Snoskred Lives

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No thanks, Dyson.

4 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I can’t even, with this new hand dryer thing.

Let me first say I was never a Dyson vacuum cleaner fan because I find bagless = mess when you have to empty it, especially if you are emptying it into a dumpster out the back of the shop that you just vacuumed and it is a windy day. I prefer my Miele where the bag closes up nice when I remove it, no dust, no fluff, everything I vacuumed up is all trapped nicely inside.

The airblade hand dryer is probably one of the best inventions of our generation. It is speedy, your hands dry very quickly, you do not get water all over the floor and over yourself, and it saves people having to use paper towel.

There are two downsides – they are not very hygienic so work hard not to touch them and sometimes drunk men mistake them for a urinal. Eew.

There is another Dyson hand dryer which is nowhere near as good, and to be honest until recently I thought it was the most stupid invention ever, but Dyson figured that invention had not been quite stupid enough, why not take another crack at inventing the most stupid thing ever. Stores, restaurants, malls, pretty please spend the extra $100 and get a much better product.

What happens with this one is, you get water all over yourself because the air is blowing towards you, which blows the water towards you. If it is a choice between using this and wet hands, I pick wet hands every time.

So, meet the new contender for most stupid hand dryer..

What happens with this one is, the air blows into the sink where you just finished washing your hands, blowing water and in some cases soap you just washed off your hands all over the place including over yourself.. Do not waste money on this, people in charge of bathroom upgrades at various places in the world.

Worst of all, the place that installed the idiotic tap version of the airblade got rid of the decent airblades to do it! Wollongong Central, I am sure you installed this to be trendy and hip and have the most expensive new best thing, but this hand dryer is useless.

electrical appliances

The Things I Don’t Share

8 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

For every post you get from me, there are at least 1200 unwritten, unsaid things that happen which I do not share with you. I cannot share my every thought with you, ain’t nobody got time for that. :) Sometimes they might be things I mean to share but never get around to writing a post about. This photo above was from Eat Street the first time we went and I could have sworn I wrote a post about it but when I searched for it, I could not find it.

I tried Kombucha and I liked it. I meant to tell you, but alas I thought I had and somehow I forgot.

Last Wednesdays True Story Time was written in January but I put off posting it. I wasn’t sure I ever would post it. It was a very long post and still I did not mention how that particular kind of car stalked me for months afterwards, and it still does now. I can’t help but notice them with that identifiable rear tail light stack.

I was seeing them everywhere. I could not go for a short drive without 5 passing me. They even showed up in my Facebook feed, either involved in accidents and pictured via the local police or for sale, and then the kicker was spotting one in a movie I was watching.

For some reason my Aspie skills decided I needed to be aware of all Holden Captivas in the Shoalhaven and I had no idea there were so many, but like the Volkswagen Polo I can now tell you where many of them regularly park, where those I see nearby actually live, and my Aspie radar lets me know if I have seen that particular one before or not.

Then there are the things I don’t share because they are private, like work related stuff. I was at work recently and I took a photo. The Other Half saw it and said you’re not going to post that, are you? Of course not. I have carefully drawn a line between my work life and this blog. It is partly for my own safety, and partly because while I find my own work fascinating and enjoyable, I sincerely doubt anyone else would. As much as I might like to share these things, I simply will not.

There are things I don’t share, like local art classes, because they end up on Facebook via another means and that could make me somewhat identifiable. As much as I want to tell you, I won’t.

I do have many stories of past work life I could share, and a couple written as drafts but not posted. Maybe one day. I would like to talk about how my Aspergers has affected my work life. I have been unpacking that very carefully with my Qualified Adult for some time now.

I don’t talk about my Qualified Adult here. She is a psychologist, and wonderful. I have been seeing her for some years now, sometimes we take a break when things are going well, sometimes I need to go back and check in when things start to Go Not Well.

I don’t talk about my political or religious views here. They are my views and I keep them to myself. Sometimes I might mention things in a comment on someone else’s post, but the reality is my general view of politicians is they aren’t much use. We do have a local guy here who gets shiznit done, and I have a lot of time for him. But the rest of them I don’t have a lot of time for.

I don’t talk about my friends or family very much. I don’t recall if I have mentioned here that my nephew is now training to be a pilot at University. I don’t remember if I mentioned my parents will soon retire.

