What's for Dinner

Do you get this question too? I am sure all households get it at some stage.
Do you always know what you are having? Are you super organised with a meal schedule?
I do have a menu and I do try to stick to it, but sometimes we need to jazz things up a little.

However having someone else make the decision for you is always much nicer, sometimes it just makes thing flow smoother having someone else make the decision and you just get on and cook it.

Turns out our local supermarket are trying to help in just that way.
They are suggesting a meal to make and also giving you a great special on the cost of actually getting the ingredients required.

Each week on a Wednesday they are offering a meal deal for $14.95. The Meal Deal for this week was a Corn Beef Meal with Dessert. For that price you got the following:

• 3kg Corn Beef
• 1kg potatoes ($2.99)
• 1/4 of pumpkin ($1.49)
• 500g bag frozen mixed vegetables ($3.49)
• 1 pkt white sauce mix ($1.30)
• 4 white magnum ice creams ($3.99)

The prices in red are what they normally cost. Adding them together it came to $13.26 so for $1.69 I got a nice piece of corn beef that actually did us dinner and lunch for Steve the next day. Corn Beef is usually selling at about $6.99-8.99/kg

Now I must admit that if I was doing dinner I wouldn't have brought all of that, although I was very clever and made sure that when they had items to choose from (pumpkin & corn beef) I got the biggest pieces. They were all the same price at the end of the day!

We didn't have this for dinner but I am now going to make a pumpkin soup out of it, so it will now do a few lunches for me and Steve.

The Magnums are definitely not something we would have brought for dinner, but they are now in the freezer for when we need a special treat sometime, cause we sure didn't need them after dinner on Wednesday.

It was just lucky that Wednesday was my day off and that I thought to go check out the special at 9am as that allowed me to put the meat in the slow cooker (crockpot) and leave it simmering all day, the house smelt lovely when we came home from soccer practice.

However, it wouldn't have made any difference because for a deal like that I would still happily have brought it and cooked it the next day, apart from the pumpkin, there really was nothing that was going to go off if not used within a day or 2.

So next week I will happily skip along to the supermarket and see what the special is, because unless it is something that we really don't like then it turns out to be a great deal.

I do know that last week they did a spaghetti bolognese meal and the week before a roast chicken meal, so will be interesting to see what comes out next week.

Checking Out a Deal

In this current climate, the economical one that is, there are companies out there constantly vying for your business.
Companies play against others and try their hardest to drag you in because they usually know that once they get you in they will be happy to keep you for only a year but at least they have you!

One such area that is trying its hardest to get you and retain you here in New Zealand, probably like other countries too, are telephone companies.

The other evening we had a seller arrive on the door trying to get us to switch to their company. They had a very good deal on offer:

• phone line
• broadband
• 40Gb data
• wireless modem

All of this could be yours for the healthy happy price of $75 per month.

On top of this they would give you 2 months free.

We have 1 or 2 little extras on our phone so I enquired about the call minder programme they have and also a set national call payment , we currently pay $20 per month and this allows us to call anywhere in NZ for as long as we want whenever we want and seeing as we have family and friends all over, then it is nice to know we can just pick up the phone and call and not worry about the cost. Some months we use this and more and other times we don't but at the end of the year it balances out.

So I got informed that yes it would be $20 more for the national call charge so the total went to $95 oh and with the call minder service it would go to $105.

Now that is currently $10-15 less per month than we pay and given that they will give us 2 free months then it was very tempting.

However, for that cost I would have to change our main family email provider, which I hate doing, I don't mind having a gmail account but I do also like having our main email account with our provider.

The other small little detail that caught my eye when he showed me the card with all the information on it was that it said in little letters down the bottom - for 12 months - so I asked him what happened at the end of the 12 months, would the price go up to what the plan should probably be?

I was informed that no it wouldn't, they wouldn't be able to do that.

I politely took all the information that he had to offer and told him I needed time to compare my plans and that I would be in touch if I required more details.

I then promptly called the company and spoke to a customer service rep to ask more questions.

I explained that I was interested in their current promotion and what happened at the end of the 12 month period?

He straight away told me that it would go to the normal price of $105. Ha got you!

So instead of $75 per month it would be $105, so add our little extras on top of this and suddenly our telephone bill each month would be $135, we currently pay about $115.

So with all their in your face immediate information, come to us we only charge $75 per month, look we will give you 2 free months as well so there is even more saving, their you will get double the probably current data you are receiving from your provider etc etc it turns out then they will sucker you in the deal at the end of the 12 months when you bill will leap higher than the sky but they will argue that you had it good for 1 year so why are you complaining?

I can see how people get suckered into deals, up front this all looked really grand and stood on the doorstep at 6pm on a cold winter evening I can see how the $75 would suddenly float in peoples minds and that they would sign up on the spot because it is indeed much less than they currently pay, although as mentioned I did immediately work out that we would only be saving $10 a month.

So next time someone wants you to switch to their company just take a day to think it over and really compare it, yes we all want our bills to reduce but are you actually saving anything?

Talking about savings, remember that I could save you some money this winter by giving you a free pair of pyjamas for you lucky child, grandchild or special child in your life. All you have to do is leave a comment on my Winter Give Away post and you are in with a chance of winning the draw when done next week, and remember it doesn't matter where you live in the world, the company is happy to ship internationally, I do love international give aways always so much more friendlier.

Mother's Day

We are alarm clocks, personnal dressers, cooks, chauffeurs, counselors, doctors, teachers, maids and many other things but most of all we are mum's.
We are awesome at what we do and we give it 100% at all times.

Happy Mother's Day to all you fabulous mum's out there wherever you may be.

This has been around a long time, but I love it.
It sums up this special day to mum's so well.

Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:


WHY GOD MADE MUMS ?

1. She's the only one who knows where the sticky tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?

1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my Mum just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?

1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's' bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other Mum?

1. We're related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's Mums like me.

What kind of little girl was your Mum?

1. My Mum has always been my Mum and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

What did Mum need to know about Dad before she married him?

1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your Mum marry your Dad?

1. My Dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mum eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My Grandma says that Mum didn't have her thinking cap on.

Who's the boss at your house?

1. Mum doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because Dad's such an idiot.
2. Mum. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed
3. I guess Mum is, but only because she has a lot more to do than Dad.

What's the difference between Mums & Dads?

1. Mums work at work and work at home and Dads just go to work at work
2. Mums know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller & stronger, but Mums have all the real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend's.
4. Mums have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your Mum do in her spare time?

1. Mothers don't have spare time.
2. To hear her talk, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your Mum perfect?

1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. You know, her hair. I'd die it, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your Mum, what would it be?

1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my Mum smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
3. I would like her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Happy Mother's Day to you all

Anniversary

I am not sure if I am allowed to celebrate this anymore.....given the fact that I do now have a new anniversary date, but this is still a special date to me.

Today Steve and I have been together for 9 years.

So despite the fact I will now be celebrating Sept 20, each year, I will still remember this date as it passes.

Special People

I was checking out a blog I follow and there was this post on there.
It made me realise that there are really some very wonderful people out there in the world.
Go check it out and read what was written.
Maybe it can put us all on a mission for the rest of the year to try and do somethng like this, maybe not so big, but just a little something for someone.