If you have read any of my other recent food type posts you will know that I discovered I have a milk allergy so have been trying very hard to find alternatives to dairy foods without breaking the bank.
Hooray I managed to make a much more cheese like cheese on my second attempt.
It grates and slices and looks like cheese.
It is softer,like a very firm mousse,not hard and crumbly but it is good on pizza or sandwiches or crackers and I even secretly made Quiche with it and nobody commented that the cheese tasted funny.
The recipe is from reciperenovator.com
1 C cashews
1 1/2 C water
4 teaspoons agar powder
OR
4 Tablespoons agar flakes
1/4 C nutritional yeast
1/4 C lemon juice
1 Tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Soak cashews for 4 hours and then grind em up or just used ground cashews like I did without the soaking.
Boil water and add agar simmer for 5 mins stirring.
Put everything into a blender or food processor and blend it smooth.
add any herbs or whatever(I didn't) .
Oil a bowl or tub to shape your cheese.
Pour in the cheese and let it cool.
Put in Fridge when cold enough.
I did this exactly as above and have a yellow,almost cheddar coloured cheese.
You could add a little bit of tomato paste for oranger cheese or cook a carrot before using the agar in the water.
I might try some hickory smoke powder the next time.
I don't think the cup sizing matters because it is just to get the proportions of the larger amounts right.
Half of this amount lasts me a week so I cut it in half and freeze the second bit.
It thaws out well and keeps its firmness.
Showing posts with label grocery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grocery. Show all posts
Monday, 9 September 2013
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Tiny toms and preserving produce
We ate our first two red Tomatoes today.
They were dinky little things.
I cut each one as small as I could and DS and I had them in 1 sandwich each !
I have been dehydrating this week also.
Not bodily, I am drying produce.
The L'equip machine I bought a few years ago is still going strong.
This weekend I dried about 9 courgettes on Saturday, 9 on Sunday
Monday I dried about 5 and around a cupful of runner beans
Today was 6 trays of Spinach
Tonight will be 3 more trays of courgettes(about 5 or 6 fruits) and a cupful of runner beans.
When they are dry, they are put into screw top jars till we use them.
Drying is an efficient way to store produce and takes up less room than most other storage.
Also it is cheap fuel wise as it is an overnight job to dry them and then they don't use any more until you cook them which you would have to do anyway.
We still have a jar of dried onions from about 3 years ago which is perfectly edible.
I pickled a large jar of onions for Christmas.
We have 2 jars of pickled beetroot from several years back which is fine still.
I looked up courgettes online and discovered Asda selling 4 fruits for a whole £1
The Kale is now edible and very flavour-some after a couple of months of just spinach interspersed with Molokia
The row nearest the camera is the Kale. I am used to curly leafed Kale so was it took a while to realise that this plant was really Kale and not just a mis-labeling error for which I am notorious.
The carrot bed did turn out to be mostly grass pretending to be carrot seedlings sadly.
I have resown but don't know if it will be any more successful this time around.
There are about 7 actual original carrots remaining.
The box in the greenhouse is looking quite leafy.
There are actually carroty ends showing which look about 1/2" thick!
Just as well with the price of grub at the moment.
I was cleaning my bike up yesterday and found the panniers we bought for it in Holland.
They are sturdy and well made ,not like the rubbish you can buy here.
I fitted my bike rack on and then added the panniers and bungeed the lock to the rack between them.
Inside one were 3 or 4 receipts for sainsburys from 2003.
Carrots were 40p a kilo and brocolli was not much more.
Milk was about 29p for a litre of UHT
On Friday,I finished clearing the next bed of weeds.
It is sown with Alfafa which I think I remember is from the bean family.
This will get chopped off and dug in in a few months time the same as the clover and phacelia.
They were dinky little things.
I cut each one as small as I could and DS and I had them in 1 sandwich each !
I have been dehydrating this week also.
Not bodily, I am drying produce.
The L'equip machine I bought a few years ago is still going strong.
This weekend I dried about 9 courgettes on Saturday, 9 on Sunday
Monday I dried about 5 and around a cupful of runner beans
Today was 6 trays of Spinach
Tonight will be 3 more trays of courgettes(about 5 or 6 fruits) and a cupful of runner beans.
When they are dry, they are put into screw top jars till we use them.
Drying is an efficient way to store produce and takes up less room than most other storage.
Also it is cheap fuel wise as it is an overnight job to dry them and then they don't use any more until you cook them which you would have to do anyway.
We still have a jar of dried onions from about 3 years ago which is perfectly edible.
I pickled a large jar of onions for Christmas.
We have 2 jars of pickled beetroot from several years back which is fine still.
I looked up courgettes online and discovered Asda selling 4 fruits for a whole £1
The Kale is now edible and very flavour-some after a couple of months of just spinach interspersed with Molokia
The carrot bed did turn out to be mostly grass pretending to be carrot seedlings sadly.
I have resown but don't know if it will be any more successful this time around.
There are about 7 actual original carrots remaining.
The box in the greenhouse is looking quite leafy.
Just as well with the price of grub at the moment.
I was cleaning my bike up yesterday and found the panniers we bought for it in Holland.
They are sturdy and well made ,not like the rubbish you can buy here.
I fitted my bike rack on and then added the panniers and bungeed the lock to the rack between them.
Inside one were 3 or 4 receipts for sainsburys from 2003.
Carrots were 40p a kilo and brocolli was not much more.
Milk was about 29p for a litre of UHT
On Friday,I finished clearing the next bed of weeds.
It is sown with Alfafa which I think I remember is from the bean family.
This will get chopped off and dug in in a few months time the same as the clover and phacelia.
Friday, 27 July 2012
Green everywhere
The good weather has helped things along in the garden.
This is the view now and the one back in April looking over the fence dividing the lawn and the veg plot.
The peas are doing much better than expected.
About 6 of the plants were transplanted from modules and the rest are direct sowings.
The courgette/Zucchini bed is about 3 feet tall and lush with growth.
I am picking them and dehydrating as there are too many to eat .
Outdoor tomatoes have picked up well. There are fruits on some which is rather suprising considering they were the left overs from those that are living in the greenhouse.
Here are the outdoor plants with the newly cleared ground that I have been working on this week beyond.
Here are the washington cherry in the greenhouse
and the marmande with their unusual shaped fruits
Behind them is the old window blind that I had to incorporate yesterday due to the ridiculous 50 degree heat in the greenhouse with the windows wide open and the fan running for hours.
This is a quick snap of the strawberry beds with the cardboard mulch.
Most of the strawberry plants seem to have strawberry leaf spot but it didn't effect the fruit at all.
The cardboard should help to keep it contained.
I will have to keep my eye on them though because I don't see any runners yet and I might need to train them into pots as they cant very well root into the cardboard.
Monday, 16 July 2012
Carrots,weeds and Strawberries
The Carrot bed is full but of what?
Many of the grass like seedlings actually might just be grass after all.
I weeded and weeded and now there are a few actual positive sightings of carrot tops but most of it looks like little grasses.
