Holiday - day 5

The market was on again this morning and although I'd have enough to last me to next Wednesday I don't usually get to it before work so went to get a few more things to get me through to next Saturday.

Market spend:
164g turkey salami = 3.85 (23.50 per kg)
2 x litres milk = 2.40 + 3.00 deposit on bottles
1 x small yoghurt = 0.89 *
366g cheese = 3.26 (8.90 per kg)
2 punnets strawberries = 7.00 (first of the season - they had some on Wednesday but I was too late so went early today)
1 bunch (a kilo) rhubarb = 1.50**

*Unfortunately they've stopped making their own yoghurt, which was available in re-usable containers and although the yoghurt they are now selling is also from a local farmer and free-ranging, grass-fed cows, it's in a normal throwaway plastic container.  So I bought an extra litre of milk and one small yoghurt to start me off and will be back to trying to be organised enough to just make my own yoghurt. And I've told them why I won't be buying yoghurt from them anymore.
** From the florist - asked if they use chemicals or if it's essentially organic and she said they use an absolute minimum of whatever is necessary and since for rhubarb that's really basically nothing, I went ahead and got it from her rather than paying the 4.60 for the same thing from the organic farmer.  Sometimes I feel like he is just taking the piss to be honest - I am prepared to pay a mark-up for organic as it does involve more work but rhubarb?  That, in my experience, pretty much grows like a weed and doesn't need a whole lot of care - certainly not enough to justify a nearly threefold price increase.

Otherwise, today I have done very little.  I didn't make it out to the launderette yesterday evening after all, the storm kept up for a good while so I settled in to watch some internet telly.  So I went today and got the other sofa cover and a duvet that I use for guests washed.  I also stripped the bed and threw the bedclothes into the washing machine at home and that's nearly dry now after hanging for the last few hours so I'll put the same duvet cover back on this evening, which will save me having to iron it (I don't feel bedclothes really need to be ironed normally but it does make a difference to how much space they take up so if they're going into the blanket box, they need to be ironed).  I'll use the summer duvet and then all I'll have to still wash is the winter one I've just taken off the bed.  In fact, I am considering heading back out to the launderette now just to get it done and finished with.  There'll be a shower and clean nightie this evening, all the better to appreciate the freshly made up bed!

And as promised, here's the photo heavy part.  Some pictures of my living room from a couple of weeks ago.

 The pile of ironing (okay, it looks slightly worse than it is because underneath all that is my knitting bag too).

Complete with bits of paper on the floor - wonderful.  Actually they blew on to the floor because I had the window open to air the place out but having said that, they did sit there for at least a week before I picked them up.  There is a name for this which I read about in Tescopoly but I don't have my copy anymore (who did I loan it to?) - basically if there's a house with a broken window, it's more likely that other damage will be done and people will be less likely to keep things clean and orderly.  Similarly, if the place is such a mess anyway, what difference does it make if there's a couple of pieces of paper on the floor.

The big couch - not entirely cover in stuff but that's really only because I always kept space clear to sit on.  Since the desk was completely covered it has been months since this was the only place I had space to sit and use the computer as well.

And now for the after.  There are still areas of not a bit messy but lets face it, clearing the CDs away from near the stereo is never going to last for more than a few hours anyway until the next time I'm listening to something.

Lovely, lovely clear space and my lovely red cover back where it belongs.  I do prefer this one so much to the basic cream one.

No more ironing to do!  Although I've just put on a wash of what I've used this week thinking I might as well be fully ahead before going back to work on Tuesday.  Will iron all of that as soon as it's dry - I love to sit in this chair and read.

Still more to be done but two piles is more manageable than what was there before.  Hope to do a few minutes each day over the next few weeks.  And more importantly, not add to it, which means getting back into the proper habit of dealing with stuff as it arrives.

Here's something else that I still need to tackle but is just going to have to wait until I have more days off or an unexpected surge of energy - one of the big cupboards in the hallway:

Actually, the towels, tablecloths and so on are a bit more orderly already as I needed to sort them out to fit in all the stuff that had been languishing on the armchair of ironing.  I could probably do with decanting the plum vodka into bottles at this stage.

But the lower half of this cupboard needs some serious work.  I'm not really even sure exactly what's in there anymore.  The white plastic bag is a few bits and pieces I had nowhere to put and needed to get rid of out of the hall before some guests arrived for dinner at some stage and it has just sat there since.  I don't know if you can see it clearly but the jar of chutney which got knocked over last summer and leaked all over the place for a couple of weeks before I discovered it is in at the back there - I was sure I had cleaned that all up but apparently I didn't even get around to righting the jar.  So I really need to get in and clear that mess up.  What's in there is actually stuff from 2009 because since I hadn't actually gotten around to clearing out this cupboard last autumn, I never got around to putting away all of last summer's stuff.  That has mostly been sitting on top of the hallway table - covered by a nice piece of material whenver anyone was coming over.  At least I've used up a good bit of it now.  But long past time to be sorting this out I think.

