Author: Snoskred

Mathematical Protein Soup

5 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I’ve been buying Whey Protein Isolate in bulk from Bulk Nutrients since 2016 now. The quality is excellent. I get the raw flavour AKA totally unflavoured because I like to add my own flavours to my shakes, and if you get raw protein you can add it to soup without even blinking. Yes, soup. Sounds crazy? It actually isn’t, though I suspect I am one of the few people on the planet who do this.

I bought 5kg of protein in December 2017. One serving of protein is 40g though sometimes I use a little less depending on how active I have been and how long it is till my next meal. My protein shake is very filling so if I have left my shake a bit late, I will not be hungry enough for dinner unless I cut down the amount of protein to 30g.

So a quick math workout – 1000g of protein = 25 servings. Therefore each 1kg bag of protein should last me 25 days.

I should have got 125 days of protein out of this last order, right? However on weekends we often both have a shake, which muddles up the maths. There is now a new variable, which is The Other Half having protein shakes for lunch at work. It would be fine maths wise if it were X days a week. But it never works out that way.

What I usually do is wait until I open my last 1kg bag and make another order of 5kg. But this time I did a little maths first.

It costs me $7 flat rate shipping no matter how much I order. Also when you buy more, the price is slightly cheaper. Here is a quick table. OMG listen to me doing maths like I like it! ;)

.10 cents per serving does not seem like a big saving. When you consider there are 375 servings in 15kg, it works out to $37.50. But you also have to consider, if I bought 3x 5kg, I would have to pay an extra $14 in shipping. Suddenly we are up to $51.50 in savings. I’m going to buy the protein anyway, it keeps long term, and I won’t have to order it again for some time, so we bought 15kg.

We’ve worked a rough calculation for how many protein shakes The Other Half might have, and essentially we think this is enough protein for the two of us for 250 days. If that turns out to be correct, I will next need to order protein in December 2018, but I might be able to make it to January 2019, because I only just opened the final 1kg bag from the last order.

Protein Soup

If you do a quick google there are not a lot of places talking about adding protein powder to soup, so it is not Officially A Thing. But I did it all last winter and it worked out great for me. With my present thyroid issues I really feel the cold so a shake with frozen stuff in it is not the most optimal for me on very cold days.

It works best in soups you have whizzed up to a creamy consistency. You do need to stir it in well – whisking might work best but I just use a spatula and stir like a person possessed. You could also use a immersion blender, like the Thunderstick.

If you want to see other places you could squeeze in some extra protein, here are a couple of good articles – 15 Genius Ways to Add Protein Powder to Foods – 41 Sneaky Ways to Add Protein Powder Into Every Meal.

health, Soup

Year Of Buying Nothing Update #3

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

March was the first month where something was purchased. Yes, it was a need, not a want. Even so.. in keeping with the spirit of the challenge, this is our first nay month.

No Spend Days

While I do want less spend days, I do not want to let them stop us from having experiences. As The Other Half was on holidays for the first two weeks of March, the spend days were more often than usual this month. My goal for a 13 day stretch of no spending was a bit unrealistic given the situation.

A Note About Fuel

That is the first time you will have seen fuel on our spend lists this year, and I want to point out that was not fuel for my car. The Other Half buys his own fuel and it does not appear on our spend lists because I have zero control over when he chooses or needs to do that. On this occasion I bought his fuel. The no-spend challenge is 100% mine and I am only counting buying decisions I make, or money that comes out of *my* accounts.

I have not put fuel into my Polo yet this year. You might think I am not using it, but you’d be wrong. It is not driving very far when it does go driving, but it does get out and about and racks up 30kms or so each week. My car is incredibly fuel efficient. I will get at least 600kms out of each tank of fuel and if you do the maths, 30×13 = 390. I estimate I will need to fill it up around week 20 (15th of May) of this year unless I suddenly up my mileage.

The other Polo does a lot more driving but even so, putting fuel into that car is quite rare. If you are interested I will go through The Other Half’s account and give you a chart of his fuel fillups. I am going to ask him to track his fuel from now on but it will not be seen in the no-spend spreadsheet.

A Note About Large Numbers Seen Above

We did our regular eye tests at Specsavers this month, and both of us needed new prescriptions, thus new glasses. I got one pair as my change was not hugely significant and all my old glasses and sunglasses will still work, The Other Half got two new pairs of reading glasses.

There is a large number for Bulk Nutrients in the final week of March – I bought 15kg of protein. I’m going to talk more about that in a separate post next Wednesday.

No Spend Goals For April

This month I should have no trouble at all meeting my March 13 day no spend goal.

