for Tuesday.  On Sunday, late afternoon, the family popped in to visit.  I hadn't planned any food but the kids got peckish which gave me the opportunity to cook the Boxing Day food languishing in the freezer 👍  It was a bit of a mash up with mini steak bakes, tempura prawns, halloumi fries, garlic bread, crisps and a few baby plum tomatoes.  It was all wolfed down and followed by bakewell tarts and ice creams 😋

All a bit calorific but it gave me more freezer space in the garage freezer which will enable me to top up a bit when we shop at Iceland tomorrow.  Heavy snow is forecast for February so I want to be prepared with longlife milk, bread flour and lots of easy to cook food so that we won't have to venture out if the roads are icy.  I still want to shop with vouchers but I have £64.63 left so that should be plenty. 

I'll post tomorrow showing what I bought....

Thanks so much for popping in. Stay safe everyone wherever in the world you happen to be x

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100 /  £35.37 spent       

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50/ £50.00 spent

Nectar points  £15.00/ £15.00 spent

Boots points £5.19 / 0.98p spent

Nestle voucher £5.00 £5.00 spent

Cash spent £1.50

Low Spend/ No Spend Week & More Snow

 Not much needed in the way of groceries this week as I have been using up 'bitsa this and bitsa that' from the fridge and freezer.  I did, however, need a TV guide and some fresh milk from Sainsbugs.  Whilst there I spotted some YS salmon en croute which we like,  a nice head of broccoli, a bit of salad stuff and some yogurt..........

It came to £11.75 including some cotton face pads for me which don't get paid for from the food budget.  Therefore £11.75 - £1.85= £9.90 - £7.50 Nectar points = £2.40.  I had 92p cash in hand from a refund so Cash spent £1.48....

We needed paracetamol so I used Boots points to buy the 2 packs allowed, therefore they were FREE......

On a completely different subject, there had been another light snowfall during the night so we stayed inside in the warmth and DD came for lunch.  The bird feeder was topped up and we have been watching the little Robin eating his fill 😀  I'm hoping that the bulbs will soon be popping up but no sign of spring yet!

Thanks for popping in and stay safe wherever in the world you happen to be x 

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100 /  £35.37 spent       

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50/ £50.00 spent

Nectar points  £15.00/ £15.00 spent

Boots points £5.19 / 0.98p spent

Nestle voucher £5.00 £5.00 spent

Cash spent £1.50

A Pub Lunch, Knitting and Snow

 We had a pub lunch yesterday with dear friends who we haven't seen since the beginning of September last year.   Joan and I met on our first day at high school when we were 11 or 12 years old and we've been friends ever since.  There was a lot of catching up to do!  I was shocked to see how her husband's sight has deteriorated but she looks after him very well.  Her nephew's funeral took place a couple of weeks ago and his mum has resumed her cancer treatment.  Praying for her recovery now.

My poor sister has had a fall now too.  She's 83 and made the mistake of going outside to the rubbish bin in the dark and fell, hitting her face in the process.  She was covered in blood from her nose and mouth and, of course, there was no-one to help her.  It really makes me fearful for the years ahead.  As if she hasn't already got enough on her plate......

Before Christmas I began knitting myself a chunky sweater.  I completed the back and then it kind of fell by the wayside with everything else going on.  Yesterday, I picked up the needles again and cast on the front section......

... it will take me an age to finish because I can only knit for a short time before my hands hurt too much.  I do love the random quality of the yarn 😊

Snow fell in the early hours this morning and it was white over when I opened the curtains at 8.30am.  It's warmed up a bit now and the snow is melting slowly.  We need to visit the allotment to cover the compost heap before rain washes away the nutrients in it, so I will return my library book at the same time.  If we go out at noon that will, hopefully, be the warmest part of the day, then we can nip to Sainsburys for some milk and a TV guide.  I don't want to do a big shop anywhere this week as we have plenty of food in and don't want to spend any cash.  With a Nectar point boost from previous offers I now have £7.50 worth of points left to spend so will try to get what I need with that. 

Thanks for popping in and stay safe wherever in the world you happen to be x 

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100 /  £35.37 spent       

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50/ £50.00 spent

Nectar points  £15.00/ £7.50 spent

Boots points £7.28

Nestle voucher £5.00 £5.00 spent

Cash spent £0.02

A Nectar Ninja? Are You?

