A few bargains

Ham-pieces from Aldi £1.65 for 400g

 They always have this smoked and un-smoked. I would prefer smoked but that gives Col indigestion. It varies each time with different sorts of ham and you have to watch the use-by date. Sometimes it's only 2 days ahead rather than 6 days which is more useful.
It can make us................................... Ham and Chips for 2
                                                          Pasta, ham and broccoli bake for 2
                                                          5 days lunch sandwiches for 1
Yes, it would be cheaper to go Vegetarian but we're not.


Savoury Biscuits from Poundland . These are £2 for 250g everywhere except Poundland  where they are £1 for 250g, it's a no brainer!
Yep, plain cream crackers are cheaper but a bit boring.

I look at the junk mail that comes through the door, sometimes there might be a bargain.
Premier shops are small convenience shops often at petrol stations and small shopping precincts on estates. I've only ever been in our local one once as they are very expensive, but sometimes they have bargains.
Like 80 PG Tea Bags at half marked price - £1.32 that I spotted on the latest leaflet.

 Even beating Morrisons special offer of £2.
Yes, there is probably cheaper tea out there, but PG is reliably consistent +good and strong.

And finally I spotted this in the Hospice charity shop for £10, we'll need some extra chairs for the bigger space of the cottage................... can't be many chairs around for £10 I thought.

A pretty cushion will make it a handy chair for the spare bedroom and light enough to carry downstairs if needed.

Welcome to someone new following.

Back with moving news I hope
Sue

I've been blinkin' tricked by T**** supermarket!

There I was the other day going on about knowing the price of things so you know when something is a bargain or not and today I find Tesco have been tricking me for months.
Mature cheddar is the reason. I've been buying their value range Extra Mature cheddar for several months after the value range Mature got milder - heavens knows how tasteless the mild cheddar must be! Then today on the shelf just above I noticed another type of Extra Mature and shock, horror, the price per Kg was less than the value range. How annoying is that!

Mostly I cook from scratch but like to keep a few easy freezer things in stock just in case and one thing we've found to be OK is  Tescos value range of veggie grill. In a burger bun with some home made sweetcorn relish and some lettuce they are cheap and quick. Except last time I wanted some they didn't have them and no space in their freezers for them either. Today, I noticed they had some reduced to clear - a pack of 4 for 50p - that's half price. So I cleared the lot = 9 packs. They will last us  a year for meals when my mind is a blank.

Walking past Waitrose I stopped to look at all the herbs they had outside and discovered Black Peppermint. I've tried to grow peppermint several times, from seed and from bought plants but it seems to cross pollinate with ordinary spearmint and ends up losing its peppermint taste. This is my last try at producing my own mint tea, then I'm giving up. Anyone know how far away from the spearmint should I plant the peppermint or will it cross pollinate whatever I do.

While I was amusing myself in Saxmundham, C was clearing up all the hedge cuttings and branches at the-second-home-across-the-fields. The owners  will be back for Easter so he wanted to get it done and dusted so they can pay him! He and our elderly friend had a nice bonfire there. Then this afternoon he cleared up some branches over at our neighbours and had yet another bonfire. Men and bonfires seem to go well together. Or is it just him?

Back Tomorrow
Sue

A visit to the physio + other stuff.

I started blogging on Blogspot in April 2013 and soon found lots of blogs that I liked reading so added them to my blogroll over on the right ready to just pop in when they did a new post.
What I've noticed is how many folk suddenly stop blogging either with no notice or just a quick goodbye and another group post very rarely so fall to the bottom of the blogroll.
I expect there are 101 reasons for stopping a blog but being a nosy old women I want to know why?!

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 We are SO lucky here as we can refer ourselves  ( or be referred) to a physio and we just have to pop 6 miles down to Aldeburgh Community Hospital  - all for free.
I'm already doing exercises given to me 3 years ago  for lower back tightness. I remember to exercise when my back aches........as you do.
Now I've got some new ones to do to work the muscles in my bum! so that sitting on a hard flat chair doesn't hurt so much. This involves, you'll be enthralled to know, much buttock clenching!

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After Aldeburgh I came home via Leiston Co-op, where they had obviously over ordered calabrese and had a huge pile of them reduced to 60p each. I love calabrese but it's one of those veg that we don't have often because if we grow it, it tends to all come at once and then rapidly goes to seed. We try and eat our own stuff before buying but it's good to have a 60p treat. I will use half tonight ( of course I sorted through to find the biggest!) with a tin of value tuna and some pasta in a bake and half tomorrow in a stir fry with carrots, onion, red peppers then served with some chicken wings that have been cooked in a sticky sauce and some noodles.

