Halloween

 

 

 Happy Halloween everybody!

 

I do try and remember the roots of Halloween, or Samhein as it is known to Pagans. Samhein is a festival that celebrates this time of ethereal beauty and apparent decay and death, where the 'veil between the worlds' is at its thinnest.

 

It is a time to remember loved ones and some Pagans set a place at their dining tables on Samhein for those they have lost recently. I think this is a beautiful and really poignant gesture - quite at odds to the commercial horror/gore/Disney appropriation of this ancient festival.

 

That said, this evening we have a good friend coming over to watch a scary film, so a spot on the sofa with pizza reserved for my dearly departed Grandmother might not go down so well! I may light a candle for her though and leave it in the window.

 

I do recognise that children enjoy the festivities, so as our office had a carving competition and provided us with pumpkins, we are prepared for any trick-or-treaters:

 

 

We have also averted the risk of any 'tricks' without breaking the bank. These sweets were from Aldi at just 27p per bag, a grand total of £1.09 (the bucket is recycled from last year).

 

 

 



 

 

Last night we had another good friend over for dinner and looking for a cheap dinner idea but one that felt like we were making an effort, I dug out the fondue set we bought on a holiday to Switzerland years ago.

 

What a winner! We added two packets of Aldi Gouda/Emmental cheese (£2.28) to half a pint of ale (£1.25) and a garlic clove (6p) to make the fondue, melting it on the hob then adding it to the basin within the set.

 

To dip we went authentic Swiss, with various pickles (£1.87); a bag of baby potatoes (£1.49) and a loaf of nice crusty bread, cut into cubes (£2).

 

 

 

At £2.98 per head this was more expensive than a meal we would usually cook for ourselves, but it was a really delicious and different dinner - our guest (who also bought hummus and asparagus) loved it!

 

 



Five on Friday 30/10/2015

Joining in with Amy again this week for Five on Friday - thanks Amy.

Here are five things that made my week:

1. Plant Skeletons

Walking the dog last weekend, I picked a couple of dry stalks of cow parsley from the hedgerow. I just adore the delicate form of dry cow parsley - umbelliferous is the term, I think. So fragile and elegant.

 

 

2. Country Living Christmas Mag

 

 

Squee it's here! I LOVE the Christmas edition of this lifestyle magazine. It is full of pictures of delicious food, lovely cosy cottages, snow and frost (even though it is a balmy 17 degrees here at the moment) and general rustic loveliness. I am watching the pennies in November and at £4.10 it isn't cheap for what is essentially a lot of lovely pictures I could find on Pinterest for nothing.

 

 

 

But it is such a pleasure to savour, flicking through it with a hot coffee and daydreaming about living in a beautifully decorated house and spending my time eating artisan bread and on rustic country pursuits. One day, sigh....

3. My Coffee Mug

Talk about the simple things...well this is one that has given me a lot of pleasure this week.

 

It was a birthday present from LB's mum and I hadn't taken it out of its box until now. You can't tell from the photo, but it is HUGE - she knows me so well. I feel like I am in a coffee shop drinking out of it - and like a proper grown-up.

 

 

4. The Moon

 

I have tried several times in vain this week to capture the beauty of the moon - there have been some gorgeous, fat, pink, eerie, bright moons. Each time, my camera has let me down - even my digital SLR camera, which can't cope with such a long exposure, left me with a blurry mess.  This is the best I have managed, from the pub window on Wednesday when we popped in for a drink:

 



 

So instead of trying to take any more photos, I have just been standing at the window in awe.



 

 

5. Warm and Wet Weather = Grass!

 

Although the evenings and mornings have been chilly (to a human being- not if you are a germinating grass seed), we are yet to have any frost here in Wiltshire. I am glad about this as they are the perfect growing conditions for my new grass. I blogged about my distinctly pedestrian garden overhaul back in October, and since then the grass has been growing away nicely.

 



It's difficult to tell from these photos, but what once was barren earth, now has a bristle of tiny green shoots coming through.

I literally squeal with delight as I walk up the garden path every day and every raincloud is welcome as it means I don't have to be out there with a hose. It's so important not to let immature grass dry out, and thankfully I recon this lot will have a chance to establish before the cold weather. I WILL have a lush green lawn in the spring!

Although not if this little schnauzer has anything to do with it - she loves digging holes!

Wishing you a good week ahead, enjoying the last flush of Autumn.

 



 



I made Quiche!

We are really scraping the barrel with one day until Payday.

But we had some bits and pieces in the fridge festering away.

We had butter (35p) and flour (10p) so I bunged a roughly 50/50 mixture in the food processor until it was like breadcrumbs, added water and...pastry! It would make Mrs Patmore wince I expect, but it wasn't too bad.

