Monday 30 March 2015

Never Stop on a Monday

Just a quick wander in , I feel as if this day has never stopped , endless domestic servitude kind of day .Even Mr Bah Humbug and Baldrick have tried to be of some use and failed hilariously . Highlights of the day this conversation.
Wheres the wheel off the hoover ?
Wherever you put it its been snapped off since xmas!!
We need a new hoover
Sell a kidney then..............silence
just sometimes I wish you could have your partner adopted when they annoy you , he then anounced he was going to wash up , if  i didnt mind half of it breaking..lol.
Big pile of strange loaded into the ebay shop   http://stores.ebay.co.uk/katiesrecycle    it looks like im trying to socialise the world, not my usual fair at all and theres no others on line to compare them with , I know the miners strike always sells , so ive a few watchers already . There was even a few comics and film and tv bits among the political stuff so ive popped them on , but i will admit ive chucked tons into the recycling bin ...lol
I have secreted one magazine away just because i loved the cover, i'd quite like it framed but Mr Bah Humbug threatened to burn the house down if i did , Thatcher the Marmite of politics



So its magic tea out of the cauldron then start wading through the 7 boxes of bedding from the auction 2 weeks ago , some will be labelled and sorted for car boot ,some will be ebayed, some will be parceled out to the relatives and some will go to the ragman... a womans work is never done ..lol

Saturday 28 March 2015

Frugal Weekend

Ah the joys of being skint...lol  Im now getting to the weird and wonderful part of the poverty menu , currently ive a pair of pigs trotters defrosting in a hidden place so nobody realises what they are eating , im hoping to do something Chinese tomorrow with some of the meat, once ive cooked them to death in the slow cooker overnight, then maybe a variety of Brawn with the liquid and whatever meat and skin is left .   . Ive concocted a weird trifle type effort with Victoria plums from the freezer , the biscotti in the base are 2 years out of date, they had fallen down the back of the shelves..lol
I wont starve but Mr Bah Humbug and Baldrick are going to be whinging for England all through Easter , guess what I dont care its time they got a reality check on the financial state of affairs in the House of Nettle Knickers .
Still in the storecupboard
At least 2 kilos of rice
3 kilos of couscous
umpteen packs of noodles ,
several bags of flour for bread and baking
cooking oil tons of herbs and spices
2 kilos of pasta
enough casserole mixes and cup a soup to feed an army
This weeks grocery list came to £7.26 spent at the tin factory , bargain of the week 2.5kg tins of debranded rice pudding 50p  . The mint cordial for the munchkin is slightly out of date but he loves it 10p a bottle , lasagne sheets 40p ,all jams are 60p and theyre not cheap makes , 5 packets of casserole mix for Spanish chicken 30p , £2.40 for 24 tins of beans , plus the usual odd tins to try that Mr Bah Humbug likes , usually weird soups always 25p and under .

t

the real challenge is the dozens of sachets of coconut milk i found squirreled away in the back of the cupboard  not quite sure what I can make with that ? 
Suggestions other than curry anyone? 

Thursday 26 March 2015

Benefits Land

Things have gone down hill so fast in the the depressing world of benefit scroungers this week that im not sure how to start .  Mr Bah Humbug has two  medicals in the next couple of weeks , this has sent him spiraling back into la la land , they will be requesting medical reports from his GP , his GP walked out last week , there is now no one at the practice that he has met except for the junior doctor who he ate for breakfast , so this is going to go really well .
Went to pick up  his prescriptions , we do not qualify for free prescriptions so we have to space them to one a week , we cant afford the money for a pre paid prescription card due to me not being paid correctly yet again!!
Sorry you must order his pills monthly as one lot

We cant currently afford to do this

That isnt our problem .

Where are the other tablets ?

We cant perscribe those

Why not ?

They arent on the company list ,theyre too expensive,  he needs to book a medication review

Could we see a GP ?

Theres no none urgent appointments for 4 weeks

Could I just ask a questions. what happens when someone suddenly stops taking anti psychotic medication?

AHHHH . I will just ask a GP

Dr Junior Dimwit appears from his lair.

We cant prescribed  these , only the hospital can prescribe these .

They were originally prescribed by the hospital .

Ah, your partner has been discharged from the hospital , we dont prescribe these

They were prescribed because they cant operate , he has to wait 6 months for the pain clinic , what will happen if he stops taking them suddenly, he isnt just on them for pain relief .

MMMM..I will go and look at his notes ...scuttles back into his lair

I will prescribe them now , but he needs to book a medication review AAARRRGGGHHH.

