Monday.
Tuesday and Friday.
Wednesday and Thursday.
Friday 20 April 2012
Tuesday 17 April 2012
How to... Be thrifty
My husband claims that I have a remarkable ability to save money, despite my modest salary. In these belt-tightening times, I offer the secrets of my stingy success:
1. Staunchly ignore any “Love your Leftovers” type advice proffered by the government or, worse, the C4 programme “Superscrimpers”. If, for example, two pears have gone a bit squelchy, surely it is cheaper (and better for the figure) to throw them away than to invest butter, sugar, flour, eggs and half an hour’s worth of Gas Mark 4 to turn them into some sort of unholy dessert. Let’s face it, if you really wanted pear Genoise sponge you would have made it in the first place.
2. Learn to love being at home. To recreate all the fun of the cinema while saving £6 a head, simply turn all the lights off and insist your other half sits behind you for the duration of Downton Abbey, alternately kicking your chair, giggling, crunching popcorn, texting, and getting up to go to the loo at inconvenient moments. For a pseudo-nightclub experience, set off your car alarm and dance around that, while wearing the skimpiest item of clothing in your wardrobe. (Add blue food dye to vodka & lemonade to get you in the mood.) Finally, enjoy an ersatz package holiday by turning the thermostat to “Max” and putting “The Greatest Hits of Wham” on a permanent loop.
3. Remember that the first syllable of “convenient” is CON. Frozen baked potatoes? How much easier than “stab with a fork and stick in the oven for an hour” do people need?
4. Strike “ironing water”, the ultimate CON, off your shopping list. Remember the good old days, when clothes just smelled like... clothes?
5. Stockpile BOGOFs as if Armageddon were a-comin’. Currently we have 19 loo rolls, 17 bottles of shower gel and enough cat food to keep the RSPCA afloat for a year.
6. Marry someone who earns more than you do, and conveniently forget your purse whenever you are out with them.
1. Staunchly ignore any “Love your Leftovers” type advice proffered by the government or, worse, the C4 programme “Superscrimpers”. If, for example, two pears have gone a bit squelchy, surely it is cheaper (and better for the figure) to throw them away than to invest butter, sugar, flour, eggs and half an hour’s worth of Gas Mark 4 to turn them into some sort of unholy dessert. Let’s face it, if you really wanted pear Genoise sponge you would have made it in the first place.
2. Learn to love being at home. To recreate all the fun of the cinema while saving £6 a head, simply turn all the lights off and insist your other half sits behind you for the duration of Downton Abbey, alternately kicking your chair, giggling, crunching popcorn, texting, and getting up to go to the loo at inconvenient moments. For a pseudo-nightclub experience, set off your car alarm and dance around that, while wearing the skimpiest item of clothing in your wardrobe. (Add blue food dye to vodka & lemonade to get you in the mood.) Finally, enjoy an ersatz package holiday by turning the thermostat to “Max” and putting “The Greatest Hits of Wham” on a permanent loop.
3. Remember that the first syllable of “convenient” is CON. Frozen baked potatoes? How much easier than “stab with a fork and stick in the oven for an hour” do people need?
4. Strike “ironing water”, the ultimate CON, off your shopping list. Remember the good old days, when clothes just smelled like... clothes?
5. Stockpile BOGOFs as if Armageddon were a-comin’. Currently we have 19 loo rolls, 17 bottles of shower gel and enough cat food to keep the RSPCA afloat for a year.
6. Marry someone who earns more than you do, and conveniently forget your purse whenever you are out with them.
Monday 16 April 2012
Small pleasures
I love the current combination of sunshiny days and freezing nights.
At the risk of sounding like some patchouli-scented hippie, I never realised how beautiful nettles are when they get iced!
At the risk of sounding like some patchouli-scented hippie, I never realised how beautiful nettles are when they get iced!
Wednesday 4 April 2012
Flickering
In a world first for humankind, today I managed to visit IKEA without buying a 36-pack of tea lights.
Monday 2 April 2012
Are you a cat or a dog person?
Not entirely sure where this originated (http://i.imgur.com/p3JVL.jpg) but it made me laugh.
Alumni
Today a copy of the Leicester University Graduates' Review, a publication I have never requested but which bizarrely still reaches me in my fifth address and second surname since graduating 13 years ago, has plopped onto my doormat.
Like a tongue seeking out the tooth that aches, I like to irritate myself by reading the Alumni on Target Section, where you can make discoveries about past students and kick yourself as you realise the spotty geek you turned down at a house party in 1996 is now a dotcom millionaire, or that the infuriating girl in your Politics tutorials has single-handedly brought down a discredited junta in South America.
Were I ever to feature in this illustrious publication, my profile would read as follows:
Suzy Southwold (BA Hons 1999) only went to university because she couldn't think of anything else to do. She chose Leicester for its cheap rents and excellent road links with Suffolk. She once attended a graduate careers fair but was appalled by all the dead-eyed 22 year olds in polyester suits and went and sat under a tree in Victoria Park instead.
Through temping Suzy got a job in the NHS that barely required GCSEs, much less the 2:1 she came out with, and settled down to administrative drudgery before upping sticks to live in Canada for a year. Upon her return she rashly decided to become a primary school teacher which she didn't much like either. She is currentlysponging off her husband considering where her career will take her next while regularly playing the National Lottery in the fervent hope that the answer is "nowhere".
Like a tongue seeking out the tooth that aches, I like to irritate myself by reading the Alumni on Target Section, where you can make discoveries about past students and kick yourself as you realise the spotty geek you turned down at a house party in 1996 is now a dotcom millionaire, or that the infuriating girl in your Politics tutorials has single-handedly brought down a discredited junta in South America.
Were I ever to feature in this illustrious publication, my profile would read as follows:
Suzy Southwold (BA Hons 1999) only went to university because she couldn't think of anything else to do. She chose Leicester for its cheap rents and excellent road links with Suffolk. She once attended a graduate careers fair but was appalled by all the dead-eyed 22 year olds in polyester suits and went and sat under a tree in Victoria Park instead.
Through temping Suzy got a job in the NHS that barely required GCSEs, much less the 2:1 she came out with, and settled down to administrative drudgery before upping sticks to live in Canada for a year. Upon her return she rashly decided to become a primary school teacher which she didn't much like either. She is currently
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