With this in mine, yesterday I had planned to drive 6 miles into the city to visit the Asian supermarket. I needed (wanted??) green chillies, burghal (bulgar wheat), curry paste and olives. I know olives and green chillies don't sound like necessary purchases but my husband will happily eat flat bread with chillies, olives and home made dip for his main meal so it is not as daft as it sound. I was quite shocked how the prices had increased since my last proper visit, looked like 20% to 30%.
Whilst I was already in the city I decided to visit Ikea. I would normally have come another time so its possible I may actually have save some fuel usage then. Last year they were selling large fleece blankets for £2. I thought that with some cunning stitching these would be good to line the conservatory curtains to keep some warmth in the house. During the course of the year they had reduced the price to £1.69 and by yesterday they were further reduced to 99p. Well done Ikea. For just less than £8 I have enough polar fleece to line pretty much every curtain in the house. Now I just need to get the sewing machine working again....
I also bought 6 mugs at 59p each. For Christmas I am making a breakfast basket for each of the couples in the family. I have some specials teas & jams, egg cups and now mugs. Just need a few more items. We have a £10 per person limit so it is quite a fun challenge but it doesn't break the bank. Mugs and fleeces come out of the indulgences budget.
My other challenging area is food expenditure. Yesterday I bought two packets of chicken thighs from the local Co-op for £4. I boned them and made a vat of curry using a table spoon of my new curry paste (20p), leftover mushrooms from a bargain scoop at the market (25p),half a head of celery (64p), an onion (5p). Also a carton of single cream which my son bought to make a cake but which is now hovering on the edge of extinction. So total cost £6.14 and there is enough to feed us all for the whole weekend. Served with, French bread (reduced to 15p), home made focaccia (cost about 20p as I used the discounted bread-making kits from my cheap online shopping), left over rice from Thursday/Friday. I normally make an old fashioned pudding on a Sunday evening through the cold weather so overnight we will be having plum crumble made with some of the plums which my mum filled my freezer with whilst we were on holiday. Good old mum. Also lovely mum is checking the hedge row by her house for more sloes today for my sloe gin. She was doing that last Sunday but forgot me!
Good buy with the fleece! Sometimes those deals are too good to pass up. I have to admit that I had no idea what a sloe was. I had to google it. I never would have guessed it was a fruit!
ReplyDeleteHa ha, getting my own back for all the times you confuse me! Sloes are not edible really and are so sharp they make cranberries taste as sweet as a banana. Good for sloe gin though, yum.
ReplyDeleteLizzie