The NHS, Tescos and Bank charges!

 I can not and will not complain about the NHS! I got to see my GP today, got the treatment I required and paid the entire sum of £7.40 for a month's supply of medication! It did result in me losing a day of work as I had to wait to get an appointment, but, the clinic are fantastic, kind, caring and saw me within a reasonable time and no money changed hands, which always pleases me! A massive hooray to everyone in the NHS, they are paid disgustingly low wages, they work unreasonably long hours and their dedication, which always amazes me, is often uncelebrated. (My sister is a nurse on the cardiothoracic unit in Treliske! A precise specialist working with people with lung cancer - all hail the nurses!!!!)

I will however complain voraciously about the see you next Tuesdays who run banks! At least Dick Turpin wore a mask! These people are bare faced robbers! When I paid off my overdraft I was waiting for a clear financial moment to change to a fee free account. They charge £17 just to use the bank account and then £5 on top to use the over draft facility, when not one penny in their hands is earnt by them! £264 a year to use an account, and not to gain from any of the 'products' that came with the account was not a good deal to me. On top, my taxes, your taxes and every other suckers taxes bailed out gross negligence and incompetence whilst they sipped champagne in Monte Carlo. We paid for the fat b******s to Lord it up! Today, when I had some spare time in between waiting for the local clinic to tell me they had an appointment to see me, I got on top of some financial matters that I needed to change for quite a while. I changed my bank account to a fee free bank account. I will now be £264 a year better off. That's a month's groceries, or the car insurance or one of the other bills that I've struggled with. Best of all, is knowing that I'm not giving those oxygen robbers any of my money! **** them! Yesterday Lloyds Platinum, today Lloyds Classic - all the services that I use and no bank charges. If we all did this, they wouldn't make the iniquitous profits that they do!

Finally, it doesn't seem much, but I sorted out my Tesco points and exchanged them for 'rewards'. I use Tesco filling stations as they have the cheapest diesel I can buy and I then save the points and treble them into rewards vouchers. Today, I cashed in £10 of 'money' to spend in Tesco to £30 of money to spend in Cafe Rouge! I'll give them to Dearly Beloved and he can whisk me off on a date some time in the future! So all in all, a funny old day of waiting around for an emergency Dr's appt (no, don't worry, Brits will know I am not dying but it's the jargon used for an appointment 'on the day' without prior notice!) saving £264 over the next year and getting a free lunch from my Tesco reward vouchers. A frugal day? I should say so!

Perseverance, determination and never, ever giving up!

 At heart, I'm a bit of a Dory! I don't stay worried, angry, upset or disappointed for long. I just keep swimming. I was asked to give advice about staying frugal,  when there's no energy, no will, it's the end of the month, there's no money and everything seems against you. Well here's the tough love coming up. You have no choice. I have no choice either. I can not go out, have my hair done, buy some lipstick and get dressed up for a night out in a restaurant. I have no credit cards at all, no overdraft facility, I have no money, I don't get paid until tomorrow and I just have to keep going. Of course, I get totally pissed off, but it's not a hand I've been dealt......I hand selected everyone of those cards and I laid them down. It's my life and I have to deal with it.

 I do a lot of work to make sure I stay on track. I get tired from time to time, so I have meals in the freezer, or store cupboard that I can pull out. I know I will have low times, so I prepare for that. I buy birthday cards in charity shops, I'd rather give the charity the money and have cards   addressed and in date order, ready to send. I make gifts, preserves and soaps all year in readiness to give to people. I get my hands dirty by proactively creating a budget, down to the last carrot and I stick to it! I make sure there is enough diesel in the car to take us to the moors or the beach so I have two outings a month. I save money so I have £100 a year to spend on shoes and clothes (I have so far spent £36 this year). By doing that, I prepare for each little thing that could worry me, or cause me anxiety or get me down. I don't have a suit of armour and life gets to me, in the same way it does every one of you. But, if you know a brick bat is coming your way, at least you can duck.

