A Lovely Surprise

Good morning everyone.. well what a surprise we had last night, got a text from the in-laws saying they had picked up some reduced pumpkins for us, oooh lovely they got four for £1.98 and while they were out had looked on the flea market and found a Breville slow cooker for £10 so picked that up for us too.

What a lovely gift..we were thrilled as i had been looking for one for weeks on the Wednesday markets. Needless to say that evening it was thoroughly cleaned, one Pumpkin prepared, a potato, two carrots that were lurking in the fridge, vegetable stock, a onion and a dash of cumin, ground ginger, and nutmeg salt and pepper, i put it on low when we went to bed at 11pm, got up this morning at 6.45 turned it off and allowed it to cool down, i just whizzed it up in the food processor and voila .. the best tasting pumpkin soup i've ever tasted...yummy just what we need now the weather has changed :) It filled a whole tupperware lunch box..plenty for OH work lunches tea tonight and more no doubt!

I priced up what the Pumpkins should have cost = £8

And the Slow Cooker new is = £29.99

So £37.99 all together wow .. in all my lovely in-laws paid £11.98.. i feel very lucky... and we still have three Pumpkins to use up ... :)

Toodle Pip

AFM xx

Oh saved another £2.50 into the 50p jar :)

Hospitals and Bonfires

Hi again well im still not having much luck so far this month! im starting to wonder if i was born jinxed ...I however am totally thrilled with the cooker :) hooray i managed to do some batch baking :

9 Pumpkin soups from the Halloween pumpkin

3 Vegetarian Chillies

2 Bologneise Sauces

2 Vege Tikka Curry

2 Vege Korma Curry's

2 Quorn Lasagne's

1 Quorn mince Shepherds pie

1 Vege Cottage Pie

I have some shortcrust and puff pastry in the fridge so i will be making some pies and quiches and get them frozen too, be nice to get the freezer stocked up again.

So i have been waiting for a hospital appointment for some time to have a Tonsillectomy, i finally got a date for the 5th November, seeing as my OH was working all day and couldn't get the time off to come with me i decided to get the free shuttle service that runs to our hospitals. I had to get to the the bus station which is a 10 minute walk, then get a bus to the hospital which is less than 5 mins away and cost me blooming £1.70 but i had to pay it so that was that, that got me at our local Burnley Hospital, and i changed here for Blackburn Hospital where i was having my operation. Supposedly the buses from Burnley were running every 15 mins to Blackburn so arriving at ten past ten i had plenty of options available, or so i thought. I checked the internet timetable before i left home but according to the Hospital it had been changed so i then had to wait an hour and fifteen minute before the next shuttle service, my appointment was at 12 noon and the bus got me there at five past twelve.. all was well in the end but what a start to the day... oh yes it gets better my friends.. i got checked in, all the relevant questions asked, weighed, changed into gown, sat around for a couple of hours, the surgeon and anaesthetist came and spoke to me, put the frighteners up me even more than i was expecting, let me tell you i wasn't looking forward to this operation anyway!! a little more time passes then the surgeon came back and said sorry Mrs C-F we need to send you home as your Thyroid is not controlled yet and having surgery will be very dangerous...what?? was my response, and i went home.. i was furious about this, why on earth even give me an appointment if they already knew my Thyroid was still not functioning properly, i had already had two days off for this so now i am down two days pay and im back to work this afternoon..sigh..so im back to the waiting game...fingers crossed im not waiting too long i cant cope with all the Hospital drama needless to say the OH was fuming when i text to say they are sending me home, thankfully she managed to get out of work and pick me up at Blackburn..phew.. came home kettle on and my Son walked through the door from School, extremely pleased to see me, and produced me with a home made food tech shortcake biscuit with choc chips in.. blooming lovely..i must say.. you did good Mst J.

Luckily because i was sent home it meant that i could go to the local bonfire with my little family and the in-laws, it was a fantastic evening, bonfire and fireworks were splendid, it really cheered me up..in the end it was a great day :)

 

 

Speak soon

AFM xx

Pouring Rain

Morning bloggy world .. brr it sure is chilly and wet up North today wind and rain a plenty .. hopefully it will be third time lucky today for our yet again replacement cooker. In the end we put to another £80 and got a better gas stove, Currys was still selling them for £450 so paying £380 as said cooker has a teeny scratch on the back of it that you cant see, plus including free delivery i am very happy as long as it works, and arrives today...fingers crossed..

Halloween was a quiet one here this year, only one trick or treater at the door, we don't get many in our area, shame really, when my son was younger lots of family's used to trick or treat, seems a dying out tradition in these parts. Seeing as we still couldn't use the oven it was a use it up tea of something that was lurking in the freezer, a tub of curry and a tub of chilli came out, defrosted mixed together, added some bits that were in the fridge and cooked some rice, that fed three and could have easily stretched to four, did nicely, and was hot and tasty.. i nipped on Approved Foods last night, nothing much ever takes my fancy, i could have filled my basket with lots of treats and a few baking products but that's about it really! couldn't justify the minimum spend of £15, with a £5 delivery so i left it. Do you ever get any real bargains that you need or want from AF?

Eee cant wait to finish work today, its been a long two weeks, working full time is tiring, i am only used to part time hours so this weeks wages will be a great help and will go straight into our savings.

Catch you all later.

AFM xx

A Need Or A Want?