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Him Outside did some work for the County Council today, he has just 4 days left to do and then they are getting in a temporary full time person to catch up on the inspection work. It could be the end of his council work. We're not too worried as I'm sure he'll still find plenty to do.

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Bookings for the campsite are now starting to come in by phone.( We open in April) One caller alerted me to the fact that our campsite appears on  a website called Campsite review with conflicting details to the official Camping and Caravanning club website. How annoying that is - who put our details on this other site? There were no actual reviews for our site so it all seems a bit pointless.

As always, thanks for the comments on yesterdays blog, and welcome to new followers now totaling 124 in the pictures and 86 on bloglovin'.

That's it for today

Back tomorrow

Goat tales + who had the last laugh me or Tesco?

After mentioning that I'm thinking about keeping goats again there were lots of comments. Dreamer and Stacey W want me to keep goats so they can read about them on the blog.
That would be an expensive way of finding something to write about!
Gill will be jealous and might stop reading! and Kev asked why we gave up keeping them.

There were several reasons. We were thinking about moving to Wales, our neighbour who milked for us when we were on holiday had started to get arthritis in her hands and with the children moved out we didn't need as much milk. The first person who planned to buy our goats then backed out, we gave up the moving plan when we searched for a house and found that everyone selling was English, moving back to England, had bought when prices were high, and wanted daft amounts for their houses,  and then to cap it all I wasn't well for a while. By the time I was better and the house move was cancelled a new enthusiastic buyer had appeared on the scene. So we sold the girls and didn't regret it. Goats are a real tie, it's easy to ask someone to feed chickens and collect eggs but not so simple to find a goat milker. Even a long day out needed someone to come and check them.
You can't keep one goat on it's own and they need mating at least every other year to keep producing milk. That's not easy now as there are all sorts of movement restrictions.
( Only totally insane people keep a Billy goat !!)
But they are such gorgeous animals to keep, loads of character and it's lovely having fresh milk everyday without needing to go the the shop. The smallholding just doesn't seem right without them.
Another BUT - The price of a good milking goat is now around £200! They were around £50 for years and when you want to buy goats it's always hard to find any for sale.

Here are a couple of photos of the goats we had at various times - can you see why I loved them!

On the plus side - I kept my stainless steel milking bucket!
So we shall think about it. Or I will think about it and let Him Outside know what I decide!

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And now a question   --  Who had the last laugh me or Tesco?

Last week I did my main monthly shopping at Tesco and at the till I was given a £4 off £30 spend ( to use before tomorrow) and a £2.56 voucher because my shopping was more expensive than elsewhere, I also had several through-the-post vouchers for things I buy.
Now today I needed to shop for a few things, milk, celery, fruit and  three  things missed off the list last week. That would probably have come to about £10. So my dilemma was :-
 1. Do I just get what I need and not use the vouchers
2. Or do I spend extra on some store cupboard stuff, make the most of the voucher which is after all more than10% off.
Have I got £30 pounds available - YES

So YES I did use the vouchers and I counted up as I went round and got £32.24 of things I needed today and things for the store cupboard for £24.18p.

So did I win by saving  £8 on food or did they win by making me spend more than I would have done today?

Shepherds warning

Red Sky this morning- shepherds warning

The shepherds needn't have worried as it's been fine and mostly sunny all day.

Him outside was working at our neighbours this morning- pulling weeds and reeds out of a pond. He came home at lunchtime slightly soggy! Good thing it's not too cold today. This afternoon he was using the tractor bucket to scrape all the mud out of the driveway onto the field and then using some of our large rubble heap to make a firmer entrance.

I went into Leiston to the butchers. We are so lucky to have two butchers shops in our little town. I'm not sure how they manage to keep going but they've both been there for years.
I got our Christmas ham which has been popped into the freezer then into the Co-op to use the last of the £5 off £40 vouchers that came with their calender. They had some yellow ticket chicken wings at £1.33 for a pack of 12- very handy. Then around to the fruit and veg shop for some winter vitamin C.

 I only buy oranges at this time of year when they have the lovely big navel ones in the shops. A special winter treat.

Thank you to everyone yesterday who said that the wreath looked good. It's a good job it wasn't a close up photo!