 I keep going because every day is a no shop day. I don't carry a purse or any money. I have no credit card, just a debit card and that stays at home every week day. I never pop to the shops; I only go when I'm prepared, with a budget, a menu plan and a detailed list. I check mysupermarket first for prices, I then log onto the Lidl and Aldi websites and check their prices too. I know exactly what I'm going to cook, what I'm going to buy and where I'm going to get it from. Consequently, there are very few transactions on my online bank statement. 

 I've learnt to save money too. I know it's silly when I have debts, but remember, if my car needs fixing, my washing machine breaks down; I have no credit facilities and need to have money put aside. I can only save £25 a month, but I make sure I do. At the end of the year, when it's still there, I don't touch it and keep adding. The advice is to have £1000 saved up, just in case. I'm no where near there, but knowing I have something to fall back on, keeps me going when I'm worried about money, especially when I don't have any in my current account.

 I know, I can and do fail miserably. I often feel very sorry for myself. I feel isolated from the mainstream and unable to join the party. I feel like the poor kid who watched the kids with pocket money go into the village post office for sweets, when I had to stand outside and watch them buy them and eat them in front of me. But I always remember, they didn't last long and soon enough, they were just like me, sweetless. I have had moments when I've been home alone when Dearly Beloved has been away looking after his mum, the house has been freezing, I've not been able to afford the train fare to visit a single soul and I have felt abandoned. I don't always feel good and some days are truly shite. But I get up, and in true Dory style, I just keep swimming.

 I know, there are people who are reading this who are not paid until tomorrow who have a freezer full of home grown veg, a pantry full of preserves, a dry store full of dry goods, the under stairs cupboard is full of loo rolls, the second drawer in your bedroom is full of toothpaste, talc and soap and no matter what, you won't go without. I also know what it's like to be 24 hours from a giro (that's how benefits were paid when I was a single mum with my son), with the last few seconds of emergency money ticking away on the electricity meter, a scrape of marg and 2 slices of bread to give a six year old boy his breakfast, and nothing else. I know that some of you who read this, did not deal your own hand but had it dealt to you and your frugal life style is not chosen by you. I know some of you are finding this extremely hard and if you allow me, to just hold your hand gently and say quietly to you. Just hang on. You have a rough journey ahead of you, more will join you, us, me along the way. It's not easy. All you actually have to sustain you is perseverance, determination and never, never giving up.

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xxxx

End of the month finances.

Hello everyone,

Thanks again to everyone who dropped by yesterday. Again, almost 2000 of you clicked onto Frugal Queen and in total, since I began blogging, you have logged 4845 comments and to date, 311, 281 have logged onto the site at some time or other. You say the most complimentary things. It's the end of the month, finances are low but spirits are high. In the main, because so many of you have: stopped by, said hello and since last week, over 100 more of you have become followers. It's lovely to know who you are and would be wonderful if you read, to let me know who you are by becoming followers.

I was left some interesting advice yesterday, from using 'pop bottles' as cloches to get my plants started early, to using loo roll inners as seed starters to promote long and healthy roots. I was also asked a question by Sandy, if I knew of any ways of making hand cream or face cream. I will go back through the blogs I read as one blogger did just that. I can not suggest how to make it, but I have found the answer to Frugal beauty. A long time ago, I was recommended the Lacura beauty range at Aldi. It really is top end at bottom shelf prices. Their anti-wrinkle day cream is £1.99 and now, I'm a bit more financially safe, I also use their eye cream. I find the face cream lasts well over a month, if not two and the eye cream is just fantastic. I feel really indulgent using it, a real luxury and it smells wonderful

Pay day seems a long way off this month and we need to carry on being tight as duck's bums as we're putting away every penny for a short holiday soonish (not saying when in case you rob my house for my charity shop books!) and I'm finding the money by making further cuts on everything. Even though money is tight, everything is budgeted for. We have enough food to last well over another week, there is money for transport and every direct debit goes out on time, every month. Even by drastically over paying and snowballing, we are able to live on less and less every month. Today, thanks for Approved Foods and bargains from Lidl, we ate like kings for pennies.