However on pulling one up,there is a distinctive carroty niff so I replanted it and have left well alone.
The strawberries are finished fruiting and I am hard at work weeding the grass,Nettles and creeping buttercup out .
The two beds are crowded but they are beginning to take up some semblance of a strawberry patch as opposed to a miniature jungle.
Many snail and ant eggs are uncovered along with their parents.
I have sown clover in two of the onion beds and phacelia in the other.
These are green manures to improve the soil.
The clover is already up .
Amongst the Strawberries, I found several vetch seed pods and collected a few as they are supposed to be useful also as green manure.
Last week I bought a berry picking tool.
It looks like a Dustpan but the bottom is a comb rather than solid.
To use it ,you have to sort of scoop at the berries which become caught in the comb and drop into the pan.
It is an ingenious contraption, simple and effective.
I remember Ray Mears featuring a similar tool in one of his episodes.
It has sped up the berry harvesting by about 90% as previously I could spend an hour an evening on just harvesting raspberries and red currants.
My poor Berries are very crowded with weeds and will get a proper clear out once they have finished fruiting.
The Cleavers,Rogue Blackberry brambles and Bear Bind are everywhere.
On the harvesting side...
We have had quite a few courgettes and a few French beans and even one or two runners today.
There aren't many peas but they are lovely when we have had any.
Today was spent in weeding the strawbs and in hunting indoors for DS' document folder in which he had put all his qualification details and then mislaid the whole lot.
I found it .
The rain has been persistent.
There is fruit on the tomatoes but I don't know if they will ripen with so little sunshine.
We cheered ourselves up with pork chops and chips for tea.
The chops were courtesy of Lidls who were selling them half price this week.
The green veg was all from the garden which is satisfying.
Many of the grass like seedlings actually might just be grass after all.
I weeded and weeded and now there are a few actual positive sightings of carrot tops but most of it looks like little grasses.
However on pulling one up,there is a distinctive carroty niff so I replanted it and have left well alone.
The strawberries are finished fruiting and I am hard at work weeding the grass,Nettles and creeping buttercup out .
The two beds are crowded but they are beginning to take up some semblance of a strawberry patch as opposed to a miniature jungle.
Many snail and ant eggs are uncovered along with their parents.
I have sown clover in two of the onion beds and phacelia in the other.
These are green manures to improve the soil.
The clover is already up .
Amongst the Strawberries, I found several vetch seed pods and collected a few as they are supposed to be useful also as green manure.
Last week I bought a berry picking tool.
It looks like a Dustpan but the bottom is a comb rather than solid.
To use it ,you have to sort of scoop at the berries which become caught in the comb and drop into the pan.
It is an ingenious contraption, simple and effective.
I remember Ray Mears featuring a similar tool in one of his episodes.
It has sped up the berry harvesting by about 90% as previously I could spend an hour an evening on just harvesting raspberries and red currants.
My poor Berries are very crowded with weeds and will get a proper clear out once they have finished fruiting.
The Cleavers,Rogue Blackberry brambles and Bear Bind are everywhere.
On the harvesting side...
We have had quite a few courgettes and a few French beans and even one or two runners today.
There aren't many peas but they are lovely when we have had any.
Today was spent in weeding the strawbs and in hunting indoors for DS' document folder in which he had put all his qualification details and then mislaid the whole lot.
I found it .
The rain has been persistent.
There is fruit on the tomatoes but I don't know if they will ripen with so little sunshine.
We cheered ourselves up with pork chops and chips for tea.
The chops were courtesy of Lidls who were selling them half price this week.
The green veg was all from the garden which is satisfying.
Monday, 2 April 2012
Muck spreading
Well mulch spreading really !
I took a large amount of rotted grass clippings and daubed them all over the fruit part of the veg garden.
My strawberries stand out now and the Rhubarb looks a bit more lively.
My neighbour inadvertently mentioned how well my Raspberries do considering I pretty much ignore them once they have finished fruiting.
It's true *Shrug*. They rarely get cut down after they are finished.
The new canes just grow and the old ones die and snap off.
No point fussing about trying to 'help' them, they know what they are doing.
I bought two full 2.5 kg bags of very small potatoes on Sunday. They were reduced to 76p and I am guessing it was because they are unwashed and golf ball sized.
No-one wants to fuss about cleaning such small veg.
I wont. They are going to be planted as they are ideal as seed potatoes.
This enterprise will happen next week I think once I am finished preparing their resting place.
Hopefully ,all those potatoes will see us through the year from about July onwards.
Cheap grub
Yesterday we had fish pie made with fish and chip shop scraps(boneless cod bits),left over bread made into crumbs and some reduced cheese blended in.
Todays dinner was home made fish and chips with the better bits from the fish and chip shops bag of scraps.
The bag costs £1 and does 2 meals for 3 people.
The chips are almost always home made.
I have a metal chip cutter bought in a boot fair for 50p years ago.
I never bother peeling potatoes,the skin is good for you.
I use a basic deep fat fryer, the kind you sit on the hob and watch till you see the smoke rising.
It really doesn't take very long (25 minutes ?)and no having to go out and get them.
I took a large amount of rotted grass clippings and daubed them all over the fruit part of the veg garden.
My strawberries stand out now and the Rhubarb looks a bit more lively.
My neighbour inadvertently mentioned how well my Raspberries do considering I pretty much ignore them once they have finished fruiting.
It's true *Shrug*. They rarely get cut down after they are finished.
The new canes just grow and the old ones die and snap off.
No point fussing about trying to 'help' them, they know what they are doing.
I bought two full 2.5 kg bags of very small potatoes on Sunday. They were reduced to 76p and I am guessing it was because they are unwashed and golf ball sized.
No-one wants to fuss about cleaning such small veg.
I wont. They are going to be planted as they are ideal as seed potatoes.
This enterprise will happen next week I think once I am finished preparing their resting place.
Hopefully ,all those potatoes will see us through the year from about July onwards.
Cheap grub
Yesterday we had fish pie made with fish and chip shop scraps(boneless cod bits),left over bread made into crumbs and some reduced cheese blended in.
Todays dinner was home made fish and chips with the better bits from the fish and chip shops bag of scraps.
The bag costs £1 and does 2 meals for 3 people.
The chips are almost always home made.
I have a metal chip cutter bought in a boot fair for 50p years ago.
I never bother peeling potatoes,the skin is good for you.
I use a basic deep fat fryer, the kind you sit on the hob and watch till you see the smoke rising.
It really doesn't take very long (25 minutes ?)and no having to go out and get them.
Friday, 30 March 2012
Keeping a heavy purse
This month I withdrew £120 at the beginning so that I could use it to challenge myself to a grocery challenge.
I shop every weekend and then that must last us the week.
Last weekend was the last shop for this week as the Saturday and Sunday of this week will be used to buy next weeks food etc.
I still have £43 in there!
I think that is the best I have managed since before I worked from home.
Back then I could spend £10 to £15 some weeks and have all we needed for a week.
That was when I grew nearly all the veg we needed.
I did find myself thinking of spending a couple of times.
