Combining Coupons and Special Offers

Love this quote and it can so often be true, but not for me today as I'll explain later.

Lots of little things done today. Some of those little jobs that I keep saying ‘I must do such and such’ and then it promptly slips my mind.

I’ve done 2 loads of laundry; the first was the scrap cloths we use for wiping down the cats’ mats and inside their litter trays. These get stored in a bucket and then washed on 90 degrees to kill germs. Some of them are off cuts from towels and teacloths that got too ragged, and some are DD’s boyfriend’s holey towelling socks. The socks are great as you can stick your hand inside them which makes them very easy to use for cleaning.

After the cloths I put on a load of lights which was mostly made up of the boyfriend’s wearable socks, which for some reason he saves up until they’re spilling out of the basket. I also finally got around to taking down the kitchen net curtain which was looking decidedly grubby and added it to this load. I always put it straight back up once it comes out of the machine so it dries while hanging there.

I’ve vacuumed and cleared out the filter which always gets forgotten but makes such a difference to the cleaning power. I’ve also banged in a nail that that secures my indoor line above the boiler in the kitchen. The darn thing parted company with the wall and dumped a load of shirts I was airing on the floor, so brute force and a hammer has made sure it won’t happen again. That’s definitely a job I should have done sooner before it was later and I had to rescue all those shirts.

So...my bargains that I definitely did need at a price I couldn't resist. 

Another task was to finally get some Xmas food shopping done. I had a leaflet for Morrison’s through the door which included a £3 off a £20 shop coupon. Now, I rarely spend that much in one go in one place as I shop around so much, but they also had an offer of ½ price British chicken, which we prefer to turkey, and I also liked the look of their £7 gammon joints when I was last in there. We always have gammon, pickles and crusty rolls as our Christmas breakfast.

So off I went with my rucksack and a big reusable bag to the Morrison’s that is thankfully just a 5 minute walk away. I bought 2 chickens each weighing around 1.7kg for about £3 each, a gammon joint for £7, 2 x 750g boxes of Kellogg’s cornflakes @ £1.34 each, a packet of 16 rashers of smoked streaky bacon (to wrap around sausages) for £2, a packet of veggie sausages for £1 (DD2’s been veggie since she was 8 and her and her boyfriend are coming to us for Xmas breakfast), 15 Savers Yorkshire puds for 49p, 2 x large white toastie loaves @ 2 for £1, 4 shape yogurts for £1, 500g frozen minced lamb for £2.75 and a couple of other bits and pieces for a total of £25.13 which I only paid £22.13 for with the coupon. Plus the chickens would normally have been £6 each at full price, and the cornflakes at least double the price. So, all in all I was very pleased with my haul and I’ve now made some progress with my Christmas preparations. I still have chipolatas and veggie bacon to buy, but I’m making the bread rolls this year and also the desserts.

 

 Dinner tonight was a real mix of leftovers – the gammon, leek, pea and potato soup from the other day combined with some chicken curry (which had originally started life as a stew) plus additional curry powder for flavour. Sounds horrible but it was yummy served with spiced basmati rice (4 sachets for £1 from AF, and I used 2 sachets) and some cumin and chilli naan bread made from a packet mix I got ages ago in an AF £1 lucky box. 

 

I also made a raspberry trifle as DH loves his trifle. For the base I used some frozen sponge scraps I’d baked with the last of a huge packet from AF, some raspberries from the freezer that I’d bought for 19p in Morrison’s because they were going squishy, a sugar-free raspberry jelly (10 for £1 from AF), and custard made with powder (a huge 3kg bag from AF for – I think - £2.99), a little sugar and skimmed milk. 

I didn’t top it with cream as we use low fat squirty cream except on special occasions. 

 

 Another really cheap and filling meal that used up lots of oddments so nothing was wasted.

Tomorrow is my volunteering day and I have to leave the house just after 8am. I’m hoping that this week will be dry so I don’t get soaked simply walking to the bus stop.