I don’t often talk about visiting my doctor or – as happened last week – the dentist. 12 years ago I had a root canal done after an amalgam filling put in by the School Dentist in my teenage years cracked the tooth around it like an eggshell. It is a common thing to happen apparently. This past week I have finally got around to organising the restoration.

Well, a blackcurrant fruit pastille made it necessary, as it chose to take a chunk of my broken tooth with it as a surprise. As I sit here I have a temporary crown and I was told to be careful with it. I am wondering if a diet of protein gelato might not be my best course of action, for the next two weeks.

He did tell me that my teeth are doing very well. I was shocked and quite pleased not to receive the usual telling off, for not brushing correctly or long enough or in circles, or whatever. I will have to go back in two weeks for a permanent crown and some cleaning.

It does make me wonder though, who decided that the Blackcurrant fruit pastille should be available in packets on their own. What about the other flavours? Are they not worthy of their own packet? Was the red one not quite awesome enough? That flavour would have been my pick for a separate packet. These are the kind of thoughts I would normally keep firmly inside my own mind, or remark to The Other Half about, instead of write here. Thank my interior editor, folks! ;)

Sometimes I might not tell you about something because I don’t have photos to go with it. Several recipes sit and wait for a time when I remember to take photos as I make that thing, including my INCREDIBLE chocolate, peanut butter and coconut crunch slice which is almost like a chocolate crackle only I like to pretend it is more healthy thanks to coconut oil.

Maybe you will have to just settle for photos of the completed item, if you can do that I will post it. But also with a lot of recipes I fly by the seat of my pants and don’t have set amounts of ingredients. I don’t share every photo that I take because 95% of them are of the cats and cute as they might be, they get an occasional Friday post.

I have not told you about the current chicken kerfuffle at bedtimes because I don’t want to take flash photos of the girls at night and I have been hoping The Other Half would set up the motion camera and I could take images from that, and maybe even show you a video, but he has been busy installing new perches in an attempt to make everyone go inside the coop of their own accord at dark time, and we have had to employ The Scary Stick to force the uncooperative inside and shut the door until they settle.

I don’t tell you about every occasion of eating out or traveling, though you do get a fair bit of our day trips and this past weekend we went up to Sydney for an overnight which will come to you likely next week.

I have 60+ posts still in drafts which may or may not make it to being posted. I have a number of possible drafts floating around in my skull brain. Will they ever make it to your eyes? I don’t know.

This post was partly inspired by some posts by Sooze at Her Indoors, Him Outdoors.

Thank You.

I would like to take a moment to thank those of you who read here regularly. I don’t know how many of you there are and how many of my posts you read, so if you want to take a moment to delurk on this post and say hi, I would appreciate it, especially if you have a blog I can read.

Making Choices, stuff

True Story Time

4 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

One day in Mid-January on Grocery Shopping Day, around 4:30 in the afternoon, I realised we needed to go and get some chicken breast in bulk. So off we toodled.. On arrival back home, I noticed some rubbish in the street. This is not unusual for where we live, unfortunately. We have one set of neighbours who seem to think it is totally fine to leave stuff on their verge for random folk to collect any time, and wind blows it across to our side of the street. But something about this rubbish seemed odd to me, so I went to check.

On looking at it, I discovered it was stuff most folks would keep in the glovebox of their car. Rego papers, car purchase paperwork, receipts from hotels and shops, a temporary frequent flyer card. It all had the same name on it.

We’re normally “don’t get involved” people. However on the 26th of December 2017 there was a big crash down our way. You may have heard about it, because one of the people involved was once on Home and Away. If not, this article has some info.

A few weeks before that, we had driven down to Ulladulla. On our way back we saw some very bad driving from a white Pajero with P plates on it. But we see a lot of bad driving on the roads, and what can you do? Not much, really. I will never know now if this was the same guy or not, our footage overwrites the old footage and by the time this crash happened it was gone.

The guy who ran into this lovely family and murdered them all – plus himself – was driving a white Pajero with P plates. He had a terrible driving history and had been disqualified from driving and even jailed for driving while disqualified. They believe he was returning from the methadone clinic when he crossed to the wrong side of the road. I can’t help thinking all those what if thoughts. What if I’d taken that footage to the police? Would it have made a difference?