I went to the cinema on Monday but took a sandwich,banana,chocolate and a drink with me. The ticket was from a survey site so the day out cost me nothing at all and I was chuffed that it had not, despite thinking of myself as being a seasoned skinflint.
Lidl had tillers last weekend and I was sorely tempted to buy one but I was there on foot and knew I couldn't carry it all the way home.
At home afterwards, I read about them and realised that tillers are not rotovators, they are more like my push hoe. They break up already dug earth.
The Azada and the push hoe can do that and they don't use electricity.
I also realised I would have had to buy a cable long enough to reach all the way to the bottom of the garden which might have cost anywhere from £30-£50 so not so cheap after all.
I shop every weekend and then that must last us the week.
Last weekend was the last shop for this week as the Saturday and Sunday of this week will be used to buy next weeks food etc.
I still have £43 in there!
I think that is the best I have managed since before I worked from home.
Back then I could spend £10 to £15 some weeks and have all we needed for a week.
That was when I grew nearly all the veg we needed.
I did find myself thinking of spending a couple of times.
I went to the cinema on Monday but took a sandwich,banana,chocolate and a drink with me. The ticket was from a survey site so the day out cost me nothing at all and I was chuffed that it had not, despite thinking of myself as being a seasoned skinflint.
Lidl had tillers last weekend and I was sorely tempted to buy one but I was there on foot and knew I couldn't carry it all the way home.
At home afterwards, I read about them and realised that tillers are not rotovators, they are more like my push hoe. They break up already dug earth.
The Azada and the push hoe can do that and they don't use electricity.
I also realised I would have had to buy a cable long enough to reach all the way to the bottom of the garden which might have cost anywhere from £30-£50 so not so cheap after all.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Seeds ,knitting and 1st cutting for the grass
It was lovely and sunny yesterday, I couldn't resist getting the mower out.
We have a big hover mower that we bought when the kids were little ,it is a 30" cut with a grass box behind.
The grass was just about cut-able, a bit slippy where the shade was still on it but it managed.
It took me 2 1/2 hours to cut the back lawn and tidy up the edges with the strimmer.
I had forgotten that the cat flap was blocked so had to plug in round by the back sliding doors instead. The local cats get quite interested in our house so we do have to watch out else we find them scampering about inside.
I don't mind the scampering but they are almost always Toms and that means the spraying of acrid pong that goes with a territory statement.
If you remember, our own cat was killed 18 months ago by a neighbouring dog that was not secured properly in his garden,so we haven't really needed a cat flap but as it is a permanent hole in the wooden back door, it is handy for plugging in machines without having a door open.
I block it in winter as it is too cold to leave it.
All the grass went into the new compost bin that my Son made out of the old rotten shed. Usually the grass from one cutting will fill a Dalek style compost bin but this time ,it was only about 8" over the bottom of the new bin!
The knitting loom progress
I finished my knitted socks and am now almost finished one of a pair for DS who has the most enormous plates of meat,like a Hobbit.
Seeds and sowing soil
This weeks seed sowing was
Tomatoes
Cabbages
Spring Onion
Lettuce
Cucumber
Courgette
Pumpkin
Runner Beans
Early Peas
Main crop Peas
Last weeks were
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Leeks
Kale
I still have left to sow
Radish
Carrot
Chard
Beetroot
French Beans
Cauliflower
As usual I made the seed compost myself
I sieve compost and then add equal amounts of Earth and Sand.
This gives a nice light soil without too much water retention.
The pots are reused every year so cost nothing.
Next to do is make the Bean frame after clearing some ground for them.
Cheesy Grins
OH noticed that the co-op have reduced cheese when he is on his way home sometimes.
He has been keeping his eyes open and last week brought home 7kg
We used to buy Cheese in a huge block from Costco but we aren't members anymore because we found we weren't really recuperating the cost of the membership once the kids were finished school and with the Dartford Tunnel being a Toll road and petrol having soared in price.
Anyway, the cheese was all half price and we buy a KG about every 2 weeks so this is a very nice saving.
It will keep fine in the fridge as long as it is kept airtight.
We have a big hover mower that we bought when the kids were little ,it is a 30" cut with a grass box behind.
The grass was just about cut-able, a bit slippy where the shade was still on it but it managed.
It took me 2 1/2 hours to cut the back lawn and tidy up the edges with the strimmer.
I had forgotten that the cat flap was blocked so had to plug in round by the back sliding doors instead. The local cats get quite interested in our house so we do have to watch out else we find them scampering about inside.
I don't mind the scampering but they are almost always Toms and that means the spraying of acrid pong that goes with a territory statement.
If you remember, our own cat was killed 18 months ago by a neighbouring dog that was not secured properly in his garden,so we haven't really needed a cat flap but as it is a permanent hole in the wooden back door, it is handy for plugging in machines without having a door open.
I block it in winter as it is too cold to leave it.
All the grass went into the new compost bin that my Son made out of the old rotten shed. Usually the grass from one cutting will fill a Dalek style compost bin but this time ,it was only about 8" over the bottom of the new bin!
The knitting loom progress
I finished my knitted socks and am now almost finished one of a pair for DS who has the most enormous plates of meat,like a Hobbit.
Seeds and sowing soil
This weeks seed sowing was
Tomatoes
Cabbages
Spring Onion
Lettuce
Cucumber
Courgette
Pumpkin
Runner Beans
Early Peas
Main crop Peas
Last weeks were
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Leeks
Kale
I still have left to sow
Radish
Carrot
Chard
Beetroot
French Beans
Cauliflower
As usual I made the seed compost myself
I sieve compost and then add equal amounts of Earth and Sand.
This gives a nice light soil without too much water retention.
The pots are reused every year so cost nothing.
Next to do is make the Bean frame after clearing some ground for them.
Cheesy Grins
OH noticed that the co-op have reduced cheese when he is on his way home sometimes.
He has been keeping his eyes open and last week brought home 7kg
We used to buy Cheese in a huge block from Costco but we aren't members anymore because we found we weren't really recuperating the cost of the membership once the kids were finished school and with the Dartford Tunnel being a Toll road and petrol having soared in price.
Anyway, the cheese was all half price and we buy a KG about every 2 weeks so this is a very nice saving.
It will keep fine in the fridge as long as it is kept airtight.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Getting ready for the new year of growing
I went into town yesterday to post off OH's Ebay parcel, he wasn't selling, he had bought a not quite working tablet and wanted to return it.
Easy ,since I have no paid work now, I can always get down to the post office.
Anyway, on the way there, I thought I would pop in to the pound shop and see what seeds they had.
I already have 10 new packets but no Brussels or leeks, so I checked the shelves.
They had leeks in a combination pack but no Brussels.
After posting off the parcel (over £5 without extra insurance!!), I went to the 99p shop and they had different packs of seeds.
I bought 1 pack with Leeks included amongst others and 1 pack with 3 types of Beans.
As I was passing the pound stretcher store I thought I would just pop in and check on their seeds.
They didn't have much of interest but then I saw the fruit trees.
