September savers/frugaleers continue into October

[574ejones]

All welcome!

ursula yes jersey. The hospital one is great! Way less creepy now than when I was a kid. Still creepy.

The historical society here is slowly restoring a lot of the fortifications. So it's safe for people to go in and visit. They've found some awesome/if awful in some cases stuff buried in them. Seems the Germans left in a bit of a hurry.

I also didn't realise how many slave workers they brought over to build the fortifications. Or how many died here. So so sad.

I did however enjoy the pics of the soldiers wandering about town, on the beaches eating icecreams etc. made me think that while my grandparents who were here during the war could only say bad things about them, the men that were here were just that. Men. Normal people. Who had families. And liked ice creams on the beach albeit in uniform

Spending the rest of the day cleaning. Yippee!!

NSD here. Making my first (vegetarian) roast dinner of autumn, so looking forward to that in about an hour. My washing line is full, but lots of stuff is drying quite slowly, so I'm going to have to use the tumbler for the last load anyway.

pink ds got a pair of froddo boots & dd ricosta boots seeing as she loved the shoes so much.
We were limited to one pair of boots to suit ds' high instep & dd's needed to be black for school so just a choice of two for her. One were patent & not waterproof I really hate dislike patent so we chose the other pair

I have so much catching up to do here it's been a busy weekend with having two for a sleepover. Brought 4 children swimming & shoe shopping yesterday, was glad to put on a movie for them come 7.30pm last night.

£2 on chocolate to split a £20.

Visited ILs this weekend. MIL looks remarkably well considering. She was "kicked out" of intensive care for being well enough to complain and the surgeon is V pleased with her progress.

DD1 needs £10 for a book and they both need lunch money, that's £30 for the week. Will catch up later, supermarket delivery tomoz, £100 as I over ordered on a few non perishables.

Welcom back MissA

£30 petrol
£3.50 cheesecake in sains
£290 on curtains but £28 of that is going back.
£219 paying off credit card.

No takeaways for us this week now.

Bike ride ended up costing more than planned as we got some ice creams at the pub we cycled to which came to £8 I did a complete 'how much??' when lady behind the bar told me

Oh well, was a treat to celebrate not being quite so skint this month!!

Also spent £3 ish on lemonades and crisps.

Dd didn't cope well with the bike ride on the way back, now saying she doesn't feel well so going to chill in front of the telly for a bit. Polar Express is on in a bit which seems weird in September, dd loves it - it totally creeps me out!!

girlie I love Polar Express too, DH hates it with a passion. ha. It's too early though - I usually put my tree up around 15th-16th December and start xmas movies from then too.

Ooo I love a Christmas film but it's even a bit early for me!

Forgot my meal plan:

Chicken Kiev mash
Roast chicken
Chicken and chorizo casserole
Goujons and chips
Shepherds pie
Spaghetti Bol
Pasta bake (this is a standby)
Beef casserole

Ours is:

Sunday- out at friend's for birthday dinner (bringing a bottle of red)
Mon - leek, sweet potato and black Kale curry with brown rice
Tues - spinach pasta with sundried tomato paste, salad and corn on the cob
Weds - dinner at work (usually canteen crap )
Thurs - out with work for school trip, having venison goulash in a russian place (preordered)
Fri - leftover curry, salad
Sat -homemade pizza, salad
Sun - something from freezer

Breakfasts: eggs + mushrooms; homemade fruit/veg smoothie; fruit and yoghurt

Lunches: all provided at work

Those are alternative breakfasts btw not what I have every day!

We are just putting together a 4 week meal plan. I've made a table on Publisher and everything.

Really hoping that it'll help us be more organised and less wasteful/dependent on convenience stuff, while being varied enough to stop me getting bored and wanting to rebel

I've taken into account the DCs' evening clubs and made room for some frugal meals too.

Oh but forgot to say, for this week or possibly two we are not starting the plan as we need to see what's in the freezer and use that up. I'm thinking that afterwards I might not do a big batch cooking week, but just cook extra and freeze when it crops up in the meal plan (so that the next couple of times I don't have to cook it from scratch).

