Final Full Day

It was our final full day in the Lake District yesterday and despite waking at 6am we were confined to our bedroom as my sister's family are all late risers and we had already been chastised for talking at 6.45am on a previous morning and waking people up. David and I are larks whereas they are owls. We woke again to a beautiful sunrise over the lake and I just could not resist taking another photo of it.

After a leisurely breakfast of bacon sandwiches and Danish pastries (we are on holiday after all!) we went into Morecambe again for a quick trip around a couple of shops and a revisit to the cheap

grocery stall on the market. I spent £10 on all sorts of bits and pieces:

8 boxes of 4 Oxo Rosemary & Herb stock pots for £2 for all 8

2 medium sized jars of baby beetroot for £1 for  the 2

6 packets of Reece's pieces for £1

5 Cadburys marvellous mix up chocolate bars for £1

12 packets of small tubes of toothpaste (bigger than travel size) for £2.50

2 large bags of Mike & Ike jelly beans for £1.50 for the 2

2 large bags of Whitworths cinnamon fruit & nut snacks £1 for the 2

I bought 3 magazines for 20p each. A Delicious cookery magazine for myself, a golfing one for my dad and this month's Esquire for David (he snaffled it up quick so I was not able to take a photo of them all)

We lazed around the log cabin again in the afternoon and watched two DVDs which we had bought over the weekend. Both recent oldies but goodies - Signs staring Mel Gibson and one of the X Men series. David and I went out to a local Chinese restaurant early evening called Trungs. We have eaten there many times over the years and the food is just so delicious. We were lazy and could not be bothered picking out individual dishes from the menu so went for a set meal which was good value for money.

When we got back to the cabin I looked on my eBay account and had sold loads of items over the last couple of days which I posted out today. I sold 4 books, a pair of boots, a ceramic travel mug, a needlepoint cushion cover, a brand new mascara and a pair of gloves. These are all unwanted items from around the house that I have been listing over the last few weeks in an attempt to bring some order to our house. I am really delighted to be getting rid of the clutter and making some money too. I have found the secret to selling, which seems to work for me, has been to list items as "buy it now" rather than auction and include free postage. I'll let you know at the end of February how much is in the eBay account that I am keeping a record of alongside my grocery budget account.

I forgot to mention that we were up early on 15th February and at Tescos to see if they had any Valentine's Day bargains. I found a shelf with 50% - 70% off prices and bought two cute Little Miss mugs for £1.25 each (75% off £5 price) and two lovely embroidered cushions that were £1.50 each (75% off £6 price). The boxes of chocolates were 50% off but I did not buy any as we have some boxes of chocolates left over from Christmas that were bought for us as gifts. I saw some Tesco staff buying the bargains and within a few moments the shelf was empty so it pays to get there early and snap up the deals the day after the event.

We set off at 10am this morning for our return journey home and expected to be back by 11.15am at the latest. We had not counted on the queue of traffic waiting to get to the Trafford Centre. It is half term holidays and raining so there seemed to be a mass exodus to the shopping centre. The journey ended up taking a additional 20 minute. I worked from home this afternoon and am spending the evening washing clothes from the weekend away and unpacking bags and bags of bargains. I feel the need for a glass (or two) of wine to finally wind down.

Back to reality tomorrow and I'm anxious about getting on my weighing scales after the amount of food we have eaten this weekend.

Recent Charity Shop Finds

It was another beautiful morning when the sun started to peep over the hills in the distance. We decided to hit the charity shops as there are some quite decent independent charity shops in the area. We avoid the standard high street charity shops these days as they charge stupid prices and often more than the brand new price. Why do they do this? Was it Mary Portas and her series on a charity shop that increased the prices? It irritates me no end as often the reason people shop in charity shops in the first place is because money is tight and charging inflated prices just defeats this.

So we went to Carnforth first and visited the Salvation Army shop where I got 6 home magazines for £1 in total and 3 DVDs for 50p each. One was new and unopened and contained 3 films inside. We then walked a little further up the high street to visit the Christian Aid shop and I bought a further 4 DVDs for 50p each, a pair of leather shoes for £1 (I must have an inner Bet Lynch) and a birthday card for my brother in law for 50p. David bought 3 CDs for £1 and my sister bought a pair of shoes and two swimming costumes for £1 each plus two books at 20p each.