These are about 4 ft tall and they had apple,pear,cherry and plum so I selected a cherry and a plum and parted with the money.
I got a few interested glances as I walked back through town with a tree in each hand.
We have 4 fruit trees already, 1 pear and 3 apples.
2 of the apple trees were from woolworths
The other 2 trees were from wilkos and were about 18" high when we bought them,they had a good crop last year.
The new cherry tree is a Morello cherry, they are quite bitter but you can cook them and they make excellent jam and pies.
The plum will replace the one we cut down about 8 years ago . That was a heavy cropper but was over 25 years old and got very heavily damaged in a storm.
Superscrimpers
This is a program on Channel 4.
It is supposed to outline different ways of saving money or at least, not spending unnecessarily.
The family featured , spent £200 a WEEK! on food for a family of 5(one child,the youngest looked about 9).
They were challenged to spend only £50 for a week and they went off to Tesco and spent almost all of it.
Their bill showed they had made a saving of about £1.80 so they probably did spend all of it but incorporated a multi buy of some sort which brought it down.
Their dinners were planned out on paper and seemed to be chosen absolutely randomly based on how nice it sounded.
Their Sunday Dinner (they called it lunch) was beef and all the trimmings.
OH and I watched it with disbelief.
According to the presenter, they had 'managed' to produce dinner on Sunday for £16 !
What a Laugh!
Apparently the £50 was to cover only dinners or so I have heard.
That probably means school dinners and maybe breakfast club for 3 kids and the adults both eat bought food for work.
Our Sunday Dinner this week was Chicken,potatoes,greens and carrots with gravy.
Mondays Dinner was 1/2 a bag of cod pieces from the fish and chip shop (50pence) made into a pie with a cheesy breadcrumb topping, rice and vegetables.
Tuesdays was Chicken stew with Barley
Todays will be Chicken bolognaise and tomorrows will be chicken and ham and pineapple pizza.
Fridays will be left over bolognaise for 1 person and curried left over chicken stew for the others.
There is left over cooked rice or cous cous for the curry eaters.
Saturday will be home made fish and chips using the other half of the bag of fish and chip fish bits(50p) and home made chips with whats left of a bag of mixed vegetables and baked beans.
Bread for lunches is home made at 30 pence a loaf and fillings are typically sardines,baked beans,spreads
we drink tea mainly with milk
Chicken was £5
Greens around 80p
Carrots around 78p
Barley (half pack)40p
Pasta 25p
Cous cous 1/3rd pack around 30p
rice 1/2 pack 20p
Small amount of frozen veg 30p
baked beans 60p
Sardines 50p
Cheese £2.50/ half kilo
puree 25p
tin of tomatoes 38p
Reduced ham 80p
Marg about 1/3rd tub 33p
tea 90p a packet (lasts about 2 weeks)
Milk carton of uht is about 50p so around £1
Oats for breakfast about 80p
Raisins for breakfast 25p at the moment
Bananas around 1.20
Fish bits from fish and chip shop(easily enough for 8 portions but we made it into 6)£1
£18.09......our whole weeks food comes to only a little bit more than their one sunday meal
But be fair OSD
....I will divide it by person
we are only 3 at the moment as DD is away at Uni so it comes to £6.03 per person
They have 5 people so 6.03 multiplied by 5 is £30.15
They should be eating like kings on £50 a week for only dinners but they weren't given a lot of guidance about actually cooking from scratch or choosing less expensive brands.
Rip off UK again
There was also an article about extended warranty on electrical goods.
The presenter stood under a market awning with a collection of goods ,the price and the extended warranty price,alongside each other.
She pointed out that there are insurance companies that will cover your pricey electrics for less than these , however, she didn't once mention inbuilt obsolescence which the electrical industry is guilty of in this country.
The dirty truth is that in the rip off UK ,your washing machine is built to last 5 years and no more.
Once the parts are unavailable,you are screwed because how will it be mended?
Extended warranties are offered for .......oh yeah 5 years but the price tallies quite closely with the cost of a new machine .
It is like paying for a lottery.
Your machine goes wrong within the time and they will mend it or replace it, mending it isn't going to give you a new machine, it is the same machine with one less 5 year life-span part. If it doesn't go wrong within the 5 years, you get nothing at all even though you have paid enough for a new machine.
If they replace it ,you won the lottery and we know how likely that is.
We stopped buying these warranties when our last washing machine but 2, died exactly at the 5 year and 3 days mark.
The warranty was useless and we had to scrap the machine because you could no longer get parts.
Our last bought one , died as expected and we replaced it with a free-cycled machine for free,the person who gave us the machine was getting a new one as the part for her one was going to cost almost a new machine, funnily enough, our machine was the same make but a lesser spec so we could remove the part needed to mend hers,scrap the rest and have a higher spec working machine .
I thought I would sign up to the super scrimpers challenge.
So far it is only day two.
Yesterdays challenge was ..have a no spend day.
I didn't,I had 5 no spend days last week.
Todays was...find somewhere where you can get your hair cut as a model, free or cheap.
Hmm, I cut my own, I use mirrors and scissors and for the last year I have been using a Robocut but I can do it without too. I haven't had my hair cut outside our home for about 3 years and then it was a free cut using a voucher from a newspaper.
Previously to that it was around 12 years ago and my kids said it looked just the same as when I did it myself.
OH is the same. I bought him a phillips self cut type hair clipper about 3 years ago and he cuts his hair about every 6 weeks.
Easy ,since I have no paid work now, I can always get down to the post office.
Anyway, on the way there, I thought I would pop in to the pound shop and see what seeds they had.
I already have 10 new packets but no Brussels or leeks, so I checked the shelves.
They had leeks in a combination pack but no Brussels.
After posting off the parcel (over £5 without extra insurance!!), I went to the 99p shop and they had different packs of seeds.
I bought 1 pack with Leeks included amongst others and 1 pack with 3 types of Beans.
As I was passing the pound stretcher store I thought I would just pop in and check on their seeds.
They didn't have much of interest but then I saw the fruit trees.
These are about 4 ft tall and they had apple,pear,cherry and plum so I selected a cherry and a plum and parted with the money.
I got a few interested glances as I walked back through town with a tree in each hand.
We have 4 fruit trees already, 1 pear and 3 apples.
2 of the apple trees were from woolworths
The other 2 trees were from wilkos and were about 18" high when we bought them,they had a good crop last year.
The new cherry tree is a Morello cherry, they are quite bitter but you can cook them and they make excellent jam and pies.
The plum will replace the one we cut down about 8 years ago . That was a heavy cropper but was over 25 years old and got very heavily damaged in a storm.
Superscrimpers
This is a program on Channel 4.
It is supposed to outline different ways of saving money or at least, not spending unnecessarily.
The family featured , spent £200 a WEEK! on food for a family of 5(one child,the youngest looked about 9).
They were challenged to spend only £50 for a week and they went off to Tesco and spent almost all of it.
Their bill showed they had made a saving of about £1.80 so they probably did spend all of it but incorporated a multi buy of some sort which brought it down.