30 Ways to Save £1 ---Day 28 + Fence Mending

Number 28 of the 30 Ways to save £1 was
28. Eat less meat- start by swapping one meal a week to veggie things, then 2 or 3.

I'm glad we are getting to the end of the month so I can finish doing these repeats of the April list. It seemed like a good idea at the beginning of the month but it's got a bit tedious!

Had to go for a blood test this morning so biked down to Leiston  in the gloom of yet another nasty November day. I was wanting to buy a pair of small needlework scissors but not one pair to be found in the town anywhere or not where I was expecting to find some.
A pack of reduced-to-clear neck of lamb chops in the Coop was a useful find. We so rarely eat lamb now. Then it was into the Building Society to take out a cheque for that expensive tractor repair. I like putting money into savings but not keen on getting it out!

Meanwhile back at home Him Outside was using that tractor to pull the broken posts out of the ground. This fence was only built about 3 years ago yet several of the posts were completely rotten, no wonder that gale a few weeks ago was able to blow the fence right over. With the hydraulics repaired the tractor lifted out the broken post and the concrete bit easily.

We are going to replace the posts with some bigger ones  and put a few extra in too.

Nothing else to report today, so back tomorrow.

30 Ways to Save £1---Day 23 + A Tired visitor!

Number 23 of the 30 Ways to Save £1 was
23. Never buy notebooks for phone messages and shopping lists. Cut up cereal packets or similar into neat squares and keep them in a little box in the kitchen or by the phone.

I like to use cardboard for lists rather than paper as I seem to be able to find them better. A bit of paper gets screwed up and lost easily.

Him Outside was working for one of his customers this morning. I decided to get on my bike and go to the Cats Protection Homing Fair in Saxmundham. We acquired three cats with the house when we moved here 21 years ago but they are long gone and then we had our lovely Collie cross, Lucy, for 10 years up until 3 years ago. Since then we've been pet-less. Time to think about cats again. I've put my name down for a home visit and will keep an eye on their website, it was so busy that it was difficult to have a chat with anyone to see what cats they have in at the moment, other than the ones at the Fair. My only disagreement with Cats Protection is the amount they spend on keeping very elderly and sick cats alive. ( I fostered cats for them for a while and went to meetings so I do know what I'm talking about). That's the practical un-sentimental smallholder way of looking at things. Otherwise they do a good job of re-homing and trying to keep the number of unwanted kittens down.

While in Sax I popped into Tescos for a couple of things and spotted something I've never seen here before........... a bag of salad leaves reduced to 10p! I've been so envious of Ilona at Life after Money when she finds so many reduced things at her local Tesco. Now I know when to go to our Tescos for bargains - 10 O'clock on a Saturday morning! Although it's annoying having to buy salad stuff after months of having our own, 10p  I can manage. Celery is my other winter staple and that was 2 for £1 so not bad either.

Our eldest daughter came to visit this weekend, she had been to a 90s Revival night and a girls get together with old school friends last night ( including Vintage Vicki's little sister) so this is what happened after lunch here today!

She'll be driving back to Surrey tomorrow, so needs a rest!

30 Ways to Save £1 -- Day 14 + A morning out

Thank you to everyone for the interesting comments yesterday about the living history programmes that have been on TV at various times.
We enjoyed The Monastery Farm  and it was nice to see a new face. I shall be adding the book to my wish list and waiting for the DVD to add that too. It is repeated a couple of times for anyone that missed it and of course there is always the i player.

Number 14 of the 30 Ways to Save £1 was -
14. Find out about free events at local museums etc. Our local Museum is The Long Shop Museum in Leiston ( info here) and at the beginning of the Season they always have Steam Up Sunday when entry is free. The National Trust have a free day when you can print out a free entry ticket off their website. Then there is the day when unusual properties that are not usually accessible are open ( can't remember what this is called). There are probably more.


We had a Wyevale Garden Club voucher to use and had an idea for a Christmas present, so decided on a trip to Woodbridge for a tour of the charity shops while we were out and then thought we might as well take the cold box and pop up to the edge of Ipswich for Sainsburys and Aldi. That will save us from having to go there the next time we go right into the town centre.

The charity shops in Woodbridge didn't yield anything exciting apart from a Christmassy craft pack that had once been on the front of a craft magazine.
 I spent 10 minutes looking at the dozens of Christmas craft and food magazines in WH Smiths. The newsagents locally are Very limited in their magazines so I like to look in Smiths when I get a chance - didn't buy any though. Saving myself about £50!!

