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 💗

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays To You All

 

What a year this has been.... full of  life events.  We have had bereavements, accidents, and life changes for the whole family, and I'm sure we are not alone in this.  Many of you have been in a similar position and some still are.  We have had some fun times too, of course, we mustn't forget those.  Times spent with family have been very precious.

I want to wish all my loyal readers a very Happy Christmas and Happy Holidays if you don't celebrate Christmas.  May 2026 bring joy, peace and, above all, LOVE to you all.

I'll be back in the new year with my usual frugal January to off-set any extra spending in December (although we have been pretty much bang on budget)

Take care of yourselves,

Love, 

     Angie 💗

In My Element & Bargain Buys....

 On 8th December I published a post showing my winning raffle ticket prize of an entrance ticket to the Stourbridge Glass museum.  We decided to visit on Friday as it was a lovely, sunny but cold day.  I love glass anyway but it was amazing.  The beauty of the building is that they are all geared up to sustainability and energy conservation.  They have installed solar panels for electricity and the furnace in the working glass studio is run on electricity and not gas.  The craftsman and women were a joy to watch.

There were so many cabinets full of glass of all kinds that we spent a couple of hours just looking at everything contained within.  It was all so beautiful, especially the cameo glass.....

Just across the road is another small glass museum which has free entry and an independent coffee shop adjacent to it, so we popped over there for a quick lunch, then went back into the main museum for another mooch. I didn't know that Northwood Carnival Ware was so varied.....

At the entrance, there is some vintage glass for sale and I couldn't NOT buy a beautiful Waterford water glass priced at £2.50.....

.....and a smaller water/ juice glass which might have been Stuart Crystal, also priced at £2.50....

....as well as a Chance glass plate for my Christmas table for mince pies/ Christmas cake.  Apparently, the design was originally for Crystal Palace.  Wow... at £3 it had to come home with me....

We enjoyed it so much that we fully intend to go back in the spring.  Next time, the tickets will cost £30 for two of us but they then give unlimited access for a whole year, a bit like the Black Country Living Museum.  Which reminds me....our BCLM tickets are still valid for part of next year 😀

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Right...I'm off to give the bathroom a good clean, do the ironing and check that my final supermarket delivery next week has all I need on the order.  Bye!

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

Angie 💗

What Did I Do With My £802 ?

 

When I sold my car just over a week ago I was mulling over what to do with the cash.  I didn't want to fritter any of it away and decided to use some savings to make it up to £1000 and buy some premium bonds with it.  Done and dusted !  They will be entered into the February draw.  Who knows... I might win enough to buy the remaining share of our shared ownership bungalow one day, so that we can both remain here to the end of our days 😊

Or there again... pigs might fly 🐷😂

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How are you doing with your Christmas prep?

All the Christmas cards that needed posting have been committed to our rubbish Royal Mail service (we haven't had post for about a week) neighbour's cards have been pushed through doors (carefully where there are dogs at home!) and my gifts have all been wrapped and labelled.   The freezer has been filled with party food and a beef joint for pulled beef baps on Boxing Day.  I have a Sainsbury's delivery booked for 23rd Dec with all the stuff like milk, cream, bread etc  All I will need to buy is fresh salad stuff and the cheap 15p veg which I like to choose myself.  I have a list and think I'm prepared !  Oh...and I have the last batch of cards to drop off at the shop for this year...425 in total for 2025.

How about you ?

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

Angie 💗