Their dinners were planned out on paper and seemed to be chosen absolutely randomly based on how nice it sounded.
Their Sunday Dinner (they called it lunch) was beef and all the trimmings.
OH and I watched it with disbelief.
According to the presenter, they had 'managed' to produce dinner on Sunday for £16 !
What a Laugh!
Apparently the £50 was to cover only dinners or so I have heard.
That probably means school dinners and maybe breakfast club for 3 kids and the adults both eat bought food for work.
Our Sunday Dinner this week was Chicken,potatoes,greens and carrots with gravy.
Mondays Dinner was 1/2 a bag of cod pieces from the fish and chip shop (50pence) made into a pie with a cheesy breadcrumb topping, rice and vegetables.
Tuesdays was Chicken stew with Barley
Todays will be Chicken bolognaise and tomorrows will be chicken and ham and pineapple pizza.
Fridays will be left over bolognaise for 1 person and curried left over chicken stew for the others.
There is left over cooked rice or cous cous for the curry eaters.
Saturday will be home made fish and chips using the other half of the bag of fish and chip fish bits(50p) and home made chips with whats left of a bag of mixed vegetables and baked beans.
Bread for lunches is home made at 30 pence a loaf and fillings are typically sardines,baked beans,spreads
we drink tea mainly with milk
Chicken was £5
Greens around 80p
Carrots around 78p
Barley (half pack)40p
Pasta 25p
Cous cous 1/3rd pack around 30p
rice 1/2 pack 20p
Small amount of frozen veg 30p
baked beans 60p
Sardines 50p
Cheese £2.50/ half kilo
puree 25p
tin of tomatoes 38p
Reduced ham 80p
Marg about 1/3rd tub 33p
tea 90p a packet (lasts about 2 weeks)
Milk carton of uht is about 50p so around £1
Oats for breakfast about 80p
Raisins for breakfast 25p at the moment
Bananas around 1.20
Fish bits from fish and chip shop(easily enough for 8 portions but we made it into 6)£1
£18.09......our whole weeks food comes to only a little bit more than their one sunday meal
But be fair OSD
....I will divide it by person
we are only 3 at the moment as DD is away at Uni so it comes to £6.03 per person
They have 5 people so 6.03 multiplied by 5 is £30.15
They should be eating like kings on £50 a week for only dinners but they weren't given a lot of guidance about actually cooking from scratch or choosing less expensive brands.
Rip off UK again
There was also an article about extended warranty on electrical goods.
The presenter stood under a market awning with a collection of goods ,the price and the extended warranty price,alongside each other.
She pointed out that there are insurance companies that will cover your pricey electrics for less than these , however, she didn't once mention inbuilt obsolescence which the electrical industry is guilty of in this country.
The dirty truth is that in the rip off UK ,your washing machine is built to last 5 years and no more.
Once the parts are unavailable,you are screwed because how will it be mended?
Extended warranties are offered for .......oh yeah 5 years but the price tallies quite closely with the cost of a new machine .
It is like paying for a lottery.
Your machine goes wrong within the time and they will mend it or replace it, mending it isn't going to give you a new machine, it is the same machine with one less 5 year life-span part. If it doesn't go wrong within the 5 years, you get nothing at all even though you have paid enough for a new machine.
If they replace it ,you won the lottery and we know how likely that is.
We stopped buying these warranties when our last washing machine but 2, died exactly at the 5 year and 3 days mark.
The warranty was useless and we had to scrap the machine because you could no longer get parts.
Our last bought one , died as expected and we replaced it with a free-cycled machine for free,the person who gave us the machine was getting a new one as the part for her one was going to cost almost a new machine, funnily enough, our machine was the same make but a lesser spec so we could remove the part needed to mend hers,scrap the rest and have a higher spec working machine .
I thought I would sign up to the super scrimpers challenge.
So far it is only day two.
Yesterdays challenge was ..have a no spend day.
I didn't,I had 5 no spend days last week.
Todays was...find somewhere where you can get your hair cut as a model, free or cheap.
Hmm, I cut my own, I use mirrors and scissors and for the last year I have been using a Robocut but I can do it without too. I haven't had my hair cut outside our home for about 3 years and then it was a free cut using a voucher from a newspaper.
Previously to that it was around 12 years ago and my kids said it looked just the same as when I did it myself.
OH is the same. I bought him a phillips self cut type hair clipper about 3 years ago and he cuts his hair about every 6 weeks.
Monday, 16 January 2012
Good grief a week has whizzed by!
I have been avidly survey filling in and working hard to keep the spending down.
So far the tally is 66.58 over the 3 weekends of this year.
Yesterday, we drove to Asda and I bought 10 packets of raisins.
They were 24 pence each. Since last Septemberish, raisins have been beyond our spending limit and we have bought mixed fruit instead at 64 pence.
I don't care why they have reduced the raisins, I only know that as long as they are 24 pence, we will be buying a fair few when we go there.
Yesterdays raisin bounty saved me £4.10 because we would buy them anyway and that would have been the difference in price of buying 10 mixed fruit packs.
If I had stuck to raisins (hehe) they would have been around 86 pence and so the saving would have been £6.20.
Baked beans are now 30 pence a tin minimum in Asda and Tinned Tomatoes are 38 pence.
Not so long ago I could buy 5 tins of tomatoes for £1 and 4 tins of Baked beans for £1.
No wonder people are struggling.
Today I have a chicken carcass in the slow cooker along with a meaty Turkey wing.
They will make risotto with a big bowl of rice, an onion and some mixed vegetables.
Bookish Monday
I have just finished reading
The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsay.
It is rather like a modern Version of the Richest Man in Babylon.
Dave advises getting rid of your credit cards.
(We never had any).
(I did this about 12 years ago in secret).
So far the tally is 66.58 over the 3 weekends of this year.
Yesterday, we drove to Asda and I bought 10 packets of raisins.
They were 24 pence each. Since last Septemberish, raisins have been beyond our spending limit and we have bought mixed fruit instead at 64 pence.
I don't care why they have reduced the raisins, I only know that as long as they are 24 pence, we will be buying a fair few when we go there.
Yesterdays raisin bounty saved me £4.10 because we would buy them anyway and that would have been the difference in price of buying 10 mixed fruit packs.
If I had stuck to raisins (hehe) they would have been around 86 pence and so the saving would have been £6.20.
Baked beans are now 30 pence a tin minimum in Asda and Tinned Tomatoes are 38 pence.
Not so long ago I could buy 5 tins of tomatoes for £1 and 4 tins of Baked beans for £1.
No wonder people are struggling.
Today I have a chicken carcass in the slow cooker along with a meaty Turkey wing.
They will make risotto with a big bowl of rice, an onion and some mixed vegetables.
Bookish Monday
I have just finished reading
The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsay.
It is rather like a modern Version of the Richest Man in Babylon.
Dave advises getting rid of your credit cards.
(We never had any).
Saving 1000 as an emergency fund by selling stuff or doing something extra to earn it...
(I did this about 12 years ago in secret).
Paying your debts as fast as you can manage it..