Grocery Spending

We absolutely smashed our grocery goal this month. We were nearly $60 under budget. $20 of that is me taking $10 off our Coles shop twice, but I think a fairly good portion of our saving is because we’ve stocked up big when things we regularly use are on special and we’re not having to buy as much stuff when we shop.

We also bought fruit and veg in bulk including 15kg of potatoes while on our way back from the food festival. I made a huge pot of soup the following weekend and we have plenty of leftovers from that. On colder days I have the soup with protein added.

We bought a big 5kg bag of Laucke wholemeal bread machine mix this month – it was on special for $13.10 and we will not need to buy bread mix again for quite a while. The Other Half is the one who eats bread for the most part but I will usually have one slice when we make an occasional loaf.

Coles March – $105.75
Aldi March – $434.28
Bulk Fruit & Veg $19.47
Total grocery spend – $559.50
Grocery cost of $18.04/day.

Grocery Spending Goals For April

For the rest of this challenge I will be trying to get that daily number down, but it might creep back up a little bit when I do some new maths.

I’ve noticed we are getting low on dishwasher tablets, so that is on my keep an eye out for a good special list. April has 30 days, so I am setting the budget at $600 this month. If the special on dishwasher tablets is good enough, I may blow the budget, just so we don’t have to buy them again for a while. This will be the first time we have had to buy them in 2018, and I had not bought them for a long time in 2017 because the special was so great we stocked up HUGE.

Shopping Incidents

There were a couple of “incidents” this month with grocery shopping.

We’d very carefully planned out our Coles shop and everything went perfectly. We spent $84 at the checkout and if I spent $80, I earned another $10 off my shop. Right before I went to pay, the checkout asked me if I want to take $10 off my shop – and not realising this would mean my total became $74 instead of $84, I stupidly chose yes.

I was so mad at myself, then I became mad at Coles and felt a bit like I’d been scammed. I think $10 off should be a form of payment almost like a gift card, not a reduction in your overall spend.

In the meantime, unknown to myself, Aldi had weighed our one lot of sweet potatoes twice, and charged us twice for them. We only bought one lot of sweet potatoes. I am not normally someone who asks for a refund but it was nearly $10, so I took the receipt in and explained what happened. They gave me a refund.

This has happened occasionally since we began our receipt spreadsheets but usually they have selected the wrong item eg once they chose red onions instead of green capsicum, and I nearly went mad trying to work out where these onions we supposedly bought had gone, then asked the other half if he remembered putting them away. He did not, and checked the receipt again, we eventually worked out what happened.

So before we leave the store in future I will be checking the receipt. Plus I will keep a closer eye on the screen as the checking out happens. Usually I am so busy watching The Other Half fill the trolley with scanned items that I forget to look at the screen.

I have to tell you, The Other Half at the checkout is quite a sight to see and I was not sure how I would be able to look away from it. :) But on our second shop this month, I stood behind the trolley and set my eyes firmly on the checkout LCD readout, and before we left the store I double checked the receipt to make sure the items were correctly scanned.

March Thoughts

Overall March felt a bit like a fail. But it really was not. The grocery spend was the lowest it has ever been. I did some big batch cooking to bring it down even more.

2018yobn

Black Friday & Retailers

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I was disappointed to be asked to spend money to celebrate International Women’s Day. No, Rockmans, first of all it is the Year Of Buying Nothing, second of all I’m not loving what you are selling lately, and thirdly, this is a bit tacky and tasteless.

I know your marketing department is desperate to find “themes” to email everyone each day, but L’Occitane did a better job by just wishing me a Happy International Women’s Day and inviting me to celebrate Melbourne Fashion Week with a special offer. And they aren’t selling clothes!

Definite side eye from me to retailers asking me to spend money for this reason, and if I remember correctly they are some of the same ones who asked me to celebrate Black Friday in much the same way, which two things, that has a very different bushfire related meaning in our country and secondly Aussie retailers STOP trying to make American retail things happen in our country pretty please?

Almost every retailer I subscribe to mentioned Black Friday and in one not so lovely moment one Australian retailer called it Black Fri-Yay. Nope, not buying anything from YOU for a while. I know you retailers think none of this is important and nobody is reading your emails but some of us are, and some of us are not loving what we see.

I’m not going to buy something to celebrate bushfires and though it was a very long time ago and probably these folks have forgotten all about it in their quest to get everyone spending money, Black Friday was arguably the worst bushfire disaster to happen in this country ever, and when you search for Black Friday now on google you mostly get sales related junk. From Wikipedia –

The Black Friday bushfires of 13 January 1939, in Victoria, Australia, were among the worst natural bushfires (wildfires) in the world. Almost 20,000 km² (4,942,000 acres, 2,000,000 ha) of land was burned, 71 people died, several towns were entirely destroyed and the Royal Commission that resulted from it led to major changes in forest management.