So when I saw all this paperwork, I said to the other half, I’m going to go collect it all up and put it into a plastic bag because I would not want that stuff out there in the street if it were mine, and while I do that can you check the CCTV cameras and see when this stuff appeared here?

How do you do that, I hear you asking. We’ve done it before many times, but here is a quick rundown on logistics. I’ll give you our stolen bin example. First, you want to find the item on camera both in daytime and at night time – because things look different at night when it switches to infra-red. Then you check the camera at 10pm – bin still there? 11pm – bin still there? Midnight – bin still there? 1am = bin gone. Ok, lets go back to midnight then fast forward through this hour and find where the bin theft happens.

It turned out the paperwork had arrived just after 8:30 in the morning. There was a guy walking up the street, then a car comes into frame. He tells it where to park, which is right out the front of our house. The front passenger gets out, and he and the street guy go take a pee against our fence. Their faces are clearly caught on camera.

The driver of the vehicle appears to be looking through the car. The front seat passenger finishes his pee and gets back in the car. The street guy finishes his pee and gets into the rear of the vehicle. Just before the vehicle leaves, the front door opens, and all the papers are shoved out of the vehicle by the front seat passenger.

None of this seems like normal behaviour of a car owner to me, so I am now assuming this car has been stolen. And stupidly one of the papers they threw out had the car rego, so I get on the phone to the police. I give the call centre operator the rego, and she suddenly gets very excited. Can we send someone around to collect the footage, she says. Of course you can.

I type the name on the paperwork into The Google And Tubes, and the first person with that name who pops up happens to work behind the scenes in television for one of our major tv networks. Oh, that can’t be the guy, says me. I find a few others with the same name. I wait for the police. Nobody arrives. We have to put off grocery shopping because we can’t leave until they get here. Time passes, and passes.

I do a little more searching and find a Facebook Profile. This guy with the same name I see on the paperwork seems just like us, he likes planes, and Star Wars. But I am not sure about contacting anyone. What am I going to say? Around 10:30 I figure the police are not going to show up and it is time to take matters into my own hands, so I send a message to Star Wars Facebook Guy. Are you the (name) whose (vehicle name) was stolen today?

The answer comes back almost right away. Yes, that is me. How do you know that? I suddenly have a lot of explaining to do. I let him know I have all his paperwork, and am waiting for the police to come and get it, and that we have the car thieves on CCTV. He lets me know he is down on the South Coast on holidays and the car was stolen sometime overnight.

We chat for about 20 minutes, about this and about other things, it turns out he *is* the guy who works behind the scenes in television and eventually he says he is going back up to Sydney tomorrow and if the police don’t get the paperwork would we mind if he stops in and grabs it. He has a friend who is going to take him back to Sydney. I go and talk to The Other Half – who is a bit more concerned with this concept, but I talk him round, and I suggest to Star Wars Facebook Guy that they drop in for coffee the next morning.

We did not get very much sleep that night. First of all, every noise we heard had us checking the cameras. Secondly, I had a lot of thoughts going through my mind. One of them was.. if this was our car, I might find it difficult to watch this footage. We are people very attached to our cars. Some people aren’t, and that is fine, but we sure are. Another of them was, this walking down the street guy must live around here. That is a disturbing thought.

Bright and early the next morning, Star Wars Facebook Guy and his friend arrive. I check in with him and say hey, I have realised this footage might be a bit upsetting to watch, are you sure you want to see this? He says yes, so into the computer room we all troop, and watch the footage several times from different angles. On rewatching, we could see that these guys were not at all worried about fingerprints, and that made me think this car would be found burned out somewhere. That happens quite a lot these days, sadly.

Then we spend the next two hours chatting and drinking coffee. It turns out this guy has been at almost every major event of significance to happen in Australia for some years now. Any event I can think of and name, he was there. Everything from fires to floods to political happenings to royal tours. He was completely fascinating, and his friend was just as much so. We are now friends on the Facebook and I hope we will get to meet up again sometime.

The police arrived a couple of hours later, viewed the footage and were provided with a copy of their own. The truth about our local police is they have a large area to cover, they are so overworked and have so much to do, and then when things go to court the judges do not really hold criminals accountable for their actions. I think that needs to change.

A bit of time passed. One day I got a Facebook notification that Star Wars Facebook Guy had sent me a photo. As I feared, his car was found burned out. He’d gone to see it and taken some photos. The car was used in an armed robbery then set alight.

