Spring in my step with money in my pocket

 Hello Readers, you all deserve much better than the misery I've been writing about recently. The smile on my face is because I've got most of the money back by making my 'ex' pay. He was fuming that I had bought a shower even though I explained that the flat had been without hot water since Jo and Rik moved in there last November. He didn't feel that was his problem. Some people are arseholes! Love them anyway.

I'm back on track today. After washing everyone else's washing all week, I got round to doing ours and it's blowing on the line after doing the washing hokey cokey all morning (hang it out, bring it in, hang it out again - showery weather). I also got round to filling up the bread bin. I'll keep baking bread all day for the freezer and it's going to be a day of stove side pottering.

 I've started my batch cooking today with a huge pot of veggie chilli. The dried soya mince costs £1.60 and I can make ten portions from it. It's much cheaper than Quorn, which I only buy when on offer. We still eat meat but only around 4oz at a time. Soya Mince has no taste and needs lots of 'spicing up'. I use chicken stock cubes (10p for 8 in Tesco) but I also use veggie cubes if I'm feeding veggies.

It swells up and has a lovely texture and we really like it. I would obviously prefer to use beef mince, but it's way too expensive at the moment and I am going to have to be very careful with money over the next few weeks as I save up for car and home insurance.

 I added one fifth of a pack of soya mince, 2 chicken stock cubes to 2 large mugs of boiling water, let the mince rehydrate and added that to some fried onion and garlic, a tin of sweetcorn, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of kidney beans and a chilli sauce packet mix. (I always buy sauce mixes when they are on offer - usually 3 for £1 and then stock pile them.)

 I then let it simmer gently for forty minutes and  decanted it into four seperate freezer containers to eat over the next few weeks. I'll probably blog more over the day as I fill up the freezer.

 I thought I'd let you into my bathroom. Our biggest expense is water, we have to ration it. Dearly beloved has 3 minute showers, but as I don't like showering, I wash daily and bath weekly. All of our sinks have washing up bowls, so if we wash, even our hands, we tip the water down the toilet. My mum always thinks I've left the floor washing bowl in the sink. Visitors often ask and people are often surprised to see six full buckets lined up in the bathroom, where I save the bath water for the toilet after my weekly bath. It take two bowl fulls to wash my hair but it does make me feel very eco!

I'm off to bake more bread, more batch cooking for the freezer and sweep (it saves electricity instead of vacuuming) the floors. Until later, Froogs xxxx