RustyRaven

Today's bad news: It started to rain as soon as I hung out my washing

Today's good news: I got my toaster working again. Lots of crumb removal and playing around with the lever and it started staying down again. Google tells me it is probably a magnet problem, and it could have been interfered with by a build up of crumbs or it could be nearing the end of its life. We will just have to wait and see.

I've found the quality is generally pretty good. The biggest issue I've had is with the cheaper ones (Dinnerly & EveryPlate) expecting you to have more ingredients to add in yourself, like mayonnaise or bbq sauce. You also need to make sure you do the recipes with more perishable ingredients first, especially if you are spreading it out over time. The last box I got had salad with everything, and by the time I got to the last recipe it was starting to get a bit wilted.

If you haven't tried them before you can get free boxes (you still have to pay around $12 postage). They give out the codes to people who buy boxes to give to their friends etc, and there is a regular post in the aussie frugal reddit for people to post codes, which is what I've been doing. I got a box from each of the companies before I moved, and now that I'm at a different address I'm doing it again.

Thank you for the reminder, I was going to do some washing too but somehow got distracted enroute to the washing machine. I somehow ended up vacuuming the house and putting on a batch of yoghurt and completely forgot the washing!

It was a Ronson. And the heating elements still work, it's just the clip that keeps the toast down that has stopped working. Much better longevity than it's predecessor, which was a wedding present that lasted less than one year (which is why I remember the age of the replacement!).

After 28 years of faithful service my toaster has finally decided to call it quits. RIP little fella.

Fortunately I have a toaster oven and was still able to cook my toast for breakfast

fancy Saturday breakfast

I've managed to resolve some payment issues I was having with the meal kit services and have been able to sign up for another couple of free boxes 🙂 This means another few weeks of minimal meal planning.

A bowl of hot porridge with cream and honey please.

I'd also like to pre-order a slow-cooked balrog stew, with mashed potato and glazed carrots.

Pork roast is in the oven for dinner. I had a big piece so I've cut it in half and will do some sort of pulled pork for tacos with the other half. I put it on late so it won't be ready for a while, I might need to organise cheese and crackers to tide me over until then.

2/10

The gods of random guessing were not with me today.

That's no good. Try to take it easy if you can.

Chicken soup might help too 🐓🍲

They often don't want it back, especially if it is low cost and you say it is defective instead of just change of mind. They also sometimes offer you a partial refund if you don't return it, but ask you to send it back if you want the whole amount back. I also discovered tonight that when you put in a bad review for an item it prompts you to return it, and gives you an additional chance to return an item at no cost (normally you have to do all returns in each order in one go). Which was handy, I had something that seemed ok at the start but then didn't actually work after I used it for a while, but I thought it was too late to return it.

I love how Temu tries to trick you into taking a credit on your account instead of getting a refund to your card. They tell you it will take days to repay to the card, but it actually goes through instantly. Plus they put in an extra pop up to try to get you to change it without realising that clicking on "get refund instantly" means getting an account credit instead of an actual refund.

Oh well, I know their tricks and have the refund in my account and gave a bad review to the dodgy embroidery kit I was sent. I was actually a bit surprised that only one of them was actually dodgy, and because I didn't have to return the kit I'll be able to use the cotton on the stitch book I got that didn't come with any, so that works out ok.