So why am I telling you this story. I debated whether or not I should, as this one is not really my story to tell. There are two reasons –

1. I want to remember this many years from now, so I am writing it down.

2. I want to make the point that sometimes getting involved in someone else’s business is the right thing to do. It actually can turn out to be a great thing if we are brave enough to step up. Sometimes picking up some rubbish in the street might save someone else a lot of heartache – that paperwork had all the information I needed to steal the identity of Star Wars Facebook Guy.

The spot where the accident happened now has been upgraded with guard rails to protect those on the other side of the road, and the NSW police are initiating Strike Force Puma as a result of this accident. They are now specifically requesting dashcam footage –

“We need the assistance of the public and we want anyone on the road who witnesses dangerous and menacing driving, such as overtaking several cars across double unbroken lines and narrowly avoiding other vehicles, or has footage of it to contact local police or Crime Stoppers,” Assistant Commissioner Corboy said.

We both have dash cams in our cars though mine is a bit less technically capable than the camera in the other car, which also captures a rear view. We will be submitting footage as requested, if we get any worth sending. We all have to live in this world and drive on these roads and people have to realise there may be consequences for bad behaviour even if they cannot see a police car nearby, as this nearby driver found out recently.

things to remember, wrong world

Things I DID Buy June

4 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I received $500 in birthday money and here is some of the items which I purchased with it –

We needed new sheets for the bed. We’d bought some sateen sheets at Aldi in mid 2017 and they were fantastic, until one of the seams on the fitted sheet broke in February or so this year. Now it was still useable, and we loved those sheets so much we kept using them for a while but I was always on the lookout for a bargain set.

I found them at Harris Scarfe for $19.95. Can you guess what colour we bought?

The first clothes I bought were these – 1 longline chenille cardigan (24.99) & 1 chenille scarf (20) from Rivers. I love chenille, but I once owned one chenille item and I killed it with washing, mainly I think because I did not wash it in a garment bag, and I had a top load washer way back then. Hopefully with our Miele front load washer. I will not murder these clothes with washing.

I was only going to get the cardigan – which finishes about the knee on me, it is a good long length – because I felt $20 for the scarf was up money, but then The Other Half said to me – you deserve the scarf, you have been so good all these months not buying any clothes. Little did he know of the spending spree about to occur this month. I have worn them both once and I have to say they are toasty warm, soft, fluffy and perfect for this very cold weather we are having.

2 pairs of new leggings – one with “sueded” lining @29.95 and one houndstooth pair $34.95. Seriously the sueded lining has spoiled me. Now I want all my clothes lined this way.

2 pairs of fleece lined leggings @ 24.95 each. All 4 of these are from TK Maxx. If you are looking for workout leggings with any kind of lining this would be #1 on my list to search. These are super stretchy and incredibly warm without being too hot if you are running.

3 ponchos $29 each from a local store that was having a sale. I had been looking for a poncho for some time but every one I saw was so boring, these at least had some personality and almost give the impression of being gold and silver.

I also got some wool scarves $29 each these are chunky and can be used as a wrap as well.

1 set of SOLIDASTER curtains @ $89. You may recall these appearing in the what I did not buy at IKEA post. They were one of the first things I thought of when I knew I had birthday money, because I had made the mistake of washing the blockout curtains in the lounge room and the block out part stuck together, meaning I have sections where light comes streaming through as an unpleasant surprise.

Unfortunately one of the Aspergers sensory problems I suffer with is “sensory sensitivities” – everyone has slightly different sensitivities. Light around the periphery of my vision is a big one for me, and these holes in the blockout curtains are right in the wrong place for me. If the sun is shining, I find it difficult to focus on my laptop or the tv screen.

We had to hem these, and we also hemmed the ruined blockout curtains so they could replace the blockout curtain in the bedroom. Most of the stuck together parts are right on the sides of the curtains and with a little creative cutting and thought, the lounge room curtains may be able to be repurposed as we do not need length or the same kind of width in the bedroom.

The Solidaster have now been hung and I am delighted with them. They are incredibly gorgeous, photos do not do them proper justice at all.

The final item I purchased in June was a replacement rug for my recliner. The current rug was just not bringing enough warm this winter and while I will keep it and use it again in spring, I’m switching to a warmer rug for the rest of winter. It cost me $42.50 as I am a rewards member and I got a discount on top of the sale price.