Luckily we just about got ours under control about 6 years ago when the car was paid off.
Saving 6 months living expenses.
We managed this last winter.
Paying off your mortgage as hard as you can..
Here we were very lucky because OH inherited enough to do that.
Investing any savings you can make above the 6 month expense fund
(This is the one I am going to work on this year although investing may just have to be banking it what with the economy absolutely frying the interest rate for savers)
OH pays into a pension pot at work so part of that is already done anyway.
His main mantra seems to be
'Live like no other so that you can live like no other'.
In other words,
Live as frugally as you can and the good times will come.
Friday, 4 November 2011
Chicken thoroughly stretched this week!
- Monday we had roast with veg
- Tuesday was Chicken stew and dumplings
- Wednesday Pizza with chicken and Mushrooms ,spinach from greenhouse sprinkled on just before I melted the cheese over it all.
- Thurday Risotto and
- Friday (Today) was left over Chick stew for me and OH and a Freezer Bolognaise for my son as the chicken isn't quite THAT Elastic.
That was 14 servings from one Chicken.
The pizza does 4 when my daughter is home from Uni so the boys were well and truly stuffed as they got an extra 1/8th slice each.
That really makes it 15 portions.
33 pence a portion for the meat.
Not bad for a Fiver.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Risotto a la garcon
That's a posh way of saying, my son cooked tea :)
I had 2 chicken carcasses taking up space in the freezer so they were plonked in the slow cooker this morning ,covered with hot water from the kettle and spent the day turning into stock.
There were enough little bits of chicken still stuck to them to make the meat content for our Risotto.
The boy decided to give it his expert attention , so he put a cup of raw white rice in a big mixing bowl.
Added 3 cups of the stock and put the whole thing in a carrier bag with the two handles tied in a bow.
This went in the microwave for 13 minutes and resulted in a fluffy cooked rice and no left over water or stodge.
Meantime, he chopped an onion, added a cup of carrot slices from the freezer and a good cup of frozen broccoli and cooked them up in the rest of the stock.
Then he pulled enough bits of chicken off the now cooled carcasses and when the rice was cooked, he added the meat and the veg to the rice and mixed it all in.
The remaining stock and any of the chicken meat that was remaining on the bones, was put in the empty bowl in which the rice had been cooked after we had dished out our meal. That will make soup for two for tomorrow lunch time.
Twas a lovely flavour and also luxurious for me who didn't need to cook for once.
I had 2 chicken carcasses taking up space in the freezer so they were plonked in the slow cooker this morning ,covered with hot water from the kettle and spent the day turning into stock.
There were enough little bits of chicken still stuck to them to make the meat content for our Risotto.
The boy decided to give it his expert attention , so he put a cup of raw white rice in a big mixing bowl.
Added 3 cups of the stock and put the whole thing in a carrier bag with the two handles tied in a bow.
This went in the microwave for 13 minutes and resulted in a fluffy cooked rice and no left over water or stodge.
Meantime, he chopped an onion, added a cup of carrot slices from the freezer and a good cup of frozen broccoli and cooked them up in the rest of the stock.
Then he pulled enough bits of chicken off the now cooled carcasses and when the rice was cooked, he added the meat and the veg to the rice and mixed it all in.
The remaining stock and any of the chicken meat that was remaining on the bones, was put in the empty bowl in which the rice had been cooked after we had dished out our meal. That will make soup for two for tomorrow lunch time.
Twas a lovely flavour and also luxurious for me who didn't need to cook for once.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
In the cold windy garden
The onions and Garlic are starting to surface.
I planted the onions around a month ago I think and only had to replant around 4 bulbs.
The birds pull them up if they see them poking out.
I try to plant them with nothing poking out in consequence but birds have very sharp eyes.
The garlic is surging ahead despite being the last to be planted.
These will be ready around early summer having spent the winter taking advantage of the cold ground.
You can also plant in February/March when the newer onion sets are in the shops.
Those grow until about August before needing to be harvested.
Once they are harvested, I shall chop and freeze some, dry and package some and pickle some. There wont be any for stringing as they don't keep as well as the spring planted onions do.
I planted the onions around a month ago I think and only had to replant around 4 bulbs.
The birds pull them up if they see them poking out.
I try to plant them with nothing poking out in consequence but birds have very sharp eyes.
The garlic is surging ahead despite being the last to be planted.
These will be ready around early summer having spent the winter taking advantage of the cold ground.
You can also plant in February/March when the newer onion sets are in the shops.
Those grow until about August before needing to be harvested.
Once they are harvested, I shall chop and freeze some, dry and package some and pickle some. There wont be any for stringing as they don't keep as well as the spring planted onions do.
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Spending and not spending
Last week was my first go at shop n scan.
I did a couple of little shopping trips instead of our usual supermarket visit because the car is up the spout at the moment and is sitting in the mechanics garage waiting for attention.
On Sunday morning,I collected up my receipts and discovered that I only spent about £8 this week. Later O(ld)H(ubby) gave me a receipt from his sweets shopping. It was about £3. Then even later he produced another one for a further £3 for two drawing pads and 2 more bars of choc.
That is embarrassing! £8 on food for three people and nearly £5 for chocolate for 2 and a half(I hardly eat it any more).
Yesterday he was home for a Dentist appointment and guess what he bought in the afternoon?
Um yeah, it was a big bar of chocolate !
When he dies, they wont need to preserve him like the man in the documentary that we watched on Sunday night, he will be crystallized already from sugar overload.
Here is a clip about Alan Billis the volunteer who was embalmed this year for science in the UK
I did a couple of little shopping trips instead of our usual supermarket visit because the car is up the spout at the moment and is sitting in the mechanics garage waiting for attention.
On Sunday morning,I collected up my receipts and discovered that I only spent about £8 this week. Later O(ld)H(ubby) gave me a receipt from his sweets shopping. It was about £3. Then even later he produced another one for a further £3 for two drawing pads and 2 more bars of choc.
That is embarrassing! £8 on food for three people and nearly £5 for chocolate for 2 and a half(I hardly eat it any more).
Yesterday he was home for a Dentist appointment and guess what he bought in the afternoon?
Um yeah, it was a big bar of chocolate !
When he dies, they wont need to preserve him like the man in the documentary that we watched on Sunday night, he will be crystallized already from sugar overload.
Here is a clip about Alan Billis the volunteer who was embalmed this year for science in the UK
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Grocery shopping
The boy drove me to Asda again Today.
His driving improves weekly.
He is gaining a lot from having a qualified instructor's 2 hours a week.
I looked up the shopping on-line first using MySuperMarket.com
This lets you fill your virtual basket and see and compare prices of 3 supermarkets.
Quite handy for inspiring lists and keeping you on track.
I found I could save by leaving onion buying till another day.
The cheddar cheese price was bollocks though. It showed as £1.67 a Kilo and was nothing like that at the shop.
However,it made Asda look massively cheaper overall when comparing the shopping online .
Luckily,having been bitten by Asda's shenanigans before, I was not really expecting them to have that as a price in-store.
We haunt the reduced sections every week.