Today,we had salad, with potato salad and chicken, stir fried in a sesame, spring onion and garlic sauce. Quite indulgent for us and a hefty 77p each, due mainly to the high cost of the salad. Two large Lidl chicken breasts were £1! They were on offer at £1.99 for four chicken breasts, so I bought several packs and decanted them into freezer bags and stored them for days like this. I bought three jars of stir fry sauce for £1 and 9 bottles of low fat mayonnaise for £1 and three bottles of honey and mustard salad dressing for £1. Items like sauces and condiments don't usually make their way into my shopping basket but I have a stash of goodies in my pantry because of Approved Foods.

Spciy chicken, salad with posh dressing, home made potato salad

The finished result was a belly busting plateful and as ever, for an encore, we'll eat the same again for lunch tomorrow. I'm having a great day today and really heartened by those of you who comment; drop by and become followers. However, a dear dear friend of mine in blog land and the real world is not having a good day. She/Foster Mummy  helped me through some incredibly hard times in my life, she is the most loving and genuine person I have ever met and today, she's hurting. Just as you sustained me, pop over and see her and let her know you care.

Today, she's under here. Let's make sure our love is with her.

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xxxxx

I'll show you mine........

I'm a bit busy, so I'll keep things short. Supper, mass of salad with home made veggie burgers. I made them a week ago in a large batch and froze them.

Some one asked about my mini oven. It's the same size as the microwave. It grills, it's a rotisserie and an oven and we use it all the time and rarely use the main oven. It uses considerably less energy. We bought it from Comet for £15, when it was on offer. I have sausage casserole inside, ready for another day. I will be even busier later in the week, so I'm cooking now.

The slow cooker is from Argos, it was about £15. I have steak and kidney braising away in it. Once the filling is cooked, I'll freeze it in portion sized pots, ready to make into puddings or pies. If I have time to cook, I cook. If I only have time to reheat, then I pull something out of the freezer from earlier.

The radio. A beautifully mellow sounding Roberts, which fills my home with Radio 4 and accompanies me whilst I mark books, cook, read or iron. It's a real treasure and I love it. A very lucky car boot find.

That's all folks....................back to preparing school stuff.

Stretching everything further

For dinner, we had to really reasonably priced cod steaks, ours were in parsley sauce. I cooked all four, we have the same meal again tomorrow for lunch. A quick re-heat at work.

I called into Tesco on the way home, bought some reduced stewing steak and six lamb's kidneys, they are in the slow cooker, simmering away with onions and mushrooms and some stock for supper tomorrow night.

The mini oven gets used more and more, last night, when I was too tired to photograph anything, we had 'mini-roast' and had a thick slice of belly pork each, roasted with potatoes, onions, parsnips and carrots. They all cooked in my ancient little enamel ware roasting dish and all in under an hour. It has a timer, so I can just leave it.

Pork is being given away at the moment. I bought three more slices today for £1.04 off the meat counter at Tesco.

Tonight's supper was all cooked on one gas ring. Everything was stacked up in the one saucepan, with the fish, the veg and the potatoes. It's not just about saving money on the food but also in the cost of what I spend on energy.

I'm getting increasingly conscious of the ever increasing cost of food, cooking it, storing it and making everything go as far as possible. Every meal, every time I switch on the gas, or a light, I'm conscious of how much its' costing and how I can make everything go that little bit further. I never cook, without considering another meal cooking opportunity. I have already cooked the spuds for tomorrow's lunch and tomorrow's supper too. If I have the gas on, it has to stretch. I know I'm not the only person who is really worried about the cost of living and if I don't watch every penny then I won't have enough to make sure my bills are paid.

Inflation to rise by 5%

 Dear Merv!

I can tell by the look on your face (both sides of it!!!) that you are a worried man. The economy continues to shrink, the national debt increases, jobs are disappearing and prices of commodities just keep increasing. According the BBC, the rising costs of hotels, restaurants, furniture, transport, fuel and alcohol  are adding to the rate of inflation. Which is why, and sorry to rub your nose in it as I can see you're in the sticky stuff and you're up to your armpits, I have not felt the increase in VAT or general price increases.     

