Our Weekend - Sunday

There must be some people who have time on their hands on a Sunday to have a lazy day. I dream of having a lazy Sunday but this does not happen much. I must make a note in my diary to have a lazy Sunday and enjoy wallowing in the nothingness of the day.

Two Sunday's ago it was a typical busy Sunday for us with an early start at 6.30am and by 8am we were at the local van hire premises to hire a van for the day so that we could pick us a sofa that we had bought on ebay. We already have two of these Tetrad sofas and we love them as they are so comfortable. We have a midi and a petite and we bought another midi to replace the petite in our lounge. These are the typical shabby chic sofa and as they have loose covers they are great for keeping clean as the covers just go in the washing machine. 

The sofa we bought came with plain cream covers and a brand new spare set in a dark cream/ cafe latte colour. A real bargain at just £115.

By 9am we were visiting the local grammar school for a look round their table top sale. The school holds these sales about twice a year and there are some bargains to be had if you get there early enough. I found two large The White Company cushions with feather filled pads for £8 for the two. I wanted the pads rather than the covers as the pads that I currently have in the two large cushions on our bed have seen better days. The covers are lovely and made with silk so I may use these somewhere else in the house.

I also found two lovely votive holders from Partylite that were just 50p each and as you can see from the link these type of votive holders usually retail at around £12 each. They had some wax left in the bottom and were dusty but you have to see through this when you buy second hand items. So a scrape off of the wax with a kitchen knife and a wash in some warm soapy water and they are just like new. They even still have their stickers on the bottom so are as good as new.

By mid afternoon we were in the hire van with the sat nav finding the home of the family we had bought the sofa from. What a beautiful property it was - two cottages knocked into one large home in the middle of the Cheshire countryside surrounded by fields with hens and geese. The sofa was in perfect condition and we had noticed that were selling the same sofa only the largest size - the grand- on eBay without any bids and unsold at the close of the sale. We offered the starting bid to them of £50 and after they accepted we managed to fit this in the hire van. We now have two second hand but "as new" sofas  in our lounge with new covers on both of them for the total price of £195 including van hire. These would have cost £4,500 new so it pays to buy second hand.

After chatting with the family I asked if they had anything else they were selling and bought a Kirby vacuum cleaner with all attachments spare bags etc for £10 because the fan was broken. I have already ordered the replacement fan for £12.99 online and viewed how to replace it ourselves on YouTube. I opened up the box of attachments when I got home to find the original selling price was £900 so again I hope to have a fully working Kirby by next week for just £22.99. How I love a bargain!

I have so many other things to tell you and know that I have neglected you all over the last couple of weeks but it has been so busy at work and at home that blogging had been seen as an indulgence. I hope to get some time over Easter to get more posts out there on what we have been doing at home and more on our bargains.

Another Thrifty Week

This week has been my last week before payday as I usually get paid on the 15th of the month. There is often too much month and not enough pay if you know what I mean. I try to save as much as I can and then not dip into my savings but by week three I have usually had to make a raid on my savings account. Sure enough this month I had to dip in to the tune of £75 to pay for petrol and a weeks food shop. I had a £5 off voucher if I spent £25 in the Marks & Spencer Food Hall do I did my shopping there with the £35 I had left after £40 of petrol.

Of purse I went looking for all the reduced items I could find and found that I managed to fill the fridge for the week for just over £20 when the £5 had been taken off the bill. I bought a ready cooked chicken at £2.50 reduced from £6. This will do for an evening meal along with reduced new potatoes at 55p a pack and reduced mixed vegetables.

I found two ready made cottage pies which were reduced from £4.50 to £2.25 each which will feed us for two meals. David will probably eat a full one but I will eat half with some vegetables and then have the other half for a meal later in the week.

I found a lovely looking Gastropub chicken pie and a large Melton Mowbray pork pie too. I will serve the chicken pie with another pack of the 55p new potatoes and vegetables and the pork pie will be cut into quarters and given to David for lunch over the next few days. I also found reduced colcannon mash potato, a large reduced ham and mushroom pizza which I have eaten as two meals, and more reduced family packs of crisps which were 45p instead of £2. I also found some haddock fillets for £2.25 which David has already eaten with home cooked chips. I already had fresh cooked meat in the fridge for sandwiches along with milk, buttery spread and bread in the breadbin so we have managed this week.

I have also spent time looking at items that need to go to charity and have found more than the 5 items that I said I would find each week. I have found 10 items this week and am now waiting for a charity bag to pop through the front door so that I can fill it. The items are as follows:

• Three stretchy wrap turban towels for wet hair
• A cooling eye mask
• A joke stress alarm

• Four toiletry bags
• One jewellry wrap

Our Weekend - Saturday

Do any of you have restful weekends spending time visiting art galleries, museums and days at the seaside?or are your weekends like mine and feel just like an extension of the working week only working at home instead of at work?

We seem to be so busy at the weekends and this weekend started on Friday night picking up David from work, popping into the small local Marks & Spencer store near me to collect an on-line order. This was also an opportunity to pick up a few reduced items. I bought three small farmhouse loaves that were all half price at 55p and several naughty bags of crisps that were only 45p. The reduced fat buttered baked potato crisps were divine. I have never tasted crisps that were so tasty, fresh and crunchy and this is from a short-dated packet. I also bought lots of reduced vegetables and these included carrots, cauliflower and broccoli, ready to roast potatoes and garlic mushrooms. All great when severed with some roast chicken thighs (cheap and the most tasty part of the bird).

I then did two weeks worth of ironing, put all the ironing away in linen cupboards and wardrobes  and then put fresh sheets and pillowcases on our bed. I change our bedding once a week, I'm not sure whether this is normal or not so please let me know if you change yours more or less frequently. 

