Moving Onward

I'd say that today was mildly successful. I had a walk this morning and took some photos, more the the feel that they could tell a story, or could be used to tell a story. I branched off my usual path, so it made a nice change.

I was going to go for a wide loop, but there were a lot of geese, and they are scary!

I really need to get better at photos. If you look really carefully, you can see the heron sitting majestically on the island in the middle of the small pond.

It felt quite like autumn as I walked around.

And it looks like this year will be a good one for conkers. I really need to get better at photos. The tree was covered in horse chestnuts. I think this pic, that I got on the way to the doctor for this year's routine check up was a little better.

I then went to Tesco where I saved £3 with the clubcard deals and with coupons, and I didn't actually buy much. I feel quite proud. I had ignored the Tesco magazine for years. Now I shall be paying more attention. There are coupons for magazines and fish, which I don't think I'll bother with, but I used the coupon for hot sauce (DH was very happy) and some greetings cards. I got 50p off the cover price of a notebook when I used my clubcard so it cost £1 and I am working out how to make it into a price book. I've started numbering the pages, which could take some time. There are 160 of the dratted things. I'm trying to save time by only writing on the odd numbered pages. This went as well as you can expect as I lost concentration and started thinking about something else so started trying to number sequentially. 

I'll come back with more ideas later, and how it works out for me (if I can get it to stick). The idea is that in the front I'll have an index. I can list down such things as beans, tomato soup etc and then put the page number against it. Then I can put other page numbers against it when I run out of space. Then on the page I can make a note of date, price, shop, number needed for deal etc.

I'm not tracking the numbers of everything, but I want to track the prices for things like Heinz beans. They are something that I buy regularly, but only when they go on sale. I want to track how often they go on sale, what is the price I should buy at and when the price is so good that I should buy a pallet load. If I use it correctly, I should be able to recoup the cost of the notebook well before Christmas.

I'm trying to stick to places that I would drive to anyway, or that are on my way. That means Tesco, Morrisons, the Farm Shop and the Co-op. There is a small Asda and Iceland next to Tesco, and I can call in at a smallish Sainsbury if I take the right route, but they probably won't carry all the good deals. I want to try and get as much meat and fresh produce from the Farm Shop as possible as well. 

Another thing I did was spend £1.50 on a magnetic notepad. I plan to use it to stick on the freezer and try and track what's in there. I'm not optimistic at how well I'll keep it up. I hope, however, that it will help me avoid situations like tonight, when I didn't have the frozen mince that I thought I had. 

And the ironing pile that, at the end of last week was something like the Himalayas, then reduced to the Alps, is now nearer the size of the Penines. I've also managed to do a little writing stuff.

Writing stuff - I'm getting back on track. Today's story is here, where Darren and Flynn finally catch up with Mercury.

Hugs and good health to all.