Sainsburys yesterday had nothing and when I asked the assistant where the section had gone,she looked as though I had slapped her and answered that they ONLY ever put out reduced things after 5pm.
I like Sainsburys,their goods are always good quality but sometimes, you are made to feel like a criminal just for asking about things which they should make clear. It wouldn't kill them to have a sign saying when teh reduced items are put out daily. The last time I felt like I had been fobbed off in there was when I asked why they insisted on putting the sale price per kilo rather than each piece of meats price, because that would be so much more user friendly.
So anyway ,we are in Asda looking at the 'reduced' things.
I picked up 1 small packet of Hazlett and 1 packet of Garlic sausage.
The Hazlett was devoured in sandwiches for lunch with the remainder of yesterdays home made loaf.
The sausage will make a tasty pizza topping and was cheaper than the £1 packet of Pepperoni I was going to buy and didn't.
Fruit is so pathetically 'reduced' that we hardly glance at it now.
The tins are battered and dirty or laughable prices.
I spent £12.80 in Asda and yesterday £7.37
So £20.17
The onions will be 90p in Sains if I end up going there so this weeks groceries will have set me back £21.07
Today is another exercise free day.
The OH has been off work on his hols for nearly 3 weeks and it is so much easier to fit in regular exercise when he isn't here.
Who knew one person could occupy so many rooms at the same time?
Thank heavens he goes back on Wednesday LOL
His driving improves weekly.
He is gaining a lot from having a qualified instructor's 2 hours a week.
I looked up the shopping on-line first using MySuperMarket.com
This lets you fill your virtual basket and see and compare prices of 3 supermarkets.
Quite handy for inspiring lists and keeping you on track.
I found I could save by leaving onion buying till another day.
The cheddar cheese price was bollocks though. It showed as £1.67 a Kilo and was nothing like that at the shop.
However,it made Asda look massively cheaper overall when comparing the shopping online .
Luckily,having been bitten by Asda's shenanigans before, I was not really expecting them to have that as a price in-store.
We haunt the reduced sections every week.
Sainsburys yesterday had nothing and when I asked the assistant where the section had gone,she looked as though I had slapped her and answered that they ONLY ever put out reduced things after 5pm.
I like Sainsburys,their goods are always good quality but sometimes, you are made to feel like a criminal just for asking about things which they should make clear. It wouldn't kill them to have a sign saying when teh reduced items are put out daily. The last time I felt like I had been fobbed off in there was when I asked why they insisted on putting the sale price per kilo rather than each piece of meats price, because that would be so much more user friendly.
So anyway ,we are in Asda looking at the 'reduced' things.
I picked up 1 small packet of Hazlett and 1 packet of Garlic sausage.
The Hazlett was devoured in sandwiches for lunch with the remainder of yesterdays home made loaf.
The sausage will make a tasty pizza topping and was cheaper than the £1 packet of Pepperoni I was going to buy and didn't.
Fruit is so pathetically 'reduced' that we hardly glance at it now.
The tins are battered and dirty or laughable prices.
I spent £12.80 in Asda and yesterday £7.37
So £20.17
The onions will be 90p in Sains if I end up going there so this weeks groceries will have set me back £21.07
Today is another exercise free day.
The OH has been off work on his hols for nearly 3 weeks and it is so much easier to fit in regular exercise when he isn't here.
Who knew one person could occupy so many rooms at the same time?
Thank heavens he goes back on Wednesday LOL
Sunday, 9 October 2011
Not exercising
Shh another non exercise day!
Well ,on Friday I did the usual pull ups and managed 10 in a row.
100 push ups and some bicycle crunches.
Saturday was walking in to town day so I often don't do a workout as well.
It was cold and wet.
Today I let my learner driver son drive me to the supermarket.
He is getting quite good.
His test is in a month.
We bought everything we need for a weeks meals ,6 bottles of malt vinegar to keep the toilet clean and it all came to £20.70.
I did already have some of the veg as I bought it last week when it was reduced,then chopped and froze it.
The vinegar gets used weekly,2 bottles at a time.
I empty the water from the toilet,replace with vinegar,tuck some paper under the rim (also vinegar sodden) and then leave it all night with the 'do not flush' sign on the seat. In the morning,it gets flushed and brushed. During the week it just gets brushed and the lid and seat get a clean every time I think of it.
This afternoon as it is dry again and a bit warmer, I shall dig my last onion bed and plant the shallots and Garlic. Then it is just a matter of keeping them weed free.
The greenhouse is shut now as it is colder and needs watering just as it always does. It has lettuce and spinach growing in containers.
I really must get my camera back into use. It needs the batteries charging so I shall take them downstairs and plug them into the universal charger.
This charger charges non rechargeable batteries as well as rechargeables so has saved us a fortune over the years.
This one that they have on Amazon does the same thing. I would recommend it for anyone who has kids with lots of battery operated devices as it is a massive money saver.
Plus once the batteries are fully depleted and useless(about the 4th use in my experience) you can still take them to poundland to be recycled.
We buy the energizer batteries as they are strong and recharge back to a good strength each time. It is a false economy to buy the cheap ones, they last a far shorter time and recharge only once or twice.
Well ,on Friday I did the usual pull ups and managed 10 in a row.
100 push ups and some bicycle crunches.
Saturday was walking in to town day so I often don't do a workout as well.
It was cold and wet.
Today I let my learner driver son drive me to the supermarket.
He is getting quite good.
His test is in a month.
We bought everything we need for a weeks meals ,6 bottles of malt vinegar to keep the toilet clean and it all came to £20.70.
I did already have some of the veg as I bought it last week when it was reduced,then chopped and froze it.
The vinegar gets used weekly,2 bottles at a time.
I empty the water from the toilet,replace with vinegar,tuck some paper under the rim (also vinegar sodden) and then leave it all night with the 'do not flush' sign on the seat. In the morning,it gets flushed and brushed. During the week it just gets brushed and the lid and seat get a clean every time I think of it.
This afternoon as it is dry again and a bit warmer, I shall dig my last onion bed and plant the shallots and Garlic. Then it is just a matter of keeping them weed free.
The greenhouse is shut now as it is colder and needs watering just as it always does. It has lettuce and spinach growing in containers.
I really must get my camera back into use. It needs the batteries charging so I shall take them downstairs and plug them into the universal charger.
This charger charges non rechargeable batteries as well as rechargeables so has saved us a fortune over the years.
This one that they have on Amazon does the same thing. I would recommend it for anyone who has kids with lots of battery operated devices as it is a massive money saver.
Plus once the batteries are fully depleted and useless(about the 4th use in my experience) you can still take them to poundland to be recycled.
We buy the energizer batteries as they are strong and recharge back to a good strength each time. It is a false economy to buy the cheap ones, they last a far shorter time and recharge only once or twice.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Monday monday......
So Monday was spent mostly pulling up on the bar!
Well not really!
I went shopping in the car with DS.
We trudged around the supermarket and bought fruit and veg etc..not terribly interesting.
The reduced sections or whoopsied or yellow stickered as some people like to call them, is now so ridiculous as to be hardly worth the glance.
