Christmas krispy kreams have arrived

A box of Christmas krispy kream donuts have just arrived in the office from total jobs. Nestled safely inside the packaging are a variety of donuts including one in the shape of a Christmas tree and one with a snow mans face.

I've only ever had half a plain, glazed krispy kream before quite a few years ago. I carefully selected toffee glazed donut which was a lovley (free!) substitute to my lunch and was delicious accompanied by a free office coffe. Yummy! I cut it into tiny pieces to nibble throughout the day to hopefully avoid the post-sugar rush slump.

Hopefully more foodie freebies will keep coming my way until payday next week which will keep my tummy feeling Happy :)

A brief update

I just want to say another big thank you to my most recent follower 'Butterfly'; it still fills me with excitement to see the number of people interested in reading my tiny contribution to the blog-o-sphere creep up slowly one by one.

I seem to have fallen slightly off the frugal path at the moment due to the prolonged birthday celebrations, as well as spending a bit too much on grabbing food whilst gadding about London Town. This is despite me being slightly in the minus in the old current account (luckily its interest free still, a nice remnant from my student days!) But I have put about £70 into the savings account this month- I promise I'll be back to my usual careful self once this weekend has passed.

How is everyone's week going so far? well I hope. TTFN x

I turned 25 yesterday.....and Christmas shopping

So this weekend myself and the BF had a little trip up North, staying overnight in Leeds and going on a little jaunt over to York on my actual birthday. On Saturday we traveled for four hours on a freezing mega bus and then explored the city, having a spot of lunch and stocking up on snacks before hitting the town for a few drinks together. After a few too many sherbets we stumbled  back to our hotel room and I awoke to an all day hangover the next day I'm afraid to say.


Now this sound a little weird but there's something about birthdays I just don't really like, and what makes me uncomfortable. Ever since I was little I hated the day where the attention would be on me, and I would be expected have to have an extraordinary amount of fun, I just don't like that pressure- maybe it is just me being strange as my Mum always says?

Anyway we took in the sights or beautiful, historic York had lunch (except I couldn't face food) in a lovely little country pub in front of the big old fireplace on a huge squishy leather sofa and shopped a little more. We walked up along the city wall, marveled at the beautiful cathedral, had a look around the transport museum and made our way back to Leeds by train.

After a four hour trip back to London, I was finally starting to feel back to normal again and we had a lovely birthday meal out- at McDonalds lol where I had my first lot of food of the day- A kids chicken nugget happy meal. My tummy was much happier after eating it that's for sure. And I finished the day with a nice relaxing bubble bath, to soothe my aching feet and muscles after all the walking we done over the last few days.

It's fair to say that my hangover did take the shine off of my special day a bit, which was a bit of a shame and not what I wanted and my phone died too literally just as we were leaving the hotel room, so I returned home to my texts and Facebook messages after charging my phone.

This weekend I also made a start on my Christmas shopping in an attempt to spread the cost out a bit. I bought my Mum a Yankee candle in Chrismas Eve scent along with a Pandora charm for her bracelet and a little handmade heart thing from the craft market in York, my sister a black and silver jewellry box which will look really nice in her room as well as a Marmite sandwich box for her Marmite breakfast sarnies she eats on the train every day on the way to work and my Nan one of those little handmade heart things too. I think I'm going to get my Dad the DAB digital alarm clock that he wants, my Nan the Steps greatest hits CD and maybe the book and I'm not sure what to buy my Grandad- socks and slippers?! hehe. BF and I are not giving each other Christmas presents this year, putting our money together instead to hopefully buy a computer in the new year as my laptop has a huge crack in the screen and his lappy is super slow.

I'm aiming to have my presents all wrapped up by mid December to avoid the last minute present buying panic, and instead focus on making the flat feel all nice and Christmassy. Have you started your Chirstmas shopping yet?

TTFN xx

Mid-week update

Happy hump-day readers! How are we all feeling mid-week? Looking forward to the weekend?

Anyways, this week I have been frugally feeding myself with lots of fresh vegetable soup. On Saturday I made four servings of carrot soup and poured it into jars I had recycled (I found these are the best way to transport soup- no leaks! and are free too!) and I popped them in the fridge ready to grab bleary eyed before rushing to the train station.

