Poundshop

The closest pound shop to us is a 20 mile round trip away so I tend to go 3-4 times a year and stock up on the things which are good value there, such as stocking fillers and stationery. However, in the Summer I discovered that there is a pound shop which operates online, it is called poundshop and I ordered several things for back to school in August. I was very pleased with the quality and the prices. The delivery is quite expensive at £6.50 so I made a big order of £35 in order to qualify for free shipping. Thinking about spending petrol money to visit the pound shop in person also helps me see that as long as I order things we are going to need this is still money saving.

This time I spotted that they had some nice Christmas gifts and I wanted to order 8 of them to store away for Christmas 2017, however with the postage that did not seem such good value. So I out in another big order to get the free shipping of things like tea bags and rubber gloves to get up to the free shipping. I checked the prices with other websites, such as my supermarket, to make sure that I was getting a bargain. All in all I spent £8 on gifts, £3 on food and £20 on household items as they had a killer deal on toilet paper. We have plenty of room to store toilet paper and will definitely need it !

I'm looking forward to the order arriving and feeling all stocked up !

St. Nicholas

Today is the feast of St. Nicholas, all over Europe children are looking forward to a visit from him. He carries  his golden book and the children enjoy hearing about their good deeds over the year as well as the bad habits they need to work on. St. Nicholas always has a sweet treat to leave in the children's shoes to reward them for helping with spreading good deeds across the world.

St. Nicholas in our house comes to good children who have polished their shoes and have left them out in good time. One year USAShoestring forgot and he got a cabbage in his dirty shoes, he has never forgotten it ! This year. Master Shoestring is hoping for a few allergen free treats which can be gobbled up before breakfast as well as a little message saying he is trying hard at school but needs to learn to hang up his uniform !

Stain Removal

This weekend MrShoestring's favourite blue cotton jumper appeared out of the wash with a big, black stain in the middle of it. When I asked him about it he said that he thought it was food that he had dropped one lunchtime but he couldn't quite remember. Stain removal for a stain that you are not quite sure what it is can be tricky as you might end up setting the stain. Since the black mark was right on the front of the jumper I had nothing to lose trying a stain remover, as either it would work and the jumper would be saved, or it wouldn't and the jumper would have to be binned.

I have some spot stain remover from Persil which I was sent a long time ago to review so I spread it liberally on the mark and left it. The first go faded the stain but you could still see it. Second time it had faded a lot, so I put the jumper back in the wash at 30C and waited to see what would happen.

The jumper emerged like new and I was really glad that I had tried removing the stain before throwing out the jumper as now it is back in MrShoestring's drawer and he is very happy about that !

Pause in Advent

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming

1. Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming

from tender stem hath sprung!

Of Jesse’s lineage coming,

as men of old have sung.

It came, a floweret bright,

amid the cold of winter,

When half spent was the night.

 

2. Isaiah ’twas foretold it,

the Rose I have in mind;

With Mary we behold it,

the virgin mother kind.

To show God’s love aright,

she bore to men a Savior,

When half spent was the night.

 

3. The shepherds heard the story

proclaimed by angels bright,

How Christ, the Lord of glory

was born on earth this night.

To Bethlehem they sped

and in the manger found Him,

As angel heralds said.

 

4. This Flow'r, whose fragrance tender

with sweetness fills the air,

Dispels with glorious splendor

the darkness everywhere;

True Man, yet very God,

from sin and death He saves us,

And lightens every load.

 

5. O Savior, Child of Mary,

who felt our human woe,

O Savior, King of glory,

who dost our weakness know;

Bring us at length we pray,

to the bright courts of Heaven,

And to the endless day!

This is a German carol, Est ist ein Ros Entsprungen, which has a really beautiful tune, it is one of our favourites and we usually start to sing it on the second Sunday in Advent. It reminds us that Christmas is not just the end in itself but the start of a long journey to redeem all humanity.

Making Paper Stars

We use all homemade decorations round here and one of the traditions for the first week of Advent is to   put a transparent tissue paper star in each window of the house.

There is a good tutorial about how to make these over at this website:-

weefolkart.com/kite-paper-window-stars

You can use tissue paper, but then you have to cut it into squares yourself, or you can order books of kite paper which come ready cut and are a slightly stronger paper which makes it easier to tear if you want to make smaller stars.

We always back the stars with book covering film as that way they do not get damaged by condensation on the window and you can keep them from year to year.

Frugal Things we did this week

There were several frugal things which we did this week which I was quite proud of. The first was re-using Master Shoestrings chocolate Advent calendar from last year. He can only eat dairy free chocolate and he likes a chocolate calendar, as he is now a bit old just for ones with pictures. So we kept the allergy free calendar from last year as it came with a plastic tray with little images on it which looked a lot like a tray of chocolate moulds.

This year I melted some chocolate in the microwave and then spooned it into that tray to see if I could make my own little chocolates for the calendar. A few minutes in the fridge and I was popping out little chocolates ! I put the tray and the new chocolates back inside last year's calendar and closed all the doors. It looks as good as new and cost 30p, using chocolate from Lidl, rather than £6.99 ! I was very pleased and I think Master Shoestring will be as well !

The other thing we did was make our own Advent wreath and used candles we already had to light it. Wreaths were on sale in town for £12, so that saved quite a bit as well. We also got the IKEA tree and menu planned for December so we won't buy too much !

November Reckoning

We did very well with our saving this month, putting away around 46% of our income. One of the contributory factors to that was finding all that free wood and saving £90 on a log delivery.

We have had a few lean months, with big expenses and intermittent income, but now we seem to be back on track and that is looking good for being able to work less in 2017.

We are still spending a great deal on train transport, over £50 a week, but that should decrease to under half that in the New Year.

We also underspent on food , thanks to finding lots of reduced meat and also underspent in other categories such as medical and dental. Just as well as next month's post office bill will be quite high !