Then onto Sainsburys and now the freezer is stocked with stewing steak and mince at 3 for £10, value salmon trimmings for our favourite pasta meal and THE bacon which I sorted through to find packs that had bacon chops in them. ( 2 kept  out of the freezer for dinner tonight) That will last us well into the New Year.

We were home again by 12.30 so after lunch Him outside did the rest of the concreting of the base for the Gents toilets on the campsite. He wanted to get it finished as the forecast is for much colder weather next week.

No more news today
Back Tomorrow

30 Ways to Save £1 --- Day 7 + This weeks shopping for 20p

When Mr Tesc*s shop moved into Saxmundham there was a lot of opposition. Especially from a local titled lady! Before they came our choices were a 50 mile round trip, Coop or Waitrose. Most ordinary people were quite pleased to have a bit of choice. People may moan about them taking over the country but at least we are now able to pick up the bargains that were never available here before.  Thanks to their through the post vouchers, money off coupons and a till slip for £3.06 because last time I shopped my shopping would have been that much less elsewhere. I did this weeks shopping for 20p!

I probably won't be back at Tescos until December so they don't make a lot of profit out of me.


The average household throws away the equivalent of 6 meals a week. I heard that on the 1 O'clock  news today. Who the h**l is chucking out my share as well as their own because there certainly isn't 6 meals chucked out here. It's £60 a month going in the bin they reckon. Who can afford that?

Yesterday on a blog from a few days ago I found a comment from the States, asking why we in the UK don't do  washing in cold water in our washing  machines. So the answer is ( as far as I know) that we can't, as washing machines here heat the water and don't have a cold water programme. AND we don't have soap powder or liquid for cold water washing.

And Finally from the list of 30 Ways to Save £1
 DAY 7---Christmas is the same day every year, don't let it creep up on you.Start shopping in the January Sales and carry on at car boot sales.
There is no point me saying anything more about this as I'm sure I would be preaching to the converted!

30 ways to save £1----DAY 2 - Supermarket value brands

Way back in April lots of people were doing 30 ways to save £1( mine are here) and sending it to Moneysupermarket.com to earn £30. So as there are 30 days in November I thought I would have a closer look at my 30 ways

30 Ways to save £1
2.Always try value range of supermarket brands, most are good.

We have tried a lot of value brands of different things from various supermarkets over the years. I wish we had a Sainsburys nearer as I think they have the biggest range of value products. I would also like to live nearer to an Aldi or Lidl as I think some of their things are cheaper than other supermarket value ranges.  One of the downsides of living in the sticks is that we have no choice  of supermarkets, and few opportunities to find  different value and reduced ticket items. I was in Coop and noticed they had dented tins of Napolina chopped tomatoes on their reduced shelf. Coops' idea of reduced price is £1.20 instead of £1.55. Who on earth pays £1.55 for a tin of tomatoes??!!

Things in a value range we always use are tinned tomatoes, baked beans, plain and self raising flour, bran flakes, porridge, weetabix,muesli base, tomato sauce, brown sauce, mayo, salad cream, instant custard ( for trifle topping), rice pudding, fresh carrots, cooking bacon, mature cheddar,digestive biscuits ( flan bases),lasagne, spaghetti, pasta, vinegar ( for table), peach slices, mandarin slices, mushy peas, tuna chunks,salmon trimmings,

Things in a value range we've tried and didn't like - biscuits, other than digestives( too dusty), stock cubes ( too salty) peanut butter ( too sweet), washing powder ( too smelly), soap ( too smelly), coffee, ( too bitter), Vinegar  for preserving chutneys etc ( value vinegar has less acid which is not good for preserving. I was told this on a food hygiene course and litmus paper proves it to be true).

There are probably other things that I've forgotten, and of course there are a lot of value range that we don't buy because we make our own. For instance, jam,pickles, cakes, bread etc.

I'm always interested to hear what value range people have tried and found to be good as it was thanks to a blog that I heard about the Sainsburys cooking bacon that often has delicious bacon chops in the pack.

This morning we had a few errands to run so after the Coop, where I used a £5 off £40 spend voucher to get some milk, Suffolk sausages and sausage meat for Christmas,muesli( to mix with the value range from Sainsburys) my favourite Fair trade cappuccino sachets, drinking chocolate and peppermint tea bags and some things for the store cupboard.  We called in at a farm shop for frozen Suffolk chickens.Then we popped into an antiques centre that we've been meaning to get to for ages. Lots of lovely things and we found a small wooden shelf for the bathroom. When we got home Him Outside cleared away the broken fence posts and damaged fence boards - broken in the gales last Monday -  and decided what needed doing to repair the fence.  Then we watched England beat Ireland at Rugby League 42-0 !!

