Feed a familly for less

Grab a slow cooker---if you don't want to buy a new one, get one on Trade Me or an OP shop.
Buy some bacon bones, really cheap at butcher, chuck in some split peas (yellow or green from bulk bins at supermarket---Throw in any left over veggeis and fill up the slow cooker with the above ingredients. Cook for ages (10 hours with old style crock-pot, less for slow cookers) and take out the bones as the meat falls off the bones.
Now go and make some old fashioned scones or buy left over french sticks from bakery.

Cheap as.

I turned Perdy into a book--'Talk To Me.' It could also be Danny Watson.

I must be getting old, because I am addicted to listening to talk back radio. Along with another little bundle of hair in my life, Perdy, I decided to turn them into a book. Well, not really them, but Perdy’s influence is huge.

The book is called ‘Talk To Me,’ and it is my third book. (Coastal Yarns and Roskill are the first two) The book is a tongue-in-cheek, take the piss swipe at my addiction. Things go terrible wrong for Gary, the talk back host of a struggling radio station.

When a caller claims he is the killer of a body found in a Bay, things hot up and it’s not long before the airwaves are hot with threats and absolute bullshit.

If you want to know more, then go to www.authorneilcoleman.com and buy my book, once it is released any day now.

Happy reading. Don't worry Danny---it's not really you or Kerry---it's just a bit of fun. I'll send you both a copy, via Mike.  LOL---When's he getting his own show?

I heard a song on ZB talk back today that made me cringe

Yes, it’s true. The words were primarily: ‘McDonalds, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut,’ over and over. At first I thought it was an advert, but it went on and on---far longer than an advert. I was forced to accept that what I was hearing was in fact a song.

Hell, hell and bloody hell. What is music coming to? Can’t you hear kids singing this song, further propelling them into the fast food world, putting more pressure on their parents, making these three products even more acceptable as a majority part of our diets?

I could go on for ages and tell you what you already know. I shall finish with the obvious---Why did McDonalds get two mentions to every one for the other two? ---most unfair if you ask me.

What a load of twaddle. What’s next? ------Try and make some up.

When's Daddy coming home?

WHERE FOR ART THOU, DADDY?

Come on Daddy---where are you? It’s way past walkies time. You are supposed to be here by now and take me down to the bay. What’s keeping you? I bet you are at one of those staff meetings you go to. Well, that’s not good enough. I’ve been looking after the house all day. Hell, I bark at anything that moves, even the lady who doesn’t like me barking---I do it extra loud and crazy for her. Her face goes red when she tells me to shut the f------I’m not saying that word, because it’s for low-dogs, not pedigrees like me.

I’ve been checking out the neighbours’ visitors and welcoming the metre reader. Heheheheheh--- He is so scared of me. What’s he think I’m gonna do--- lick him to death? I have to keep busy; otherwise all I can do is sleep.

That’s why I love my time at the bay. I meet with Finn and Patch. Patch is a crazy bitch. She sees me and goes wacko---she sometimes runs from way around the bay, just to say hi to me. Then she tries to beat me up. She is way huger than me, but I’m not scared of her. Some of the other dog walkers think that we are having a war, but really--- we are just two crazy sods dogs having fun. I jump at her and grab her ears and then run under her and trip her up.

It’s all on if Finn is there too. We run, jump, scare the pants off some of the walkers by just missing them (sometimes we even hit them) as we run like the lightening. Once I ran under Daddy’s legs but that silly Patch tried that too and wouldn’t you know it--- she couldn’t fit and Daddy went head over arse. He was very sore for weeks and had to have physio.

So get home soon Daddy, or I shall do that----‘I’m not getting in the car thing,’ you hate so much. It’s so funny watching you trying not to let me know you are pissed at me. Even those little biscuits don’t work. Bottom line Daddy--- You may think you are the boss, but that’s purely an illusion! I come when I’m ready. Mmmm--- I hope you have chicken carcasses for dinner for me.

