Being a Granfluencer
A fellow UK Money Blogger wrote a couple of pieces recently that featured yours truly, and in one of them she called me a Granfluencer, which made me crack up! I've been called the Quid Queen before, and now this hahahah!
How my tardiness paid dividends
I had a very strange experience this month. I usually reconcile my bank statements and credit card statement. I like to keep an eye on things and this way, I know where I am, I don't have any direct debits or standing orders going out that I don't want and I can spot anything untoward.
Well last month, for whatever reason I didn't do the credit card and it turned out to be a good thing!
When I did it this time, I started with last months, to keep everything in line and OMG - there were 100 - ONE HUNDRED - foreign exchange transactions on there! All for exactly the same amount - 73p, plus a 2p non-sterling transaction fee. They were in PKR, which when I looked it up are Pakistan Rupees.
I quickly went on to the next statement to finish that before I rang the credit card people - and ....... there were 100 transactions putting it all back!
What the hell was going on? I rang the credit card people and they said the transactions had originated in Vietnam and after discussing it with them, we decided the best thing to do was to cancel the card and get a new one.
So if I'd spotted that last month, I would have cancelled the card and potentially lost £100 as they wouldn't have been able to put it back onto the new card.
My tardiness paid off, and I never usually do that. I always reconcile every month!
Bexhill After Dark
There was a nice little event in Bexhill recently, Bexhill After Dark. All round the town were assorted things happening. The mobile snow globe as pictured above; a light parade where people decorated bikes and buggies with lights; a projection all about local shops from long ago; music and various other happenings. All free, and the town was packed! Made for a pleasant evening out
Using logs
We've been using the log burner rather than the gas central heating lately. This is partly because of the huge rises coming, and partly because of the Co2 emitted.
Burning logs does emit particulates. There doesn't seem to be a good way to heat the home without some sort of negative about it.
We've used up all the free wood we had in the wood store and actually bought some from a farm in Bexhill. They come in MASSIVE (plastic) bags and cost £2.50 each, so are still very cheap.
On emptying the wood store, I found where the rats were living. Mike had put pallets down to stop the wood from resting on wet ground, and when I emptied out the side nearest the fence, my goodness, it was rat central down there! Lots of empty nests, and it smelled of wee - eurgh. They've gone now. We had to put down poison, I really don't like doing it. I don't mind rats at all, but I can't have them living so close as they end up in the house, and they're very destructive and wee everywhere.
u3a renewals
This month I've spent a lot of time doing u3a renewals. I'm the membership secretary of the group in my town, so it falls to me to do.
It doesn't take long to draft a letter, make sure everyone has got a letter, mailmerge it with an address, print the letter and fold it, print a matching label, put the label on an envelope, put a stamp on, put the right letter in the right envelope and seal it. But when you have a couple of hundred to do, it takes absolutely ages!
AND they had to have the program for 2022, so they all had to be printed too, cut to size, folded and put into each envelope!
Still, all done now until next year, just the renewal monies to process as and when they come in.
What I've been making in previous Februarys
Crispy topped miso veg
This month last year, I made this Crispy Topped Miso Veg dish - masses of veg, flavoured with miso and topped with grilled potato slices and cheese.
Filling pancakes
In 2020, I was exploring lots of different ways to fill a pancake
Vegetable lasagnas
And in 2019, I started to explore all the different lovely ways to make a vegetable lasagna starting off with this mushroom ragu version
Pork meatballs with barley and veg
And way back in 2018, I came up with this dish of pork meatballs with added veg and barley. You can change the mince, change the veg and change the spicing to give loads of different variations. Mind you, isn't everything on Thrifty Lesley like that!
An e-book
I published an ebook for meal plan 1 in August and am delighted that many people have thought it was worth getting.
I've managed to get my head around WooCommerce so I can feature it on the blog and you can find it here.
I'm busy recooking, photographing and updating the recipes for Meal Plan 2 and putting them into an ebook. It was written in 2013 and still prices up, which is fabulous. But the posts are embarrassingly bad and need a lot of updating! I'm getting on well with them again, having taken a break to do other things. It's taking me ages to do this one!
Do come and say hello on the Fantastically Frugal Food Facebook group, or the Sensational Slimming Sustenance group. I'd love to see you. Lots of useful tips, recipes and ideas. The nearly 17,000 membership are brilliant, brimming with talent.
And don't forget Thrifty Lesley, where there are 800+ recipes of fantastically frugal food and many weekly meal plans. And Cheap Family Recipes where you can find all kinds of delicious things that don't cost much, with two family monthly meal plans.
I've also got a few YouTube videos up, not many yet, but I'm planning to do more. I've done a couple more, need to edit them now. So much to do, so little time!
With all best wishes, until next time
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