This evening we'll be watching Strictly and doing some reading I expect.

Back tomorrow.

Thursday jobs.

First job this morning was picking the greengages as they had started to fall off the trees, yet a week ago they were not really ready. I shall do jam tomorrow. In 20 years here we have had enough to make jam only 3 or 4 times. Some years they are badly affected by  a moth larvae, some times they just seem to vanish - squirrels? birds? but mostly the trees are bare of fruit. This year there are even enough to put some bags out for sale, and the chickens are enjoying all the split and damaged ones.

I cut some more squash and pumpkins to put out for sale, drove Him Outside to Leiston so he could sort out a prescription hiccup at the doctors plus a bit of shopping, did my back exercises, cleaned the campsite loos, did the dustbins, brought in a load of wood - both fires lit today. Then it was egg collecting and boxing up - the 24 new chickens that we got a few weeks ago have laid their first little egg.  A few bits of cleaning indoors, I should have done the ironing but conveniently forgot! Browsed through the Christmas Lakeland catalogue ( thinking HOW MUCH? for a few tiny jars of jam, chutney, chocolates, biscuits etc.) Do people really spend that much on so little?  Then time for a cuppa while watching Countdown.

Dinner tonight is a tray of mixed roasted veg - beetroot, carrot, potatoes and squash with some of the bargain Ham offcuts that only the Coop seem to have. £3.99 for 750gm. We usually buy this about once every 6 weeks and it will make nearly a weeks worth of  lunchtime sandwiches plus 3 or 4 dinners. Tonight with veg, tomorrow a few bits could be added to the sauce for cauliflower cheese ( our first autumn cauli. from the garden). Then with egg and chips on Saturday and into a quiche for Sunday and Monday.

The last day of summer?

No holiday for us this year and not many days out so when the weatherman said it would be all change on Friday we decided to make the most of what might be the last hot day and have a few hours on a beach.(Despite living 4 miles from the sea we rarely sit on a beach)

Instead of just popping down the road to the shingle beach at Aldeburgh I decided I wanted to see some sand for a change so suggested a trip out to Felixstowe - a place I spent a lot of time at in my teens, but somewhere we don't go to very often now.This also meant we could come home via Sainsburys in Ipswich and pick up some value bacon bits. So we packed  lunch in the cold box and our chairs ( and my book of course) and off we headed.
Lovely sunshine, a nice little breeze and it was a treat just to sit for a while and listen to the waves swishing.

A good look around Sainsburys resulted in some yellow sticker pork chops and pork slices and several of their value range including pepperoni for pizzas, salmon bits to have in a sauce with pasta and of course the bacon. We may not be at that end of Ipswich again for months so I got 4 packs of bacon which after opening and sorting gave me 7 bags of bacon rashers and bits - 1/2 lb in a bag and 6 bacon chops. Then Him Outside found engine oil with a huge discount of  4L for £4.79.

It was all go when we got home as 1 caravan( pre booked regular visitor) had arrived, another small motorhome turned up without a booking and another motorhome who had been here yesterday had come back for another night. Then there was a message on the phone for another visitor for Saturday.
Washing to get in, eggs to collect and sort, campsite toilets to check and clean, dustbins to empty, and of course the bacon and other stuff  to sort out and put away.

Just need to finish the book now before the library van tomorrow.
Book Photo tomorrow folks!

Odds and ends on Tuesday

Had lots of phone calls yesterday for bookings for the campsite, so from having an almost empty diary a few days ago it is now looking much better. Good news indeed.

Him Outside went to move the irrigator for our farmer friend W this morning so he is really back into the swing of things, then he went back to rolling fields. His work manager ( at his old job where he does 3 or 4 days a month) thought that he would be entitled to some sick pay if he got a doctors sick note. We were very dubious about this and we were right, he isn't going to get any money from the council after all! He might be entitled to some statutory sick pay, we will find out. I didn't think self employed people got given anything. Anyway he is earning a bit of money again so we are not too bothered about it. He will need another couple of weeks rest after the next visit to Papworth (only two weeks away now) so will be able to start odd jobbing again in October.

