Time to Get Thrifty

Well, things have been a bit stressful this week. I visited my doctor last week and was told that I probably have ligament damage on my knee and that I need an ultrasound scan to see what's going on When I asked if I should rest my leg, he told me that light exercise is fine but if my knee is painful to just do what I can. Not helpful really when I have animals to feed and stuff to sort and a very painful swollen knee. I then got a letter from my doctor yesterday saying that he had changed his mind and referred me to an orthopaedic surgeon so I can then be referred for an MRI scan, something that, as a GP, he isn't allowed to ask for without a consultant referral. Even with copious amounts of pain killers, my knee is just not getting any better so yesterday, I made the decision to give up my stall at the market. Hopefully, it will only be for a while until I get my knee fixed but, the cold and the stress from standing all day hasn't done it any good. This means that there is no extra income coming in and that I'm going to have to get very creative with my food if I'm going to make ends meet. 

I'm not one to run from a challenge and I am very fortunate in that I do have a regular amount of money coming in each month but with no potential for any extra income, all things thrifty is about to become my new motto. So, this week, I have been shopping around for the best bargains and I have been dividing my money up into weekly segments so I know what I have to spend each week. I have also tried to put a little aside for emergencies, although this month, living might have to take precedent over saving. I managed to bag a couple of bargains on Saturday. I was in my local supermarket at 7.30pm-ish and there were lots of lovely people trotting around the shop reducing things. The lady on the bread counter was bagging up delicious crusty rolls into bags of 6 which are usually £1.25 and pricing them at 5p!!! I managed to get 5 bags and a mini baguette which was also 5p. I was thrilled to bits, I never get such decent bargains. The bread lady was encouraging me to take all the bags of bread because she said they had been so quiet that day that they had had to reduce them to 5p to get rid of them but my darned Britishness got in the way and I left 5 bags for other people. They went straight in the freezer when I got home along with some fish that I picked up for £1.00. I also bought one of their cooked chickens for £2.50 which I got a nice Sunday lunch from and yesterday, I boiled up the bones with half of a leek that had seen better days and some carrots, to make some amazingly delicious chicken stock to make some soup with.

Chicken stock bubbling away

I then removed the chicken carcass and all the icky bits of bones and chicken, added some cauliflower, broccoli and more carrots and turned it into .....

Chicken stock turned into chicken soup ...... Yummy :-)

The weather has turned bitterly cold down here in Cornwall and I have actually turned up my heating a notch from 10 degrees to 12. I don't usually turn up the heating but the cold makes my knee stiff so I have turned it up for a couple of days til things thaw out. We had a flurry of snow last night and I was hoping to wake up to a blanket of snow this morning but all I got was crunchy, icy grass and bright sunshine which has already started to melt the snow.