Then it was off to Milnthorpe where I bought 6 books by one of my favourite authors, M C Beaton from the Bay Search & Rescue charity shop. These books were 50p each so a £3 spend. I also found a Gucci glasses case with Gucci cleaning cloth for £2.49. I found a brand new and sealed jigsaw puzzle for 50p that I bought for selling on via eBay. David bought a large glass beer stein for 50p. Karen bought a cotton blouse for £1, two 50p books and a glass liquidiser for her Kenwood Chef at the knockdown price of £1.99.

Finally we went to Grange over Sands where I bought a Tresemme hairbrush hairdryer for £3 at the Bay Search  Rescue charity shop. There is also a local hospice charity shop where I bought two as-new linen and cotton shirts for my dad for his birthday next month. These were £3.50 each and will be great for him to wear on holiday in April when the whole family goes to Tenerife. An Age Concern superstore charity shop has opened in Grange overlooking the duck pond. I bought 6 DVDs for £4. Three of them were a series boxed set so I was delighted with these. David bought s new seat for his bicycle (random I know!) for £2 and my sister found two Pyrex roasting dishes for 75p each. We came home very laden down with the car boot bursting.

Back for a late lunch of reduced price sandwiches from Tesco & Booths.

We lazed around the log cabin in the afternoon as we needed a rest after all that shopping. We watched one of the DVDs that I had bought which was The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus by Terry Gilliam. It is an all star cast - Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Heath Ledger, Colin Farrell, Lily Cole even Paloma Faith. What a weird film! I don't know whether I enjoyed it or not. I think I did overall. We went for a swim and a laze in the jacuzzi around 6pm and then got back for drinks and evening meal. We watched another film, Shirley Valentine. What a classic. It was filmed in Mykonos and David and I stayed there a year after the film was made and again about 15 years later. We kept saying "been in that bar or been to that beach, restaurant" etc. etc. all the way through the film until my sister told us to shut up (she was laughing as she said it). Another lovely day. 

Valentine's Day Weekend at Pine Lake

I love going to stay at Pine Lake resort on the edge of the Lake District. We visit here usually a couple of times a year in February and October. My sister organises it all and David and I just turn up which is lovely for me as usually I am the one organising everything. 

We arrived Saturday afternoon for the 4pm check in and there was just the four of us for the weekend with my nephew coming later in the week. My sister has booked the cabin for the whole week and will be spending it with her husband and son. David and I are here until Wednesday when we return home. I am working Wednesday afternoon and David is back at work on Thursday.

After a lazy Saturday evening with plenty of drinks I had an early night at just after 9pm because I was shattered after a 4.30am start on Saturday morning. I woke on Sunday morning and looked out to this view from our cabin. Just lovely and so good for the soul.

I have a fondness for Morecambe even though it is a shadow of it's former glory days as a British holiday destination for the northern working class. It has shown signs of improvement over recent years but is still a little rough around the edges. I don't care as I love the place. I love that it has an indoor market which is bustling and is something that seems to be on the decline in areas around where I live. We always go on a Sunday as there is one stall that sells groceries at silly prices. The food and drink is usually near to its best before date but as I am sure you all know this does not bother me. Occasionally they give some items away for free with any purchase as they are past their best before date. When we visited in October last year we came home with bottles of burger relish for free. This visit I bought the following:

3 medium sized bottles of Heinz ketchup £1 for all 3

8 packets of Tyrell's posh popcorn in coconut & caramel flavour 10p each

6 large packs of Green Giant sweetcorn £2 for all 6

3 large tubs of Waitrose rocky road minibites £1 for all 3

4 large Soreen malt loaves £1 for all 4

5 boxes of Ella organic bars - 2 different flavours - £1 for all 5

3 medium size bags of peanut M&Ms £1 for all 3

8 bars of Oh Henry chocolate bars for £2 for all 8

8 packs of 4 Bisto Vegetable stock pots for £2 for all 8

2 packs of cheese and sesame savoury biscuit bites for 50p for the 2

There are also a few car boot stalls who are all traders on the nearby car park. I bought 3 DVDs for £1 each (one case had two films inside!) A pair of brand new Tommy & Kate sandals for £2 for selling on eBay for a few £ profit.