I'm just making matters worse for you all round. I don't feel your pain because I've given up shopping. I ration water and energy, I walk or cycle and only use the car when I can't possibly get there by any other means. I use old knickers as dusters and I'm sitting here in three layers so I don't have to put the heating on. I go without anything I can't get from Freecycle and I can spread 'Flora' thinner than anyone else who has ever tried to get into the Guiness book of records.


I'm just not helping am I Merv? You and the rest of the bean counters in the Bank of England and your mates in the treasury, will just have to hold your nerve. But then, sorry to point this out, but you are in your older years and we've been here before...............many times. We had mortgage rates of 15% and could only get a mortgage at three times our income with a reference from our employers, six months bank statements and pay slips and a 25% deposit. Credit card limits were equivilant of three months wages. People forget how tough it was to get a job and some where to live at the end of the 70's and beginning of the 80's.

Well, we're back here again and like you, I will see this pattern repeat itself. Well you and the rest of the city boys can continue this all you like, but I, and the rest of the frugal army will not be fighting on the side of consumerism and 'growth' ever again. We will do little to contribute the debt, we will do nothing to add to the up turn or down turn, in fact we will sustain from as much economic activity as possible. In future, there will be more and more of us who will say no to credit, no to shopping, no to new gadgets and yes to bird watching, yes to star gazing, yes to quilting and yes to rambling. I'm sorry I can't help you with the economy but I'm abstaining from involvement. From now on, if I'm fed, if I'm wearing a clean pair of knickers and the roof over my head doesn't leak; then I'm done.

Yours truly,

Froogsxxx

Feeling rich today.

 Recently, I have felt as if every penny I have spare has rolled out of my hand in to the tight fist of some multi-national millionaire! Today, some came back my way. Firstly, I had £10 of Tesco clubcard vouchers, which I exchanged for £30 of Cafe Rouge vouchers and Dearly Beloved and I shall treat ourselves to lunch out in the half term break. It will be our first dining out experience in over a year.

Next, I sent a complaint email to Quidco, that I had used their cash back service and I hadn't received any money. I had a return email the next day, with an apology for the delay and discovered that £78 had been credited to my bank account. I also complained to Approved Foods, that one order had been £4 short of goods, with a link to my blog, where I had previously sung their praises and the warning, with a link to the 'South West Water' rant, that I could also write a letter of complaint on my blog too. I received a £4 refund to my bank account today.

 I've worked that out as a 'windfall' of £108 in one day. I have had a financially astute day. I've paid a monthly installment to South West Water. I've over paid my 0% credit card by another £100. I've read my meters myself to save money and submitted my readings online. I have worked out, that in my ten years of teaching, by taking a packed lunch every day, and with the average cost of £2.50 a day, that I have saved £5000. Just a few days ago, I felt skint and now, I'm rolling in it.

Day light robbery.

 I've just returned from Tesco, from being fleeced, from being robbed and can honestly say that the Light Brigade made less ridiculous charges! Some food items are now 25% higher than before Christmas. The cheap items are just the junk food that they pile high. The basics are much more expensive. We shop fortnightly and we are really feeling the squeeze. We are having to add more pulses, more rice, more potatoes and more soya to our diet every time. We have bought meat, but we will only eat that every other day. Tinned meat is looking cheaper but only in comparison with fresh and a tin of corned beef is now £1.50, whilst last summer, it was about 79p a tin. Now, even a corned beef hash is expensive.

Frugality is no longer a life style choice, it's a matter of survival. It's literally, your money or your life. Today, I kick myself that I didn't have foresight, that I didn't look into the future and I didn't see this coming. Now, every day is about preparing for tomorrow. If something is being sold as a lost leader, and you use it, and you can afford to stock up, then do so. Today it was laundry liquid. My Tesco, no longer stocks the Value soap powder or Value Laundry liquid, which washed our clothes just fine. So, if your local supermarket has it, then stock up. They always sold these products at a near loss, and they can't do that any more. If you see flour for under 70p a bag, then buy a year's supply if you can keep it. Keep your eyes open in the discount stores and compare with supermarket prices, it's going to get a lot worse and we all need to think, not only about tomorrow, but the months ahead, when recent global weather impact world food prices. I'm having a gloomy weekend, where I am actually being faced with the reality, that I might not be able to live and pay off my debts as quickly as I'm doing. It's going to be tough.

