And now for the good news!

We have just managed to pay 10% off our mortgage!

This time last year we owed the building society £105,000.00

We then remortgaged in September 2007 for £85,000.00 paying off £20,000.00

This time we scraped together £8,500.00 (the 10% allowed in 1 year) and now we owe £76,500

Slowly but surely it is coming down!! It was very scary using up our savings, there are so many other things that the money could be used for but we decided to follow our goal which is to be financially free by retirement.

Now it is back to building up the savings again! We have to find the next 10% £7,650 by next August. We have learned that every little helps even the 20p saved by not buying that second hand book and getting it from the library instead. What with increasing food and fuel prices and an extra mouth to feed this won't be easy but I'm not giving up now! What we are doing is to put money we would definately have spent before straight into savings so if we would have found the money to eat out before but instead I cook then we take off the cost of the ingredients and save the difference, if we go to the market for the 3 books for £5 offer but then decide to go to the library instead then that is £5 saved. In the last 2 days we have saved £15.20 towards our goal.

We're losing the path!

Everything is growing so well in this part of the garden that we are losing the path! I realise now that we didn't allow enough room and so we have an overcrowding issue! I can't wait until we get the bigger veg patch going next year. We spent £20 on compost at the beginning of the season as this was a new bed and very clay like, but it was worth it. All the plants came free courtesy of our very kind neighbour and also from some packets of seed I had from last year. So for £20 and some back ache we have been getting a good harvest this summer of courgettes, runner beans, tomatoes, spinach and from a compost filled dustbin nearby some new potatoes.




This is todays harvest, may not look like much but is more than enough for the 2 of us and means we have not missed the 2 organic box deliveries we have now cancelled each month. This has saved us £25.70 a month. I am also putting a fair bit into the freezers so we will have a supply into the autumn. We are getting a similar sized harvest every 2-3 days and if we can keep ourselves supplied into October (by using the frozen produce) we will have saved £102.80 less £20 for the compost and £12 for eggs, £20 for fruit - bought at the farm shop instead of from abel and cole - I make that a £50 saving!

It all helps and the pleasure of harvesting your food from the back garden is priceless.

What a lovely birthday present!

This was what I woke up to as I looked out into the garden on my birthday!



I have always hankered after an old fashioned bird house for the garden, like the ones on my american cross stitch patterns and bless his heart Mr C had taken this on board and gave me this one for my birthday! Now I shall have to tidy up the garden and level the ground under it so it doesn't tilt so much. I have placed it well away from any other nest boxes and more or less where we used to have a silver birch that the birds loved so much.

I am spending the rest of the day being thoroughly spoilt by my friends and family, no dinner to cook tonight! We are off to a local fish restaurant, my favourite Loch Fyne.

Aunty Beryl's Chutney Recipe

After 3 weeks without a delivery I'm pleased with the contents of this weeks organic box delivery, a lovely looking cabbage, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, couple of little gem letuces, plums, apples and some delicious clementines. Now to menu plan!




I still have courgettes to use, the one at the back is an example of what happens to a courgette if you don't get to it in time, I have a few more like that one, might be making some of my Auntie Beryl's famous (well famous to our family) chutney! Her recipe is really easy and can be used for most fruit and vegetable gluts:-

Aunty Beryl's Chutney recipe

3lbs apples or any other fruit/vegetables (plums, marrows, tomatoes etc)
3/4 pint vinegar
1/2 lb chopped onions
grated rind of an orange or lemon
1 dessertspoon each of ginger, curry powder and mixed spice

Prepare (peel if necessary and cube) fruit/vegetable and simmer with other ingredients until tender.

Then add 1/4 lb sultanas and 1lb sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, until thick. Pot in the usual way.

This is lovely with cheese and ham.

The organic box delivery with the eggs came to £12.85 so total left in the grocery challenge is £24.15 to last until the end of the month and we have visitors next weekend! yikes! Luckily Mr C is taking us all out for a meal to celebrate my birthday so that is one day taken care of!

Counting my blessings

It's been a quiet week here and I have taken some time out to see how I have been doing.

I can't change my mobile phone contract until october but come october boy will I change things. It is by far too high a bill for something I rarely use so I am hoping to change to pay as you go and keep the phone I have, it is handy for keeping in touch with the kids and for emergencies but really that is all I need. I can't wait til october!

I am well stocked up on the pantry basics and have a freezer full of garden produce and the surplus from the organic box deliveries, so can keep the grocery bill down for a while yet. I have managed to keep to £150 for the month on a regular basis. The organic delivery is now fortnightly instead of weekly.

We have changed our fuel supplier, should be sorted in 4 weeks and we are now on a capped rate for a year.

We have managed to set up a home office costing very little for Mr C with furniture donated and swapped from friends and pennies spent at car boot sales.

I have plenty of craft materials in a now easy to reach place, which should take care of filling the long winter evenings. I also have plenty of books - I found plenty in boxes in our daughters room and in the loft. I have sadly got into Mary Jane Staples Adams family saga, just cannot put them down! Also some old Agatha Christies I have collected.

Slowly but surely the end part of our garden is being cleared and we should have a large vegetable patch in use for next year.

In some peoples eyes we don't have a lot, no new cars, expensive overseas hols, designer clothes and furniture, but we have each other and although not brilliant good health it could be worse!
I am counting my blessings! :)

Spent £20 on groceries at the weekend so total spent is now £113.00 with £37 left.
Just had 2 no spend days in a row - NSD-6/10 + NSD 7/10

Down by the river

It was a beautiful day for a walk by the river, luckily these little openings didn't tempt the doggy buddies to go for a dip! Penny still needed a bath when we got back though!




Penny was too busy keeping up with Bella her doberman friend, everywhere Bella went Penny followed, a bad case of hero worship!





The moorings were full up and it was busy down there today.




Even boats can have gardens! Very tempted by the boat on sale in the background. Oh if only....

We had a cuppa and some lovely home made lemon cake, so delicious I forgot to take a picture and ate it all up. :) Very tired now and resting up big time.

Today cost me about £4 for the refreshments, my treat as my friend drove us there.
Yesterday was a no spend day - NSD 5/10

A 20p Melamine tray

Who would have thought it but when wondering what would be one of my favourite non electrical pieces of kitchen equipment this one comes out top for the most used! I bought it at a car boot sale because I love the farmyard animal design but I rarely see that now!




Yesterday I skinned and sliced up tomatoes from the garden and popped them onto the tray



The tray fits perfectly into the ice cube draw in my upright freezer!



Into a ziplock baggie and into the chest freezer ready for when I make a pizza.

Today I am blanching some runner beans from the garden so that 20p melamine tray will be back in use! I have lemons and kiwi to freeze down as well, might explain why I never do get to the bottom of that chest freezer!

Yesterday I decided (at long last) to do something about the spare bedroom and got rid of about 5 bin bags of paper and old clothes to the dump's recycling bins, 1 bag was normal rubbish no plastic recycling here other than for bottles! and several more to a charity shop. More has gone to that storeroom in the sky (loft) and the crafting bits are now in the conservatory. At the end of the day I was exhausted so the risotto was put on hold and we had fish and chips but 1 meal between the two of us followed by more strawberries, I had a large salad for lunch so hopefully enough healthy food for the day. Definately not a no spend day then! :(