There are two creatures in the house who are extremely pleased with this purchase. Grumpy sits on my legs as I type this, and I have put together a montage of her happiness. If we covered every surface in the house with these rugs, we would have to change her name to Happy.

But we already have a Happy, and despite not being a lap cat at all, she too enjoys this rug. My lap is now The Place To Be. With a cat on ones lap, this rug is almost too warm. I’ve had to take my indoor beanie off most nights since we got this rug.

The total money spent in June = 485.24.

The kitties might say, you could have bought us 10 fluffy rugs with that birthday money.

My question to you – does birthday money count as spending? I’m going with no myself, though I have counted June as a spend month because technically I did spend money on clothes and stuff for the house.

2018yobn, Things I Did Buy 2018

Year Of Buying Nothing Update #6

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

June was a spend month, but for the most part it was not technically my money that I was spending, so does it really count? I’m not sure. I will write a separate post on this as there were quite a few things. I received $500 in birthday money, and I spent $485.24 for the month. The spending had some very interesting mental side effects, but I think that might be best covered in the 6 month overview post which I am writing.

No Spend Days

This was yet another epic fail, and I tried really hard to make this a win this month! First of all, on day 1 of June I set out to cover as many spending things as I could. On a Friday which here means bad traffic and trouble finding a park where I want it. In that one day I managed nails, a haircut, a big pharmacy spend which was needed as we were running out of stuff we use, to take hot donuts to the other half at work as a surprise treat, and we did the grocery shop that night.

The next day we went to Shellharbour for a wander, and got a new sheet set, some bulk hair dye items which I needed and potatoes. Mostly we wandered and really enjoyed looking in the shops without *needing* to buy any of the things we saw. After 6 months we have separated wants from needs and we have begun to enjoy feeling the wants without any desire to actually spend money. In effect I exploded two spend days right at the start of the month without any intention to spend any more until the next grocery spending day.

Then chicken went on special, so I had to sacrifice a spend day to buy in bulk. On checking the letterbox around this time, I discovered that my rego had run out on the 31st of May as a surprise to myself.

This is actually happening to a lot of people now that they have taken the stickers away, because people do get some paperwork at least a month or even two months earlier and we put it aside to deal with when the time comes – and then we forget all about it, and there is no sticker on the car to remind you when it is due. There is now a reminder in my Google Calendar.

So I had to arrange the safety check, insurance, etc. This also cost me a spend day. And now we have used up our goal of 4 spend days and I still have grocery shopping to do, and I have this birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, and then The Other Half gets some unexpected days off.. so the train falls off the rails entirely.

11 days of spending out of 30. ;) This was very bad.

No Spend Goals For July

I think I am being unrealistic with these goals and that is why I am having trouble meeting them. This month I will need 3 days for grocery shopping, I’m going to budget two days for experience spending as we are going up to Sydney for an overnight, and I will budget two days for other things but hope not to use them. 7 days is the goal.

Grocery Spending

June grocery budget – $600

Coles – 26.70 (-10, was 36.70) + 86
Aldi – 212.06 (13.99 mens jeans 4 the other half work) +221.32
Bulk Veg – $20.70
Pasties – 32.00 (2.66 per pastie)
$598.78
$19.95/day

Just under budget. I did count the jeans as part of the spending because it was on the grocery docket but realistically I should take that off. The Other Half is not having a great time with jeans for work, several of his old reliable pairs have been thrown out after developing holes in places there should certainly not be holes.

Grocery Spending Goals For July

Grocery spend = $620
Bulk Items Budget = $100

June Thoughts

I’m actually going to post my overall thoughts on the past 6 months in another post. June was a tough month weather wise and I expect July to be even more so, it is time to hibernate and keep warm.

2018yobn

Year Of Buying Nothing Update #5

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

Another successful no-buy month. I was sure it would be a buy month as the weather turned very cold and I did not seem to have enough warm clothes but then I did a cupboard cleanout and found some extra things. I also found that my Ghanda round the house jumpers were nowhere near as “ratty” as I thought they were, and they really do not need replacing.

Keeping the tally – Our record thus far – January, February, April, May = nothing bought. March = something bought. One out of 5 = a buy month. Can I make it 1 out of 6? We will see.

