Monday 31 December 2012

Happy New Year!





My evening will be spent doing our joint financial vetting forms for work ( sounds worse than it is!) Mr M is at work til midnight so hopefully it will keep me up til he comes home! I'm actually looking forward to doing it and reflecting on where we were this time last year and the improvements ( I hope!) that we have made!
I'll let you know tomorrow!  ; - )

Have a wonderful evening and here's to a Frugal 13!!

Mabel and Maisy x

Saturday 15 December 2012

Food Banks and Christmas



Hello,

I know everyone's thoughts and prayers will be the families in Connecticut x


It's the lead up to Christmas and  I'm not feeling particularly Christmassy and if it wasn't for our son I don't think I'd even bother with the tree, mean I know. I think it's the realization that Christmas is expensive and we're encouraged to spend money we don't have and then spend the whole of  January broke and wondering what we'd spent it on!

We don't need anything for Christmas and with our budgeting we are busy paying down our debt.We thought that maybe we would give a donation to a  national charity however  in our town a Foodbank has just opened, it was an eye-opener to Mr M and  I, despite our job roles, that there was a need for this service locally.


‘Every church should consider a foodbank’ Steve Chalke MBE, founder of Oasis, Stop the Traffik and Faithworks

Trussell Trust are the driving force behind the foodbanks and their website gives details of local churches running the the scheme. 
They give you a shopping list, all long life items that are meal time staples: 

Tinned tomatoes,soup,vegetables and fish
Pasta and rice
Tinned puddings
Breakfast cereals
UHT milk and juice 
Sugar, teabags and coffee

We decided that we would spend our Christmas money on buying the items instead of presents. Then we had the idea of asking work colleagues and Facebook friends to see if they wold join in too. So far we have had a great response and should be able to take  a fair few bags down to the church. 



Do you have foodbanks where you are? x