Popped down to Leiston this morning and amazingly I found some yellow sticker sausages (Locally produced too) in the Coop Solar. £1.30 for 1lb, stocked up on three packs. Didn't bother with their reduced price lamb chops, £1.90 for two of the teeniest chops you did ever see. When we kept sheep and bred our own lamb we ate lots, but I can't remember when we last had some.
 They also had lots of yellow sticker bread rolls so I got a couple of packs of wholemeal to pop in the freezer just in case ( 40p). Although I make bread every week  it's handy to keep something in the freezer too.

I've discovered some comments on old blogs that I didn't know were there, so apologies to various people for not replying or even acknowledging them.( dreamer and Stacey plus Karen for comments on Sunday and Monday) Also welcome to Kev as a follower and there are new followers by Bloglovin too that I keep forgetting to look at - welcome one and all! Apparently I get emails via the blog somewhere too but don't know where they are!, so it's no point anyone emailing me!
 Judith has left a comment now and again and I thought her blog was called Terriersintiaras which is her user name, and was all about dogs!!. But I was being totally thick and her blog is Lemon Drops which I have added to my sidebar. I've deleted The Other Stuff from the list as Scarlet  is not posting anymore which is a shame. I must add Staceys blog to my list too. It's all going on on that sidebar! Kev said he liked the picture at the top of the blog and I know lots have people have been encouraged to  read or reread some of the books from the pile.
Talking of reading, did anyone see on the National News today the pictures of the HUGE new library opening in Birmingham. I wasn't overly impressed by the design of the outside - weird. But inside looks incredible. The thing people are worried about is that the huge expense of this new library will force some of the smaller branches in the city to close. My friend S in Hagley is planning to take a look at the new library when all of the fuss has died down. The news pictures today showed it absolutely packed out.
Having spent my ( only 10) working years in various types of libraries and an awful lot of time in them ever since, I'm always interested to hear about them in various parts of the country. I actually cried when Norwich (Norfolk) City library burnt down about 18 years ago ( maybe more years - time flies) losing all those wonderful books, libraries and people all over the world donated books for the new library.

Spotted these  ready today- figs number 4, 5, 6 and 7 more than we've had for ages. Lovely.

Nothing else of interest to report
Back tomorrow.

Is Buying from Approved Food Cost Effective?

I expect this has been talked about before on frugal blogs, but being new to both blogging and Approved Foods I would have  missed out on any conclusions that anyone else has come to.
So my tuppence worth- for discussion!

 Today, as I was doing Septembers Tesco shop, 4 days early so as to use a £6 off £40 voucher, I looked at their prices of some of the things I had got from my very first order with Approved foods. My main reason from ordering from them was the Hovis Bread Flour 3kg bags at just 50p each. A proper bargain. The flour was limited to 4 bags per person and as the minimum order is £15 I obviously had to find more things I wanted to buy.
Delivery is £5.25 so buying £20 worth of stuff means that for each £1 worth bought you need to add 26p ( Hope I've got my maths right otherwise I'll look a right plonker!)  Obviously if you buy £40 worth of things then you only need to add 13p to each £1 worth bought.
 So two Blue Dragon Stir-fry Mixes which were 2 for £1 are really £1.26. In Tesco they are 65p each, so £1.30. Saving just 4p. But then you have to think about the costs of getting to Tesco. Getting complicated.

I usually make biscuits, we like one with our afternoon cuppa, but don't always get time to bake them so I've often got a packet of shop ones in the cupboard, just in case. We've tried value packs from various places, mostly pretty disgusting - very dusty tasting. When we go to Ipswich I usually get some Foxes brand from Poundland, but we haven't been to Ipswich for months. So as AF had Elkes triple packs of malted milk,custard cream and Nice for £1.50.( £1.89 with the delivery) Total of 550g in the 3 packs, and I happened to know that Elkes is a brand name of Foxes or vice-verse, thought they would be good quality, and they are very tasty. Can I make 550g of biscuits for £1.89? Yes I should think so. Maybe not a good buy then.

Then the carrot cake mix that I mentioned in yesterdays blog at 4 for £1. So that's 4 boxes for £1.26 or 32p a box. Add an egg ( free eggs here as we eat the ones we can't sell), 3oz butter and a squirt of lemon juice = total of about 66p a box which if baked in square tins and cut into 12 cakes means the cakes are 5 and a half p each not counting the cooking. Can I make a cake for that from scratch ? - doubtful. Of course it would have been a different thing entirely had the mixes tasted nasty!