No Spend Days

I have not been keeping a tally of meeting goals for no spend days and it occurs to me this is where my struggle is the hardest. I did not have a January goal. I have only met my goal in one month which was February. Though the April fail was due to an automatic payment and not something I could control – if we did not count that payment I did meet the goal that month.

For May my goal was four no spend days and I had 7 spend days. Epic fail, though one of those days I will not begrudge as it was an experience spend (May 10th for Gruen). The final spend there I got paid back for right away and it was an epic WIN actually – after 5 months of trying I finally managed to get my parents to buy new mobile phones.

We ran out of milk in our first fortnight this month, which caused an unexpected Aldi spend on the 17th. I have upped our milk buy for each fortnight. We are now up to 6 litres of milk each – mine is soy, the other half drinks A2. In the cooler months we like to have a cup of tea before bedtime and this is where the extra milk is going.

What the heck was I doing at Woolworths, I hear you ask. Didn’t I break up with them years ago? They had the Nivea oil I wanted for $7.50 instead of $16.45 I would pay at Coles, so I bought that and saved $8.95, and they stock another item I was sent in the next Black Box which I wanted to buy in other flavours. More about that when I review the box.

We bought some material to make up new door curtains from Spotlight, and have since blocked off the spare room door. We also got some weather strip at Bunnings (on The Other Half’s card so not seen here) to stop drafts from particular doors.

No Spend Goals For June

I would like to manage 5 spend days in June. I know I can do it! Now is the time to focus in on this goal because I have the grocery spending under control.

Grocery Spending

May grocery budget = $620

Coles – $88.70
Aldi – $468.71
Woolworths – $16.50
Bulk items $15.97
Total grocery spend – $589.88
Grocery cost of $19.02/day.

That is $30.12 under budget for the month. Potatoes were the bulk items.

Grocery Spending Goals For June

Grocery spend = $600
Bulk Items Budget = $120

I have set a bulk items budget for June. If Coles has the chicken mini roasts on special we plan to stock up. If they had them for $12 each, we might buy 8-10 of them and freeze them. This would save us $3 per roaster – if we bought 10 we would save $30 in total.

The truth I am beginning to see – bulk meat should probably have a separate budget because we do not eat all the meats in that same month. We have chicken still in the freezer from our bulk spends in January and February.

When we bulk buy chicken we prepare it in three different ways – breast steaks, breast pieces, and chicken kievs. If we are doing kievs, that time we might only prepare kievs and pieces. If we have enough kievs we might only prepare steaks and pieces. If we have enough kievs and steaks as we did the last purchase, we only made pieces.

At the end of our first 6 months I may be better able to estimate a good yearly bulk meat budget by looking at what we have spent so far and adding on an amount for the items we already had in the freezer. It might be better to track that separately from the grocery spend.

May Thoughts


Lurker Cat lurks in the background

We did some bulk buying this month – I bought 2kg of mushrooms on special which put 7 packets in the freezer, we bought two smoked hams from Aldi and sliced them up and froze 8 packets. The small hams you can get from there are incredibly tasty if you have a way of slicing them and they are great value at $12.99 a kilo. We have a meat slicer.

2018yobn

The Grocery Spending Spreadsheet

5 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

This is month 5 of The Year Of Buying Nothing. Inspired by An Exacting Life, I’ve now been tracking our grocery spending via spreadsheet for four months. It is past time to give you an update. I wrote about it initially here.

Line Items

Each item we purchase gets a line. Aldi gives each of their items a 4-6 digit number which appears on the receipt, that makes life SO easy for us. We’ve had to make up our own numbers for the Coles items. After 4 months of shopping, I can now say how many lines we buy from each of these stores. It is far less than I imagined it would be, especially from Coles.

It is important to note that this number is constantly changing – each shop may add up to 10 new items at Aldi or 3-4 at Coles. Also we keep note of identical items and the price we paid for those. When an item is the same brand just a different size, that gets a new line, eg Manning Valley eggs account for 3 Coles line items because they are available in 3 different sizes (600g, 700g, 800g) at 3 different prices.

Line Items Coles = 55

Of the 55 items we buy from Coles, 9 of these are non-food eg patty pans, deodorant when it was on super special, or baking paper in a size we cannot buy at Aldi.

