Almost Free Pudding!

I love the start of autumn partly for the trees changing in colours but mainly because of all the free fruit.  I'm lucky that I live in an area with tonne of brambles. There's also apple trees growing wild and this year has been a bumper crop. I've stewed loads down but now my freezer is overflowing. This means one thing: time to bake!

First stop, my favourite: apple and blackberry crumble!

Here's how to make the topping. I use cups to measure ever since my mum bought me some US measuring cups for Christmas - its so much quicker than scales.

1 cup Plain flour 

3/4 cup of sugar (I used granulated as it was all I had in but demerara tastes better)

1/2 cup of margarine

Rub it all together until it resembled large breadcrumbs.

Put your pre stewed fruit in a baking dish. Sprinkle on the topping and bake for 35 mins on gas mark 5.

Enjoy! 

Mining for Pi

Here's today's blog offering and I apologise as its just a thinly veiled advert for something I recommend! Sorry!!

Remember how we all scoffed at Bitcoin and now it's worth loads? Well now there's another cryptocurrency you can mine on your phone. It's called Pi, it's fairly new and hopefully will be worth something some day.

So far I've found it uses no data, no battery life and you just get one reminder a day. The more people that mine the more it will be worth but the sooner you join the bigger share you get.

I figure I've nothing to lose as it asks for no real personal info and takes up 2 seconds of your time.

If you're interested here's the blurb that comes with it:

Pi is a new digital currency being developed by a group of Stanford PhDs. For a limited time, you can join the beta to earn Pi and help grow the network. To join Pi, follow this link https://minepi.com/Niley and use my username (Niley) as your invitation code.

Cheers for reading. Bigger cheers if you sign up using my link.

Harvest Time

One thing I've been trying to do this year is grow my own food and with the amount of snails in our garden it has been a challenge. They've decimated the peas, beans, lettuce and courgette.

Thankfully there's some things that the snails either didn't like or couldn't reach. We've had redcurrants, blackberries, strawberries, tomatoes and potatoes. I also seem to be good at growing herbs - we've had a healthy crop of sage, mint and chives and I have rosemary, thyme and lemon balm that seem to be doing ok.

Indoors I have peppers the seeds of which I got from a shop bought pepper, citrus saplings (I think they're lemons) and I've also managed to revive some celery.

Reviving celery is so easy to do. You use a head of celery, after you've snapped off the sticks take the remaining stump and pop the it in a jar of water - just enough to cover the bottom by a few centimeters. Within a few weeks it will start to grow roots, then not long after it will sprout more leaves. When it starts to sprout leaves pot it in soil. I've found the stalks dont get as big but you can still chop them and the leaves up and add to soups, stews and sauces!

I'm also lucky as close to my house are a large amount of wold growing apple trees. This was my haul from just one dog walk!

I stewed it down and it's now waiting in my freezer to be turned into a pie or crumble!

All in all I'm fairly pleased but I need to find a way to defeat the snails although I don't like killing them and can't put pellets down as we have hedgehogs. Next year I'll try copper tape I think!

Everything5Pounds

My leather shoes leaked in the torrential rain last week. The problem with being a stay at home mum is that funds are always tight and you inevitably feel guilty spending what little you do have on yourself. So I had a look at everything5pounds.com luckily I landed on their £2.50 sale which meant I could buy a few pairs.

I settled on these 6 pairs and headed over to the Money Saving Expert site who have a voucher code for a free item. As you can pay by PayPal it meant I could use the balance I had from Pinecone surveys (£6) so with postage and packaging I only have to find £14 now to pay for these 6 pairs of footwear! At £2.33 a pair it doesn't matter if they only last a few weeks each - my birthday is the end of next months so I can buy some decent ones then. Although my friend who shops with everything5pounds a lot says they last really well. Here's hoping!

Still Here. Still Thrifty

I've been very busy with life but it's time to get back to blogging. If not only for a last minute push before Christmas to get some extra cash.

So far this week I've sold £20 of baby clothes and redeemed a £3 amazon voucher thanks to gifthulk. Every little helps. I also managed to avoid a hefty garage billy having a super handy hubby who replaced my reversing light switch after it broke. Word of advice, if you see someone reversing and their lights are out instead of scowling at them tell them. They might not know! I didn't. 