Our GPs has become the land of the useless , we have lost 5 GPs in the space of 6 months
What happens from here who knows , i feel as if im existing in a different universe these days

Sunday 22 March 2015

The First Sunday of Spring

Greetings , Ive been out soaking up the rays today , well the first rays i hope, spent the day babysitting munchkin plus two spares , so basically a whole day tied to the kitchen sink , theres been that many bodies ive been serving meals in sittings, not much help on the washing up front im afraid theres another mountain in the sink now that im hoping someone else might do .
Mr Bah Humbug has spent the day torturing his Baldrick , I actually caught him making him clean vehicles with a toothbrush !!! The kids meanwhile were digging a hole , something ive found kills hours with small children plus involves lots of mud  you can craftily seed the hole with a few dodgy foreign coins you have kicking about and they think theyre time team .
Ive had to sell a treasure because of the cash flow problem , First World War Frister  & Rossmann sewing machine sold in a couple of days, now i have the packing and posting challenge , should be manageable by courier.


Yesterday because it was freezing and in an effort to butter me up for todays babysitting , my daughter dragged me to the auction , we were very restrained mainly because we had the munchkin and her tiny car . they were actually selling wardrobes with the clothes still in them , a washer with the washing still in it and mountains of curtains with the hooks still in .  I know i shouldnt have but i purchased a household linen mountain for a whole £4 , we have gained 6  new towels  , brand new oven gloves and sheets , the other dozen bags will do for the car boot sale once it warms up . One weird lot that we had no idea what it was for £2 it turned out to be a box of umbrellas , tons of dog leads and a load of enamelware ? car boot methinks .
My daughter wins the award for weird purchase of the year so far , I did say take a look at the weird war magazines , next thing shes bought 3 boxes for £2 the lot , turned out its tons of weird Marxist and Communist literature , never take a politics graduate to an auction!! Ive being researching them on ebay and the weirder and more extreme the better they sell , some of it is quite interesting reading .

Thursday 19 March 2015

A Thrifty Week

Lets settle down for a good bitch!!
Well im trying to make the whole family curl there toes with embarrassment and shame. Ive dragged Mr Bah Humbug and Baldrick to the porn shop with some broken jewellery , then I opened an account at the scrap yard and sold the catalytic converter that fell off my daughters car for a whole £15 which was quite impressive for something so small that it fitted in a carrier bag .Nowadays theyre not allowed to pay cash for scrap it all has to go through a bank account so you must take photo ID and a bank card , its yet another government plot to stop people earning money cash in hand.
 Plus ive arranged to see a vintage clothing shop about the furs and some other things i had kicking around . Tomorrow I have an evil plan to bag up all the clothes they leave lying around and sell them to the rag man .
This may all sound a little drastic  but I have to find an extra weeks rent to get my two rent free weeks over easter, bless them I do love the Council we owed them 60p last time and they charged us for the rent free weeks!!
I must admit ive done a bit of thrift shopping over the last few days nothing very exciting and all for pennies . Couple of Lowestoft Calyx Adams Ironstone modern serving plates big hefty factory seconds I think as they dont have the usual tiny flowers on . A Terry Pratchett that I hadnt read (sadly missed) and a box of vintage baubles , theres also a t shirt and a work shirt for me and this lot gave me change from a £1 . More ebay listing tomorrow if i get the time , must get the rent money somehow ..lol ...im sure they will all thank me for my efforts on their behalf

Monday 16 March 2015

A Thrifty Lincolnshire Childhood

Ive escaped down to the Christians for a cuppa and a bitch this morning with my friends , weve been comparing our poverty horror stories . Its always a relief when youre talking to people in the same boat ..lol  we discussed toast as a means of hiding the mould on the bread and crumpets and discovered that our mothers did just the same things , told us to shut up and enjoy the Penicillin because it was free .
 The means of telling if a yogurt was gone off , bugger the date if the lid isnt mounding your safe , if the lid is mounding , poke it carefully if it doesnt explode into baking it can safely go , my gran used to use gone off milk in all her baked stuff and she won awards for it .
Cheese , into cheese sauce mouldy and dried up bits will go, also very useful for quiche as the herbs hide any trace of mould .
My Grandma though was the mistress of thrift, shed been a single parent back in the 30s with 5 kids , I can remember her sieving  flour to get the weevils out , whatever happened to weevils? have they become extinct or are there that many residual chemicals in flour that even a weevil doesnt want to live there . Do you still get weevils in organic flour?
She used to make huge footballs of used aluminium foil , then sell them to the rag and bone man , she collected all the glass , newspapers and rags and he paid her pennies for them as well , now the council charges us through the teeth for recycling .
We spent the summer holidays with her each year and across the road was the local dump , back in the 60s villages still had any convenient hole in the ground for the dump , she had the farmhouse over the road that shed had since the 30's because nobody wanted to live near the dump, it took her till the 50s to buy the house and land with the money raised from  stuff she pulled out of the dump. By the time we were 9 or 10 we had it to an art form , we were up stripping cable every morning, I was deployed when the posh cars pulled in to go and look pathetic and ask for stuff as i was such a little weed ..lol ...Did it do any of any harm ?  I dont think so , all my cousins are still experts at getting by , none of us have gone on to be millionaires , we just arent aspirational in the same way as others. But we all suffer from being hoarders because we can see a use for things ...lol  