Spending recap - week 17

For as long as I manage to keep up daily tracking, I'm just going to go ahead and post a summary each week. But without reasons or justifications or excuses. Sometimes I'll spend money I shouldn't on things I don't need and I'm not looking for comments on on silly that is, believe me, I already know.

Food necessities = ordinary food, essentially three meals a day kind of stuff
Food luxuries = anything not really necessary to keep me fed, mostly junk like chocolate, crisps etc.
Canteen food = eating out or getting something delivered if I don't bring lunch to work
Transport = anything above and beyond my monthly ticket.

• Transport 2.60
• Food necessities 20.74
• Food luxuries 35.20
• Canteen food 0.00
• Toiletries 0.00
• Gifts (incl. postage) 3.99
• Clothes 4.50
• House/garden 46.55
• Medical 0.00
• Other 18.40

Total spend this week: 131.98
Total spend this month: 457.57

Food luxuries and other are high this week due to being on holiday - these amounts include dinner out with book club as well as several cups of tea/hot chocolate and snacks in cafes (I even went to the Starbucks on my road for the first time since moving here nearly three years ago - sooo expensive for a bad selection of herbal teas and a not very nice muffin, really not worth it).  House/garden is the money spent in the launderette plus the steam juicer and sage plant I bought.

I've posted this early as it's the end of the month - I generally run my budget (such as it is) from Saturday to Friday but I've been doing these spending recaps from Monday to Sunday so there'll be a slightly too early one at the end of each month.  And I can't interest myself in changing either of those two things so it'll just stay that way for now.

Edited to add that this month, I had just eight no-spend days.  And I strongly suspect that most of those were just days I didn't leave the house at all.

Food Waste Friday - 29 April 2011 and days 3 and 4 of holiday

I do have some waste this week but mostly as a result of finally admitting that a couple of things that were in the fridge were never going to be used and just biting the bullet and getting rid of them.  Pure waste.

A small amount of wild garlic cream cheese.  Why did I not just eat this with some of the soda bread I made last week?  No idea.  I had to get rid of some of that bread as well as it went inexplicably rock hard within a couple of days - gone to the ducks in the park so at least not a complete waste.

The olives and gherkins have been there since, I think, the end of January.  I brought the jar to a friend's house for a potluck dinner and she insisted I take the remainder home with me.  I sort of assumed I'd drag them out the next time I had someone over for dinner but haven't had anyone here since then.  Although I like olives a lot I really can't stand anything from the gherkin/cucumber family and the olives in that jar have a gherkin taste so that means I have no interest in eating them.  If I was starving I would.  But I'm not.  So I won't.

And finally a small carton of sour cream.  Which I bought for a specific recipe that never got made.  The expiry date was from the end of February so although it's sealed and it's sour cream (which the internet tells me can stay usable for baking well past the expiry date if it's unopened) I've gotten rid of it.  I'm not likely to do anything with it in the next few weeks so will err on the better safe than sorry side.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Other than clearing stuff out of the fridge I've done a few bits and pieces around the house.  Yesterday I scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom, kept up on the washing and the washing up and otherwise read a lot and went for my groupon neck massage and pedicure then watched a very silly film in the evening.  Today I woke up ravenous so the idea of spending an hour doing housework before breakfast did not appeal at all.   I ate breakfast and read for an hour then tidied up the fridge, did the washing up and swept and washed the floors.  Along with more washing, folding away the dried stuff and hanging up more to dry. 

The friend who lived with me last year for a few months left some stuff here, among other things clothes and bedclothes.  All of which, although clean, still had the damp musty smell from his old flat in them.  So I washed a few just after he left and then forgot about them.  But I wanted to start using that wardrobe properly so it needs a good cleanout and I finally got the last of the stuff washed today.  I think I've done two washes every day this week to get through it all but as the weather has been warm, it's drying quickly so that's good.  I'm packing it away into a suitcase as it drys - have no patience with him taking up my usable space anymore but since I can't afford to hire a car and drive the six hours or so to where he lives, I'm just going to pack it away and let it sit out of sight until someone else is visiting him. 

After a nice lunch of bread and cheese with some chutney, I read for another while, waiting for three o'clock to roll around so that I could put the washing machine on again (not supposed to run it or do anything else noisy during half-twelve and three).  I also phoned a few recruitment agencies to start getting a move on in that respect.  Have to email them my CV and references and we'll see where it goes from there.

And then I started sorting a few things out in the sitting room as I wanted to put away the rest of my bedclothes and they live in the blanket box which also serves as my coffee table.  Rather than just moving the stuff off the top of that onto the couch, which I have to admit I sort of planned to do, I just started sorting through it.  There were receipts and things from the last couple of times I emptied out my purse and instead of just putting them to one side I took out the folders with my bank and credit card statements and actually sorted them properly, attaching them to the relevant statements and even clearing a similar pile from my desk while I was at it. 