And now, Poland

Who's next? I still have no idea how someone in Poland finds my blog. Is it from my website or just a random thing? I think maybe now that nearly 40 countries have hit. Thats nice, as Mrs Roberts says.
www.authorneilcoleman.com
Can't wait for 'Talk To Me' to go live. Perdy, alias 'Spot' wants her time in the limelight.

I am not prepared!--for retirement.

I wrote a series of blogs many months ago, titled ‘DIJATC’ (Damn, it’s just around the corner). I was of course referring to retirement. As I just past my 62^nd birthday last week, it all seems to be like a looming train, transfixing me in its bright lights. I am simply not ready.

There’s the mortgage to think of and probable medical expenses that won’t necessarily be covered by the state, and who the hell can afford medical insurance beyond 60, never lone at all. Now that my subsidy from work has gone for that purpose, I shall let it lapse. It’s a huge monthly figure for the 60 plus brigade.

Why am I in this reflectively fearful mood? Well I am on what many would say is a good salary and yet my disposable income is not big after all of the expenses one associates with owning (trying to) a very very modest unit. I look at friends who are on various benefits and see their daily struggle. Some of them are stubborn buggers and won’t accept any help, in the form of the odd hand-out or food etc. I can’t push that.

It brings home to me, the struggle many like myself will also face. I have been preparing for the drop in income, by making changes to the way I shop. I try to make things last longer and attempt to ignore the advertisements on TV for products of ‘want’ and concentrate on those that I ‘need.’

I do not look at the crap that comes through my letterbox---it goes straight in the bin, along with my desire to pluck out the ads on ‘fabulous savings on wine, this week on at----‘you get the picture.

I know that I won’t be travelling so much, so my car mileage will drop dramatically when I retire. I hope that other expenses will head the same way.

I am not relying on Kiwi Saver, because I will not have been in it for long enough. I have been thinking of other ways of making savings; for example, growing my own veggies. That will mean retraining my Jack Russell so that she doesn’t ‘help’ me so much with her digging. You should see the holes in my garden!

So in the knowledge that the ‘train is coming,’ I shall continue to find ways to shop cooperatively, do my garden and just retreat in my desire to keep up with the ‘Johnnies’---not that I ever did.

Oh yes, I will have to continue working for maybe two years before I absolutely stop working. Then of course there are my books, if they ever sell. So far that little venture is just costing me heaps of money, with no profit, unless of course you readers get out and buy them. Ooops, you may be in the same position as me---so go and get them free at your local library---ask them and they will buy them. You get them free and now that I am my own boss re publishing--- I shall get a pittance for my efforts. At least it keeps my mind in an ‘exercersive’ mode. I better stop, because I am starting to sound like our dear ‘Miranda.’

Thank goodness not all landlords are nasty and mean!

One has to be very careful about pointing the finger at landlords and labelling them all as mean and only concerned about their own profits. We all know that we have people living in substandard accommodation and the families suffer with the dampness and the related health issues. We know that this has ramifications for their education and their start in life. They start behind their healthier cohorts in the education system and become tomorrow’s poor.

An exaggeration?----Just go into some of the lower decile schools and talk to the hardworking teachers and teacher aides, who often feed and go way beyond their job descriptions to try to make a difference.

Today’s news that John Key is investigation one of his MP’s in the National Party for not insulating one of her hoses because she couldn’t get a subsidy. I could understand (assuming that the report is true?) a landlord who is stretched to the limit, trying to save money, but an MP is on a reasonable salary and could well have other income sources (not just National MPs, so let’s be fair).

I am going to wait until we know more before going too far in my musings, but this all makes me wonder at the fairness of our system. I have been following a debate on Facebook about people receiving the pension while they are still at work and suggestions about making it means tested. I swing in my thoughts from side to side; unable to comer to a comfortable position. Perhaps it is a ‘middle position, where a phasing process would be best. The bottom line in relation to the above report is that as a society we should not allow such mean, and yes unnecessary profiteering, especially when the victims are so visible.

Let’s continue the debate. Yes, landlords are providing what the Government cannot to the point where everyone is housed and paying fair rents, but don’t label all LL in the same manner.

NO---I AM NOT A LANDLORD!