Feel free to use my gifthulk referral link. Even if you just use it for Internet searches and the guess the card game it soon adds up to the odd amazon or PayPal payment. Here's the link:  http://www.gifthulk.com/invite/LN330533

Honey Garlic Slow Cooker Chicken

In the slow cooker today I have chicken thighs in a honey and garlic sauce.  Here's how you make it:

Bone in chicken thighs (I used 5)
1/4 cup dark sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup ketchup
4 cloves crushed garlic
1 teaspoon sweet chilli sauce
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Stick the thighs in the bottom of the slow cooker. Mix together the rest of the ingredients. Pour them over the thighs. Put the lid on the slow cooker and leave for about 8 hours on medium (times may vary depending on your slow cooker).

Serve with rice or wedges and salad or sweetcorn. Yummy!

Pea and ham soup

I love making soup. It's so simple and so delicious. There's really nothing quite like a good bowl of soup and a cheese sandwich to dip in it.

Today I made pea and ham soup with some leftover gammon that I'd cooked in the slow cooker yesterday. I had about a third of it left (I'd bought it from Aldi for £3.79).

• 1 leek
• 1 large potato
• a mug full of peas
• leftover gammon (diced)
• veg stock

Soften your potatoes and leeks in a saucepan over a low light. Add the peas and diced gammon. Pour on enough veg stock dissolved in water to cover the contents of the pan. I used a veg Oxo stockpot I got free thanks to Bzzagent (they are actually very tasty). Bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Allow to cool slightly then liquidise with a hand blender. Return to the heat. Serve hot with cheese sandwiches!

This recipe will serve 6 for lunch. 4 for a main evening meal.

Earnably Update

5 days with Earnably and I've already got enough to cash out. It's taken minimum effort, checking once a day and a couple of short surveys. I've cashed out at $2 (225 points) to see how fast the payment takes then I'll set up automatic payments.

I really recommend it. You can join here: http://earnably.com/r/27353

These are current active Earnably codes with 5 points each:

- FEBRUARY5
- SARDASA5

Current balances:

Earnably: 4.584 points

Gifthulk: 3614 HC

Swagbucks: 391 SB

Earnably

Chances are you've hit this post because your searching for Earnably. It's another cash for clicks site with a low cashing out limit.

You can complete surveys, do tasks, watch videos and earn points for doing it. You need 200 points to cash out and hey are fairly easy to rack up.

If you use this link to join http://earnably.com/r/27353 you'll get 100 points to get you on your way. I'll be posting updates about my points.

My current point balances are:

Earnably: 123.18
Swagbucks: 301
Gifthulk: 3373

Hooray for Swagbucks!

I've decided to put a but more effort into surveys. Just a few weeks of minimum effort and I've got a £5 Amazon voucher coming from Swagbucks. It's a site that you can earn points for surveys, videos, searching and quick polls. 849 points (currently oin sale at 750 points) gets you a £5 Amazon voucher or you can choose from other rewards. 

I usually save my vouchers for Christmas. If you're interested join using this link and I get bonus points: www.swagbucks.com/refer/Nileypie

Shopping Day

If you want to save money shopping my advice is simple: make a list.

This is my shopping list for today and my final receipt. Every week I set a budget - as close to £50 as possible this week - and make a list of what we need. I try to have meal ideas and always stock check  my cupboards at the same time.

Once I have my list I estimate a price for each item and total it so it's not a complete shock when I get to the checkout.

While I'm there I try and stick to the list as closely as possible. To give me a little room to add extras (like this week when I realised I'd forgotten laundry detergent) I shop at Aldi and estimate prices for Asda. It always works out cheaper!!

I'd estimated £50.50 but bought a few things that weren't on my list including tortillas, washing detergent, chocolate (you have to don't you?!) and a sweeping brush as the other half left it under the house while he was plumbing and it's worth £2.99 not to have to rummage about in the dark with the spiders looking for it. My total spend was £52.69.

That includes meat for at least 9 meals. 1.4kg of pork shoulder chopped in half for 2 meals, beef mince for 2 meals, gammon joint will do 2 meals, lamb breast for 1 meal and probably a lunch, sausages, bacon and beef frying steaks. I expect I'll need to top up on milk and fresh fruit next late week though.