Well done Octopus!

 

Well done Octopus! 🐙 My issue was resolved in 4 days and my account sorted out.  Plus I got a very nice apology email for their error.  Makes a big difference from Scottish Power who dragged it out for months, threatened me with court action for debt collection only to re credit my account AND refund my son the whole amount after their error in the end.

I just need to get the Smart meter thingy connected to my new meters and linked to my account now and I can 'forget' about my energy bills as they're all set up automatically 😊

Foodie Friday!

 

I got another decent Lidl box this week and was also early enough to get 2 chicken breasts for 90p!  I'm getting more useable coupons on the app now so had a 25% off for unsalted butter.  It's already a good price at £1.69 for British made butter so I was happy with the discount.  I had 3 free bakery items to claim as well but didn't realise the croissant one hadn't activated.  The wee focaccia with cheese and tomatoes and the pretzel are now in the freezer to test how well they freeze!

I made kiwi compote with the perfectly ripe kiwis 🥝 I'm not making jam this year (jars and equipment are somewhere still packed in a box) but compote freezes well and I've plenty of freezer space now.  Plus compotes use less sugar than jam!!

I also made apricot compote.  It was more fiddly as I had to skin them first.  So I now have 6 pots of compote, each one probably has about 2 to 3 servings depending on how greedy I am!

I also made strawberry top syrup!  I saw this on Pinterest and have been saving the tops all Summer in the freezer.  It's so easy.  Put in a pan with water, bring to the boil, add sugar and simmer until syrupy! Strain and bottle.

It's not going to last long in the fridge as I didn't sterilise anything  for long term storage so it's now frozen in wee tubs in the freezer!  It's absolutely delicious considering it's made from the bit you'd normally compost! 🍓

I did put all this in a video for Foodie Friday on YouTube but despite 3 attempts to upload it won't let me.  All I get is a corrupted file message 🙄 I haven't done anything different so suspect it's a ploy to get me to upgrade to the paid version of Clip Champ.  We'll see if it uploads the next one.

I'm realising now how much of a commitment having a 'popular' channel needs. Even when I'm not on the laptop I'm getting notifications/comments on my phone all day and all night.  I haven't figured out how to stop them yet!  I'd say about 90% of the comments are lovely/respectful/genuine.  The rest are people who clearly don't watch the whole thing and jump right in with questions (I'm STILL getting the how old are you/why are you not getting your State pension!!!) Some are saying I shouldn't have a dog if I'm poor (eh, where did I say I was poor??)  I've deleted a few personal ones that commented on my lack of make up (WTF?) and hair.  And banned one guy who was demanding a lot of personal details about my kids, grandchildren(???) and went on a rant about single women, the declining population and immigrants.

Someone said YouTube is like the Wild West!  Yup!!! 🤠

Help needed!!!

 

I've opened Pandora's box with this Youtube nonsense.  I actually couldn't sleep last night and woke up with a dread feeling.  Yesterday's video has had over 13K views in 24 hours.  This tells me that there's both interest in what I'm doing and a need to talk about what happens when you retire and have very little money.

In amongst the comments about how I'm doing it wrong, how I'm paying too much for xyz or that I'm secretly living on my mega savings (def not!!) there were some genuine comments from some people who are surviving on very little money while paying rent.  There were some good discussions lost in the forest of comments.

But I've lost count of how many times people asked the same things over and over especially where it's clear they didn't watch the whole video until the end.  Why am I not getting my state pension?  Why haven't I applied for pension credit? Why am I paying life/pet/house insurance?  What are you going to do if xyz breaks down?  Why aren't you using the rental income from the flat?  At least those people had looked at my other videos!

I put Luna into daycare yesterday so I could get some more unpacking and sorting out done.  Instead I spent the day and evening answering all these questions as politely as I could (an old people pleaser habit!)  I got up this morning and there were a whole load more 😭😭😭

Oh wise ones, what is your opinion on all this?  I've only been doing it for 3 weeks and it's quickly become serious.  All I wanted to do was make wee videos saying here's a Lidl box and look how I've used it to save me money!!

Me and an energy company (again!)

 

According to Octopus between 10th July and 5th August I used £2110.03 worth of electricity.  WTAF?? On a prepayment top up meter.  On the 6th August I got a Smart meter installed.  Surely there has been a glitch in the matrix when the switchover happened.  You can see on either side of that graph my normal usage.

Octopus are 'looking into it' and will get back to me.  Meanwhile while my brand new account says I'm in debt over £2000.

