Friday 24 February 2012

No Waste Tastes Great - 24th Feb 2012

Another good week (I'm starting to get good at this!)


Top shelf - spread and cheese
Middle shelf - ready made puff pastry
Bottom shelf - beetroot an chocolate
Drawer - condiments and EMPTY


Door - butter, Baileys, water (Mum's), soya milk, vanilla soya milk, punch

Everything in the fridge is in date. Half the pastry will be used tomorrow morning for these Mini Cinnamon Rolls - they are so easy and so so yummy!

Update - 25th Feb

Here's a pic of my Mini Cinnamon Rolls - I make the icing a bit runnier so you can dip!! I also use Sainsbury's Ready Rolled Puff Pastry rather than the crescent roll it states in the recipe. Half the pastry pack will make 8 mini rolls.


Friday 17 February 2012

No Waste Tastes Great - Feb 17th 2012

I reckon this is the best week yet...

Top shelf - spread
Middle shelf - nothing
Bottom shelf - beetroot and half a Galaxy bar!
Door - butter, Baileys (I didn't drink it last weekend!), water (Mum's), diet coke, soya milk, vanilla soya milk, punch

NO WASTE!!!

'Friends'

A 'friend' of mine has disappeared from facebook and I have no other way of contacting her...this got me thinking, 'How much of a friend was she?'.

I put friend in '.' as I'm not sure it's the right word to describe the relationship between me and many of the people on my facebook profile.  Can you really be my friend if I don't have a phone number, email address or snail mail for you. Do we care about each other enough to be classed as that if there is only one way we can get in touch?  Would we actually have anything to talk about if we met up for a coffee? One line status responses are one thing but actually spending time together in the 'real' world, that may be pushing it a bit.

So when I take part in 'Unplug' in April - how many people will have the ability to contact me if I'm not using facebook (or email or mobile?). You know what, I'm just going to pop over to facebook and do a quick check...brb...

The scores are in...

I have 67 friends on facebook.

31 or 46.3% could only get in touch through facebook itself
13 or 19.4% have my mobile number (but that won't be any use during Unplug)
23 or 34.3% have my mobile number and home address but I don't think many of them have my landline number

I'm not sure what this says about me or my friends apart from the fact that the 3rd-9th of April may be very very quiet!

Thursday 16 February 2012

Spending Update - Jan/Feb

Not a great month this month. I keep a spreadsheet on my computer that tracks all my standing orders and direct debits and I add in the cash I withdraw and card transactions I make as the month goes on. At least that's meant to be the plan. This month I managed to miss a couple of fairly hefty transactions so I thought I had more money than I did. When I sat down with the bank statement to match them up I got a bit of a nasty surprise. This led to me raiding the eBay stash to get to the end of the month!

Transfer £200
Bank £0
Wallet £0
Change £38.58

£238.58

This month I have to pay off the credit card as I used it to buy tickets for the Cirque du Soleil show Immortal which I wouldn't have missed for the world and will also repay the borrowed eBay money!  I have also taken out some cash and put it into various envelopes for the things that I know I have booked this month such as a friends leaving do (we're going for afternoon tea at a London hotel!), a friends wedding (the bed and breakfast is paid for but I'll need train fare etc), and having my nails done! We also get a council tax break in Feb and Mar which means I'll have a little extra to play with. I'm currently deciding whether to treat myself to something that has been on my wish list for a while, save it, or maybe do a bit of both!!

I know I keep saying it but this month I really do intend to keep track of evry penny. My plan is to keep a note on my iPhone every time I spend anything. In theory I'll know how much is in my wallet at the start of the day, how much I've spent on what during the day and therefore what will be left in my wallet at the end of the day. The plan is then to categorise everything and come up with some sort of chart or graph at the end! Wish me luck.

Sunday 12 February 2012

The Big Unplug training

You may have seen that I've signed up for the 



The idea is simple - no internet, no mobile, no TV for a week.  Although however simple the idea, actually doing it is going to be anything but, so I thought I'd get into training.  I have turned the cellular data option off on my iPhone so I can't check my emails, pop onto facebook or have a nosey at my twitter stream whilst I'm on my daily commute. More music listening and book reading instead. I've just sat and watched a 134 minute film (that's just over two hours) with my laptop shut and my phone across the room so I wouldn't do the same. What a reflection it is on me and the current technological environment that it is an achievement for me to have done something for just over two hours without checking email, facebook etc!

It's going to take some doing but I am determined to get there - one tech free hour at a time!!

Friday 10 February 2012

No Waste Tastes Great - 10th Feb 2012

Top shelf - spread
Middle shelf - small piece of cheese, left over Chinese takeaway (special fried rice, chicken and cashew nuts, sweet and sour sauce), some cooked swede and parsnip
Bottom shelf - beetroot, grapes
Drawer - condiments and NOTHING
Door - butter, Baileys, water. Vimto, soya milk, vanilla soya milk, punch

The leftover takeaway is tonights dinner and I'll probably have the grapes as pudding. I might even have the Baileys as a little treat whilst watching a film this weekend! The swede and parsnip will be had fried (like bubble and squeak) tomorrow with some frozen peas and sweetcorn and a couple of Quorn southern fried burgers.

I have some chili con carne in the freezer that I will have early next week with that last piece of cheese grated on top.

No waste really does taste great!

Thanks as always to Jo!

Friday 3 February 2012

No Waste Tastes Great - 3rd Feb 2012

Top Shelf - spread, cheese, 2/3rds of a tin of beans (all fine)
Middle Shelf - a little bit of soya cream, some bacon
Bottom Shelf - beetroot, banana, grapes
One Drawer - condiments
Other Drawer - some swede, 2 x parsnips, a few sprouts and some broccoli
Butter, Baileys, water, praline, soya milk, vanilla soya milk, punch

The bacon will go in a sarnie or lunch tomorrow. Some grapes and the cream will be a snack later. The banana and the rest of the grapes will be brekkie tomorrow. The veggies will get used up on Sunday - sorted!