In Praise of Blue and Yellow!

I'm not one for 'getting on Band Waggons' ~ in-fact I have a healthy distrust of many ~ but in early January I joined the discount shopping brigade.  I'd just got to a point where I felt that our household bills were way too expensive and we had to take some kind of radical action. We have a 'Blue and Yellow' store about two miles up the road from here.  There's a large car park (free) and it's just off the bypass in our local town.  If we get off the motorway one junction earlier, we can pop in on our way home.  It's not only cheap, it's convenient.


It was easy to see that we were going to save money, but I decided to monitor exactly how much.  For the last three months I've logged our savings against a calculated average weekly spend from the Autumn.  I've filled pages of my accounts book with everything we've spent (OCD!!!).  I've included house-hold items from the 'W' store, "top up shops" from anywhere and the occasional trip to our original food store to pick up special items.


I think our diet has improved in the last few months, largely because fruit and fresh veg were really expensive at our previous store.  It is a different type of shopping experience.... but it's funny how quickly I've got used to things costing less!


Anyway, the rolling savings total is already looking extremely healthy.  Once I'd added the lower winter fuel bills resulting from our mild winter, the total is bordering on the embarrassing!  Why did I continue to pay so much to these other stores for so long......  Mark (who is a great believer in 'designated savings funds') suggested at the beginning of the experiment that we should put the money into a pot for our 50th Birthday celebrations.  We are 48 later this year so that's going to be MONTHS of savings.  I'm not sure he realises quite how much money that might represent!  Oh well..!! 


The funny thing is that I can't persuade my family to try out the store.  My sister is completely loyal to 'T****' and my parents can't be separated from 'S*********'.  In the meanwhile, I'm a complete convert!!!


What are your top food-shopping tips?
Jx

A new addiction!

A couple of hours ago Balisha at Never Enough Time wrote a lovely post about treating herself to some new season apples.  In this post she mentioned eating apple with a little bit of peanut butter.  I immediately commented that I'd never tried this combination before but that it sounded really good and quite healthy (if you don't spread the peanut butter too thick!)

Anyway, I needed a quick snack before my pilates class so I decided to break out my trusty jar of crunchy peanut butter and try it with a large juicy Gala apple.  I can now report that it's not just tasty - it's the stuff of serious snacking addictions!!  Seriously, it's also quite filling so I haven't felt the urge to eat anything else.

I had a Music Teacher's meeting at another school this afternoon so I had to drive myself today.  The down side of this was that I had to keep both hands on the wheel (so no crochet!).  The up side was that I got back to the Worcester area much earlier and had time to have another look at Em's wool sale.  Today I only bought one ball - a pretty pale green yarn which will look fabulous in an Autumnal themed blanket I'm planning.

It was nice to have a treat because the last couple of weeks haven't been particularly great at work.  The pupils are delightful as always.  It's the supposedly 'grown up' people that I work with that have made things very hard.  Yesterday was a crisis point and I feel seriously let down by my Headteacher and his Deputy.  Even though I love working with the kids - and it will break my heart to leave a department that I have ploughed my heart and soul into - I'm not sure how long I can carry on working there.  I've got  to schedule a meeting with the Deputy next week to try and clarify the situation and where I stand.  I'll let you know what happens...