Tins of mandarins were 8 for £1. Or 8 for £1.26 if you add delivery. So that's a fraction under 16p each, which is still cheaper than the 19p I paid at Tesco when I last noted the price down in April.      ( AF reckoned the RRP was £1 tin which is way above the price any sane person would pay for a small tin of broken mandarin segments).

Mayonnaise was on my shopping list and AF had 2 Hellmanns Light 400g for £1.20 or £1.31 I think with the delivery ratio bit added. (Yes I know making my own would be MUCH cheaper and that is something I did when we had 3 children at home). We only use Mayo for potato salad and egg sarnies, Him Outside preferring salad cream, so home made wouldn't get eaten quickly enough. I checked the price of the value mayo, which is what I probably would have bought. Oooops made a boob there. Value is 42p! although Hellmanns is better quality.

Last and by no means least, what about the Thorntons Premium Collection Chocolates at 60p a bag. They are £1.50 in the Thorntons shop in Ipswich and occasionally £1 a bag in Poundland. Really I shouldn't have bought them at all, but who could resist cheap Thorntons chocs - NOT ME!

So is shopping at AF cost effective? I think it depends on what and how much you buy. Same as everywhere else I suppose.

Anti climax

Well, she came, she collected the parcel ( apparently it was some special pro-biotic drink for her stomach!) she apologized for being a nuisance, she actually drove onto the campsite but said she wouldn't have been able to stay because "the cables and pylons give off electricity", she said it looked a"sweet little site". I just smiled and said receiving her parcel  had been no problem at all and off she went. Presumably to somewhere much safer!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, I collected another lovely pile of library books from the mobile library. They are mostly crime fiction this month 

  except for this one below, which if it is as good as it looks might get added to my wish list for my Home Front collection.

 As we have 2 or 3 blokes here tomorrow doing the concreting of half of the back path, I made a nice big fruit cake to keep them sustained. They have said they can come back in a few weeks to do the other half so that will be brilliant. Him Outside and I managed to get the smaller bits of rubble cleared and the shuttering edges for the path fixed. He went and collected the cement and ballast so we are right ready.
While he was collecting cement I popped into Co-op where much to my surprise they actually had one pack of reduced price neck of lamb chops and chipolatas. When I say reduced it's only by a third but living around here that's quite good. Amongst the reduced price fruit and veg there was a small swede ( and mouldy strawberries! - didn't buy those!) so the swede went with the lamb, value carrots from the fridge, our own onions-lasting really well this year- and mint from the garden,to make a nice lamb stew. Which is quite a treat, as lamb is something that we ate a lot years ago when we kept and bred sheep but is now priced out of reach. They had three packs of chipolatas so I got all three and popped them into the freezer.
I watched some tennis this afternoon and then had a surprise visit by a retired couple from Essex who've camped on the site several times over the last 20 years. They have had to give up camping so were staying at a B & B not far away so they could go to some Benjamin Britten events at Snape Maltings and in Aldeburgh (This is the centenary celebration of Britten with lots of special thing happening) and thought they would pop in to say hello.So we caught up over a cuppa. I thought it was such a coincidence some of our friendly visitors should call in on the same day as the" lady with the parcel"!

A Grey Day - both the weather and a missing towel.

It looked like being a grey dismal day so after putting it off for over a week we ventured out the 25 miles to our nearest big town - Ipswich, County town of Suffolk.  Poundland, Wilkinson and Aldi were calling! They have things that are so much cheaper it makes it worth the trip. Also we wanted to have another look at Sainsburys to see what we were missing in the way of their Value Brands, as other frugalers seem to find lots of bargains there.  Him Outside found Value Muesli which surprisingly says 'no added sugar'. He has tried other cheapies and found they were far too sweet. We also got the value loo rolls for the campsite but as we stupidly forgot the cold-box we couldn't take advantage of cheaper meat, fish and cheese.

Aldi did have Allinsons flour for £1- much to my surprise, I wonder why it shot up to £1.79 at Tesco? They also have little tins of sardines and tuna for much less than value brands elsewhere. Then into the town centre where it seems that there are even more empty shops than 6 weeks ago. But a chance discovery in The Butter Market Centre cheered me up - we discovered a new shop called Grape Tree. It was full of dried fruit, nuts, herbs and spices in plain packages looking awfully similar to Julian Graves which closed last August. Not only did it look similar but the shop lady told me that it was being run by the original owners of Julian Graves before they were taken over by Holland and Barrett and then closed down. She said they have now re-opened 16 shops around the country - several in the West Midlands where they were originally based. Good news indeed when so many shops are struggling. Our last stop on the way home was to use our Gardening Club card at Wyevale for some compost on special offer. Most of it will be for next year.  I would have liked a wander around all the pretty bits and pieces in the kitchen section but time was getting on and Him Outside wanted his lunch!