I read somewhere that cookery is not a precise science, but a creative art and this is the advice that I subscribe to. While  my BF scrumptiously cooks according to the recipe down to the last grain I guesstimate, throwing in approximate amounts of ingredients and hoping for the best. So here's my improvised fresh carrot soup recipe;

Ingredients 

• Three quarters of a bag of smart price carrots, priced a reasonable 76p from Asda 
• Some garlic
• Half a red onion found lurking in the fridge
• One sweet potato 
• Some flaked almonds (gives a nice crunchy texture) 
• One roasted red pepper in vinegar from a jar 
• Some chilli flakes (optional)
• One low salt vegetable stock cube 

Method 

1. Chop up all ingredients and place into a slowcooker/large saucepan 
2. Pour in an approximate amount of hot vegetable stock
3. Leave to cook 
4. Once the ingredients have gone soft use a hand blender to blitz into soup
5. Add some more hot water if needed 
6. Pour into clean, recycled jars and leave to cool before placing into the fridge 

I spotted some reduced crusty onion french bread rolls in the Co-Op on Sunday evening (they reduce all baked goods towards the end of the day) four for 25p which made a meal of my pre-prepared soup. I've eaten two already this week, and the other two are in the freezer to defrost. 

The price of travel 

Tomorrow is also the date on which I will need to buy a new monthly train ticket, this week I've been walking from the West End to either Waterloo or Charing Cross train stations because it seems the tube is becoming increasingly packed (Christmas shoppers already?!). I'm debating whether to go for the all out travel card option priced £180.00 or a cheaper over-rail only. I'm thinking that there's some x-mas drinks coming up, and we're going away this weekend and our coach goes from Victoria that the travel card will probably be the best choice- at least I won't have to worry about topping up. Are there any other commuters out there? What are your thoughts? 

There is fire in the sky tonight x

So my flat was a bustling hub of activity this firework night.... I think not. Three of us were indoors participating in watching the fireworks for free from our entrance way. I was frantically moving my camera and Gorilla pod (small bendable tripod thing) around, adjusting the exposure to try to get some cool shots. I managed to take about 50 in total before they fizzled out and I've posted some of my personal favourites above.I'll definitely be playing with long exposure again in the near future. What did you get up to this Bonfire Night? x

To see more of my photos please visit my Flickr page here http://www.flickr.com/photos/57811197@N04/
Or my Instagram page here http://web.stagram.com/n/swingsandroundabouts/ 

Meal planning

Saturday-

Breakfast- Bagels, scrambled egg, beans & OJ

Lunch- Home made carrot soup & pitta bread

Dinner- Left over curry

Sunday-


Breakfast- Bagels, scrambled egg, beans

Lunch- Pitta bread, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and olives

Dinner- We ended up in our local spoons eating a kids 'roast' (microwaved?) dinner. Was pretty nice at half price, setting me back just a couple of pounds. A further two more pounds for a drink and £1.70 spent on pudding. After being thrifty over the last few days it was a nice way to finish off the weekend. Headed home in a food induced coma and swiftly fell asleep shortly after!

Monday-


Breakfast- Porridge, cinnamon, flaked almonds & sultanas & coffee

Lunch- Home made carrot soup & pitta bread, yoghurt & apples

Dinner- Chicken fajitas

Tuesday-


Breakfast- Chocolate ready-made porridge & coffee

Lunch- Home made carrot soup & pitta bread

Dinner- Home in the evening

Wednesday-

Breakfast- Whatever I can rummage from home

Lunch- Same as above

Dinner-  Chicken stir-fry with vegetables and coconut rice

Thursday-


Breakfast- Porridge, cinnamon, flaked almonds and sultanas & coffee

Lunch-Home made carrot soup & pitta bread, yogurt

Dinner- Chicken Korma & rice

Friday- Off work


Breakfast- Toast & peanut butter

Lunch-

Dinner- Pasta with tomato sauce

My first follower and a frugal weekend

I just thought I'd say a huge thank you to the blogger over at 'Never too old' http://nevertooldtolearnfromyourmistakes.blogspot.com/ who has become my first ever follower! I've enjoyed some Saturday morning reading over in your blogging corner and it has some great advice, particularly the mention of this forum http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=1384751 looks very interesting and I'll be investigating further.

Now this weekend will be of the frugal type, as I'm saving my pennies for the next two weekends as we are off up t'North next weekend. We're staying in a hotel in Leeds (found on a discount website of course- think it was called Late Rooms) and travel has cost us each a bargainous £7.00 each way thanks to the ever reliable MegaBus- though sometimes I wonder just how they make their money, but hey I'm not complaining! And the weekend after that is my birthday night out.