Making a little go a long way.

 Here's how I made a little go a long way. I baked four bread rolls, two for our supper tonight and two for our lunches tomorrow. (I have already made Dearly Beloved's cheese and tomato sandwich for tomorrow.) I also cooked some frozen broccoli and cauliflower, put it in a dish, covered with cheese sauce (still using up the Coleman's three for a pound specials!) I sliced two tomatoes, put them on top and sprinkled two tablespoons of grated cheese (last remnants of Christmas food) and cooked that for 20 minutes in the mini-oven, putting the bread rolls in for the last five minutes.

 The end result!

I had some lentil and vegetable soup in the freezer, I microwaved it in a pudding basin with a spoonful of Thai curry paste and a sachet of creamed coconut. So it became spicy Thai red lentil soup. It was fab, along with a bread roll and some cheesy veg. I have cheesy veg and a bread roll to take to work tomorrow so savings all round. I'm wondering how cheap I can be tomorrow?

Keeping warm on a limited budget

 We are much warmer than the rest of the UK. Down south in Cornwall, we rarely get it this cold and we've been -2 at the warmest today!!! It is a challenge to stay warm in this weather. A lot of people like me will be doing what they can to keep warm. We were advised by the central heating engineer, to have the boiler set on the lowest setting and the radiators set of the highest setting. Boiler is on 1 and the rads are on 9 and the house is 18 degrees. What warmth we have needs to stay in. If you have spare blankets, shut the curtains and then hang a blanket over the curtain rail to form another thickness to your curtain. Hang a blanket or another curtains over the doors. We've lightly nailed curtains to our glass internal doors. I'll worry about the holes and fill them with wood filler in the spring. For now, the need is warmth and not looks.

 I'm upstairs working in my office and to stop the warmth being wasted, I bring a flask with me and then I don't have to keep opening the door. I also only boil the kettle once. I don't have lovely homemade blankets, but I do buy whitney blankets in the charity shop. I have one over the back of my office chair and one across my lap. I'm certainly not cold.

 I've stopped up all the draughts with draught excluders. I don't have any thing as posh at the one below, I use folded old curtains or folded old towels. They stop the air flow just the same.

 One thing we can afford plenty of, is homemade soup. Tonight we had the remainder of the gammon with some chips and beans, but we always have soup to defrost.

Tonight, our heating will be on for three hours and we need to make sure we keep the house warm all night. Even double glazing is not that brilliant as insulation, so you need to do a lot to stop the warmth escaping. If you don't have spare curtains, then use old cardboard to form another barrier inside. If you have a spare duvet, put that under your bottom sheets to insulate underneath your body as well as one of top.

The gas bills will go up in the new year, whilst we are paying for this quarter, so be aware of the 7% increase, which will have 20% VAT on it too, so our bills will increase by one quarter. Hence if your bill is usually £100 a quarter, it will now be £125 a quarter!!!

I'm not suggesting that anyone allows themselves to be chilly for the sake of saving money, but if you have heated your home, do what ever you can to keep it warm and yourselves warm. Finally, one room living is the answer, if like us, you're just a couple without children. We've warmed (taken the edge off!) all of the house, but we heat the one room we are in. We use our oil filled radiator, it cost us about £25 (Argos) and it really warms a room to the point of being cosy. It is very cheap to run. You can wheel it from room to room. Ours is in our living room, where we eat, read, knit and 'hunker down' in this cold weather. What is everyone else doing to keep warm without breaking the bank?

Menu Planning and budgetting.

I shopped late last night. I'm really starting to notice the almost weekly increases but yesterday I topped up my store cupboard and was shocked by some prices. Here's the week's menu.

Today - Fish pie and salad, taken out of the freezer and reheated in the mini oven, eaten with the much reduced price salad from Pesky Tesky.

Here are the rest of the meals.

Salmon Fish cakes and salad with croutons.