There is one stall that has "fill a bag for £1" and the stall holder gave us a huge bag. Between the four us we filled it up to the brim with all sorts of gubbins and decided to give the stall holder £2. She refused at first but eventually relented. You would not believe what we got for our £1 stake. Vinyl albums, DVDs, CDs, a Technics CD player remote control, Nikon camera case, box troll toy, Hello Kitty and Olympic Games plush toys, books etc etc etc. All for £1!!!! Some has been bought for selling on and some for ourselves. The remote control is worth £20 on ebay but we need one for our CD player as ours has broken so finding this was a real result. 

We have another 3 days here so have plans to go to Carnforth (David Lean filmed Brief Encounter on Carnforth station), Milnthorpe and Grange over Sands. I'll let you know what we do and what bargains we find in the charity shops. If you ever go to Carnforth, the station has a Brief Encounter Experience which is incredibly sweet to visit.

Another M&S Food Haul

After the £600 supermarket spending in January I am really working hard on curbing my grocery spending and some of this has meant just not going to them in the first place. Last weekend I did not go shopping at all. This is pretty much a first for me as I get tempted by the free lattes and newspapers and early evening bargains. David even asked me whether I was going to Booths or Waitrose on Sunday when he realised I had not ventured out.

Instead I have been making quick and dirty trips to Marks & Spencer late in the day to pick up reductions. I have then partnered the reductions with food I already have in the house. Yesterday I got to M&S at 5pm after leaving work at 4pm. I only wanted a couple of things but stocked up on reduced fresh ingredients that will last the rest of the week for us. My spend was £18.60 and this bought some fancy foods for us.

Three lots of flavoured new potatoes - one garlic & rosemary and two Spanish flavoured. These were 60p a bag. Rosemary potatoes at 60p and roasting Mediterranean vegetables at £1.40. I am planning on having these as side dishes to some evening meals of some lamb chops and fish that I have in the freezer. 

I bought two lots of fresh fruit cocktail at £1.20 each and will have these for lunch over the next couple of days. I love red cabbage so was pleased to find three portions of red cabbage with apple for 60p. These freeze really well so they are already in the freezer. The portion of green vegetables will be eaten this week with some of the potatoes mentioned above with meat in the freezer.

Who can resist a loaf for 25p?. Personally I am not a lover of white sliced bread but David loves it and only has white bread sandwiches and toast so this will last for the rest of the week and the crusts will feed the birds in the garden. What I do love is fruity bread toasted for breakfast so I bought this loaf for 80p. This has gone in the freezer too so that I can take it away with me to the Lake District this weekend.

There were some reductions left over from Christmas - brandy butter at 10p a jar so I bought two as I use this to butter hot cross buns or panettone to make bread and butter pudding. It is the easiest pudding to make and was one of my first ever posts here. I also bought two packs of unusual sounding snack biscuits - goats cheese, fig & hazelnut. These were just 30p a pack and are not out date. These will also be going away with us to the Lake District as these will be great to eat with a glass of wine while we relax taking in the view across the lake where we are staying. Bliss. Oh and two packs of fancy cheddar cheese at £1.40 a pack. I usually cut up a block into finger size pieces and put them in David's lunch box and we love cheese and biscuits.

Lastly I bought a ready meal for my lunch today which was a cod bake at £1.15 (far cheaper and healthier than a sandwich) and some tandoori prawns at just 65p. The prawns are in the freezer and I don't know what I will do with these but guess they may go in a salad.

I hope reducing the number of trips to the supermarket and buying less will mean I spend considerably less this month.

