How cold do you go?
14.7 degrees in the living room today before I lit the fire!
Thats definitely another jumper kinda chilly!
Must be something to do with reading the electric meter. I gave the readings in online so I don't know how much it will be yet, but it won't be under £100 I know that!
At least the hot flushes warm me up some of the time!! Great if your hands get cold!!
Swapped some of my pennies from the jar today, so thats next months aldi shopping paid for. All in little money bags, one a week with £20 in each.
I know its not alot but its enough to tide us over.
It's no good, my eyes are tired!
BBS x
Well...here's the receipt! And yes, beloved put things in the trolley! Dog treats, biscuits, and kitchen towels! Ah well, at least I had just enough to pay for it. As we were stood at the till he picked up 1.99 batteries. I didn't say a word and he put them back. We don't have 'posh' batteries. It's either 99p land for clocks or rechargable for everything else! And as I haven't been able to walk too far, we're nearly out of cheap batteries! Have to do without!
I swear it's mainly bread on the list. And again, I normally make some homemade sourdough, but I can't stand too long so thats kneading bread out. I have a breadmaker, but why use electric when I have hands that work just as well? (and while I was in hospital my dear beloved didn't know what to do with sourdough and threw it out..I'm smiling inside..honest)
There's my treat on there too! Creme fraiche! It makes one evening meal with pasta and veg, then the rest gets added to cheese and potato pie to give it a cheesy tang which means I can use less actual cheese!
Tomorrow is leccy meter reading day...I'll let you know how horrific that is!!
Put some more money in the saving tin. And no one knows about this so no IOU's are gonna get put in there and not be paid back...grrr.
We're both self employed. So money can be irregular. And beloved isn't good at budgeting for things that he knows are coming. He relies on me having money he can borrow.
Hohum.
Anyway BBS x
Here's the list book..just for lists! And this is this weeks shopping, to keep me on budget for this month. Notice the total already crossed out!
That gives me £2 to play with if lettuce and tomatoes aren't too much. Thats 2 teas and five lunches at least taken care of, everything else should be in the freezer or on a shelf (she says hopefully)
I guess thats another thing about rural living. I like to have a good supply of canned food and the freezer stocked all the time.
I'll put the receipt on here tomorrow, see how ell or badly I do! To be honest theres £18 in a money bag and that really is my shopping money! So no extras really.
I really need to be mean to myself, I have a real problem with books. Cookbooks! charity shops, amazon, alot of cookbooks. And the thing is I normally look online if I want a recipe! least I could sell the books if things get bad. And I've been looking at things I really don't need that could find a new home somewhere else. we shall see. Oh lord and its leccy meter reading time again. Hate o think how much that will be.
BBS x with a receipt and possibly a guilty look on my face!
Bread. It's always bread we run out of. So we go to the supermarket and I spend more than I want. This time it was a valentine card for my son. And treats for the dog.
i wouldn't mind if other half was happy with sandwiches. he used to be. And on delivery day he was allowed a pack of rolls. Then we discovered aldi sold rolls nearly half the price of asda and just as good. Then he wanted something to go in the rolls.
Notice how its adding up?
Homemade soup and bread is pennies.
Homemade soup and homemade rolls is less.
Big rolls and ham is about 50p for one person.
Then add the apple pie he likes..11p each.
So I bake homemade pie and homemade doughnuts and homemade cakes.
But I've definitely got to keep more of an eye on what gets put in the trolley. Today I noticed him with tools..he put them back and said he'd have to come back when he had some money.
Thank goodness because I had £10 in a money bag!
So, my trail for this week, is writing a list, with the prices, and being right when I get to the till.
I have £17 left in this months bugdet and I don't wanna go over.
I'll let you know the list tomorrow!BBS x
I've been trying to figure out the roots to why I fear poverty so much.
It's not benefits street or anything modern.
I wondered for a start if it was my great grandmother, who I spent alot of time with as a child. That was her dish.
'Waste not Want not'. Sums her up, or as my mother says, she was tight!
But it wasn't her.
And it wasn't my mum and dad. They always gave me the best they could, though the one toy from childhood that I still have is a ragdoll my mum made me.
So it wasn't them.
