In a very belated attempt to teach myself the value of money, I have embarked on one of those régimes where I am only allowed to spend a certain amount each day.
This has completely transformed my outlook on life, as can readily be apprehended from the following conversation.
ME: Guess how much a banana costs?
THE LOVELY MR BC: (playing unspeakably violent computer game) Arggghhhh.... unnnfff... grrrr... arrrggghhhh... Yes! That's what you get for messing with the J-Man!
ME: No, seriously, guess how much a banana costs?
Mr BC: Erm...thirty pence?
ME: I got one for eighteen pence!
Mr BC: Well done.
ME: From Marks and Spencers, as well! You can probably get them even cheaper in Tesco's! Ooh, and guess what?
Mr BC: What?
ME: I bought two salads - it was buy one get the second one half price. Which means I saved a pound! And it means I've already got my lunch for tomorrow. See how I've learned to plan ahead! Ooh, and guess what else?
Mr BC: What else?
ME: I was buying these yoghurts from Starbucks, right, with seeds in them, and they were two pounds each. Two pounds! For a yoghurt!
Mr BC: Yes, well, two pounds is a ridiculous price for a yoghurt.
ME: Well, they did have seeds in them. But then I discovered that if I bought seeds separately, and a packet of four yoghurts, I could save three...no, four... no, wait, SIX pounds!
Mr BC: Mm. Very good.
(A companionable silence ensues, during which time several Eastern European gangsters are violently dispatched)
ME: Is Time Team on yet?
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20 comments:
2 for 1s are terrible for me. I just eat both in the time I would have eaten one.
This sounds like domestic bliss.
For some reason,that title made me think I'd clicked on LC's blog by mistake.
That really is good value from M&S for a banana, especially considering it's from M&S and is therefore probably the best and classiest banana in the world.
But would you really want 4 yoghurts with seeds in them, now?
Billy: Me too, normally, but there's only so much faro rice with sun-dried tomatoes that you can eat in one sitting.
Annie R: It is quite, but only until one or other of us leaves the big light on, or leaves the ironing board out. Then it gets ugly.
Annie: I can see how you might think that, although LC's would probably have been titled 'Rectal Vicissitudes'. I don't want four yoghurts right now because I've just spent all the money I'd saved on haddock and cheesecake. Mmm.
I've never been in a Starbucks. Now I know they sell yoghurt with their coffee...that's just beyond the pale and I will boycott them forthwith.
Have you discovered Lidl yet? You probably don't have one in your neck of the woods. It's a real challenge to spend lots of money there. For example - Jordans oat crunch - 2.99. Same stuff in Lidl - 99p. Mozzarella balls anywhere else - over 80 p. Lidl - about 40p. Lovely jams for about 60p which give Bonne Maman a run for their money. I could go on, but I suspect your lovely audience has now lost the will to live......
Augh! Careful there! You sound like someone on a diet!!
(Rob and I are boring each other silly with caloric detail and self-congratulation at the moment...)
Though the 'haddock and cheesecake' doesn't sound like any diet I'd want to try.. ;-)
I think a haddock cheesecake would be very good for a diet. I certainly couldn't eat a whole one.
Geoff: I am impressed you've never been in a Starbucks. In W4 they're so ubiquitous that you sometimes accidentally find yourself in Starbucks when you thought you were going to Sainsbury's.
Sylvia: I can confidently assert that there is no Lidl in Chiswick, but I do like the sound of the lovely jams.
Valerie: Ooh no, I've never been on a diet. Apart from that time I went on a wheat-only diet for some reason, and all my skin fell off. And that other time I tried the Atkins diet out of curiosity, and I couldn't feel my legs. Diets are wrong. I recommend that you and Rob go for long romantic walks instead.
Dave: I bet if you published a self-help book called 'Lose Weight, Gain Confidence and Get Laid With The Amazing Haddock Cheesecake Diet', you would be a millionaire within the month. People are very foolish sometimes.
I should say that there is a branch of Starbucks in Bexleyheath, but by the look of things it's usually populated by confused looking old women who went in to get a pot of tea for two and a Danish pastry. They probably realise that the BHS cafe is much better for that sort of thing and never go back again.
I'm with Valerie. To start with I was thinking "oh yes, I've done that", but by the time you got to the yoghurts and seeds I was having nasty flashbacks to the horrible moment yesterday when I realised that for less than the calorific value of the "virtuous" Greek salad wrap I'd just eaten, I could have had THREE AND A HALF CHOCOLATE DOUGHNUTS. Which was, obviously, what I really wanted.
I do agree, though, diets are evil. Yet here I am. Best not to ask.
Chiswick is far to classy for Lidl. I think the nearest one is probably in Acton.
Economising on yoghurt? That's only a small step away from keeping a cow, which is also probably more usual in Acton than Chiswick.
A Medieval English graduate did tell me the other day that Chiswick means 'cheese farm', so you might not actually be too far off there, chuffy! Although I live in Shepherd's Bush, suggesting that I should perhaps keep a sheep. Or two birds.
A pair of hand-reared chicken breasts stuffed with hand-reared ewe's milk mozzarella, anyone?
Well, I agree that diets are evil. But so am I!
Actually, my version of "dieting" is "eating marginally less than the enormous amount I usually do." So I still have dessert every day, just only one. Well, or two. Just not the usual four or five.
But I digress. I have never been in a Starbuck's that sells haddock cheesecake, though I admit I avoid Starbuck's, because they, too, are evil. (You can't have too many evil things in one place or they will explode, or emit unplesasant vapors. Basic law of the universe.)
In fact, haddock cheesecake probably emits unpleasant vapors. Even worse if you serve it with chicken breasts stuffed with mozzarella. You might want to rethink that dining plan, Patroclus...
Sylvia - tempting, but then again there was that piece in the guardian a month ago...
right now, with me, it's all about nuts, be they chocolate-coated almonds made to look like olives (delicious but WHY?) or cocoa-dusted walnuts from the valley of the lot
i have no idea why i felt compelled to share this with you, but nice work on the economising in the face of an uninterested, gangster-despatching other half
look on the rococo chocolates website for these lovely chocolate olives - they are my absolute favourite confectionary tipple!
entropy - what piece in the Guardian? Dissing Lidl - how dare they!
No good for haddock cheesecake or chocolate olives, but sure in lieu of Liddl Shepherds Bush used to have a Kwik Save, sadly I think they've all vanished...
What ever happened to Kwik Save? Always wanted a t-shirt that said 'Look no frills'.
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