SN2N: Day 6

I had to spend 4.5 hours on the road today, collecting my daughter from the airport in Wellington. This provided the opportunity to face down temptation! See what else I got up to....

In the Kitchen...

After another night of howling gales and not enough sleep, I kept things pretty simple today. I had cereal and a banana for breakfast, and salmon and tomatoes on GF toast for lunch. Knowing I would be on the road for a number of hours, and returning about 6:30pm, I knew that this would be a time when it would be easy to fall into the temptation to follow habit and spend money. After all, how easy to justify oneself: "I'm tired, I need to feed all the animals, it's just me for tea tonight, it's already late to start cooking, I've been good all week - to heck with it, I'm buying take aways!" Yeah, that's what it would have gone like in the past. So, anticipating this, I cooked up a batch of yummy meat sauce before I left for the airport, so that all I needed to do when I got home was put the kettle on while I fed the animals, then use the already hot water to cook some pasta in a pot while the sauce reheated, and dinner was pretty much ready to go. Faster even than getting take aways. :-) It also meant I could offer dinner to my daughter and her friend - but they were exhausted after arriving from overseas, so just took some meat sauce (which she loves) home in a container to eat later. And I have some more in the fridge for another day too. 

​A couple of days ago, I was somewhat more strongly tempted, since that time I didn't anticipate it: suffering a time-of-the-month migraine, the idea of some coke and chocolate (strangely, that combo being the ONLY thing that helps those migraines) was tempting, as was not cooking dinner and buying Chinese. I didn't though. It helped to remind myself that "this too will pass" and that I only had a migraine because I had eaten things I shouldn't in the proceeding couple of weeks (over Christmas), so next month, if I behave, it won't happen. And probably the fact that I'm writing this blog also bolstered my resolve. :-) 

In the Garden...

I'm pleased to say that my garden has weathered two nights of howling gales relatively unscathed, though somewhat battered. I feel for all those up north whose gardens saw great destruction, and by comparision have nothing to complain about. 

This evening I popped out and picked a few things - some broccoli sprouts, a few cucumbers, sugar snap peas, and luscious strawberries. Will use these over the next couple of days. (Some strawberries and peas were the perfect follow up to dinner!)

Today's Thrifty Tips and Handy Hints....

Get all the powder out! Laundry powder in a box with a tear tab and an inner and outer box like the one pictured often gets quite a bit of laundry powder trapped between the two layers. So, before you toss the empty box, up-end it over a suitable container, and shake out the extra - often enough for a scoop or two, depending how much tossing about it's had before it got to you. If you didn't tip it up, you'd never know this powder was there, and you'd be throwing away money.

Hot Chocolate savings: If you have hot chocate drinkers in the family, it's much cheaper to buy it in bulk. A 400g pack of Cadbury's hot chocolate is $4.99 from the supermarket - or $1.25/100g. I buy it in a 2.5kg catering pack for $14.38 ($12.50 +GST), or 57.5c per 100g, which is less than half price. Catering size packs available from Gilmours, Office Max and similar places - I wait for it to be on special, which it is quite regularly. 2.5kg too much to use? Buy it together with friends and spilt it between you - sharing the savings.