 

 

 

10 minutes of blind baking later, I added an onion chopped and fried (12p) , a handful of frozen spinach from the freezer (defrosted) (8p) and half a block of feta, shoved in the freezer to save it going off months ago (60p). Four eggs went in - the most expensive ingredient (£1). Oh, and a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley from a plant I have in a pot in the garden - still hanging on, but past its best.

 

 

 

 

The carrot (6p) and half the leftover cabbage (17p) along with 1/2 a red onion (5p) went in the processor too, and with a blob of wholegrain mustard and mayo (30p) served as coleslaw.

So satisfying to make a really tasty lunch out of leftovers, for a grand total of £2.85 and which took about 30 minutes (ahh, lovely food processor). Given we will get four portions out of it, that is a bargainous 71p each meal.



Introducing No-Spend November

Over November I will be focussing really hard to making a difference to my bank balance and my spending habits. It will be 'No-Spend November'!

I have set out some 'rules' that I will be following below. Here we go!

1. Set a food budget - and stick to it.

This is going to involve meal planning and very judicious shopping. It includes all consumable household items - food, cleaning products, dogfood etc.

My food budget for the month is £100 (each - there are two of us in my household).


2. Set a 'pocket money' budget, and stick to it.

This pocket money is for unforeseeable incidentals that cannot be avoided, such as having to buy stamps to send something important, transport costs if you are a bus user, money for parking, carrier bags, library fines, prescriptions, that kind of thing. We are talking loose change here, not anything significant.

My 'pocket money' budget for the month will be £20.


  3. Declare my exceptions and reduce them as much as possible.

For example:

• I have to get my hair cut some time in November. I have to look smart for meeting clients and have a long fringe, so if it gets too long, I can't see! But where I would once have been in the salon for two hours having a full colour, cut and blow dry, this time I will be queuing up outside Supercuts for a dry trim!

• Vets Bills. Aside from emergencies obviously, my dog has to have her vaccinations this month.

 

•  My one indulgence is under £5 - Country Living Christmas edition. I have been looking forward to this all year! And I savour every page over the month's weekend breakfasts.

• Petrol - unavoidable if you commute. You've got to get to work, or this frugality thing kind of backfires!

• Treats - if you are lucky enough to have generous people in your life, make the most of it! For example, my LB loves Bond, so has offered to take me to see it at the cinema. Who am I to argue?

4.  Write it down!

Each week I will be making a record of my spending down to every last penny - and sharing it! Hopefully the shame of public humiliation will be the motivation I need to stick with it.


I will keep you posted as to how I get on every week.

Here goes!

Another Debt Bites the Dust

Well, I am pleased to say that the frugality continues this week. Not only have I not spent anything, I have even chipped away at some of the debt.

 

I recently dabbled with the Cambridge Diet. When I came off it, I still had a week’s worth of food replacement sachets left. I can’t see myself clambering back on the wagon any time soon, so I put these on ebay.

 

 

 

Lo and behold, within two hours, someone had bought them at £35! I am so pleased with this, as they would only be going out of date in the cupboard otherwise and I probably would have thrown them away. Gotta love ebay!

So, I have paid off the outstanding balance on my La Redoute home shopping account, and it stands at £0.  I do love LaRedoute for their unusual styles, but it is ‘fast fashion’ and unfortunately the quality is lacking. While I am focussing on frugality I will be buying my clothes from charity shops or buying quality pieces much less often.

 

It is just too tempting to have access to buy-now-pay-later credit like this, so I wrote to La Redoute and asked them to close my account for good, while the willpower lasted.

Also, as I logged on (forgetting my password, as you do) and going through the rigmarole of resetting it, it occurred to me that I don’t need this extra hassle – it is a pain in the arse to have multiple cards/loans/debts hanging around – I have at least five such arrangements at the moment. One little missed payment and you risk incurring expensive charges.  I am not very organised at the best of times. Why add a personal admin burden to an already busy life?

So part of the plan is to simplify things back to how they used to be, simple and not stressful  – a bank account, and one credit card with a zero balance for emergencies.

 

Dark, Dark Monday

Well, it is the first 'dark night' of the year since British Summer Time ended and Daylight Savings Time began. For the first time, we left the office in the pitch black.

It has been really nippy too, for the first time this year. So tonight's dinner needed to be frugal and hearty.

We had four sausages left in the fridge from the weekend (the Lovely Boyf does enjoy a sausage sandwich as a weekend treat). In the light of my recent frugaldom, and the news about processed meat, I wanted these to go as far as possible.

I mixed these four sausages (£2.00) with some leftover mushrooms (80p), an onion (30p) garlic (6p), tin of mixed beans (60p), chopped tomatoes (50p), pasta (60p) and olive oil, which I had used to soak some sun dried tomatoes which were a gift (20p). We had a tiny lump of leftover cheese in the freezer, so that went on top, as did some basil from a plant that has been going for months!

