Monday 18 July 2016

A Trio of Adventures

Tonight is the tale of three adventures.
First up a new pair of hand knitted socks.   It is always an adventure to see how the pattern develops. I'm not very far along with these ones but I'm liking the colour scheme.   A big ball of wool but it will make a pair of socks to keep my cold feet warm.
Another adventure has been trying to reduce my food budget and for this year I decided to only go to the grocery store every five to six weeks.   Which means that on the other weeks it is a quick trip to the green grocer for fresh fruit and veges so saving me time.   But my car boot gets very full.
I invested in three plastic baskets from the $2+ store to carry the groceries in,  as my supermarket Pak 'N Save, is so named because they don't pack your shopping into plastic bags.   However even the baskets are not enough to contain the items necessary so there are two carry bags also -  these were free from a Civil Defence display at the local library a year or two ago.
And the bonus?   I have shaved $10 a week off my food bill!
And the third adventure is that for the past twelve months I have been experimenting with living on what the NZ Superannuation will pay me when I am 65.   It has been a fun adventure and I have proved I can do it.   At the end of this month I will do the final 'sum total' on my Excel spreadsheet but it looks like I will be less than what the NZ government will give me.  Not too bad eh?   I intend to continue this experiment for the next 39 months 8 days until Retirement Day.
And don't forget to sign up for the giveaway here.   The HD3QBEM will be drawing a name on Friday.

3 comments:

Chris said...

I love that sock yarn colour, one of my favourite knits is a pr of socks.. I will pop back to see them finished. Thank you for becoming a follower of my new blog, it's a sort of diary as with my broken rt arm, writing has become too arduous. Happy knitting!

deb said...

Looks like those socks are going to knit up very pretty - and that wool looks so soft and snuggly.

And congratulations on your successful financial experiment! (I love that you've got a countdown going)

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

Lovely socks!
Well done on saving money on the food budget too. I did exactly the same when I had my son. I knew I would go from over £1000 a month down to just over £100 a week so I tried live on that. Result was a nice lump sum in the bank when he was born.
Also, it's suprisingly easy to not spend money when you are not at work. No collections, no lunches out, no takeaway coffees and sandwiches, lunchtime impulse buys, no tights! Seriously, how much money did I used to spend on tights?