Seeing as this weekend (5th Nov) is set to be wet and rainy, my bf is at work practically for the entirety of it and the usual suspects at our local are away I think it'll be pretty easy to do.

Last night, and this may seem pretty dull to most people, me and my housemate made a regular trip to the supermarket. Over the last few years we have become fed up of battling the trolley traffic which the isles are heaving with on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Instead we can shop in tranquility on a Friday night and it keeps us out of the pub too, which is always good for money saving and what's great is that you can wake up to a fully stocked cupboard on Saturday morning and enjoy a lovely breakfast. On the menu today is scrambled egg and baked beans with seeded bagels- yum, can't wait- washed down with some coffee.

I usually pay for the food shopping with our joing account card but due to not having a bank card at the moment I've been having to use the joint card to pay for stuff, so I owed our joint account around 62.00. Last night I had £40.00 cash and it really made me prioritise my purchases as I didn't want to get to the counter and do the embarrassing thing of putting stuff back. I roughly added up the shopping as I put it on the conveyorbelt and I estimated around £41.00 and it came in around 40p over my guess! The bargains I picked up were two fajita kits which were half price at £1.50, and a huge bag of carrots for 76p which I'll make loads of carrot soup with- which will be my lunches sorted for next week.

Today, it looks pretty wet and miserable so may hit the gym as I haven't been all week followed by some batch cooking, and I really want to do some photography as I haven't done any in ages. I was thinking of experimenting with some long exposure shots of the fireworks- I'll be sure to post some of my creations on here if they work out okay. Tomorrow my mum and dad want to come over to go bike riding in Richmond park (weather permitting) and then want to go out for dinner with me and the bf for my birthday-hope that means they're paying!

How are you spending your weekend? If it's frugally I would love to hear the plans! Enjoy x

This week's freebies

Today I had the pleasure of enjoying a lovely Nando's lunch, starters and all completely free of charge. It seems that on a fairly regular basis the media companies we use thank us for our business by taking us out, or putting on some entertainment along with free food and drink. This time the people from the job site Monster.co.uk came over and about twenty TMPers descended on Nandos in Holborn.

Luckily we had been able to reserve a table for a window of 45 minutes, and when all the orders were put through the list looked just like Father Christmas's present list! Surprisingly, no -one had ordered exactly the same meal and after stuffing our faces with as much chicken as possible and daringly having a go at the chicken roulette (a plate of chicken wings of varying spicy-ness,with one killer wing lurking admist the other cooler spiced wings-which was purely for entertainment value of course). The organiser from Monster was unlucky enough to select the offending wing, and after putting it into his mouth turned a bright shade of crimson. He also had carrot coloured hair, so looked an interesting site to say the least!

On our sluggish return to the office we all felt the effects of what an only be described as a food coma, but as always free food always tastes much better than when you have to pay for it so we were all a happy bunch for the remainder of the afternoon.

Elsewhere, the Metro newspaper also had some promotions within its pages; namely a 2-4-1 voucher for Christmas coffees at Starbucks (yep, they're available already and Christmas is still more than six weeks away) and a voucher for a free bottle of vitamin water at Tesco. The paper is stored safely in my canvas bag ready for when I get a chance to tear the coupons out.

What have you found/obtained for free this week? xx

Budgeting

I downloaded a clever little app for my iPhone a few months ago which allows you to track everything you spend in the month. At the start of the month you enter in your budget for the next four weeks, and it has several categories including utilities, groceries, hobby/entertainment, pet, household, clothes etc.

If you ever want to see where all your hard earned pennies are disappearing to I would highly recommend downloading this money management app. Best of all, it was free too so tracking your finances needn't cost you a penny.

And best of all you can save all of the data on your iPhone and export it to excel for future reference.

How do you work out and stick to your budgets?

xx

Meal planning

Over the last few years while I have been trying to save money I've found it's essential to do a big weekly food shop, usually at the weekends to stock up on food for the next week. This is because otherwise we tend to find ourselves nipping to the local, rather more expensive shops or reaching for the take away menus or heading out the door to eat out.

Since moving to our new flat six months ago, which is situated on top of a shop amongst a parade made up of every type of takeaway food you can think of its too easy to think sod it lets just go to the fish and chip shop- however, I don't particularly want to eat fast food for dinner every day, nor do I want to spend a fiver on food at lunchtime. Therefore, having the cupboards stocked up means I can (usually) rustle up something relatively healthy in a hurry.