Now the missing grey towel. We have 2 very large dark grey bath towels ( as well as some others of course!). When I was in the bathroom yesterday I was pondering that there was only one grey towel on the towel stacker thing, but the other one wasn't in the wash basket as I had loaded the washing machine not long before and would have seen it. So today I started a search. It couldn't be in the spare room as I had hoovered and stripped the bed yesterday and would have seen it. Upstairs and downstairs I looked,  in all sorts of unlikely places- How could I have lost a large bath towel? 

Then I started again, everywhere I had already looked and FINALLY in the spare room at last there it was all the time- hanging on hook on the back of the door ( which opens against a wall ). So message to son - next time you are here please leave towels somewhere I can see them!

No pictures for the blog today - too grey and nasty for photos outside and  nothing exciting happening indoors.

Shopping for shoes and daffodils.

Shopping for shoes is almost my least favourite activity, but needs must and as, due to foot problems, I'm unable to wear wellies now I've almost ruined my very old pair of Brasher walking boots by wearing them for splodging around the smallholding all through the wet winter. So time for a new pair to wear for just walking in (rather than collecting eggs, gardening, chopping kindling etc. etc.) First stop giant Sporty type out-of-town place. No one "serving" until I'd walked around and up and down searching. I have quite wide feet so not much choice. Then he trotted off to look for my size and of course they didn't have them. So we went into town and thankfully discovered Millets/Blacks still there - I thought they were one of the companies that had gone under this winter. Success! and IN THEIR SALE at half price - Hooray! Now I really must look after these. (Poor old well worn boots on right look better in photo than in reality, still just about OK for working here)

Hopefully no more shoe shopping for many months.
Before we started searching for shoes we called in at Sainsburys because someone on a blog had mentioned their Value Range Bacon ( whoever it was - thankyou!) We rarely visit Sainsburys as it is 25 miles from us at the wrong edge of town. Bought two packs of bacon and then divided it up when we got home before putting in freezer- 2 really good size bacon chops and 4 packs of rashers. Very good value.

A few days of sunshine have at last persuaded a few daffodils to open here, yet in Ipswich there were several out in gardens, it really is several degrees warmer in town compered to us on the East coast. We had a bed of daffs for selling at the gate but last Autumn decided that they were getting very crowded and not producing many flowers. So we dug them up and replanted the biggest bulbs in a new bed. These means not so many to sell this year but hopefully a good amount from next year onwards.

 I still can't decide which blog is best, simplesuffolksmallholder on wordpress or frugalinsuffolk on blogger. The wordpress site is simpler to post onto.
If anyone can find it, please have a look and tell me which site you prefer. Thanks.
 The following is a post that I put on my wordpress site on Tuesday 2nd April for new readers on blogger to find out a bit more about our simple Suffolk world.
Lots and lots of lovely little eggs out for sale today – our new hens are doing well. The good news was that even with it being school holidays, the whole lot sold bar 1/2 dozen. I hope some new buyers have found us – people who have been buying for years always  say “love your eggs”. I tell them its because they are so fresh and have only traveled a few yards from the chicken to the box and then to them.
I ventured out in the icy cold east wind to our “new” Tesco, although it’s almost a year old now. I had a £5 voucher off £40 worth, so did the months big shop there. As its only a small shop they sometimes have a value range of something and then next time – it’s gone. Never any bargains on the reduced shelf, but I did find some 1/2 price organic apples, which was only a saving of 50p over the non reduced, non organic. One good buy is their value range tins of pineapple chunks for 25p – a good big tin too. They are doing their 3 for 2 on home baking products, so I got 3 bread flour this week when only two were on my list.
 I bought a tiny piece of  peperoni sausage off the deli counter, just 50p worth- bet the girl thought I was odd- but I needed it to top home made pizza for a change from our usual 2 cheese variety. Even with the bargains my big shop came to much more than it would have done a year ago, but we have to eat something and I refuse to live on value beans!
Came home and made 2 loaves of bread and did lots of floor washing – not very exciting.