That ended up taking far longer than I thought (as it always does) - over two hours.  I also sorted and cleared away all of the choir stuff that has been lying around for a few weeks (I was looking for a particular piece of music and ended up starting to sort years worth of stuff out and then getting sidetracked and just leaving it all in a messy pile on the couch - and the concert I needed it for was in mid-March so it was past time to get rid of all that stuff again). 

So, all of the bedclothes have been put away - I've taken out a lighter sheet to swich over from using the heavier flannel that it's getting too warm for and will change that tomorrow.  Since that meant the big couch was nearly free of mess, I cleared everything else off it too, took off the cream cover (which was only supposed to be temporary while I got the other one cleaned - the one that sat down in the cellar for about a year and a half and only got washed this week) and put back on the newly cleaned red one.  Feels good to have things starting to fall into place again.  I still have two very large piles of papers and stuff to go through but it has been a good start.  I was going to head out to the launderette to get the cream sofa cover cleaned and we had a massive thunder storm with torrential rain.  I think the rain has just about eased off now so I think I'll have dinner and do it after that.  They're open until after ten I think.  Will post photos of my newly cleaned space tomorrow - although it's not raining the clouds are still very dark so I'll wait until sunlight to take pictures.  Oooh, there's some more lightning and the thunder is following it almost immediately.  Might wait until tomorrow to venture out.

Spending on day 2 of holidays

Today I went shopping.  To make sure I don't have any unexpected cashflow issues at the weekend I used my credit card to pay for some clothes and as that won't be included in my weekly spending recap, which is cash/debit card, I wanted to get it all down now.  As soon as I get paid the money I spent on the card will go into my savings account to pay the bill at the end of the month - I do have it but just in case we don't get paid tomorrow as expected, wanted to leave myself that bit of leeway.

What I bought on the card were some much needed clothes for work - particularly needed if I want to go for interviews.  I do still need another pair of light summer trousers - I got two last year but one of them has already been repaired twice and I just don't think it's worth getting them fixed again.  Will see. 

C+A - 3 blouses + 1 t-shirt top = 65
C+A - 1 fleece = 4.50 (this was a totally unnecessary splurge buy, reduced from 19 and won't get used till next winter probably but as splurges go, 4.50 is on the more reasonable scale)
Toasted sandwich, hot chocolate + tip = 7.00
Half a loaf of spelt/yoghurt bread (organic) = 1.55
1 packet of 20 plant clips to send to my brother = 3.99
Bookclub: salad with fried potatoes + eggs, 1 fizzy water and 2 shandies + tip = 17.00

Market spend:
4 x apples = 0.50
1 x sage plant (organic) = 2.50
1 x lettuce (organic) = 1.50
6 x eggs + 3 x large carrots (organic) = 3.07
1x litre milk (unpasteurised) = 1.20 (+ 1.50 deposit on bottle)
148g cream cheese with wild garlic = 2.21
4 x slices cooked ham = 3.82 (18.90 per kg)
2 x slices leberkäse with wild garlic = 0.44 (12.90 per kg) - leberkäse is another type of cold meat, sort of a pate/meatloaf type concoction

The other thing I have spent money on this week is a steam juicer.  I had decided while having a bad weekend to do some window shopping on ebay with a view to buying one in the summer sometime.  There were two second-hand ones for sale that I was keeping an eye on and when the second one was still at 3.50 half an hour before closing on Monday evening I decided to put a bid on.  A new one in the shops, shinier but smaller and more lightweight, cost 69.99 last year.  I kept to a bit less than my ebay limit of no more than 20 euro including shipping and ended up being the highest bidder at 11.05 - with 7 euro shipping that's 18.05 for something I know I will use a lot.  I'm very pleased and if I'm honest, although I know shopping won't fix things and I need to be careful not to spend money I can't afford, I think that small 'win' on Monday evening meant disproportionately more to me than it should, but in a good way.   Small amount of light in an otherwise dark day.

Holiday - Day 2

Bit of a late night last night - got out of the cinema around half-nine and went for tea and a chat afterwards so it was nearly eleven by the time I got home and then I read for a while before sleeping.  Seven o'clock was difficult this morning and it was actually half-past before I got up.  Took a while to get going but I started in on the ironing and then just kept going.  Stopped for a break to have some breakfast, put a wash on and a couple of time to check emails, as well as finally getting through to the central dental billing place to make sure there's no penalty for paying off the last bill early, but kept going back to it until it was all done just after eleven.  That includes all the bed clothes and some winter stuff that has been sitting there since February.  Feels good to have it done and the ironing board and iron put away. 

