To Shop or Not? Ice Decided It....

 The snow has still not melted and our street never gets gritted so we are loathe to go out to do a 'big' shop this week.  After a great deal of thought I decided to do an online shop with Sainsburys this week after all.  I know it costs £2 for delivery on a spend of £40 plus but it felt worth it not to run the risk of falling in the icy weather we are dealing with.  On closer inspection, I had accumulated a few more Nectar points on bonus offers and now had £20.00 to spend.   I used this plus the £19.37 in cash to make up an order to keep us going over the next week or so. 

Aargh.... I forgot to take a photo before I put my shopping away but I'll add photos of the receipt which you should be able to expand to see properly.....

There were several substitutions and the satsumas looked awful so were handed back to the driver for a refund.  The total spend, over and above my £20 in Nectar points, was £20.08.  I used the £19.37 left in the jar plus cash from the account of 91p. This leaves us with:

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 Nectar card balance £17.50  Nil

Graham's Nectar card £12.50

Boots card loyalty points £12.44 £4.45

Cash  £19.37 Nil

Extra cash spent:  £0.91

I bought more than I would have done had I shopped in store, but I now have enough loo rolls, dishwasher tablets and washing up liquid to last the month.  The cereal has been topped up too and a few things added to the store cupboard eg beans.

This now leaves just £12.50 in Nectar points on Gray's card.  Next shop will be a lean one! 😂

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Thanks for popping in.  Do stay safe and well wherever you happen to be,

Angie 💗

Spending Loyalty Points & Needing Fresh Air!

 After another bitterly cold night and more snow, and not having ventured out further than to top up the bird feeder, we were champing at the bit for some exercise.  Gray de-iced the car and we popped to the next village on a mission to spend a few Boots loyalty points on stuff we needed.......

They cost a total of 799 points (or £7.99), leaving 445 points for another time......

I had a voucher for another free hot drink so we took the opportunity to pop into Greggs for a warm up and a yummy hot chocolate.  

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I also wanted to drop off another batch of cards at the shop, so donated another 15 to start the year off well....

We were out for just over an hour but were really glad to get back into the house.  The cold fair took off our ears!

Have you ventured out into the snow?

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Thanks for popping in.  Do stay safe and warm wherever you happen to be, 

Angie💗

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 Nectar card balance £17.50

Graham's Nectar card £12.50

Boots card loyalty points £12.44 £4.45

Cash  £19.37

Charity Shop Book Finds

When we popped to the nearest village for a walk and a bit of fresh air I just couldn't resist browsing the bookshelves in the charity shop.  Most books are just 50p each and I quickly spotted this Trisha Ashley and a Miss Read book.  I have read Trisha's book before but it was some years ago and I quite fancy reading it again.  The Miss Read books are always a nostalgic, gentle read.  I also spotted the Richard Armitage one (not sure if I'll like it) and an Evie Woods who is a new-to-me author but, hey....it's a book about books! 

On my way to the till I had a quick rummage through the 'tat' box and discovered this cute little cross stitch kit for 50p.  I just couldn't leave it behind 😁

 

I am still sticking to my £10 per week spending money so now have £7.50 left.  Oh... and I got a free coffee with my insurance App.  I could even sit inside Greggs in the warm whilst I drank it.  Bargain!

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Thanks for popping in.  Stay safe and well wherever you happen to be,

Angie💗

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 Nectar card balance £17.50

Graham's Nectar card £12.50

Boots card loyalty points £12.44

Cash  £19.37

First Flowers of 2026 & a Snowy Afternoon

 I bought my first flowers of the year along with the last shop; a beautiful bunch of peach coloured roses.  They look so cheerful in the kitchen 😊

Despite the heavy snow yesterday, our visitors all managed to get here, despite the fact that none of them (3 cars travelling independently)) could get up the hill from the village.  As usual, it hadn't been gritted and was treacherously icy.  After a couple of attempts at it they all carefully turned around and took a detour.  A pizza and salad lunch followed by tiramisu was served and they stayed until late afternoon when the temperature began to fall again.  They all messaged me when they got home so that I knew they were safe. 

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When I woke up this morning I found that it had snowed again during the night so we will be staying in again today.  I will put the washing machine on and make some more cards for the Hospice shop.  When I visited last week, there were just 3 cards left out of the 425 donated so I intend to carry on with the project again this year.  

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Have a great weekend everyone and thanks so much for popping in,

Angie 💗

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 Nectar card balance £17.50

Graham's Nectar card £12.50

Boots card loyalty points £12.44

Cash  £19.37

Oh no....Forgotten Items, More Visitors, and Snow!.

The night before last, (31st Dec) was really chilly and frosty, and I was woken up by all the fireworks going off to welcome in the new year 😖.  Yet, I was warm and toasty in bed with my hot water bottle and awoke to a bright but rainy day.  I suddenly realised that I had forgotten to buy a TV guide and that I had no bananas left.  We also have some visitors on Friday.  I have pizza but no salad stuff, so this meant another trip to Sainsburys.  As usual, I bought more than I had gone out for 😕 I wanted to round up my spending to £5 Nectar points so treated myself to a bunch of roses @ £3.50.  Therefore Nectar spend was £5.00 and I paid the difference of £3.02 from my own discretionary spending.