 

So, the total cost was £5.06. There was enough for four portions - so that is lunch sorted tomorrow - at £1.26 per portion. Bargain! It felt like the right sort of dinner to be eating on a dark, dark night.

 

The only problem with this kind of budget dinner (which is mainly carbs) is that it isn't great for my waistline. This is something I have encountered in previous frugal phases - pounds accumulate on the scales, as well as in the bank. I will work on devising some cheap and healthy dinners.

 

It is really hard to study on nights like this - I am tired after a hard day and  just want to slob in front of the TV on the nice, warm sofa. But, I am super-busy at the moment and I need to get as much done during the week as I can.

So I have resorted to a technique that seems to work - I make a deal with myself that if I do just one hour of study, I can have the rest of the night off to spend as I please. I set my iphone timer and I DO NOT MOVE until an hour has passed - even stopping the clock to go to the loo!

 

Sometimes time just flies, and before I know it I am stuck in. That did not happen tonight - I checked every five minutes and the time dragged. But I am pleased to say I did it. Now don't mind me, I'm off for a Lidl Hot Chocolate and Eastenders!

 

 

 

Have a good evening.

 

 

 

 

Frugality Makes a Return

I have come around to the view recently, that I need to rein in my spending - a lot.

I am lucky to have a good job which is well paid. But I am 34 with nothing at all (financially speaking) to show for it - although I would argue that the money I have spent on travel and pursuing hobbies shows on the inside!

But really, it is ridiculous to work as hard as I do during the week and yet to have no financial security. What's the point?

I suppose it depends on what you want in life.

So, I asked myself the question - what do I want? What is success for me?

My gut spoke. It said: Wilderness - I want to live in the countryside, so that I am surrounded by nature. Preferably in a solid little house with character. Security: I want to make somewhere my home, and I want to be financially secure enough not to be worrying about having to move if I don't want to. Space: I want to be able to live the lifestyle that is important to me - growing my own food and with a greenhouse of my own so that I can propagate my own plants. Not self-sufficient, but...ish.

This one would do fine!

...with one of these please.

In fact, my own greenhouse has always been high up on my list of priorities! Something in my soul needs this connection to the natural world and I really feel the lack of it, living without a garden (to speak of). It isn't very ambitious I know - I wish my life's dream was more altruistic, grand and honourable than my own greenhouse, but it is just the person I am.

At the moment, with no real assets, this isn't ever going to happen. I will be forever renting at this rate, which means I am very unlikely to ever have a garden and greenhouse that is truly mine. Also, in the last six months I have managed to run up debts of £2,500 on credit cards (stupid! why!?) which need paying off. 

So from now on, I will be focussing on ways to save money and appreciate a slower pace of life. Autumn is a good time for this, I think. Everyone slows down a bit, there are less social occasions (Christmas excepted of course) and it is OK to just rest, spend nights in front of the fire or the new season's TV and take things easy. There is so much beauty all around to enjoy for free. Also, I have plenty of university work to keep me occupied - every second of my spare time if I let it!

So without further ado, I have done a few frugal things this weekend:

We kicked off the weekend with homemade pizza, instead of a takeaway. This came to about £1.50 each. Bargain!

It's all about the hairy fish! I love anchovies on my pizza.

 I sold some unwanted clothes on ebay, including a beautiful Ted Baker dress I bought for a wedding earlier this year (credit cards!) and am unlikely ever to wear again. I always find it is amazing, ebay - you don't think your used clothes are worth anything, but there is always someone, somewhere who wants them. I raised over £100! 

With this, I paid £100 off pesky Credit Card number 1. About £250 left on that one now. I have plans to sell my old iphone as well, to chip away a little more of the outstanding balance. Very satisfying paying such a good chunk off!

Normally by this point of the month, I have run out of cash and resort to the demon credit cards for the last week. Not this time! We get paid on Thursday, and I am determined not to spend a penny until then. So, I took stock of the fridge and have 'cooked ahead' for the week.

I made some seasonal Pumpkin and Apple Breakfast Muffins by adapting this recipe - I substituted sugar for honey and half stewed apple to the pumpkin, to use up what we had. They don't rise like proper muffins, as they have so much moisture. But they are filling and taste amazing!



And I have a pot of Leek and Stilton soup bubbling away on the Stanley to take for lunches. I try and avoid bread during the week, so we will probably have this with some oatcakes. I am also making a fish pie using some white fish we have had languishing in the freezer for weeks.

I am pleased to say, this weekend I haven't spent a single penny! And how relaxing it has been. Last night was spent in front of the fire, with my little dog and LB, knitting to my hearts' content.

And yesterday, while the rain poured all day long I got down to some serious studying. I feel so much calmer when I know I am up to date. As it has gotten so dark, so early now that the clocks have gone back, I am happy to study into the night with a nice hot coffee.

So, it doesn't make for a very interesting blog, but it has been a very relaxing, happy and frugal weekend!

I hope yours was too.