I can now state that 16 of the items are “junk” foods. When I say that I specifically mean highly processed bad foods that we really should not eat like “twisties” and “french fries”. Some of those are items I personally do not eat, like Cinnamon Doughnuts. The Other Half likes those, it is his fortnightly treat, some of them go to work with him the days after we shop which gives me a couple of days to bake his cinnamon muffins or his from-scratch low sodium biscuits.

2 of the line items from Coles are potatoes when they were cheaper at Coles. 4 of the line items from Coles are tea or coffee related. 2 of the line items are chicken treats – yoghurt and mealworms. 3 of the line items are Manning Valley eggs.

Line Items Aldi = 143

Of the 143 items, 18 are non food eg deodorant, shampoo, toilet roll, tissues, even reed diffusers. Aldi make a fantastic reed diffuser FYI – we love the coconut and mango one, it smells amazing.

Only 14 of the 143 items are things I would consider to be “junk” foods.

32 of the line items are fresh fruits and vegetables.

18 items are dairy eg cheese, butter, cream. 8 of the items are meat/chicken/fish.

How Does It Work?

Each week before we shop, I create the new pages for that shopping trip. Each shop at each store gets a page in the spreadsheet.

It is fairly simple – you have to copy the blank spreadsheet page and give it a new name. But I have from time to time messed it up and left it on move instead of copy. Lesson has been learned, I am very strict about selecting copy now!

Once we have done the shopping, I sit down with the receipt and enter in all the item numbers first, when I hit enter it pulls the description from the lookup sheet then goes to the next line so I can put in the next item number.

Once all the items have been entered, I move across and add in the prices, then the quantities. Most of the time the quantity will be 1, but in cases where it is $ per kg, I enter the amount purchased and the spreadsheet does the maths for me.

When I’m done listing the items we purchased, I add in the CC surcharge in and make sure the total amount matches the receipt. I have the Coles Mastercard and thus anything I spend earns me flybuys points. It does add up over the course of the year, so that is the main card I use now.

The Coles spreadsheet is slightly different – as I do not get charged a surcharge for credit card there, we have added a field where I can minus the $10 flybuys discount we use from time to time. This will allow me to track when we do this and how much it saves us over the course of the year.

How Does This Spreadsheet Help Me?

I am more familiar with the pricing of items overall thanks to this spreadsheet. That is mainly because I am the one entering all the data. We were out at dinner recently and someone was talking about an item and I was able to name what we last paid for it off the top of my head.

I can spot mistakes easily and go back for a refund, as I did in month three – “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.”

That event taught me to stand in a particular spot and watch as we check out, so I can spot any mis-keys and prevent us buying 2.5kg of red capsicum when I purposely chose green because it was cheaper, or accidental double ups like above.

We are far more conscious about how much we buy and how much we use. We have a good idea of the base number of items we need each fortnight so that we do not run out of essentials like milk or toilet paper.

There is less food wastage than ever before in our kitchen. Part of that is due to freezing more items – in particular mushrooms.

We are better able to purchase items on special and bulk process and freeze them. Last fortnight I bought 2kg of mushrooms on special at $3.99, part cooked them and froze 7 packets, which will give me 7 weeks of pizza mushrooms. If they are on special again in the meantime, I will buy more and process them. In the meantime I can enjoy not having to buy them for $4.99.

This spreadsheet has been extremely useful for us and I cannot imagine we would stop doing this.

What Next?

The Spreadsheet Maestro has already begun creating useful ways to look at the data we are collecting. At the end of the year we will have a lot of data to play with and it will be interesting to see exactly where our grocery shopping dollar goes.

Aldi keep adding more products to their range meaning we have less to buy at Coles – just recently they added lactose free yoghurt. It would be fantastic to be able to do all our shopping in one place, however I think the reality will always be as it is now, most of the shop at Aldi with just a few items from Coles.

If you would like a copy of the spreadsheet with all the Aldi line items let me know in the comments and I will email it to you. I will take out all the Coles data and also all our shops.

2018yobn, spreadsheets

Things I Did Not Buy April

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

In April I did not buy an item of food. At Christmas we had family and friends over, and one of them brought a double cream Brie by Castello. I’d not eaten any cheese at all in over 6 months but planned to cheese board it up on Christmas Day, so I had heaps of cheese already available.

The brie went into the fridge where it stayed until mid-February, when we had family and friends around again and I thought I would use up the left over cheese. And wow. WOW. That cheese was amazing, probably the best cheese I have ever eaten in my lifetime.