Here's my meal plan for the next week:

Monday-

Breakfast- I had a half day so made sure I used up the last egg and the last of the milk which went off today. I made scrambled egg and baked beans on toast, washed down with a coffee.

Snack- Some sushi from the big pack I bought from the Korean supermarket at the weekend. The sushi from here tasted sooo much better than supermarket sushi and at £3.00 I got three servings out of it too. Two apples from my mum's apple tree sliced. A packet of Halloween pickled onion Pombears stashed in my desk draw.


Lunch- I made some thick Japanese noodles and put them into miso soup which I took into work. It wasn't one of my tastiest combinations and think I will stick to noo

dles with stir fries in the future.

Dinner- I chopped up the last of a courgette and red onion clearing out the vegetable draw, cut up some tofu and stir fried with fahita spices. I wrapped the mixture in tortillas smeared with some mayo, and it was delicious!

Tuesday-


Breakfast- Porridge with cinnamon, sultanas and flaked almonds with a thermos of coffee for the train.

Lunch- Pasta with homemade tomato and vegetable sauce from the freezer which I made a few weeks ago.

Snacks- Two apples from the apple tree. These are the last in the cupboard, so tomorrow I'll go home to re-stock my supplies.

Dinner- I'm heading home for dinner tomorrow so it will be something homemade by my mum.

Wednesday-


Breakfast- Ready made Chocolate porridge from a sachet, or perhaps something more interesting depending what I can find in my mum's kitchen cupboards.


Lunch- From home.


Dinner- Tofu, frozen stirfried vegetables and coconut rice.

Thursday-


Breakfast- Porridge/cereal/toast and coffee.


Lunch- Leftover dinner from last night.


Dinner- Jar curry sauce, rice and chicken (need to buy)


Friday-


Breakfast- Porridge/toast/cereal


Lunch- Out for lunch at Nandos with Monster.co.uk, there's nothing tastier than free food!


Dinner- If hungry after Nandos will probably have something simple and light like baked beans on toast.

What will you be eating this week? Do you plan your meals in advance? xx

A spooky Halloween weekend in London

My very own green Jack-o-lantern x

This weekend I spent most of my evenings soaking up the spooky atmosphere in london town.
After work on Friday one if my best friends came to meet me. We enjoyed a rather rushed dinner (which unfortunately came on a tray and in a basket) at a small BBQ restaurant just off of Oxford street before tottering off to Covent garden to the Fortune theatre to see 'A woman in black'.

My friend was nervously awaiting the spooky tale after reading reviews on the net. The play had only three actors in it, who played a number of different
characters each who depicted the story of a woman in black who haunts an old mansion set up in the Yorkshire moors. The story unfolds, and the woman in black makes a number of appearances throughput the play cursing her spell over anyone who is unlucky enough to catch sight of her dark figure. The highlights were the war piercing screams which make the audience jump out of their seats.

I then found out there will be a remake of the old film starting Harry potter actor Daniel Radcliffe

released in February next year which I want to see
and might have a browse on Amazon too to see if they stock the book. I'd highly recommend seeing it if you're in town and tickets are only about £12 too.

On Saturday night I had been given tickets to go and see a special showing of 'The Blair witch project' at The Union Chapel in Highbury Islington. I'd never seen the film when I was younger and as the free tickets included two complimentary jamesons cocktails I thought it would be a fun thing to do. The chapel was all decorated for Halloween with low green lighting, spooky decorations and Jack-o-lanterns casting their eerie glow across the pews. In front of us there was a stage which had a set from the film built on it, including some trees and three pop up tents to bring the film to life.

I sat there waiting for the film to get scary, and then when it did it finished suddenly. A little disappointing but enjoyed the spooky surroundings and cool setting. Getting the tube back to Waterloo we encountered ghouls, ghosts and other dressed up party goers.

What are your plans for Halloween? Are you a fan? Or do you plan on bolting down the fort, turning the lights off and hiding from trick-or-treaters?

Xx

This weeks freebies

Thermos- freebie from media dept, used to keep my soup safe en route to work.

Designer Diet Coke bottle- donated by colleague, now resides on my desk.

Two apples- from the apple tree at home which is flourishing this year.