Vanity Case Clearout

I opened up my Samsonite vanity case Saturday afternoon to try to find a new blusher. I tend to have a stock of make-up to replace items that I use on a regular basis. Rather than waiting for items to be completely finished and then having to buy a replacement at full price, I usually buy it when there is an offer on - you know, buy three items and get a free toiletry gift bag etc. So I opened up my case and realised that it was full of make up that I do not use, have never used and will not be using in the future.

Most of these items have come free with other purchases and are worth a fair amount if I were to sell them on eBay. I spent the afternoon looking through every item and deciding which items to keep, which to bin (which were nearly all dried up mascaras) and which to sell on eBay. I must have around 30 items to sell which are mainly lipsticks and eye pencils but there a few eye shadows aswell.

I was suprised at how much I had as I normally only open the case and get something from the top of the case and don't bother looking any deeper. I was pleased to find 3 bottles of foundation of different makes -  Max Factor. Body Shop and Boots No7.  I reckon that these will last me for the rest of the year if not longer. I have been using up the free sample sachets of foundation that you get free in magazines over the last few weeks as I had amassed quite a few of them and they were taking up too much room in the bathroom cabinet. I normally get two days worth of cover out of each sachet.

I thought I would try listing my make up as "buy it now" and I upped the price to take into account postage aswell so that I could offer free postage. I had a look for the same or similar items for sale on eBay to get a bit of an idea on prices to charge. I listed around 8 - 10 items yesterday and I've sold 4 already. Result!!. I also got a message from one person asking if I would accept £2.20 (postage costs me £2.80) for a brand new Estée Lauder lipstick that I had listed at £6.19 as it was a Valentines Day gift. Now that is what I call cheeky.

I will keep listing items over the next few weeks and see how I get on. Now I have a stock of make-up to sell I have started clearing out my shoes (again) and have 4 pairs listed with more ready to be listed. There is a limit to how many pairs of shoes, sandals and boots I should keep. I know this sounds strange coming from a woman but I really do have too many. Here are the ones I currently have for sale.

Meal Deals

I have been taking advantage of some of the meal deals that the supermarkets have at the moment. Last week it was Booths's steak dinner which we had last Saturday night. Boy was this delicious! I saved the wine for our forthcoming long weekend break in the Lake District but we had the steaks with pepper butter and roasted vegetables followed by cheese and biscuits. It was such a lovely evening. We lit the candles in the dining room and took our time eating and chatting while enjoying the food and each other's company. It is not that often that we do this and it made me remember why we have been together for 29 years. We are each other's best friends and we both love a steak dinner.

I bought the Marks & Spencer Chinese New Year meal deal yesterday evening where you can get two main courses and three side dishes for £10. I bought dim sum side dishes rather than rice or noodles as I always have these in my pantry and they are cheaper than the dim sum dishes. I saved £7.30 on the full price and we will have a banquet on Monday evening when it is the Chinese New Year. It is the year of the monkey - not my year this year as I am a dragon and David is a dog.

We will be having pancakes on Tuesday 9th as this will be Shrove Tuesday. I bought ready-made ones from M&S a wee while back when they were reduced and I have had the two packs in question in the freezer. Lazy I know, but with the amount of hours I have been doing at work I can't be bothered making pancakes from scratch. To be honest I will be back at the hospital again next Tuesday for my third visit to the surgeon following my surgery for skin cancer in November last year. It will be a day working from home with a break to go to the hospital mid morning so I probably won't be working silly hours this day or feel like cooking up a storm in the kitchen when I get home.

A visit to the hospital is always painful. I don't mean the surgery I have but the cost of parking my car in the hospital car park. The cost is outrageous and they must make a fortune. I think I have paid more in car parking fees than I have paid into the national health via N.I. contributions over recent years.

I am still selling a steady stream of my unwanted belongings on eBay. I have found that "buy it now" and free postage are fundamental to getting rid of my "stuff" quickly and at a good price. The last two days have seen a pair of shoes which have been unused for around 10 years go for £13.99 and two tubes of partially used hair creme go for £2.30. I have also sold a freebie travel mug for £5.19 and two BA toiletry travel bags for £7.99 each. I seem to be selling a really eclectic mix of "stuff" that is not wanted or needed and at prices that I could never reach on a car boot sale.