I made a quick trip to the market and bakery and am now catching up on some blogs.  Need to dig out all the documents I need to bring to the renters' association and will head off there in a hour or so.  After my appointment there, I'm going to wander around town for an hour or two, sit and read somewhere for a while perhaps and then head to book club.  The days are flying by and I'm trying to ignore the voice in the back of my head telling me how nice it would be to never have to go back to work. 

Tomorrow I need to do some serious work on my CV and make some phone calls.

Jersey Shore in the style of Oscar Wilde

I've never seen Jersey Shore but I looked it up the other day because people do keep mentioning it.   And then today Stephen Fry tweeted about this and I have to say it does make me giggle:

Holiday - Day 1

Trying to move on from yesterday's very bad day (the tears just kept coming sometimes prompted by something, sometimes not - I hope a late appointment slot opens up soon with that therapist, not sure waiting much longer is a good idea).

Anyway, I set the alarm for 7 today and got up at 10 past, after only snoozing it twice.  That's progress at least.  7 is the time I would like to start getting up until the winter again - gives me an hour to myself before getting ready for work instead of dragging myself out of bed at quarter past eight and rushing to get to work on time.  My hour of housework hasn't quite worked out.  It took me fifteen minutes or so to get moving after getting up (toilet, brushing teeth, getting dressed).  I decided to just try and get the stuff done that I didn't get to over the weekend, which should have been easily achievable in an hour.  But then I started getting stuck into the kitchen properly.  I've done the dishes, cleaned the oven, cleared off all the crap that was collecting on the windowsill, finally (nearly a year later!) put the two-ring hotplate that used to be my cooker away and gave the small electric oven a good scrubbing and packed that up as well to go down to the cellar (and it's outside the door already so I have to bring it down next time I leave the apartment).  Haven't done the top of the fridge yet though, which is the other magnet for stuff to gather.  Still, what I did along with general cleaning and tidying and putting a wash on, took me more like an hour and a half.  For the last half an hour I've been checking emails, done some online banking, phoned to make an appointment for a massage and pedicure (a 19 euro groupon, I was supposed to go to the chiropodist soon and that costs 35 so for less, plus a neck massage, an ordinary pedicure will do for now) and checked my diary for what else is on this week that I have to do. 

Right, it's after half-nine, I need to do the hoovering and then that is it for housework today.  I think I may take my book and head to the launderette with the second couch cover - it's down in the cellar in a suitcase and it's the one I'd prefer to be using anyway.  Will take that and the summer duvet and spend an hour reading my book while they wash.

Update at 15.00:
Did the hoovering, got the washing hung up and another one in the machine.  Sat and had a nice breakfast (rice krispies, a banana, a cup of herbal tea).  Gathered everything up for going to the launderette.  Just before leaving decided to move the two smaller aloe vera plants from the top of the veg holder to the newly cleared windowsill.  I badly need to repot the aloe veras and thought moving them would remind me.  Of course they were all tangled up and I promptly knocked one over so less than half an hour after finishing the hoovering I ended up with soil all over the kitchen floor and newly cleaned windowsill.  Sigh.  At least I did actually clean it up immediately, even if it did delay me getting out.  One newly cleaned (again!) windowsill and floor, a nice long shower and some clean clothes later, I finally made it out the door.

Went to the launderette, stopping in the cellar to get the sofa cover (which was off course at the very bottom of the piles of stuff) and rearrange things there a bit better.  I even thought to stop at the bank to get change but of course the launderette is very high-tech these days and will not only take notes in the machine, it will give you change.  Unfortunately the XXL machine isn't all that XX so I had to do two loads - at 9 euro each, that is expensive.  It's a good thing the cover comes apart into two pieces.  I was able to do the summer duvet in one of the ordinary machines, which are still bigger than a normal domestic one.  That's 3.50.  I did try washing the smaller section of the sofa cover in a smaller machine but it really wasn't clean when it came out so I put it into the bigger one.  A waste of 3.50 but good to know for future reference.

Called in to the internet cafe on the way home to print out my groupon and chatted to a neighbour I bumped into for a few minutes when I came back.  And made it all the way up the stairs with the now heavy suitcase.  The duvet had to be tumble dried but the sofa cover is explicitly not supposed to be (it has that white material as a lining that can't be ironed or tumble dried).  I put it through an extra spin cycle but it's still very heavy while wet.  Hard to believe that all of that plus getting lunch on to cook (potato cakes with tuna and onion), finding somewhere to hang up the sofa cover (too heavy for the shower rail, which is what I had planned on) and taking the rest of the washing out of the machine as well has brought me up to three o'clock.  Actually, quarter past now.  Time to eat, relax for a while and then head out to meet my friend for the cinema.  Don't have to meet her until after half-six but I may wander a bit on the way and perhaps stop somewhere for an ice-cream.