Heck i think i spoke to soon ..Well that's gone and done it now..our laptop started bleeping and wouldn't turn on! we have a computer repair shop on our street so i bobbed in this morning so see if Ali could tell me what it was all about, yep the processor has gone, he said it would be £70 to repair and wouldn't recommend it being done as usually they only last 3 months before it happens again...the problem i have is there is allot of stuff stored on said laptop and it needs removing?? bobbed back and he said he would transfer all data to a memory stick for me for just £10..so i think i will get that done and worry about another laptop in the near future, as i don't necessarily need it straight away i just want to blog, read, eBay etc....oh what to do?? my son has a laptop so i will be borrowing his if i can prise it away from him for 10 mins here and there lol i do have internet access at work so i can pop on now and then so its not the end of the world..yet .. ha .. remember the lovely replacement cooker  had delivered? yep, still doesn't work right so back to the shop i go again this morning, i really do need to get this problem sorted- its all money this month, lets hope from tomorow being the 1st of November that i can get back to saving and frugling away, no spend on groceries this week, i will need milk and dog food at the weekend but that's it, found a 50p in my purse so that went into the 50p jar i have started..£20 goes into the retirement pot, now i only started these a matter of weeks ago, but already it is adding up £20 a week for a year is £1040 i am 34 so in another 26 years when i am 60 this will be about  £27.000 hopefully with interest a little more- a nice retirement fund.

Anyway friends back soon.

AFM xx

Whatever Next?

Well those two weeks passed very quickly i must say ! Since my first post i have been down to the Isle Of Wight to visit family and friends, some of  who i haven't seen for almost 11 years, it was lovely to catch up and i enjoyed myself thoroughly - being spoiled by my Mum was great, Lemon Meringue Pie i here you say?..ooh yes please :) indeed a long 5 days of family and food was just the tonic i needed. Not very Frugal i hear you say? well my Mum had bought me a show ticket so i was going down primarily for that at first, compaired to over £200 on Mr V Trains National Express coaches came in at £24.00 so ten hours later i arrived in Southampton, £11 boat fare and i was there.

 My parents drove me back to Lancashire on the Sunday and stayed for a weeks break, so no spend there for travel fare, and the boat price was paid for me too..Happy days. Well seeing as my parents were up we really needed to get a new oven, £200 pound my dad says? it will be bloomin tat!! so we went off in search, there are no gas show rooms any more so as previously found it was a hard task indeed...

We found one in Currys was £400 with a hundred off was on sale for £300, it was a bigger sized oven, and so the decision was made to buy it. After a 10 minute discussion with the sales adviser we walked out with nothing! that's right nothing!! Yes that's correct Mr Foster three hundred pounds, delivery will be Twenty Pounds and we will install it for Seventy Pounds...WHATT!!! so in all my £300 pound cooker was going to cost us £390, way over budget, we were originally only wanted to pay about £200, already this had gone up to £300, and couldn't go any higher. Dad was getting irate with the sales adviser and asked if we could collect ourselves from the store? Oh no you cant do that. why? health and safety sir!! well that was it ... Off we went again, finally we found a local store called "Washking" originally i didn't bother to look in as their shop name states they only ever used to sell washing machines, i was wrong and again spotted a very nice silver and black fancy looking larger sized gas oven, again it was marked down from £400 to £300, yes we will take it, same day delivery great many thanks.

 That was last Wednesday, it was delivered in the afternoon, all excited and ready to use it we burnt it off as per the instruction Manuel stated, and proceeded to made two shepherds pies, one meaty and one quorn, prepared the veg to go with it and put it on to cook. Now usually when i make a vegi shepherd pie it bakes  in the oven for about 45 mins, now that blooming oven was on for 1.5 hours and it wasn't even bubbling!! oh deary me, next morning i was straight onto the shop and explained what the oven was doing! basically nothing! no problem they said they earliest we can get a replacement to you is next Tuesday the 29th..well it arrived yesterday and i am happy to say fingers crossed it is working fine...phew i can now plan to get all my batch cooking done this weekend as the freezer is low and i am having surgery on the Tuesday so easy home cooked and nourishing meals will be needed.

Sorry for the long post my friends.

AFM xx

My first ever post .. Hi i'm A Frugal Mrs, welcome to my blog.

So its been a rainy and blustery day in Lancashire today, the weather has really set in now and winter seems to be in full swing. A quick visit to Aldis this morning was needed For some flowers, this is the best place i have found to buy them from, two big bunches comes in at £2 each more than enough for 

the crematorium and my purse strings, similar bunches at Tesco are at least£3.50 each, so a good £3 saving there.

A visit was due as it was the first passing of my Nan in Law's anniversary I must admit i thought the crem was very untidy, the fallen leaves were piled up, wind blowen flowers and the chilly air made the place feel very dark and miserable but few bunches of bright yellow flowers soon cheered up Mary's spot, a quick sweep up and a tidy around soon made everything look better.

It was back to work this afternoon for me and the OH, and as i am writing this at my work desk all i can think about is getting home and getting warm, boy its cold today, we are still trying to cut back by not having our central heating blasting out all hours  of the day, so it will be an hour of the electric heater that hardly uses any electric and plenty of home made blankets to keep us warm and toasty. Our gas oven is still on the blink and after weeks of making do and using the grill and hobs have resorted to thinking about buying a new one. Cheapest we can find brand new with delivery at the moment comes in at £200, money that we really could do without spending as the annual car tax is due, Christmas is round the corner and our Home insurance is ready for renewal.Do you always shop around when it comes to renewing your insurance policies? we saved £70 last year from searching the internet, now that's money well saved! We pay for a whole years car tax as it saves us money in the long run, its just not appreciated at this time of the year.. that's another £170 odd pounds we need to find, i wish we had a money tree lol 

Well thats it from me today folks, see you soon.

AFM xx