It pays to shop around

I should be fuming.

The Toy turns 11 next month.  With his insurance due for renewal, I went on line to compare quotes.  His current insurer is quoting me £50/month or a one off payment of £560 for fully comprehensive insurance including business cover - £20/month more than I was paying the same company a year ago.  In fact, it's more than I was paying when he was brand new!

Lured by their advertising, I logged onto Comparethemeerkat.com comparethemarket.com and typed in my details. Everything exactly the same.  Half-way down the list of insurance quotes was my current insurer, quoting exactly half what they quoted to me.  So I phoned my insurer.  "Sorry, madam, we can't match that quote....You're an existing customer and that makes you ineligible."

Huh?  So you don't want to keep my business then?   Good-bye.

Frustrated, I turned back to the quotes on the internet.  Directly above my current insurer and £2 cheaper was a subsidiary of the same company.  Five minutes later, I've bought identical car insurance through them.  And scored a free Meerkat toy, with my own Meerkova Village Parade.  Enjoy!



- Pam

Score!

Saturday was one of "those" days - a rushing, busy day. DH had to work, then there was football (5.30 kick off) and a party in the evening. Somehow, I got behind in my plans and never caught up, so 8pm saw us dashing into Tesco to buy a gift bag to cover the birthday present. Naturally, being us, we sprinted around the "Condemned Food" sections in order to snaffle up any useful bargains.

Sitting lonely and ignored in the produce aisle were 4 bags of perfectly good mushrooms marked down to 35p! There were plenty of people pawing over the rest of the reduced veg but nobody was paying any attention to the mushrooms. Quickly, I liberated them and walked away. Their combined weight was 3.25kg. Total cost £1.22 (one was a half bag).

Yesterday, we processed the majority for the freezer. Since we didn't have that many onions, we made 3 boxes of "Base", with one of the bags of mushies. The rest were sliced and fried in the remains of the oil/liquid/pot scrapings from the Base, then boxed up in double quantities for the freezer. That filled 4 boxes.

The freezer is full again with 3 meals-worth of base and 8 meals-worth of mushrooms stashed away in take-away food boxes. Not bad for £1.22.

-Pam