Over 1,300 homes and 69 sawmills were burned, and 3,700 buildings were destroyed. It was calculated that three-quarters of the State of Victoria was directly or indirectly affected by the disaster. The Royal Commission noted that “it appeared the whole State was alight on Friday, 13 January 1939”

Yes, that seems to be a great reason to get out my wallet and shop up a storm, the deaths of 71 people. What a brilliant idea, NOT!

customer feedback, what not to do

Currently In Snoskredland

5 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

READING: All of the Agatha Christie mysteries in the order of detective and when they were written. I’ve completed the 12 books of Miss Marple and am just a few books away from completing the 45 books of Hercule Poirot.

WATCHING: Every Sunday night 13th Street presently is airing one episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot with David Suchet. I am not sure whether I enjoy them or hate watch them. A few of the episodes take well known stories and changes them for unknown and seemingly zero reasons at all which makes me side eye this show so hard. Some of the episodes are true to the original story and some of them feature quite the cast – Murder on the Orient Express was one of the better ones with Jessica Chastain.

HATING: myself for getting sucked into Married at First Sight this year. This is truly trash television, it is so bad but I can’t look away. Thank the deities it finished last week and I can “reclaim my time“.

COOKING: I made a version of Chicken Cordon Bleu which was epic. I coat the chicken in Dijon mustard and pan fried, then towards the end I placed Beerenberg Cheeseboard Chutney spread underneath some very sharp cheddar that was left over from a cheese platter we had in February which needed to be used up. On the top I placed freshly cut smoked ham from Aldi.

LOVING: This Cordelia Street dress from TVSN, but #yobn2018 means I cannot buy it. There are some dresses which are the essence of me put into a dress and this is one of them. It is sold out in my size now. I feel like this is a great price and I probably would have bought it, if not for my current challenge.

CREATING: More choc-honeycomb no-bake cheesecakes.

WORKING: out very hard with the workout I have nicknamed “Yvette Hell” – I have chopped it into bits with Handbrake, so I can repeat the bits I most love until I master them. I just started on the Jenny Ford Hawaii workout last week and with any step workout it takes time for me to get the steps right.

MASTERING: There are some super challenging combination steps in my workout videos and every time I get one right I feel like I am winning at working out. Coordination has never been my strongest thing but I am getting better at it every day. I do enjoy these workouts.

MOURNING: The loss of my afternoon coffee mug. I was taking it out of the dishwasher and it hit another mug, and the game was over. I could go and buy another one from Few and Far for around $7, but we have plenty of other mugs I can use, and #yobn2018.

PLAYING: Diablo 2 with The Other Half. I am old school when it comes to games and this is one of my favourites. I am not a fan of the newer games. I prefer to play the older games that I know.

CLEANING: out the freezer in preparation for autumn and winter.

FREEZING: all the mushrooms. That has to be the best thing I ever learned to do.

country life, stuff

Sock Friday 1

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Hello Kitty socks are a big thing in Hawaii. I do not recall ever seeing any available to buy in Australia. But never fear, I bought up big on Oahu and have quite a few pairs to keep me going, at least for a short while. They tend to have a lot of metallic thread in them and usually Hello Kitty will be wearing a Hibiscus flower. Most of the Hello Kitty socks originate from the ABC stores – if you have ever been to Hawaii you have likely been to an ABC store.

I’m not sure where all the neon coloured socks originated from. I do have a feeling that was Hawaii as well. I have quite a few pairs and no two are the same. The little musical socks were from a local dollar store and I have had them for over 10 years, since before we moved to the South Coast.

Other than Aldi socks, I have not bought any socks since my last Hawaii trip in November 2013, almost 5 years ago now. Some of the socks you saw on here are from trips in 2011 and 2010. Everything was so cheap over there compared to here – I believe the Adidas brand liner socks I bought were $1 each which is insanity.

Snoskred Socks

Sunny

4 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

The new Volkswagen Polo ad which you may have seen, though likely the shorter 30 second version, features a very fascinating transformer car costume. The logistics of which are somewhat blowing my mind, but I try not to think too hard about it. Unfortunately the song they have used gets stuck in my head, which leads me to think about it, and what I have figured out is, this costume might be technically impossible to actually make.

I love the colour of that car, how gorgeous. Funny that we have never once got the car colour we initially set out to buy. On at least two occasions we have tried to buy an electric blue car, but it has never worked out that way.