One tin of salmon, mixed with mashed potatoes, finely chopped parsley and one egg. Fry gently on both sides until golden brown. The cost of a tin of salmon surprised me, it's now £1.50 a tin, however, that's enough to make eight fish cakes, four for supper and four to freeze for another day. After you have lifted the salmon cakes out of the frying pan, drop in  the small cubes of old bread - fry and serve with the salad.

Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni

You will need a quarter of a pack of frozen spinach, allow to defrost. One tub of Ricotta cheese - now £1 a tub! When did that go up?? 100g of Parmesan and one egg. Cannelloni is also expensive and was £2.50 for a large box in the supermarket! It will last but that's a lot to lay out! The sauce to cook it in is: one tin/box of passata, one finely chopped onion, two finely chopped cloves of garlic. Saute the onion and garlic in some oil, add some black pepper and passata (I just use a cheap tin of tomatoes and mush them myself) Cook through until sauce like, usually about 20 minutes.

Drain the spinach in a fine plastic sieve, squash all the water out with the back of a spoon, stir together with small pot of Ricotta, Parmesan and one egg. To get it into the cannelloni - push the cannelloni tub into the mixture and then towards the side of the mixing bowl, keep gathering it up and pushing it to the side until it fills the tube.

Place some of the cooked tomatoe sauce in the bottom of a dish and lay the canelloni on top, then cover with tomatoe sauce, if you have some grated cheese then put that on top - I don't, I don't usually make my tomato sauce as Tesco value pasta sauce is 34p, which is the same price as a tin of tomatoes, so it's cheaper to buy the sauce. We have two tubes each and I will make enough for two days, we just eat the same the next day, reheated with some salad.

Veggie Chilli with baked potato

You will need half a bag of quorn mince, an onion, tin of sliced mushrooms, one pepper, tin of kidney beans, some chilli powder and another jar of Tesco value pasta sauce. One large baked potato each.

Drain the mushrooms, finely chop one onion and one pepper, fry in as little oil as possible. When cooked, add the quorn mince and the chilli power. I usually use the Tesco chilli mix, they sell three sauce sachets for £1 and I usually have a stock in the cupboard. It thickens as well as flavouring. I then add the pasta sauce and keep adding water until I get the consistency I want. Quorn soaks up water and can be dry without enough sauce. When almost cooked, add the tinned kidney beans and allow to cook through. Serve with a baked potato

Bacon and Pea Risotto

You will need: one pack of Tesco Value 'cooking bacon' - it's the offcuts from the rashers and a variety of shapes. 300g of Arborio rice (that's still cheap!), one litre of veg stock, one onion and 100g of frozen peas. Chop and fry the onion, along with the finely chopped bacon, cook through - I add the rice and stock all in one go and keep stirring. We eat this with any cooked veg, usually cooked 'squeaky' beans.

Friday night Special - egg, chips and beans!

Homemade chips, an egg each and a tin of beans between us. We always 'pad' out our budget with something really cheap in the week.

I'm sure everyone on a budget is noticing the rise in prices. I can only imagine that we shall eat meat as a treat and stick to veggie meals most of the time, supplemented by fish (tinned!) and seasonal.

Preparing for 'Buy Nothing Day'

I'm busy knitting scarves for family members. I've wrapped soap. I used Foster Mummy's idea and made some hanging gift boxes - for the tutorial click HERE . I've wrapped some books which I have bought in charity shops, a huge pile for mum (don't tell her!) as she loves to read. I've made Dad a gardener's apron from old jeans, rear pockets at the front to hold bits and bobs. I've collected boxes from the back of Aldi and I've covered them in wrapping paper to make my 'hampers' and it's all systems go.

I'm preparing for Christmas like never before and I haven't been in a shop yet! Buy nothing day is on the 27th November. Why not go to a jumble sale or a school fund raiser and do your gift shopping there. Have a book swap day or a 'swish' where you get together with friends and swap clothes. You could even do this with children's clothes or even toys.

What ever Christmas means to you; it does not need to cost any money. I am really hoping the current economic hard times will steer people away from commercialism for ever, that people will shop less and make do and mend, will swap and borrow what they need and share what they have. Enjoy a homemade Christmas this year.