Saturday 14 March 2015

£1 Thrift Happiness

Sometimes its the little things make you happy , in the scheme of today that is..lol . Mr Bah Humbug has split his stitches (Contrary to his opinion , he is not dying its clean dry and just a mess) and were stuck at home waiting for the youngest to be delivered to the Little Prison Camp in the Fens !!! Once again hes in bother , skipping off college and doing weed this time , couldnt have come at a better time . Were struggling to feed the 5 thousand already , so another mouth to feed isnt good ,though  his visit has occasioned my son fleeing to his girlfriends for the duration so you win some lose some .
Big plus points of the week , dont you just love this vintage unused apron , not a keeper into ebay it will go , but it just made me smile .


Theres a whole £1 ive wasted on myself , like I needed more fabric? Laura Ashley sample packs , various other samples and a selection of vintage barkcloth cushion covers , that i can reuse the fabric of , even a bit of Sanderson





Tuesday 10 March 2015

Another Thrilling Instalment

Well I wish I could show you my exciting week...lol  ...But there hasnt been much excitement. Ive had my nurses uniform on all week as Mr Bah Humbug  had a carpel tunnel op last week and hes been suitably pathetic and helpless in that way only a bloke can be .  A bit of a minor nip and tuck in his scale of treatment and he gets his stitches out today .



So then i can have my thrilling exciting crafting and thrifting life back..sort of , lack of funds is really cramping my style at the moment we seem to be lurching from one payment in to a zero balance on a daily balance and im sick of explaining that we cant get any help from anywhere so they will just have to wait for the bills . Sorry it aint magic no matter how many times you ring the situation isnt changing anytime soon . We are paying bits here and there but dont owe enough to go on a Debt Relief order or IVA . The whole of this months pay has had to go on Council Tax before they got us into court , most of this is charges , which really sickens me , talk about kicking you when youre down .
But the cupboards are reasonably full still, we wont starve , they wont evict us because theyre next on the list for payment and i will continue muddling along .
But its a bit bad when the highlight of the week is a 50p pair of shoes from the Jumble Sale , ugly but unworn what more could i ask for and they are very comfortable.  For those who think they will catch some terrible ailment the worse you can get is atheletes foot , they sell the powder in the £1 shop , so just dose the used shoes and put in a plastic bag for a couple of days

Tuesday 3 March 2015

Meanwhile In The Real World

Domestic Servitude kind of day , my dishwasher is stopping at his girlfriends so we have lots of clean pots , caught up on the washing , cooked lots of out of date food with added approved food .
But its the fifth week of my five week month and the discussion this morning was if i could afford the fuel for work or did I need to save the fuel to do a hospital run tomorrow with Mr Bah Humbug . Would we have enough electricity to last till Friday and could we afford bread and milk for the week . Times are grim at the house of nettle knickers ..Mr Bah Humbug is getting quieter and quieter , not a good thing . I just think back to my first marriage when we couldnt afford anything to eat but my ex could afford a bottle of navy rum everyday , this is easy poverty compared to that. We still have tons of food in the house , the heating oil is still running and both cars are still legal .



Ebay listing bits and bobs , mainly tedious boring engineering and modelling man bait , did sell the big picture someones coming from London to pick it up . Ive sorted a few bits to list tomorrow as well .




Then I sort of got into this little Lloyd Loom basket , stripped it all down then realised nobody has half inched my staple gun !! I could have had it finished and in use today instead its stood looking sad and lonely in the corner

Sunday 1 March 2015

Weird Auction Item

So heres the item that baffles me the most from the recent auction haul not quite sure how it ended up in the endless boxes of magazines . A Do it yourself Flower Lamp from the 50s 0r  60s I would imagine, due to the wiring and the bakelite round pin plug . I have the large globe in the picture plus the slightly smaller round globe , not a clue what to do with these , there is nowhere I can store them safely in this mad house , nowhere is safe from the munchkin !! they would look awesome rewired with succulents or air plants in them , or even a mossy fairy garden , not a lot of good for ebay as no matter how well wrapped they wouldnt be postable. Decisions, decisions....lol



Then theres this Aynsley plate very horsy with heavy gold raised trim , I hate listing breakables but ebay I think .
Then theres a Prince William birth plate , sadly about as popular as Ebola in this country , every box lot has a recent royalty commemorative item that you cant give away, charity shop methinks .
Ebay has sadly let me down this week , one 99p sale..lol