After a few days of this ad music running through my head, I googled to see what it actually is. Now I am not at all surprised that it got stuck in there. “Sunny” is a song by Boney M.

Another thought I had, while trying to go to sleep and having this music on loop in my head, the end of this ad shows the Polo self parallel parking. I’ve had my Polo for nearly 8 years and I cannot recall a time I ever once parallel parked. In fact, I cannot remember ever parallel parking once since my drivers test over 20 years ago. Not once ever.

I asked The Other Half if he ever remembers me parking parallel and he said no. Maybe my Polo feels a bit short changed, that I never do this feat of parking. Or maybe it is super happy about that?

I do not think I would ever use a self parallel parking feature. I would like a shiny yellow/gold Polo, but how would I stop hearing that song if I had one? I’m 100% sure once these Polos start arriving on the road, the song Sunny will appear in my mind if I see one that colour.

I have established a collection of what I like to call “Polo Parks”. There are rules about where I feel comfortable parking my car. They go like this –

1. Must have one side where no other car can park next to it, eg a garden or concrete edging or a large concrete pole like you find in carparks. Preferably, it would have *two* sides where no other car can park next to it, like the park you see above.

2. Must allow me the ability to park right up against that side leaving ample space for idiots to open their car doors without their car doors ever going anywhere near my Polo.

3. Must be easy to get in and out of. Preferably no turning when reversing AKA I can go straight backwards.

4. Must not have a time limit of less than 1 hour, because usually I am quicker than that but sometimes I wander about.

5. Must provide a decent walk to my destination. I never park near to the shop(s), and sometimes I will park extra far away just to get the steps on my fitbit.

There are probably 10-12 specific carparks in the Shoalhaven which I always head to first. If they are taken by another car, I head for the next nearest Polo park. Sometimes this can mean going to another carpark altogether and then I have to walk back, but I do not think that is a downside.

Sephyroth often receives photos of my Polo parked in Polo parks. He sends Focus park photos back to me. I might have to ask him which particular carpark he has received the most photos of. That would be interesting to know! ;)

I did not park the Polo here, and you can tell that because it has been reversed in. I never reverse into a park. :) I also tend to steer clear of trolley returns. But The Other Half does not mind them as much.

One of my Aspergers “Special Gifts” is recognising numberplates. It is not a conscious thing at all, it happens magically somewhere in my brain. When I see a Volkswagen Polo out on the road, I can tell you where I normally see that one parked.

I can’t explain why my mind has decided to place the usual locations of these particular cars into a mental filing cabinet and keep track of all the numberplates.. like I say it is not a conscious thing at all, and I don’t very often think about it. But when I see a numberplate without a file already present, my mind will let me know that I have not seen that car before.

My mind does the same thing with phone numbers. When I worked in the call centre any number – particularly mobiles – I called was filed safely away. I could not *tell* you the numbers off the top of my head, but when I saw that number pop up on the caller ID, I knew who was calling me and would answer the phone with “Hello name” – it sometimes freaked people out, how did you know it was me calling? I just do, I can’t explain how, sorry. :)

Asperger Syndrome, driving

Chicken Cacciatore

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Celery, green pepper/capsicum, my massive jar of garlic which I never thought I would get through which is now 2/3 empty, chopped anchovies, carrots next door to them, zucchini on the blue plate, olives, mushrooms fresh from the freezer.

With The Other Half going camping, this is a great opportunity to use ingredients he does not enjoy eating but I love eating. Chicken Cacciatore is #1 on my list to make when he is away.

Firstly because I can make a big saucepan full of awesomeness. Secondly because I can add in mushrooms, anchovies and olives not at the *end* of the cooking process but in the correct places – as I would have to if making it for The Other Half to consume.

Thirdly because this is the kind of meal that gets better each day it remains in the fridge. Fourthly, I can pack it full of vegetable goodness when nobody is looking.

I added some celery in this time. Not a normal addition to my recipe but I had some in the fridge and the chooks apparently do not like to eat it.

I think everyone has their own version of this – the traditional one has capers but I did not have any of those on hand. Mine has always had anchovies because I love their saltiness.

I always start by frying the anchovies and garlic in a combination of olive and coconut oil. Then I add in all the vegetables to sweat in the hot pan for a good 10 minutes, stirring regularly.

In a separate frypan I poach the chicken in white wine, covering with a lid. One can do it in the same pan as the vegetables. I just prefer to poach the chicken separately to save a little cooking time. I like to do this while the vegetables sweat, then add everything – chicken and remaining white wine – in with the vegetables.