10 pence less was about the limit of the reductions.
We laughed at a rice pot thing that was smaller than a yoghurt and consisted of a handful of par cooked rice and about 2 tablespoons of some runny orange sauce..it was £1 reduced from £1.97. You could buy a whole bag of rice and a tin of something tasty to go on top for that reduced price and a whole 4 portion meal for the original price.
I can now do 4 pull ups in a row.Proper pull ups with hands facing away and legs not touching the ground at all!
I did several sets throughout the day ,some were only 3's but more than 1 set of 4.
I also fitted in the leg raises with weighted ankles and one set was with v.small dumbells hooked over my toes too.
I gave one legged squats a go again and discovered that I could do about 4 each leg and then repeat,providing I was alongside something in case I needed to grab on.
I have been reading a book called 'Never gymless' which has body weight exercises. Some are quite challenging and some I will never be able to do but interesting none the less.
Another similar book is
which is an excellent read and by a Russian Author with a lot of fitness knowledge and good advice.
There have been a lack of push ups and dips as a result of the pull up work so I fitted in 60 push ups and 50 dips just to be sure I still can do them.
Well not really!
I went shopping in the car with DS.
We trudged around the supermarket and bought fruit and veg etc..not terribly interesting.
The reduced sections or whoopsied or yellow stickered as some people like to call them, is now so ridiculous as to be hardly worth the glance.
10 pence less was about the limit of the reductions.
We laughed at a rice pot thing that was smaller than a yoghurt and consisted of a handful of par cooked rice and about 2 tablespoons of some runny orange sauce..it was £1 reduced from £1.97. You could buy a whole bag of rice and a tin of something tasty to go on top for that reduced price and a whole 4 portion meal for the original price.
I can now do 4 pull ups in a row.Proper pull ups with hands facing away and legs not touching the ground at all!
I did several sets throughout the day ,some were only 3's but more than 1 set of 4.
I also fitted in the leg raises with weighted ankles and one set was with v.small dumbells hooked over my toes too.
I gave one legged squats a go again and discovered that I could do about 4 each leg and then repeat,providing I was alongside something in case I needed to grab on.
I have been reading a book called 'Never gymless' which has body weight exercises. Some are quite challenging and some I will never be able to do but interesting none the less.
Another similar book is
which is an excellent read and by a Russian Author with a lot of fitness knowledge and good advice.
There have been a lack of push ups and dips as a result of the pull up work so I fitted in 60 push ups and 50 dips just to be sure I still can do them.
Monday, 19 September 2011
Weekend of laziness
Saturday the OH was off to some police seminar thing and it bucketted down at home.
I went to town complete with backpack and came home with a nice big chicken.
I thought I would have a quick mosey in the charity shops just to see what was on offer sport wear wise at the moment.
Didn't buy anything but saw a sleeveless wet suit,reebok 3/4 trousers, La fitness full length trousers, Speedo swim suit in good nik , several mens swim shorts and one ankle weight.
All the clothes apart from the mens swim shorts, would have fit me but I didn't need anything.
I was back home in 2 hours so considered the walk a light workout.
I managed to do pull ups throughout the day as well,mostly 3's and some 2's.
Saturday night,the men decided to mention that they were off on a Karate day on Sunday.
This was the first time I had heard about it and I was quite disappointed that they had not said anything earlier because I do the weekly shop on Sunday and they would be taking the car.
Sunday,I thought I would go with them and watch so made some Bacon sarnies,boiled some eggs and put a bottle of water and an Apple a piece in a bag.
The camera and my camera phone went too.
Karate
The venue was a leisure centre sports hall.
There were quite a lot of people and several instructors.
Various levels of belts were on display ,about 10 black belts,some brown and white,some brown.
There were 2 people not in belts who I think may have been from the tai chi class and one white belt(the earliest belt you can wear)
It transpired that the event was a combination of techniques.
Participants were divided into groups ,about 8 to 10 people in each.
Then they rotated around the hall, being shown the new techniques by the instructors.
I sat at the side and took photos without using the flash as the hall was brightly lit for the most part and I didn't want to be annoying by flashing throughout the day :D
One group did knife work,learning to react to a knife attack.The knives were fakes of course.
Another did self defence ,not Karate, more how to deal with unexpected street attack.
There was jui jitsu with a lot of plonking of bodies onto thick floor mats.
The group I found most impressive,was the Tai chi.
That is the flowing martial art that you often see being practiced as an early morning exercise form in Japan.
Here it was being demonstrated, practiced and then given relevance by being explained as blocks and retaliation for violence and I think it relied a lot on balance and shifting of weight but what was interesting was, the instructor was in his 60's and when showing some of the Black belt Karate people how to do it, he sent them reeling backwards with seemingly hardly any effort.
So no exercise for me on Sunday apart from the clicking of my finger on the shutter release.
I went to town complete with backpack and came home with a nice big chicken.
I thought I would have a quick mosey in the charity shops just to see what was on offer sport wear wise at the moment.
Didn't buy anything but saw a sleeveless wet suit,reebok 3/4 trousers, La fitness full length trousers, Speedo swim suit in good nik , several mens swim shorts and one ankle weight.
All the clothes apart from the mens swim shorts, would have fit me but I didn't need anything.
I was back home in 2 hours so considered the walk a light workout.
I managed to do pull ups throughout the day as well,mostly 3's and some 2's.
Saturday night,the men decided to mention that they were off on a Karate day on Sunday.
This was the first time I had heard about it and I was quite disappointed that they had not said anything earlier because I do the weekly shop on Sunday and they would be taking the car.
Sunday,I thought I would go with them and watch so made some Bacon sarnies,boiled some eggs and put a bottle of water and an Apple a piece in a bag.
The camera and my camera phone went too.
Karate
The venue was a leisure centre sports hall.
There were quite a lot of people and several instructors.
Various levels of belts were on display ,about 10 black belts,some brown and white,some brown.
There were 2 people not in belts who I think may have been from the tai chi class and one white belt(the earliest belt you can wear)
It transpired that the event was a combination of techniques.
Participants were divided into groups ,about 8 to 10 people in each.
Then they rotated around the hall, being shown the new techniques by the instructors.
I sat at the side and took photos without using the flash as the hall was brightly lit for the most part and I didn't want to be annoying by flashing throughout the day :D
One group did knife work,learning to react to a knife attack.The knives were fakes of course.
Another did self defence ,not Karate, more how to deal with unexpected street attack.
There was jui jitsu with a lot of plonking of bodies onto thick floor mats.
The group I found most impressive,was the Tai chi.
That is the flowing martial art that you often see being practiced as an early morning exercise form in Japan.
Here it was being demonstrated, practiced and then given relevance by being explained as blocks and retaliation for violence and I think it relied a lot on balance and shifting of weight but what was interesting was, the instructor was in his 60's and when showing some of the Black belt Karate people how to do it, he sent them reeling backwards with seemingly hardly any effort.
So no exercise for me on Sunday apart from the clicking of my finger on the shutter release.
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