Me and energy companies just don't seem to have smooth transitions! 🙄

Filling up the freezers

I made my final car payment this week!  My wee 4yo car is now all mine 🚗 So that frees up a nice wee amount each month which I will be adding to my savings from next month.  But to celebrate I bought another freezer!!  Same silver colour as my fridge freezer and it fits nicely into the corner on the other side of the table.  It's not plugged in yet in this photo, it's just been dumped for the gases to settle!   I chose this Indesit one as it's able to keep food frozen for 12 hours if the power goes out.  

I popped into Lidl on Monday and got lucky again.  I knew I'd be able to use up everything and put it in my new freezer 😊  From the above,  I chopped and froze the melon (it was perfect!!) and peaches (had to skin them first.)  I made a sort of tomato relish by chopping up the really ripe tomatoes and cooking them with some sugar and vinegar.  Delicious!!  I've used some of the peppers in a sweet and sour sauce today.  I squeezed the oranges and froze the juice in ice cubes.  And Luna has been eating the cucumber with me as a snack! 🥒

Then last night my DIL gifted me some of her 10p fruit bargains from her Sainsbury's Local.  The plums and apricots have been poached and put in the freezer.  The kale was just sorted into a freezer bag and half of  the pineapple was used in the sweet and sour sauce.  Guess where the other half is??  Yep, the freezer!! 😂

I made a short video of the sweet and sour sauce as I just can't edit in a lot of clips and photos to a longer video within a reasonable time.  I've got other stuff to do!  It took 3 hours to upload a 15 min chat for editing.  So I think creating shorts of me cooking works better then I can just do a one take chat to camera for the other stuff with a wee bit of editing.  Thanks to Mean Queen for that idea!  What do you think?  Opinions welcome!

Luna doesn't like it!

Luna is a bit bemused that I have a table in the kitchen now!! The side eye is ridiculous when I'm eating!😂She had developed a bad habit of sitting right beside me on the sofa when I was eating and tried to lick my plate. So, yeah she's not happy.  To use a Scottish phrase "she's pure raging!" 😂😂

She sits and glares at me from the other side too!  But it's so good to have a space to eat and work at again.  And Miss Luna will just have to get used it!

Today I got my notepad out and sat with a coffee to try and work out some things regarding the YouTube stuff.  I now have an astonishing 1161 subscribers and that £1.76 video has had over 17K views!!  😱 I only re started the channel 2 weeks ago!

Thanks for all the input on how I should go forward with it all. I've decided I'm going to post 2 videos a week on Mondays and Fridays.  The Monday one will be a general frugal chat about what I do and the Friday one will be food related.  I know the Friday one will be more popular based on the analytics! I'll keep them to around 15 mins max and I'll try to do one take to the camera and then add in things when I edit it.  It's editing that takes up all the time due to the slowness of Clip Champ.  But as it's free I'm not complaining.

I'm still keeping my blog going as usual.  I enjoy writing too much.  I'm not linking them and I'm not mentioning this blog so they're completely separate things.  You'll still get to read the rubbish on my weekly doings!! 😂😂

Trip to IKEA and YouTube commenters!

 

I had a lovely day with my DIL, my eldest son's wife visiting IKEA in Glasgow.  I had a list and I stuck to it!!  I knew exactly what I wanted to see and what I wanted to buy.  I got a table and chairs for my kitchen.  It's Pinntorp, a gateleg folding table.  It fitted the space I had perfectly!

My DIL helped me build it.  We're both pretty handy with DIY so table and chairs were built in a couple of lazy hours.  It extends easily to seat at least 4 maybe more at a pinch.  I don't do big family dinners any more so I don't need a big table.

Ignore the 'mess' on the left hand side as I quickly moved stuff to set the table up.  But I'm thrilled with it especially as it leaves me room to fit in a second freezer!! 🎉 I make my last car payment this month so there will be some extra cash in the budget next month!!  I really miss having a big freezer so 2 wee ones will have to do.  More space to store bargains 😊

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my YouTube adventures.  As of tonight I now have 871 subscribers!  And the £1.76 video has had an astonishing 11K views!!! On the whole the commenters have been really supportive but I actually laughed and even put a 😂 in my reply to the woman who said she hoped my food was rotten.  Someone else commented on my £400 mixer (I'm assuming she thought I had a brand new Kitchen Aid and not a knackered 18 yo Kenwood!!)  And someone thought if I can afford to shop in M&S I shouldn't be using the food waste shop.  It's as if they didn't even watch the video!!! 😂😂😂