I also made a hairband from the elastic waistband of a laddered pair of tights and cut the ribbon hanger-tag things from some new clothes to make a book divider in my notepad and a key ring used to attach my fob.

Two free tickets to see the Blair Witch Project at The Union Chapel, including two free Jamesons cocktails- Click here for more info.


What thrifty freebies have you made/acquired this week?

My money saving tips

Save the pennies and keep your piggy happy!

Since stumbling across the personal finances blogosphere I've picked up lots of handy tips for making the pennies stretch further. Now some I'm not so keen on and would prefer to spend a little extra to get a little more on the things that matter to me most; for example I went through a phase of using box hair dye to dye my hair at home. But due to the thickness of my mop and unfortunately not having the arms of an octopus I had to use a couple of boxes to make sure my hair was dyed evenly. It also took up a lot of time, effort and made a lot of mess in the bathroom (queue one angry housemate!) so after a recent disastrous attempt at dying my red hair back to dark I handed the job over to a professional and succumbed to the salon. However, one thrifty tip I discovered when I was a student is that one of the big chain salons will cut your hair, dry and style it for around £20.00- bargain! So now I only ever tend to book my appointments on the day, usually when I'm heading into town for shopping on a Sunday (saves petrol and parking is £1.00 all day). Needless to say I was very pleased with the result and I now have nice, evenly coloured dark bobbed hair. Note to self- put the home dyes down.

So what else have I learned on my frugal way? Here goes:

1.Skip the daily grind. In London a small coffee will set you back around £2.50- this adds up to £12.50 per week and around £50.00 per month.... When you think of that over the year that adds up to a saving of £600.00 which could (almost?) buy you a holiday for two! Instead make your own at home before leaving for work and drink the office coffee rather than nipping out to the local coffee shop. Nb. If you're a fan if foamed milk like I am you can buy tiny electric whisks for £1.00 in Ikea which will give you beautiful foamy milk in minutes (warm your milk in the microwave for a few minutes prior to whisking.)

2. Learn to cook and whip up your own delicious vegetable soups. These make ideal lunches, all you need to do us to tip them into a container (you can buy a whole load from the pound shop for you guessed it, one golden nugget) or pre-gym snacks to stave off hunger pangs during your work out. I recently bought a huge pumpkin from the supermarket for a pound which gave me five individual portions of soup which lasted a week. One container of fresh soup (which gives you about one full bowl) costs about £2.00, make your own and it costs about 50p approx. Per portion- and it's also a great way of using up any veg thats looking a bit worse for wear at the bottom of the fridge.

3. Make your own packed lunch rather than hitting the shops at lunchtime. One 'meal deal' costs about £3.00 at least which consists of a sandwich (usually soggy!) a bag of crisps and a drink. Make your own sarnies, and take one bag from a supermarket bag if crisps and drink water from the office water station to slash the cost of your lunch. Alternatively, last nights left overs are a great option. Why not freeze your left overs in tuppawear boxes and take put as and when you need a quick lunch option. Making your lynch doesn't have to be time consuming you can often make it at the sane time as you're preparing dinner and you don't have to spend 20 mins of your lunch hour rushing about the shops. Or, beans on toast is always a great standby option (it night remind you of your student days though).

4. Shop at large outlets and buy dried goods in bulk where possible. I love the huge oriental supermarkets near me and buy foods I've only ever eaten in restaurants in there such as Thai sticky rice and glass noodles. These also give you a taste of eating out at the fraction of the cost.

5. Sign up to voucher code sites and download voucher code apps. These can save you a significant amount on the price of eating out.

There's my top five money saving tips for today, I didn't intentionally mean to make them all about food and drink though! TTFN, happy saving!

Payday!

So today was payday and upon peeking into my payslip I was pleasantly surprised to discover that things won't be as bleak this month as I had anticipated- don't ask me how but I for one won't be questioning payroll about it!

So this is my basic budget for the next four weeks and three days:

£220- rent
£200- money goes into mine and my BF's joint account (this covers most of the household bills, food, household items such as cleaning products and basic toiletries and if there's anything left over we use it when we go out for drinks/meals etc.)
£180.00- travel card. My travel card runs out on the 10th of November so must remember to sort this.
£42- gym membership
£32.50- phone bill

This leaves a grand total of 442.92 for me to spend. Though not forgetting I was £50 into my overdraft due to the new hair it leaves £392 to play with. Wah-hey!