The sad thing is, for the most part I haven't even been spending it on anything interesting.
The picture is from a day spent at Wisley Gardens with the family, so that was money reasonably well spent. We need to pack in as much colour and sun as possible before it all goes grey and wet! But I really resent spending my hard-earned money on boring things like food and clothes. (Hmmm ... hard-earned ... not really, considering I have the whole of August off ... Never mind, not going to let that stop me whining!)
Last week I took the girls to the annoyingly named Swots (the only shop which stocks the regulation school blouses and jumpers.) I bought them each a horrible polyester jumper and two blouses, plus a pair of PE shorts for Sophie and a PE shirt for Emily. £88. (Double that for the $ price, multiply by 14 or so for the price in rands.) I bought their trousers and shoes and socks in cheaper places (since they can wear any black trousers and any black shoes); that was another £45 pounds. Aaargh. It probably does still work out cheaper than not having uniforms (and they prefer having them) but still. And then there's all the school stationary to be bought. Always my downfall - I love things like coloured pencils.
And then I went grocery shopping. The newspapers keep going on about the rising food prices and we are definitely starting to feel it now. I bought really worthy stuff - no dead animals (Steve's vegetarianism is good for us) and (gasp!) no chocolate - and I still flinched when I had to hand my credit card over. I am going to have to get super-organised when term starts. Right now I have chickpeas cooking in the crockpot; I will need to keep that sort of thing up once term starts again, because I really don't want to end up wasting money through disorganisation. It's grim walking in when you've had a long day at work, you're exhausted and hungry, and you realise there's nothing in the house for dinner, so on days when we're tired we often end up running to the co-op and buying stuff like soup and hummous and french bread and bagged salad - all of which we could do ourselves for a fraction of the cost.
Here's the chickpea recipe in case anyone wants to try it; it's very nice...
Soak a bag of chickpeas overnight. Cook on low all day.
When you get home, saute a couple of onions with a good few cloves of garlic and a big chunk of grated ginger in a big saucepan. Season with cumin and coriander. Add a couple of tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, and two cups of chopped tomatoes. Drain the chickpeas, and add them to the onions etc; simmer for half-an-hour or so. Serve with brown rice and a tossed salad.
Enjoy!
3 comments:
That chickpea recipe sounds so good! I have never cooked with a crock pot. I always associate it with meat dishes. My husband is allergic to an enzyme that is in hooved animals so there is no beef, pork, lamb etc in my house.
Maybe I should get a crock pot for our new house. Think of the fun I could have...
Talk about spending money...I work at the local farmers market just so I can get organic veggies every week. I was thinking that during the summer while Michael & Xan are in Kentucky and it's just Artie & I here packing that maybe I would not go to the grocery store at all. I was thinking that I could get everything that I need at the farmers market.
Then it hit me....Hellmans Mayonaise. How could I live without that?
Yeah, really starting to notice the cost of basics here as well. I've actually stockpiled a few kilos of rice.
Now that M is on a more normal growth trajectory, I'm finding it painful how much I spend on clothes for him! He's still in the same uniform I bought him in grade 8 so going on its third year but next year I will need to buy him a new one. Oh the pain!
We have also stopped eating most dead animals - still eating dead fish and dead chickens though. I feel way healthier without the consumption of cows, pigs and sheep.
Went to a wedding recently where they were serving roast lamb - the smell was unbearable rank to me after not eating that stuff since January.
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