Budget/Sealed Pot Challenge

 The pumpkin bread was an experiment, there was an overwhelming choice of recipes and I didn't want to buy a lot of ingredients so used a Lidl rye bread mix I had in the cupboard, baked about 150g pumpkin mashed this and reduced the amount of water in the mix.  It was a nice moist loaf, but very heavy because of the flour I chose- next time I would use a white flour.

We didn't carve pumpkins this year so here are some hubby has done in previous years....

 

 

Budget/Sealed Pot Challenge

For anyone who'se interested and/or taking part in the challenge over at SFT's blog.... 

Our sealed pot got a generous £30 boost last week when we received a goodwill cheque

 from a utility provider that we had experienced problems with, we had politely written to tell them our issues and got this unexpected result!

 

 

We are thinking about how to spend our sealed pot which we will be opening on Friday 5th December.  We plan a day out in London to celebrate teenage boys 16th birthday

so we will probably use some of our pot funds for train fares and dinner out for 4.

 

November

 

November is going to be a frugal month for us as we have a lot of outgoings - our income is variable so we have to be careful.  I am taking packed lunches and trying to avoid the temptation to buy ready lunches from shops (I work 9-9 a couple of days so struggle to plan lunch and dinner to take with me - any suggestions for filling no cook meals are welcome -

 mainly vegetarian)

 

This month I am going through all the direct debits for insurance, utilities, bills... to see if I can save anywhere - I am thinking about switching to a bank that rewards newbies too.

University boy has just done this and is £125 better off!  Have you switched banks and had a cashback? was it worth the switch?

 

Our cat is now 12 1/2 and her health insurance jumped from £14 a month to £17.60 at renewal... so I shopped around and found one that was £8 a month for a similar cover level!

 

I'm quite interested in money saving at the moment

if anyone else is assessing their budget and has some success stories to share, please

leave a comment so I can visit your blog.

Betty

 

 

 

 

Halloween

It has been the hottest Halloween on record here in sunny Surrey, it was t shirts for us today as we hopped on a train and headed to Brighton for the day - just over the border to equally sunny Sussex!

First there was a bit of browsing of The Lanes, quite a few shops had done really good displays for Halloween - Cyber Candy was spectacular with lots of candles suspended in mid air, a book of spells and pumpkins....

A lovely painted pumpkin and ghostly dress with leaves in this vintage dress shop.

Another shop window full of severed limbs....

and with plenty of party hats on sale.

As it was very sunny, there is a lot of reflection on some of my pictures, but you can get the idea!

A cauldron of spiders

we walked up to the marina end via the residential side streets, quite a few parties were being planned for tonight....this was the best display...

This was our own front door, the pumpkins lit up when it got dark.

This was the queue of young people waiting to buy their fancy dress at Partido this afternoon... it was the same at Revamp Fancy Dress in Sydney Street where the queue to pay at the tills went through the shop and out on to the street! 

This year more than ever people were dressed up, during the afternoon we saw a lot of vampires out of their comfort zone on the Brighton streets in all that sunshine!  Most of the shop workers had face painted and dressed up as ghouls, ghosts and zombies.  I think a lot of very creative people live, work and attend University in Brighton.

We lay on the beach, ate samosas and then found a train home, sore feet but a great day out.  In fact, one of the best days out I have had this year.