 I've had a fun message from the Nectar App.  Am I a Nectar Ninja?.......

 It seems I collected points to the value of £91.71 over the year which is not a sum to be sniffed at.  That equates to almost two whole weeks of free food.......

........and I purchased 799 portions of fruit and veg too.....

Now that doesn't sound like a lot does it : just over 15 portions a week, but it is in addition to all the fruit and veg we grow at the allotment.  The ones I purchase are to fill any gaps in our crops. 

It seems that I am also #1 buyer of pineapple pieces!  Now that's a promotion from last year when I was Pear Queen 😂  We use them to top our breakfast cereal as a change from pears and grapefruit 😂

Have you had one of these fun emails/texts?  What do you buy the most of?

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100 /  £35.37 spent       

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50/ £50.00 spent

Nectar points  £11.75/ £7.50 spent

Boots points £7.28

Nestle voucher £5.00 £5.00 spent

Cash spent £0.02

Thanks for popping in and stay safe wherever in the world you happen to be x 

Testing My Brain Cells & Preparing for Baking

Yesterday was damp, wild and miserable.  We wanted fresh air and didn't know what to do with ourselves so we wrapped up well and went to the allotment to check that everything was ok after the high winds.  Luckily it was.  We both managed to get a free Greggs sausage roll from the village on the O2 App (me a vegan one) and G bought us both a hot drink, so lunch was eaten in the warm car on the allotment carpark! 

I've got lots of ironing to do today so won't do my usual Saturday shop, so we tootled off to Morrisons clutching the voucher for the remaining £7.14 in my hot little hand.  I also received a £5 Nestle voucher during the week due, to my tub of Aero hot chocolate being recalled just before Christmas because of a problem during manufacture.  This is what we bought.....

Small print on the voucher explained that as long as one Nestle purchase was made then the whole £5 could be used for shopping. I didn't need telling twice!  G spotted this Mini Eggs bar (of course he did 👀) so in the trolley it went.....

The shopping came to £12.47 therefore: vouchers £7.14 + £5.00 = £12.14....cash 33p

When we got home G insisted on paying for the chocolate (who am I to argue?) so £1.25 - 33p = 92p cash refund! Once again I have a small amount of cash set aside and NO actual cash spent 😀

As you can see I bought eggs, butter and chilled pastry (I couldn't find shortcrust at a reasonable cost) because Sue Hall has been sharing her baking with us on her blog A Smaller and Simpler Life and she has inspired me to bake this weekend.  I have apple in the freezer to use up as well as half a jar of mincemeat.

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100 /  £35.37 spent       

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50/ £50.00 spent

Nectar points  £11.75/ £7.50 spent

Boots points £7.28

Nestle voucher £5.00 £5.00 spent

Cash spent £0.02

Thanks for popping in and stay safe wherever in the world you happen to be x 

Nip In, Nip Out and a Cakey Tea

 Yesterday I realised that I needed to buy a TV guide for next week and popped to Sainsbugs whilst G was at the allotment patiently weeding the bed of raspberry canes. When we did the shopping on Tuesday I noticed that a pack of 4 big brand baked beans were retailing at £2.50, far too expensive so I left them on the shelf. At Sainsbugs I snagged the last pack of 4 @ £1.45, much more reasonable. Our daughter is coming for lunch today so I picked up 3 big baking potatoes for 61p (coincidentally with 40 bonus Nectar points on them) and a tin of pears (well as last year's Pear Queen I just had to! 😂) We can have baked potatoes with cheese and use up some of the salad from the fridge..... 

The total was £3.85 so I used £2.50 worth of Nectar points, the £1.33 left from last week's cash refund, leaving just 2p cash spent......

After a hot lunch of baked beans and potato wedges (and a bit of a rest with a book) we drove to our local plant nursery for a browse and the tea and cake using G's birthday voucher. This was my choice: gingerbread cheesecake....... 

G chose caramel apple crumble cake which he ate from his plate on the tray.  Very uncivilised in my view but he was happy 🙄

We were so stuffed that we didn't need anything else later! 