So at our second April shop, I thought maybe I would buy one of these. I went to pick it up from the fridge but was stopped by the price – it was $7.40 at the time. Err, no thanks, that will blow our budget and it is a tiny amount of cheese for that price. I gave the cheaper Aldi version ($4.99 for 200g) a try at our first May shop. I think it tastes just as good.

The one reason I was going to break my self enforced cheese abstinence was that I had some Beerenberg quince paste to go along with it. I am only a recent soft cheese and quince paste convert and I think it is lucky that I have given up cheese for the most part, with only an occasional cheese eating, otherwise I would like this for a snack every day. I’d like to do a brie & quince paste chicken kiev sometime. Maybe with the strawberry and champagne paste pot.

If this were not cold shoulder I might have been tempted, just look at that gorgeous print! They are lovely and long, too. Why, designers, WHY?

Last winter I got very cold due to my thyroid issues. I mostly survived thanks to hoodies, beanies, gloves, scarves and these Ghanda crew neck long sleeve fleece jumpers. I had one in this same shade of pink and one in blue for around the house wear, and they are looking pretty ratty. I am thinking about replacing them but I might have to go in store and see if they have anything different this year. Sometimes they do not put everything on the website.

OMG TVSN WTFBBQ!!!!Q!QQ!! This is the worst thing you have ever done to me. Long sleeve tops that have some sparkle, length and a decent neck line? If this was not The Year Of Buying Nothing, I would have been tempted to purchase this top in all four colours.

And I would purchase this top in both colours. While I am not a big fan of the V-neck, I do love a stripe, plus it has sequins. If you have been looking for this kind of top maybe you can head over and grab it if they have it in your size.

2018yobn, Things I Did Not Buy, TVSN

The Winter Knit

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Every autumn, I kick off the yearly knitwear search. I traditionally buy one piece of knitwear to add to my wardrobe and that is the one I wear for that year. This year I am taking a break from this tradition due to my Year Of Buying Nothing challenge. But I thought I could still have the fun of making a small collection of knits I would go and look at if I were in the market for one. Maybe one of my readers is looking for a new one?

Just be aware, I have absolutely no idea if the prices will remain the same as when I took the screenshots, so I have provided links to each item and you can click through and check the current price. These are not affiliate links and I do not earn anything for linking, just so you know. :)

I find Rivers to be a somewhat reliable source of knitwear. Last year I bought the Rivers Edge to Edge cardigan in cobalt blue and also in a lovely shade of teal seen above. You can get this in several different colours including black. This is very reasonably priced at $21.00.

You can also get the Edge to Edge cardigan in a long line version with pockets, shown here in the gorgeous cobalt blue – they call it ink marle.. That is a lot of knit for $24.50! If you prefer a chunky knit, you might like the Fisherman Rib Coatigan.

This Metallic V-Neck might be awesome and I would be tempted if it were available in a darker shade. They have silver and baby pink, neither of which are very me.

Another semi-reliable Snoskred source of knitwear is Millers – though their clothes can skew very Miss Marple Solves A Murder While Knitting Something New, AKA fluffy.

I had a look through their website and only liked this one thing, which I had seen on their ad. Though I suspect it would either be fabulous or NOT great in person. I don’t love the colour but I do like that it has some sparkly.

It may be a little early in the season because they only have one poncho in “neutral” which I strongly dislike. I love a poncho generally.

Rockmans is one other place I visit for knitwear.

I love this knit because it is in the “mixed media” style, but I hate the colours. It also seems to be on the thin side overall, which isn’t a huge problem but sometimes that kind of knit shows every lump and bump on your body.

UPDATE TO ADD: I was going past a Rockmans yesterday and I dropped in to take a look at this jumper. It was HIDEOUS as were 99% of the other knits they had in store. I can’t even describe how bad it was. Just so, so BAD! The “wool” looked like the cheapest possible yarn which you would get from a $2 store for .25 cents. Ew.

While at Rockmans I spotted this scarf which is completely me. I would never pay this amount for it, but I can keep an eye on it and grab it when it is on super special.

This has been a useful exercise for me because while I love all of these knits – especially the long line cardi in blue – I do not need to buy any of them. Good to know! ;)

I had my skeleton Carter model some of my winter knits back in 2015, and you can enjoy those posts here.

Fashion