The idea is to get rid of things in our house and I've recently found the thrill of eBay selling so addictive. I bought three pairs of ladies briefs for 49p each reduced from £6 in M&S yesterday but I have decided they are not my thing and I think I will see if I can sell them.

Budget Horror

I had mentioned in a previous post that I was going to keep a track on how much I was spending on groceries. In January, I kept a balance of everything I spent which included all money spent in the supermarkets on food, drink, cat food and litter, detergents, toilet paper, magazines and just about anything else that is a household item that I buy from a supermarket. I was absolutely horrified to find it was over £600 in one month for just the two of us. It was exactly £606.14.

I buy many items reduced and had a quite a few money off vouchers that I used too, so it beggars belief how much it would have cost if I was paying full price. I was planning my menus for the week and threw very little food away. Just keeping a check on one month's spending has really opened my eyes. I am going to keep a check for the month of February and see how much I spend this month with an eye to reducing the £600 considerably.

I am continuing to list items on eBay and am trying out the idea of listing items as "buy it now" rather than auction. I have also been offering free postage with some items by just upping the price to take into account the cost of postage and some of these items have sold already. I am not making a fortune but am getting a steady trickle of money coming in and am enjoying freeing up space in the house that was taken with up with items we did not use.

I bought 3 bags off one lady at a carboot sale in the Lake District a year ago. They cost 50p each and I thought they would be great little bags for carrying my lunch in. None were used and after a year of being in my bedroom cupboard I decided to sell them. They sold for £17.39 in total which is a good return on a £1.50 layout. I don't think I will be giving up the day job but the funds will come in handy to cover that enormous grocery budget.

It has been another busy week where both David and I feel like we are hamsters on a wheel running to stand still. We have both been working long hours and have had full evenings. 

I started work at 7.45am on Wednesday after leaving home at 7am and driving my horrid journey across Manchester city centre. I had numerous meetings (there have been 11 meetings scheduled in my diary this week) and finished work at 5pm when I met a colleague in the office reception to catch a taxi into Manchester so that we could meet up with two other work colleagues for drinks and a meal. I just can't explain how great a night out I have with these three ladies who I meet up with every few months or so. Our backgrounds are so diverse, we do not all work together but in different departments but our paths have crossed over the years and we found we just "click".

I cried laughing so much that I had eye make-up smeared across my cheeks where I had been wiping away the tears. I drank too much wine for a weekday evening - about a bottle - as I had 5 glasses in total and felt a little merry. We started off in one of the bars and then headed for a favourite Chinese restaurant for a sharing choice of dim sum and main course dishes. I caught the tram home and David picked me up at the tram station about a mile away from where we live to drive me home. By the time I got to bed it was 11.30pm and I was up and out dropping David off at the tram stop before 7am the next day so that he could get across to the opposite side of Manchester for a training course. I drove the journey wearing a smart work coat and shoes complete with my pyjamas! I prayed that I didn't have an accident in this bizarre outfit. 

Back home I started work before 8am and worked until 12noon and then set off for two meetings in the office at 1pm and 2pm. I finished work at 4pm and drove towards home stopping off at the little Co-op store near the tram stop to pick up fresh bread and reduced sandwiches for David to take to work for lunch. I picked David up from the tram stop and then back home for around 5.30pm. Off out again for David so he could get his hair cut. When he had left, I got straight into my pyjamas and loved having a lazy evening catching up on TV via the iplayer. 

I am counting my blessings on working from home today which means no travelling and peace and quiet to concentrate on two reports that I need to write and reading all the documents that I need to so that I am prepared for next week's redundancy announcements. I find out my fate and then meet individually with the 5 managers who work for me to let them know how they have faired. They then have to meet with their staff to let them know their outcomes. My philosophy is that it is out of our control so it is wasted energy worrying about it. The outcomes in the past for me have led to new roles and new work which has kept me fresh and newly challenged. Financially it is a worry but I know we can cut back (£600 grocery budget!!) and we will cope.