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100 /  £35.37 spent       

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50/ £42.86 spent

Nectar points  £11.75/ £7.50 spent

Boots points £7.28

Cash spent £0.02

Thanks for popping in and stay safe wherever in the world you happen to be x 

Iceland, a Memoir & a Birthday

 Low Spend  No - Cash Spend Challenge week #2

This week we wanted to shop at Iceland to spend on the vouchers I won instead of cash.  Although G came with me 😵 I didn't want to spend willy nilly just because it would be 'free' but we only had an hour car parking  before we had to pay so had to make some snap decisions.  This is what we got.....

Lots of fish and Quorn products for the garage freezer, and G got pop, crisps and cookies 👍 The chicken dippers are a gift for our daughter as the kids like them so much.....

......which came to a total of £40.05 but, because it was Tuesday, we got a 10% pensioner's discount which, with an offer price, gave a net figure of  £35.37. .......

I'm confident that we won't need to buy much for 2 weeks now, other than milk, and that we can keep the balance of the voucher untouched for a while.   I really don't like shopping in Iceland for the following reasons:

• It's not easy to get to for us
• You only get 1 hour free parking after which you have to pay online via a smartphone.  I wouldn't have a clue how to do that, so it's a bit of a rush
• There are only the big deep trollies which hurt my back to empty
• You need a £1 coin for the trolley
• The checkout is too fast for me resulting in my hurling the shopping back into the trolley as it scans with G desperately packing what he can ie fresh and frozen items together! Squashed bread...the lot 👀
• There is no access to a quiet area at the store to re-pack the bags

Positives:

10% discount for us oldies on Tuesdays! 😀

A Memoir:

After all the coverage, outrage and indignity of Prince Harry's media revelations, I checked on the library website to see if I could reserve his book 'Spare'.  I'll read it but refuse to spend money on a copy of it.  I am #105 in the queue.  Obviously 104 other people feel the same! 

Are you buying a copy?

A Birthday:

Yesterday was G's birthday.  He became 73 thus catching up with me!   He was sent some garden centre gift vouchers through the post,  DD gave him some and I popped a £5 one in his card (we don't usually buy each other gifts) making £25 which he is planning on spending on veg seeds for the allotment.  More free food to look forward to!  DD also gave him a voucher for cake and tea/coffee for 2 people at our favourite plant nursery so I'm sharing the treat sometime this week 😜

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100 /  £35.37 spent       

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50/ £42.86 spent

Nectar points  £11.75/ £5.00 spent

Boots points £7.28

Cash spent £0.00

Thanks so much for popping in and stay safe wherever in the world you happen to be x

A Top Up & a Palaver....

Today I popped to Sainsbugs for 2 pints of milk to tide us over the weekend until the next shopping trip. As usual, I got tempted with bargain prices on the Nectar App and succumbed to kitchen roll at £1.50 instead of £2, G's cornflakes 82p instead of £1.09 (I'm sure I paid £1.50 last time 🤔) the usual 2 boxes of paracetamol, and 1 pint of milk. They had no 2 pint bottles so I put one back as it would be far too expensive and we have some long life milk in the cupboard if we need it. Somehow a bag of oven chips leapt into my trolley as well as they were on offer 😁 The total cost was £6.16 so I used £5.00 worth of Nectar points and used £1.16 of the cash from the refund on Tuesday, meaning that no actual cash has been spent from this week's housekeeping budget thankfully, and I still have a bit of cash left from the refund.....

I'm happy to count week 1 as a success!

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100              

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50/ £42.86 spent

Nectar points  £11.75/ £5.00 spent

Boots points £7.28

One of the bonuses of collecting Nectar points is that extra points still accumulate even as you spend them.  I got bonus points on the kitchen roll, cornflakes and milk today but I'll not count them yet until I get close to spending the points I began with, IYSWIM Confusing or what? 😜

In other news:

Thanks so much for all the well wishes for my daughter.  After the bout of vomiting abated she phoned the surgery again to ask advice.  After an extended time in a queue, the receptionist took details and said someone would call her back.  Several hours later another receptionist called her back and asked exactly the same questions as the first and told her to carry on taking the antibiotics but with a drink of milk.  DD explained that she wasn't happy to carry on and requested an alternative.  The next day (4th Jan) she got a call asking how she was 'getting on' with the antibiotics!  Once again she explained the vomiting and therefore not taking them and the receptionist (once again) took all the details.  The next evening (5th Jan)  she got a text letting her know that a prescription for Clarithromycin  was awaiting collection at the pharmacy.  At no point has a clinician spoken to her let alone listened to her chest to confirm pleurisy.  I am seriously considering buying a stethescope ! I already have a blood pressure monitor, a pulse and oxygen level tester, so a stethescope is natural progression in the 'diagnose thyself ' situation we are now finding ourselves in 😨  I just hope the new pills help with DD's breathing problems.  G and I are still keeping our distance as all 4 members of the family are still coughing and suffering sore throats after almost 2 weeks......