This is what I bought......

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 Nectar card balance £17.50

Graham's Nectar card £12.50

Boots card loyalty points £12.44

Cash  £19.37

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In the early hours of this morning (2nd Jan) , 2.15am in fact, I woke up with aching muscles and decided to go and get some painkillers.  A peep through the curtains revealed that it was snowing!  The ground was covered with a pure white blanket and snow was still coming down like fluffy white feathers.  I hope it will be short lived but it looks so pretty at the moment.  It looks like it will be a day at home...

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Thanks for popping in.  I hope 2026 will be kind to you,

Angie 

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Away We Go! First Nectar shop....

Our challenge has begun!  In one way we cheated a bit by shopping on 30th Dec, but bad weather is forecast including snow flurries and I discovered that I had no white bread flour left.  We really didn't want to shop again until new year but decided on balance that it was sensible to do a top up shop now before the bad weather.  This is what we bought.... 

There are sweet treats in case we get more visitors this week and bread for the freezer, along with bread flour and yeast to make my own.  The yogurt was on offer so I bought 2 as we like it with cereal and fruit for breakfast.  The crumpets can be served with butter and jam, or made savoury topped with an egg or cheese.  The Yorkshire puds were not on my list but they do help to bulk out veg dinners and at 38p for 15 are a great item to have in the freezer.  I can make my own but I really don't put the main oven on very often.  A pack of 10 free range brown eggs for £1.95 will make several meals over the next couple of weeks too.

We spent £17.50 Nectar points and 88p cash

My Nectar card £40.00 £22.50 

Graham's Nectar card £12.50

Boots card loyalty points £12.44

Cash £20.25   £19.37

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Thanks so much for popping in.  Stay safe and well wherever you happen to be,

Happy New Year!

Angie 💗

January Re-set & a Challenge ....

Hello everyone, and welcome to 2026.  I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and that 2026 is going to be calm, happy and healthy for you.

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Christmas seemed a bit strange this year, not knowing exactly who was going to be there for meals on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.  Unfortunately, our Granddaughter was working (in retail) on 26th so couldn't come for the buffet at ours, but Grandson brought his girlfriend so I ended up catering for 4 guests, not 6 as expected.  The hot, pulled beef cobs went down a treat.  The M&S beef served 8 generously filled cobs and Grandson (18 and 6ft tall) added stuffing, pigs in blankets, a cheese slice and gravy to his 😯😂  I would definitely buy it again.

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We have decided to carry on with a second year of frugal adventures and we would like our March treat to be a few days away in a hotel somewhere.  With that in mind, January will be a low spend month for food and toiletries etc.  We still have a lot of food in the freezer and store cupboard to go at, so only intend to buy stuff as needed eg fresh bread and milk, and only the fruit and veg for planned meals.  

We intend to use the following and to make it last as long as possible :

The change jar contains £20.25 in cash,

My Nectar card has £42.16 in loyalty points,

Graham's Nectar card has £12.50 in points,

Boots card loyalty points value is £12.44

Nectar points can only be used in multiples of £2.50 which means we can spend £40.00 of mine and £12.50 of Graham's plus the £20.25 in cash.  We will spend the points first and top up what is spent over and above the £2.50 multiples with cash, if you see what I mean?  My Boots points will be used for things like paracetamol,  toothpaste and hand-wash. 

How long can we shop on just the above? Can we manage for the whole of January?  Probably not, but we can try 😁🤞 I'll let you know how we spend it.

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We were both given toiletries for Christmas so have plenty to last for a few months.  My lovely Granddaughter gave me some Liz Earle shower gel and body cream (a real treat ) and my Daughter gave me a lovely perfume, so I will smell delicious for a while at least 😁

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In other news, the energy company reviewed our direct debit payment just before Christmas and it will be reduced from £120 per month to £97.53 from January.  This is seriously good news as we are still in credit and won't need to worry about putting the heating on during this cold snap.  The forecast is for even colder weather over the next few days so we won't be venturing far.  At least the rain has stopped, it's just so damp everywhere.....

In addition, I won't have to fork out for insurance on my car in March, as I no longer have it.  This will save up to £200 and there will be no service or repairs to pay for either.  We intend to use some of the money saved to buy car breakdown cover for our one remaining car, as we are no longer able to deal with car problems ourselves.  This will give us peace of mind on our days out in future. 

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I usually write a new budget for the forthcoming year in March which is when the increases in rent, service charges, home insurance and Council tax take effect.  At least I know that we have enough money coming in for the current bills.  Such a relief...

Anyway, thanks for popping in.  Stay safe and well wherever you happen to be.

Happy New Year !

Angie 💗