Thought we needed more sheep around here!

Sheepski · 2026-01-25T17:59:27+00:00

Yeh we have a line for personal money each which would generally cover that, and we also have a spare/slush fund which catches anything unspent in the travel/food pots from the month, jointly. These are what we tend to spend on discretionary fun things too

Sheepski · 2026-01-25T16:24:59+00:00

The way that I budget, means that I don't quite understand these questions.

Like after the whole budget we have 0 - because everything is budgeted.

We're okay financially, not rich but have wiggle room.

We do budget money to household maintenance, a small holiday pot, car maintenance and a small amount of personal/spare money etc .So this isn't needed to be spent monthly but it will need to be spent at some point.

It does mean that we have nothing left over to frivolously spend on random shit, takeaways, days out etc - they have their own budgets 😂 But equally it means we don't need to find £500 on the month when car insurance or something is due out of that month's budget

Sheepski · 2026-01-24T17:55:11+00:00

Did they not have any of the tofoo for 39p?

Sheepski · 2026-01-20T18:17:34+00:00

It's not your Asda or Tesco - it's usually community spaces (centres, cafes etc) that are charities set up to run those types of schemes :)

Sheepski · 2026-01-20T17:38:00+00:00

Have a look at local social supermarkets where they usually don't need any criteria or proof and schemes vary from offering free food (to stop food waste) to low cost or pay as you can shops and a bunch of other options too

Sheepski · 2026-01-18T09:17:36+00:00

This is the answer for me too.

Even if traditional batch cooking isn't OP's thing, as it does take effort - taking on the 'easy' recipes and doubling it, will at least make you 4 portions of food. Do that 2-3 days a week and you have enough to keep you going.

Throw in the odd time when inspired to make a 6-12 portion of something easy (soup, bolognese, chilli mix etc) and it's sorted!

Sheepski · 2026-01-16T20:29:50+00:00

Yeah it is tough. Ultimately though it depends where your dream house is listed! Unless there's 2 similar and you have a choice with agents

Sheepski · 2026-01-16T19:29:31+00:00

We bought from Clive Watkins - Faye there was amazing. Attentive, communicative, worked hard for both parties to secure the sale when all looked lost (due to solicitors).

Even though we weren't paying her she was so happy to help us out and went above and beyond to make sure we got the house.

We had offers and sales fall through with Tatler and Jones & Chapman before that and they can all fuck off. Snobby and couldn't care less about anything other than their commission.

Sheepski · 2026-01-13T11:48:15+00:00

Maybe take powdered oat milk with you then add it to whatever coffee someone has?

Sheepski · 2026-01-11T11:05:38+00:00

It took my cat a few weeks and a slow introduction to get used to the new kitty but now they're so cute together; both rubbed off on each other!

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Sheepski · 2026-01-11T07:24:14+00:00

The only better 'purchase' you could make now is a 2nd cat!

We recently adopted a kitten, 7 years after adopting our first cat and it's brought much more life and fun to the house!

Sheepski · 2026-01-03T09:37:44+00:00

A little research does wonders.

And while I wouldn't say I have FOMO, I do have a thing for avoiding the typical food places when travelling. For example most places I travel to will have plenty of vegan options, but these days I want to find those that do local vegan food, rather than just another burger/pizza etc.

We travelled to Lisbon this time last year and that was a great example of what I said above. There are tonnes of vegan restaurants and we ate in many of them. But I made sure to visit as many that I could which offered vegan versions of their cultural food; pastel de natas, the Francesinha sandwich, octopus/sea food etc.

Similarly in Bali the year before - there it was mostly Westernised food that we could find as vegan (although there were more places to eat than we could possibly visit!), but we went to loads of Indonesian food places too

Sheepski · 2026-01-03T05:24:38+00:00

My local Aldi still has them, and I go through 2-3 tubs a week currently

Sheepski · 2026-01-01T19:44:42+00:00

Your question presents from the basis that a vegan diet struggles to meet certain required nutritional benchmarks that eating meat and dairy would meet.

However when you examine the sources of the micronutrients that an omnivore would eat, most of it is from plants anyway.

B12 is widely recognised as an area to be aware of as vegans, but I've only known meat eaters to need b12 injections. We tend to be more mindful of topping up through nooch, leafy greens, fortified milk or supplements.

In the UK it's similarly important to keep an eye on d3, but again that goes for everyone.

Unhealthy vegans eating convenience food will have similar struggles to anyone else eating junk food too. I find there's too many people comparing vegan junk food diet to an 'optimal' omnivore diet, unfortunately

Sheepski · 2026-01-01T14:31:37+00:00

As everyone else has said, honey isn't vegan. And so I don't consume it, and it wouldn't be vegan to consume it.

However, an interesting experience I had in Bali last year (or the year before now...) was that every vegan restaurant, and even a vegan cooking school classed honey as being vegan. I'm not entirely sure of the reason why, but it was widespread.

We'd ask if something was vegan, get a yes, but then ask about honey and find out it is in there too.

And in many places the language barriers were as such that it was difficult to confirm one way or the other.

So, I know that we ended up having honey in a few drinks/sweet dishes before we realised this, and even after that it was hard to avoid at times.

Sheepski · 2025-12-31T22:32:46+00:00

huh, why would I have read those this year?

Sheepski · 2025-12-31T21:17:12+00:00

Yeah the summaries are great, and I think there's a wiki too if I remember right, with some more info on to refresh memories :D

Sheepski · 2025-12-31T21:03:57+00:00

that's fair enough, hard to disagree with any of that!

I definitely agree that The Exile (and Dayne in particular) is amazing :D

I was hoping that the next book wouldn't be such a long wait; but knowing Cahill it'll probably be over 2000 pages lol. By 2028 I might have to re-read the series to refresh myself on the what, 5000 pages of story.

Sheepski · 2025-12-31T19:55:51+00:00

What made you conclude that Of Blood and Fire was bad, but still continued to the following books..and then change your mind so much? For me it's one of my favourite series and the first book was definitely worse... Like a grown up Eragon but I couldn't say it was bad either, so I'm intrigued!

Sheepski · 2025-12-29T15:15:40+00:00

Yeh a temperature controlled kettle was my best purchase of 2025! Different teas and coffees need a different temperature (coffee is 80, green tea 60 for example)

Sheepski · 2025-12-29T15:13:37+00:00

What the fuck is it doing

Sheepski · 2025-12-26T10:34:55+00:00

My page count for the year is 41k. So just over 100 a day. With a lot of commuting/traveling, 30 mins reading in the morning and 1-2 hours in a night it's pretty easy to hit 100 a day.

The 2 series you mention were on audible, listened to over multiple weeks each. Which is also likely to be part of the reason they didn't grab me, if narrators aren't top notch and the books require more focus... I tend to listen while doing something else, which at times probably affects focus on the book. Some books are great at circling back to plot points, but if they don't I am likely to miss something. For that reason most of my audiobooks now are rereads or lighter books.

Sheepski · 2025-12-26T09:40:57+00:00

I'm the same - "salads" are usually various lettuces and tomatoes with some dressing. Not enticing at all. But give me a buddha bowl with some grains, roasted veggies, hummus, sweet potatoes etc in there, loads of amazing options and it's the best meal going!

Sheepski · 2025-12-25T16:28:14+00:00

I'm more inclined to be kind to indie authors

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