Once the vegetables have had their steam bath – towards the end you can throw in some red wine to make it extra steamy – you add in the chicken then your tomato elements and extra red wine if you like it. Today I used passata and chopped tomatoes, sometimes I will put in some tomato paste as well.

Now the tricky part, at least for me. I like to let this simmer on the stove for a good couple of hours before eating. This would be easier if it did not smell so awesome. If like myself you cannot resist, a small bowl of this topped with parmesan may tide you over until the flavours have merged together.

This is not really a traditional recipe because I am not giving you amounts or telling you exactly what to put in here. This is the ultimate in fly by the seat of your pants cooking.

Add in what you like in the amounts you like, and it will still work. Don’t like anchovies? Just fry garlic then add in the vegies. Don’t like X vegetable? Don’t add it in. Don’t like to cook with wine? Don’t use it. Don’t want chicken? Add in the meat of your choice, or no meat at all if you prefer. Find the tomato sauce a little thin? Add in tomato paste.

Happy Making It Your Own! :)

recipes

Nail Tree

4 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

A recent manicure photographed at Minnamurra Rainforest.

My nail artist was not feeling the best when I visited her to get this manicure. I could tell from the moment she touched me that she was running a fever. But she also had a shop full of somewhat impatient people trying to get their nails done all at once and she was trying to get out on time this particular day. She knows I am patient and willing to wait but not everyone else is.

I did not notice until she had finished the small error that she made. Can you see it? It does not bother me at all, because this is my favourite nail colour.. This purple has holographic glitter throughout, which reflects back a rainbow of colours in certain lighting. I’ve had it as french tips a few times now and if in doubt about which colour to pick, I choose it.

She saw it, frowned and immediately offered to redo her work, I said heck no, you want to get out on time and it does not matter. I know it bothered her because she is a perfectionist. But sometimes it is worth living with imperfection. :) I won’t send her these photos. I know it would drive her up the wall. You can see more of her work here.

I’ve been getting gel manicures since late 2016 now, and I have learned a few things along the way. In particular what tends to damage or scratch the gel, and how to avoid breaking a nail. I know when to be extra careful, like loading and unloading the dishwasher and washing machine, opening boxes, that kind of thing.

I’m mostly able to get 3-4 weeks out of most of my manicures and the current pedicure I have was done on the 30th of January – it is still going! There was one recent exception where my finger nails just went on a big growing spree and within two weeks needed to be redone, they had grown so much. I do get them cut right back each time because if I am leaving them for 4 weeks they will grow anywhere between 3-5mm during that time.

There is a new system for doing nails called the dip manicure which I might give a try soon. I’ll let you know how that goes!

Nail Art

The Sock Project

7 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

socks

As mentioned in Monday’s post, socks are my kryptonite. I also said “But not buying these socks was one of the harder moments of this challenge for me.” My brain said – You might need socks later, and Aldi do not always have them available. It is just $6, what does it matter. You better get these now!

The way things work right now, I tend to have 7-10 pairs of socks that I wear over and over until they get a hole in them, then I either buy more because they are on Special Buys at Aldi, or dig some out of the Long Forgotten Socks drawer.

Rather than buying more socks, I figured it would be a good time to catalogue the socks I have and try wearing one pair each day.So the first task was to pull out all the socks from the Long Forgotten Sock Drawer, wash them, then pair them up again. I discovered I actually had two Long Forgotten Socks Drawers.

When I pulled the socks out of the dryer, The Other Half laughed at me and said how are you going to pair all these up? I did not initially comprehend the magnitude of the problem. After 40 minutes of sock pairing, I had to take a break, and I still had half the basket to go.

51 pairs of thin socks I can wear around the house.

13 pairs of long socks for wearing with boots.

8 pairs of bed socks.

5 pairs of fluffy long socks for house wear in winter.

17 pairs of black sports socks.

45 pairs of socks I can wear for workouts.

Plus 5 extra ones I had washed and forgot about, not pictured
The pair I was wearing at the time I did this – not pictured =

Total = 145 pairs of socks.

Dear Brain, I do not need to buy any more socks right now. So please shut up. ;)

If I wore only one pair per day I would be set for 145 days. The truth is, I do not wear only one pair per day. I wear one workout pair, then I have my shower, then I wear another pair of thin socks for the rest of the day. So in reality I am set for about 50 days.

You can expect the occasional Sock Friday where I montage together some of the cuter pairs, during this project.

No socks were purchased in the making of this post, but many, many, MANY socks were paired.

2018yobn, Aldi, shopping, Snoskred Socks