In my heart I know what it was. Late 1980's, early 90's. First husband. Interest rates were rising. He left the air force. He wouldn't get a job. Not couldn't, wouldn't. So we had to sell our house. It took 3 months and everything went to pay the mortgage, he tried to do up old cars to sell. We just made it.
Then we had to sleep in bunkbeds, in my old room with our 1 year old daughter. Then in a tiny caravan. We ate veg mainly as that was what I grew. Carrot curry. Seriously.
He still wouldn't find a job. The training he could have paid for by the raf so he could get a job he used staying with his friend in cornwall and surfing, he was supposed to be learning to make surf boards. So we lived on what I could earn. The most was £50 a week. And that included nappies. He wouldn't go on the dole. Because they'd find him work.
I remember sitting with my daughter on my lap, in her last nappy, my legs getting wet, knowing I couldn't afford another pack.
Thats where my fear of poverty comes from. That utter hopelessness of "what do I do, what CAN I do?"
I had to borrow money from my family. Thats what I did. They were there for me and always have been. Lucky.
But that feeling of, what can we eat, how can I make this go further...for my daughters first birthday i made her playdough and a ragdoll. She didn't know it was cheap. She had my old dolls crib and I made her bedding from old clothes. Remade.
We didn't stay together for long after he kept refusing to work. Refusing to support his family.
When we split up the only good thing he could say about me was....
"She made good soup"
So, my roots are in the past, but my fears are for the future. And it'll be ok, because, after all....I CAN make good soup!
I've been thinking alot about food. This was one of our weekly shops, and yes, Aldi, as its the cheapest and the closest.
thats the thing about rural poverty, it's not just about heating or eating, its about the fuel to even get to the shops.
When I was young (I'm nearly 47) there were busses going to all the small towns most days of the week. And now? Lucky if you can get one one day a week once a week. So, you need a car. The nearest town with a supermarket is 20 minutes drive away.
And we have older cars..I mean alot older. So not necessarily the most fuel efficient. My daughter lives in that thar big city. I'm lucky if I can go see her twice a year. We shop when we deliver. Vegetables. I grow vegetables, on a smallholding.
And I know I'm lucky, no rent. And all the veg I can eat.
But then again, we live in a portakabin. No central heating. Nearly all our furniture was someone else's before it was ours (including my kitchen units). And as lovely as it is to do what I do, it makes no money. It used to, 30 odd years ago, when there were green grocers, and markets. I grew lettuces a few years back...400 odd. I think I sold a dozen. 'Oh we picked one up in the supermarket' said the ladies who had suggested I grow some. So my time, the the seeds, the compost for the blocks the seedlings grow in..wasted and ploughed in. I now grow a few for us!
Anyway, pies. I like pies! i would, in fact, eat all the pies! I costed my favourite pie last night. 85.92p for 8 portions of lemon pie. 19 1/2p for the bottom pastry case included in that. Less than 11p a portion. But it isn't healthy..very nice...very very nice..just not healthy. And rhubarb pie, thats good too..even cheaper as I grow some rhubarb. But..yep, unhealthy!
Is my life going to be filled with alot of unhealthy as we get poorer?..I shall have a think.
BBS x
Well, 31 weeks to poverty. That is to say that it's 31 weeks till my son leaves college and no more child benefit, tax credits et al.
Talk about you don't know what you've got till it's gone.
What I'll have is my wages. All self employed £90 a week...trouble is thats the average. Some weeks its more, and in the spring its virtually nothing. So I've been trying to figure out how much I need to hide in the good weeks to last me through the bad weeks.
Can't figure it out yet!
I started with communication. Mobile, landline, internet. That was over £500 a year (ok so I was generous)
So its alot of little pots to put the pennies in, Sealed pots.
i find that if I leave money in its lovely cash form someone borrows it. Puts ittle IOU's in its place and forgets to pay them back.
My OH.
I adore him, but his little IOU's won't buy cat food or bread!
And its money, so I can't say anything because my stiff upper lip gets in the way!
So I shall write it her! Today, out of my pots was borrowed £170!!
It took me ages to save that up you know.
And there's another £70 thats still in IOU form in another pot that got unsealed and I was not happy. That was months ago and I haven't forgotten.
I am like an elephant!
And it has to stop, we are facing serious poverty if he can't do something about his spending and his business and I cannot support him forever.
Rant over..
More soon..well...I'm a woman...I moan!
