Well hello, fancy seeing you here, how you all doing?
Oh we're fine, we're looking forward to the year ahead, lots going on with us, lots of new places to visit and things to do, very exciting indeed.
Isn't the news depressing people, always seems to be doom and gloom. To be honest we don't watch the news or read the newspapers, not enough pictures for my liking and to many words, now if they did a pop up book version of the newspapers i may read it but then again having a Kardashian, Katie Price or Madonna popping up from a page may traumatize me for life, i shudder just thinking about it, YUK!
So, there is allot going on about the cost of living crisis, WE HEAR YOU!, You need help to feed the family, WE HEAR YOU! Jamie Oliver thinks he can do a £1 meal per person even though he starts off with a half leg of lamb which is about £12, what an idiot, he couldn't even get children to give up turkey twizzlers and don't get me started on his failed restaurants.
So we've come to your rescue.
I don't know about where you live but whenever someone comes on the local news headlines about the cost of living crisis here it's always a single unemployed mother with 3 kids or a unemployed family of 4 with the adults stating they have to go without food just to feed the kids, LOOK CLOSER!
What's that on the table, oh it's a packet of cigarettes. What's that on the shelf in the background, oh it's a wifi router. can you see the TV is on, what channel is it on, oh it's a SKY channel and under the TV is a SKY Q box. As the reporter is narrating about these poor poor peoples plight it's a long camera shot of the mother looking at her bank account balance on her phone and looking sad, oh but look it's the latest Apple iphone she's using. Also have you noticed because their getting their face on the gogglebox they put on something fancy, oh but look it's a designer label piece of clothing that's brand new.
Are you getting the picture here folks, cigarettes, wifi, SKY subscription, a contract phone and designer clothing, all those are definitely priorities right, especially when your struggling to put food on the table. Maybe it's just a Welsh thing, luxuries come before necessities. So there you go, found some savings. See, we're helping you already.
Single mum: Cigarettes Ave per month at 10 cigs a day - £150, WIFI - £22, SKY basic package - £24, Iphone contract - £58.98, Total per month = £254.98
Me and Sian: Cigarettes - £0 don't smoke, WIFI - £22, Freeview - £0, Sim only unlimited data, text and minutes - £15, Total per month = £37
We wouldn't need the WIFI if it wasn't for an Xbox being used in the house as my phone i use as a hotspot sometimes and many phones have hotspot capability and my phones 8 years old.
A grand saving of £217.98, YOUR WELCOME!
Now on to the food.
I set ourselves a little challenge, we have £10 each and only allowed to edge over that £10 by £1. The goal is to shop for enough food for a family of 4 for a meal a day each for 4 days. We're taking in to account people have cereals already for the breakfast and basic ingredients in the cupboard such as salt' pepper, gravy granules, milk, butter etc just the basics. I reckon £10 can cover 4 days. We used a mid range supermarket for the test, Sainsburys.
This is Sian's shop for the £10.16
Sians meals for 4 for 4 days are:
Sausage pasta bake
Cheese and ham omelettes
Fish fingers, mushy peas and new potatoes
Sausages with veg and gravy
Also as you can see there are other items not used in these dishes.
Total cost £10.16
My shop for £10.18
My meals for 4 for 4 days are:
Chili con carne with rice
Spaghetti Bolognese with garlic bread
Chicken & saute potato curry and rice
Spaghetti hoops on toast with 4 pieces of toast each.
Also as you can see there are other items not used in these dishes
Total cost £10.18
And if you were to combine both those shops you can easily make 10 days worth of meals for a family of four, that's £20 for 10 days food and the only reduced cost items we bought were a packet of ham and a loaf of bread, everything else was at full value. A £60 shop for a month would get you so much if you shop wisely and are willing to cook proper meals from scratch BUT that is the sticking point, many of these people are so used to convenient fast food that they don't want to cook so of course your going to struggle to buy your Deliveroo Macdonalds breakfast and Just Eat Dominos pizza for tea. Well if you can't be bothered to help yourself that's your problem i'm afraid to say but it can be done and we've proved it.
At one point in my life i had no money at all (very rough patch) and no job so i bought a large brown sack of potatoes and lived off one potato a day, it's amazing how many different ways you can prepare a potato, luckily for me i was only out of work for 4 weeks, Phew, i was afraid i may have got the nickname "Spud" or "The potato man" and be paraded around fairs in a cage for all to stare at in amazement as this man rattles the bars of his cage for a New potato, Maris Piper, King Edwards, Jersey Royal or god forbid the exotic Sweet Potato.......MY PRECIOUS!
Martin Lewis, eat your heart out 😛
So then, where you all going on your holidays this year? come on, come on, tell us, we like hearing your plans.
This year for us is another year of adventure, adventure, adventure:
Feb - UK Foo Fighters gig
March - Rome with tickets for six nations game of Italy V Wales (keep an eye out for us as we are on the half way line directly opposite the cameras, Sian will have her sheep hat on)
April - Monmouth (We like Monmouth)
May - Birmingham to see Duran Duran
June - Munich (4 days) then direct train to Paris (4 days) and a Depeche Mode concert in Paris at the Stade de France (May see them in Munich also if i can get tickets)
July - London for our pub crawl and hopefully Iron Maiden concert if i can find tickets
August - Nothing booked as yet
Sept - Athens and Hydra, this is a chill out beach holiday
Oct - Nothing booked as yet
Nov - London our usual Christmas trip (Pretty lights, OOOOOoooooooooo!)
Dec - New years in St. Malo, France (Can't wait to get back)
So as you can see we're pretty much fully booked up all year, well if you don't book early you miss out on the deals and now we know we can eat like kings for £60 a month we can spend even more money on going to zoo's while away, YAY! Rome, Munich and Paris all have zoo's.
When we go away i always do the booking and shop around, for instance, the Rome trip, the cheapest return flights with seats pre-booked and cabin bag added was £614, i bought single trip flights with priority boarding, seats and cabin bag for £250, saving of £364 on our flights.
We were looking to go back to Zakynthos at some point for a week but it was cheaper for 9 days in Athens and Hydra than 7 days on Zakynthos by £300. So not only do we get 2 extra days holiday we also get to see another island that even my Greek friends wanted to go to.
Not much really been happening this month as it's always a quiet month after Christmas and New year it's just been weekends visiting our local pubs but now it's 6 nations time and we have our table booked and reserved for every game (apart from Italy game of course) so we know we can get a seat with a good view of the TV.
So i think that's about it for this update, sorry i haven't got more to tell you but our life isn't always 100mph, just 90% of it is.
So until the next update after our UK Foo Fighters gig........
Serve All, Love All, Peace All, Kevlar Out!
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