By 8.45am on Saturday morning when I was leaving to take David to work I had done another load of washing and turned on the tumble dryer, made a lasagne which was partly baked and cooling off to store in the fridge, made the bed, dealt with my emails and washed the pots from the night before.

After dropping David off I called into Waitrose to get some kitty litter for our cat, some burger buns, two bottles of Cava for the weekend and my free newspaper and coffee. My favourite drink is Cava as I love a dry white wine and if it is sparkling then even better. I prefer Champange but Cava is more my budget. I had to laugh at my weird shopping list!

I sat down for 10 mins while I read the paper and drank my coffee and then it was upstairs to clear out my wardrobe which I have been doing over the last two weekends. There are four areas of my wardrobe. One half has a high hanging rail for dresses, the other side has a low hanging rail for tops, skirts and trousers. The third area is a shelf above this rail and the fourth is basically the bottom of the wardrobe where I store my boots. I had cleared the shelf, the high hanging rail and the bottom of the wardrobe last weekend. This weekend it was the low hanging rail. I take things out in sections, try things on and decide whether I still like the items, that they fit and if they make me feel good. Some things fit but do not make me feel happy if you know what I mean so these go. I had four areas that the clothes went to and these were: back into the wardrobe, into a bag for my sister, into a bag for selling by weight and finally into our dining room ready for listing on ebay.

I then spent some time clearing out the top shelf of a built in cupboard in our bedroom. This cupboard holds my shoes and handbags on the bottom two shelves and the top has my jewellry boxes and toiletries that I use on an every day basis. I don't have a dressing table or vanity unit so use this shelf instead. I took out everything and was so pleased to find two bottles of face serum and a bottle of facial toner that I had forgotten I had. They were tucked right at the back behind my large jewellry box. I was starting to run out of both of these so this was a real bonus. I found some items that I have never used such as toiletry bags that have come as part of free gift sets and some lipstick holders that are lovely but are still in their boxes unused and have been for a couple of years. It was time for them to go.

I spent the afternoon listing some items to sell on ebay. I always look at what others are selling similar or exact items for, the cost of postage and packaging they are charging etc. and try to pitch mine at around the same. You will be amazed at how much you can make collectively with lots of small priced items. Last year I had a real purge month and made just under £1,000. This was through selling mainly clothes, shoes and toiletries. Not bad for a few hours work at weekends. You have to bear in mind that ebay charge 10% of the final price and paypal charge 3.4% + 20p per item for using their service.

David has been working hard on the kitchen so it was not great to use for cooking so I quickly made some home mader beef burgers from steak mince and finely chopped onions and we had these on buns with pickle, relish and melted mozzarella cheese for our evening meal. Simple but delicious. More about the kitchen on my second posting - Our Weekend - Sunday.

Mrs Danvers Week Nine of 2015

This last week has been so busy with long hours at work and a lot to do at home. This has made the week fly by and I feel like I have managed to achieve quite a few things so a fairly good week.

5 Items for Charity
This weeks 5 items are:

• Two stoneware kitchen utensils holders
• Keith Lemon hard-backed book
• Two glass ramekins
• One glass for mulled wine

I have just realised that is in fact 6 items so I have exceeded myself this week. The charity bag that came through the door this week (I seem to get one every week) is for breast cancer so everything has gone in this bag for collection on Tuesday.

I found two bunches of oriental lilies in Marks & Spencer at half price. One of my favourites are white lilies and one of the bunches was white while the other was pink. I decided to buy them both for putting in my large crystal vase in the living room. I have some twisted twigs that I put in the vase with the flowers and they always add height and texture. I love the combination. 

I bought the Dine in for £10 from Marks & Spencer this week and we ate most of it on Saturday night. I loved their ready to roast chickens in th offer and always have to go through all of them to make sure I have found the biggest. The largest one I found cost £7.42 so along with the Mediterranean roasted vegetables, Millionaire's shortbread dessert and a bottle of rosé I saved £10.22 on the deal at full price. Not bad for a little less than half price.

We cannot eat a whole chicken between us and the chicken ends up being 3 meals each for us. We ate the breasts on Saturday night with the thighs and legs saved for another meal and the carcass simmered for a stock for soup. A cooked carcass makes the best stock in the world as far as I am concerned.

I visited the Lowry shopping centre on Friday afternoon after a slightly early finish at work as I had been working 11 hour days earlier in the week. I like to visit the Clintons card shop to see the latest Yankee Candle scented candles and what offers they have. There was nothing to tempt me on the candle front but all the Valentine's Day Thorntons chocolates were 75% off. Bargains!!!

I bought two boxes of premium chocolates reduced from £6 to £1.50. These are best before August and are I just the most gorgeous of boxes. I also bought a heart shaped box of chocolate hearts for £1 reduced from £4 and two sets of "I 😍 YOU" chocolates reduced from £3.50 to 87p. I will give one of the large boxes to David for Easter and just suprise him with one of the other boxes every so often when there is the right moment.

Saturday morning had the sun shining through the clouds for a few moments off and on. It felt that there was some Spring in the air and so I spent about an hour in the garden planting up some primula that I had bought from Homebase when I had bought the paint for our bedroom. They had been half price at £3.50 and then an additional 15% off so Just under £3 for a pack of 6. I bought three packs for bringing some sunshine to the raised beds at the back of house. I filled some planters that I have too and was pleased to find four pots of tete a tete daffodils that were sprouting up from last year. These went into the largest planter with some of the primula. This really got me in the mood for getting the garden ready for the summer but I know that I will have to pace myself because I tend to do too much and I become exhausted.