h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, I wont make it all the way through the month - I'm off to Las Vegas in the last week, and I'll need a haircut before then!

But my wardrobe is bulging due to my shoe and dress addiction, my bathroom shelves are groaning under the weight of magic potions and lotions which promise "more science, less wrinkles", and there's no room in my freezer for any more food. So lets see how little I can get away with spending.

Wed 1st August. Free train travel as a participant in the WPFG, but spent £2 on a cappuccino, and £3 on a taxi home from the train station.

Ohhhhh!
I'd like to try that, too.

I managed it for most of July, and June, and May too thinkign aobut it... so I'm planning on doing the reverse, and actually* buyign something this month, well, other than food which one generally needs to buy, and vast amoutns of coffee beans, obviously I'm sure t there are some online shops having sales at the moment

2legs can keep the economy going single-handedly.

And Beatrice - are you really not going to spend anything in Las Vegas - the epitome of the sort of place that deserves that treatment?

I forgot... I had to buy a new washing machine last month, err but that doesn't count as 'buying stuff', really... does it? I mean... I made the last washign machine last over 14 years I've got my eyes o on a few items of clothing though at the moment

No, I meant that I WILL be spending money in Vegas, but that I'm not really including that week as part of this experiement.

thats a fabulus get out clause I am despertly trying to not buy new clothes, online... actually waht I really do* need to buy, is new jeans, yet again another two inchs down in size, its getting very wasteful having all these nearly-new jeans that no longer fit me

£8 to the alterations shop for turning up a pair of trousers - See? My expensive wardrobe even has running costs!

And a massive . Dai suggested we get a Chinese takeaway,as apparently "there's nothing in the fridge".

I have offered to make (out of this nothing):
a ham and mushroom fritatta
prawn and courgette quinoa pilaff
a risotto
a prawn stirfry
there's 2 packs of fresh pasta and 2 sauces, one of which is at its use by date (but he had pasta for lunch)
soup with cheesy garlic bread.

If you make all that out of nothing, you should open a restaurant.

Maybe he's just in the mood for rice and msg...

Rather an impressive list of nothing there!

As I said, the freezer is full of goodies!

I just made a salad out of nothing... well nothign and some slightly dubious fetta... or, 'extra-mature fetta' as I like to call it mind, leftover chicken helped, as did the lettuce and cucumber floating about in the veg boxes and the half a tub of not quite yet dubious coleslaw

Waht?! what?! you paid to have the hem on trousers altered?: Beatrice, I am shocked... Even I do little alterations like that myself... Mind, guess it depends if you wanted both trouser legs the same length or not

I am a TERRIBLE seamstress, and these were rather expensive Jaegar trousers in a silk/linen mix, so I wasn't going to take any chances.

Just come across this - 22 meals for the price of your latte.

http://agirlcalledjack.com/2013/07/30/what-can-you-do-to-help-buy-someone-22-meals-for-the-price-of-a-3-coffee/

"I am a TERRIBLE seamstress, and these were rather expensive Jaegar trousers in a silk/linen mix, so I wasn't going to take any chances." I've never let that stop me from trying Actually I'm OK with buttons, and just* about OK with un-hemming jeans, and re-heming them (to take the legs up/make em shorter), but much more than that and I'm beyond my abilities (actually was in a wonderousness of a shop that is the place in Cambridg ethat sells reels of matterial, wool, and everythign for sewing the other day, to buy some pins, and new needles, for potential taking up of the hems on my new jeans; however have now realised the new jeans, are too small on my waist... yet again (and I've no idea how I keep loosing weight either )) if* I can* go down to the next waist size down, I'll ahve a smaller waist (30 inch), than I did when I was 15 or 16 I'm gona get increasingly out of proportion though, unless my 48 to 50 inch chest decides it wants to shrink too

*topples over due to inbalance and shouts 'damn you Newton, its all your fault'

I really* really* shouldn't buy these knickers I saw online should I? but they are* more than half price... err less than half price I mean

I have gone into a mathematical spin about the concept of 22 meals for the price of your latte. I spend £0.00 on latte in an average month. I could therefore get infinite food for 22*0

It's such a good deal that I would consider spending twice as much on lattes.

I don't think I've ever had a 'latte' in my life... its white coffee innit? Mind, I only went into one of those dredful 'new' 'cafes' because someone forced me once, in London. They got my order wrong, which took me one sip to realise, so I didn't drink it. and haven't ever wanted, or been, into one since
Everywhere has a decent coffee shop, you just need to know where to find it... (the one above the market in Norwich, is good, even if it is a good walk from the hotel (undrinkible coffee), past a couple of 'nruros ' and the like, (undrinkible rubbish), but its worth it Leeds rail station does a decent cup of coffee too, and on Cambridge station, the trick is to use the correct* coffee outlet, one is far better than the others... Kings cross has no drinkible coffee (but one can useually aquire a Guinness on the Cambridge-Kings Cross train, to make up for this), Cambridge town center has two* independant coffee shops that are not rip off prices, and which are* drinkible coffee (well hidden amongst all the touristy and aweful multinational ones, mind)

I always wanted to write a guide book to coffee, a kind of coffee adicts guide to where to buy coffee, from rail stations, to town centers, road side cafes etc....

We were foolishly led astray, weeks back now, into the cafe above Debenhams, and got... well, weak is an insufficiently charged discription... I'd have prefered a cup of instant rather than the rubbish they had managed to construct, seemingly from actual ground coffee... Must have taken them real effort to make something so undrinkible

Damn. nearly fogot to go grind my beans up for tomorrow

Darn it, nearly made it through the day! Went to the cinema this afternoon (Despicable Me 2 verrr verrr funny), brought my own bottle of tap water and home-made trail mix. Got home, settled in front of Facebook with a glass of wine, and Dai announces he's out of diet coke.

Every week.

Every. Single. Week.

There will be an evening where he goes to make a drink and is eout of either diet coke or Smirnoff. And it's usually me who uses the opportunity to walk teh dogs to the garage or offie.

So I spent £2 on diet coke. He did offer to reimburse me, but since he paid for lunch and the cinema tickets that would seem petty.

Dinner is the eked out remains of last night's Chinese.

I'm going to start on Monday. That will allow me to buy all the necessary staples today. I've got all my lunches planned in my head...

I''ve just counted the number of packets of "pasta 'n'sauce" we have in the cupboard.

8. Plus 2 in a fancy schmancy box. And one Mug Shot. All of which are nearing their sell-by date.

And I have 6 packs of flavoured noodles (leftover from Jemima I think...)