Fun Free Days

Before the start of my journey to consume and spend less,  we would think nothing of just hopping in the car on a day out, a long drive in the country, lunch and a potter in some galleries, shops and always buy something (s) easily spending anything from £100 – 200

So bank holiday weekend, and yesterday a free Sunday with no jobs to do around the house, oh what to do that won’t break the bank?  Well we started by going to mass and I found that there was a free art exhibition by the local art society about 100 yards from church.  So following mass, we stopped off at a local café and shared a small bottle of sparkling elderflower before spending about 40 minutes wandering around the exhibition.  Some of the works were of a high standard and some ….. well ha hum, at least they had a go and I always admire that J

Hubby really wanted to go out for lunch – you may have read before that whilst he is fully supportive of my journey he is not a fully committed passenger, firmly believing life is too short.  However as he loves me he is trying his best (god bless him).  I managed to persuade him to come to me to Booths (not sure in the South that you have Booths but it’s a fabulous supermarket , in my humble oppion far superior to M&S and on a par to Waitrose, similarly priced but you get such lovely local produce) and instead I would cook him a restaurant standard meal at home for a fraction of the price.  I now always feel ripped off paying to eat out which often is sadly disappointing. 

So I not only bought lunch for today but also tomorrow, as well as meat, bread and fruit to see us through the week.  Total cost of our home restaurant boozy lunch came to £19.57, a fabulous feast, with some great wine, hubby was impressed and satisfied both with the food and the price.

Starter

Hubby – Pate, chutney and toast

Me – Fishcake, raita and salad

Main

The best chicken ceasar salad ever – it was sooo deliscious if I don’t mind saying so myself, with fresh bread

Dessert

Coffee Renoir

Washed down by 2 bottles of a really clean, crisp white wine. 

We then snuggled up on the sofa and watched an old film

It was a fabulous day and even better didn’t break the bank.

Let the train take the strain … for free!

Now I have probably bored you senseless with the chronicles of my much lamented commute, but because I have no choice in that I try as much as possible in “my” time not to drive. 

I have a couple of extra days leave over the Easter period and am planning a trip further up North and across country to Durham for two nights.  This is a 350 mile round trip and approximately £60 in fuel.   So armed with that information thought I would see how much it would be to take the train, regrettably the cheapest price (after searching all the discount sites and checking prices on a variety of combinations of return tickets, two single tickets, going a different route etc) was £79.90 and an extra hour and a half on my journey time (due to having to change trains twice), so I was in a quandary as to whether I would spend the extra 20 quid?  Thankfully this decision was made incredibly easy courtesy of Tesco.

I was idly making my shopping list and checking prices when I thought I would check my clubcard account and found to my glee that I could use reward vouchers if I purchased train tickets from red spotted hanky.com.  For every £10 worth of rewards I could claim a £20 voucher against train fares.  So for £40 worth of reward vouchers (half price) I have paid for my train fares for my little jaunt.  As these reward vouchers were sat there doing nothing but gathering dust, my journey cost is effectively free – Happy Days J.