Thanks for popping in and stay safe wherever in the world you happen to be x

First Shop of January...Morrisons

 The first shopping trip since before Christmas was today at Morrisons.  We used G's gift voucher to stock up with staples, sausages & a piece of steak for  him,......

....a couple of ready meals, chicken pies, ice cream and Quorn products for curries and cottage pies....

The object of the exercise this month is not to feel deprived, just to manage without spending much cash, so when I saw this birthday cake reduced to £3.50 it was silly not to splurge 😋

The total came to £42.86 and I knew something was wrong as I got it to roughly £40.19 in my head.  On checking the receipt, I could see that the offer of 3 Quorn items for a fiver wasn't showing so I went to customer services where I returned one Quorn item giving me a refund of £2.49.  The cashier paid it out in cash rather than back on the card which complicates my calculations a bit 😏 so I've put the cash to one side and will count the whole total of £42.86 as a spend.

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100              

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50/ £42.86 spent

Nectar points  £11.75

Boots points £7.28

At lunchtime I used the whole 300g bag of Quorn pieces for a quick curry and half will be going into the freezer for another day.  There should be enough from this shop to feed us for a week.  I should only need to buy milk for the weekend, I think, so I'll use the cash refund for that.

I was hoping that 2023 would start off healthier for the family but DD has been diagnosed with pleurisy this morning.  She has been prescribed Doxycycline, an antibiotic, but started vomiting almost immediately and is awaiting a call back from the GP. I rang my own pharmacist in the village for advice and he said to take no more. Lord help us. Will it never end?

Stay safe everyone wherever in the world you happen to be x

2023 Low Spend/No Spend Challenge & Other Stuff

Welcome to 2023!

Yesterday, after a trip to the pharmacy, I grabbed a free Greggs coffee courtesy of the O2 app and debated my January Low Spend/ No Spend Challenge......

Last year we decided that we need to have a whole year's bills money put aside as a safety net for when one of us pops our clogs.  With the rising cost of living and inflation being over 11% now, we struggled to save as much as we hoped, but have almost half of what we need put aside.  The challenge therefore carries on.

On Boxing day (why spoil Boxing day???) our energy account was updated to show that we are in debit by £43.10 despite cutting back our heating use.  I'm not worried (yet) because the direct debit which they will take in a day or so will cover that amount and put us back into credit....

January Challenge

Aim: to spend as little actual cash on grocery shopping as possible                

Funds:    

Iceland vouchers (won) £100              

Morrisons voucher (G's gift from work) £50

Nectar points  £11.75

Boots points £7.28

Rules:

• We can use whatever food we have in the house in addition to what we buy but must not run down stocks completely.  This would be totally counter productive as we have a lot of cold weather still to come
• Shopping must include toiletries and cleaning products as well as food (no cheating)
• We can eat out or have a cheap takeaway (is there such a thing?) once a week but it won't come out of the food budget as G will pay out of his wages.
• We can use yellow sticker bargains or Too Good To Go bags, as it would be completely daft not to

We actually have more money in vouchers than we had last January, thanks to my Iceland win, but food prices have risen so much that it might still be a bit tricky.

Here, the rain has stopped, the sun is shining and I'm about to put the slow cooker on for a warming beef stew for G when he gets home from work tonight.  It should make him 3 meals: 1 today, 1 tomorrow and 1 to freeze for next week.

Let's do this!

Reasons to be thankful:

DD and her family are still poorly but on the mend

Our Son in Oz and his family are still coughing but feeling a little better after covid

My eye is healing

The sun is shining 😀

Have a lovely day everyone and stay safe wherever in the world you happen to be x