July Frugal thread, Just chatting and saving.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Everyone welcome.

I thought Tesco had stopped honouring other supermarkets' vouchers?

I've lost another post this morning due to dodgy Internet but, at least I have contact with you guys!

DS asked for a science party. We have previously had 2 parties at the Lookout Discovery centre in Bracknell, but their age range is to 10, DS will be 11. He asked for us to do one at home, but no time to order experiments as on holiday.

As an alternative he has asked for a cinema trip. Since I was planning one anyway, I am happy with this. He has asked for 3 friends, so need to see who is away when. I told DH I'd take them home after for hot dogs, citing quality, but meaning cost. I can buy really good quality hot dogs, home cooked frozen chips etc for a lot less than McD's, especially since DS has outgrown happy meals. 4 boys at £5 a meal, plus DD1 and me? £30 easily, in top of cinema. I will take drinks/popcorn and sweets to cinema to reduce costs further.

Morning All

Taking DCs to visit my old school friends for the next few days;hoping not to spend too much (although plenty of prosecco is mandatory!)

Laska - thanks for the recipes. I love soup so will give the borscht a try.

How do you know when beetroot is ready to harvest?

collie sorry about your garden. I'm not usually one to moan about the weather but this summer has been lousy so far. When it hasn't been wet it's been windy .
Dh has gone to Birmingham with work today (on the train) so sent him off with food and a huge flask of coffee. I'm on a late shift today so will now get into gear and sort my food out for the day. Dd is going to my mum's so will be fed and watered there, DS is home alone.
Planning to go to see Inside Out this week. It's on at our local independent cinema which I love as it costs much less than others (£5 adult/£4 child) and the dc love as the popcorn etc are so reasonable that they are allowed to have it!

Wow, this thread moves fast!

All the beetroot recipes sound delicious. Sadly DH hates beetroot, but I might get some from FIL's allotment when we go down at the end of the month.

Yy to the crappy weather, northender. I have 3 bath towels and a rug hanging on my line, completely sodden, which have been there for 3 days now in the lashing rain. I'm going to have to bring them in and re-wash them.

Frugal and diet fail yesterday - £5.94 in the M&S Simply Food when all I went in for was milk, and £7.26 in the Co-op. I did not need a bag of kettle chips or a slab of Dairy Milk! So much for the low-carb diet. Then this morning the electricity bill came off. According to my bank I am 34p overdrawn, but according to GoodBudget I'm £16 overdrawn. I'm a bit confused about this - need to do some careful comparison and try to work out which is correct. However, payday tomorrow, hurray! I have switched electricity supplier so Scottish Power will no longer be able to sting me at the very end of the month (that's not why I switched!). I suppose they'll give us a final bill, but that'll be the end of it.

Lunch is Greek salad and dinner will be gammon and egg and probably savoy cabbage, mmm.

Wheely Kielder is fabulous, we've been a couple of times. It had dark sky status so well worth taking binoculars and staying up late to look at the night sky. You can download some really good apps to tell you what you are looking at too eg. Google Sky. You can also book onto astronomy sessions at the observatory.
My best tips for camping are to pack food in Ziploc bags to save space and take things that cook quickly without using too much gas - cous cous is perfect. Take flip flops for the showers and wrap up warm at night - thick socks, leggings under pjs and fleece over the top. I always take a hot water bottle too.
I love beetroot roasted and served with goats cheese or feta. HFW has a fabulous recipe for beetroot and walnut hummus which is delicious.
I do several versions of chickpea curry - the quickest way is to dry fry some spices, I usually use a teaspoon each of ground cumin & coriander, a few fennel seeds and a bit of chilli powder then rinse & drain a tin of chickpeas and add to the frying pan with a couple of tablespoons of water then just stir and heat through. I also make a good one in the slow cooker where I stick in a chopped onion, half a butternut squash diced, dried chickpeas (soaked overnight) spices or curry paste and a tin of coconut milk. It's also nice with a bit of spinach added towards the end of cooking.

theonlypink I read somewhere maybe on rollercoaster of people using them. I didn't realise you could either - so I got my delivery two weeks ago and asked the driver do they take them and he said yes! I did read of people saying that they hadn't come off but a quick phone call to customer service sorted it out.

Last week was a frugal fail in that respect - ordered a delivery for between 9&11pm, had voucher with me, arrived home at 9.05pm but shopping had been about 40 mins earlier grr!

pointless how long can you leave that chickpea curry in the slow cooker for - I've lots of tins of chickpeas, also have a bns languishing because I don't fancy soup so have all the necessaries in! Sounds lush!

I also have dried chickpeas too - would they work better in the slow cooker?

lilac going to give that a go this week,I always get deliveries because we live in the middle of nowhere and I'm a sucker for impulse buys. I never bother with the vouchers unless I know I'm actually going to the shop. Thanks so much for the tip!

audit I think me and lilac are in Ireland, so might be different, but worth double checking, there's always also and lidl vouchers in the papers!

I do it in the slow cooker on high for about 6 hours. Dried chick peas are fab in the sc. I love chickpeas and have a big stash of both the dried and tinned which are 3 for a pound in the Asian food aisle in Asda.
They also work well in Moroccan style dishes with aubergine and tomatoes.

I get deliveries for a while and then get sick of it and go back to Aldi, because I love their food! Tesco are coping on to it though because since I had delivery saver they've given me lots of incentives!! Got a pack of ham free last two deliveries, just as a bonus with a couple of vouchers for bread too. The great thing about deliveries is I don't spend half of my Sat with the kids in town! Which always involves spending on more than just groceries.

pointless no asda in Ireland. My tins came from my mother who buys lots of things and doesn't get around to using them. I've kidney beans, butter beans, chickpeas etc to use!

collie a quote from my calendar the other day read - anywhere is within walking distance if you have the time!!
After driving 136 miles home on Sat eve after 150+ miles on Friday, that's not a commutable distance!!

collie DH has always done an awful lot travelling and commuting. Leeds to Newcastle every day for a long period. It's very hard and not something worth considering if you want any form of family life

I keep looking at keilder as love star gazing. They keep sending me the winter wonderland flyer each year but it is a long trip for the day. 2 to 2.5 hours and the lodges are a fortune. Could get organised and look at dh shifts and book in advance but not guaranteed they will have availability when we need it. Shift work is pants.

At an nt house today and 'saved' £60 by not hiring _4 bikes. Spent about £30 of that in the tea shop though.

Hi all, LSD today (thank Goodness!) £2.50 on a few bits in Tescos.

Am midway through decorating the kitchen, its very blue - much bluer than I thought it would be I think I like it!

Girlie I'm rubbish at decorating and never like it!

Nsd. I've agreed to do a week of as much over time as I can which means I'll be doing a 54 hour week. It's at the end of the month I know I'll really struggle with fatigue/headaches and missing the dc(!) but the money will make it worth it. I'm already feeling guilty about leaving them!

I took two prescription co codamol and forgot I can't handle it. I feel stoned

LSD today, took dc to the cinema to see the new Thomas movie and lucky for us the tickets were cheaper £16 for 4, they are normally £5.50 for kids and £7.50 for adults. My ds loves trains and it's his birthday next month so it was an early treat since it's in our cinema only till 30th July. I only took 1 packet of sweets(£1) I bought at the sweetshop on the way.
£1.60 for 2 hours of parking.
Went to library too for their reading challenge, at least the weather is better so they can run off some of their extra energy in the garden.

Dd is doing the reading challenge too she's awesome at reading but rubbish at maths!