Must write a list of what's in the freezer before we do our next Tesco order... this is where I regret not labelling the bags.

We have English muffins/cornflakes/porridge/toast/fruit for breakfast and lunches are cheese/pickle/ham sandwiches or couscous with feta, celery and cherry tomatoes

I need to get back on meal planning. That'll be my tomorrow job.

I've taken a couple of bags of clothes to the charity bun today. They weren't quite nice enough for eBay.

I need to sit down and do meal plan later. Have taught swimming for my friend this morning as his normal teacher is away on holiday. So £35 extra earnt. But I have promised to hand it over to DP so he can treat DD and DSD when I'm at hen party this weekend. But I have spent £10 of it on a new pair of shoes for the weekend.

Plan on NSDs rest of the week other than the Asda delivery tomorrow. Let's see how that goes

Girlie I blame you for the fact that we're all sat here now watching polar express

Ha Spotty

We have just had a very nice dinner of salmon fillets cooked in the oven with a splodge of pesto sauce and grated cheese on the top, with spaghetti and veg. I drizzled a little soy sauce over the top of the salmon when it came out the oven. Was really yummy, even dd loved it!!

Plan for the week

Monday jacket pots with coleslaw, tuna and cheese
Tuesday sausage roast
Wednesday something quick on toast as dds swim lesson in the evening!!
Thursday fishfingers, chips and peas
Friday pizza and salad (avocado, beetroot, cucumber and red pepper)

That looks good to me.

I forgot to add my meal plan earlier.
Today: nut cutlet, roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots, cabbage and gravy. It was delicious.
Monday: veggie cottage pie (green lentils, mushrooms, carrots and onion). I'll
Tuesday: gnocchi with pesto, peas and sweetcorn.
Wednesday: cottage pie.
Thursday: Fusilli with pesto, avocado and hardboiled eggs.
Friday: bean burgers with oven chips and salad.
Saturday: pizza.
Sunday : curry and rice (home made from the freezer).

Funnily enough, I had to pause in the writing of this, as my Sainsburys order turned up! £42.50, including £2 delivery charge. Off to put it away now, then make a cuppa and relax for the night.

Just done Ocado shop £41 for Tuesday. Probably will be £10 in top ups over that as we used loads stuff up before we went away. Meal plan:
Monday - chicken fajitas
Tuesday - soup or jacket potatoes
Wednesday - Prawn stir fry
Thursday - Spag bol with quorn
Friday - Honey and soy salmon (salmon on offer!)
Saturday - Moroccan chicken and sweet potato mash
Sunday - Sausage casserole (with sausages we have left over in the freezer from BBQ's) with potatoes and veg

Very low spend day here, £4 for DS1 gym class, he loves it!

£91 sainsbury shop coming tomorrow. Ouch. This Inckudes the ingredients for home made mincemeat and some brandy and gin and also some new moisturiser for me as my skin is parched.

Going to collect all the cheques I have and pay them in tomorrow and look through all my shoes to see what I can sell. I need to start meal planning and do a cupboard and freezer audit. From November I will be feeding DS1 many many more meals, he's currently full time at nursery so eats there five days a week. He will only be there two mornings a week so 11 meals a week I need to make for him. Most dinners I make now would feed three but some of them are too grown up and I'm not used to eating at 5 so that's going to be a challenge. I'm thinking cereal / toast / fruit for breakfast and the. Soup or sandwich for lunch most days with the odd jacket potato / frittata / omelette day? I don't want my food bill to shoot up or him to feel deprived!

creme are you guys fully veggie? Your meal plan sounds lovely.

Aubergine curry tonight. DS declared it would be better less aubergine and more chicken cheeky git!

In other words, chicken curry!

LSD here. Only thing we spent on was a timer for the slow cooker (£5.99)as our old one broke.

Started with Junior Parkrun (free). DS1 and DD both got their half marathon wristbands this morning for completing 11 runs.

Then we had sausage casserole and apple pie for lunch - proper autumn food.

This afternoon we spent 2hrs on the beach volunteering on a beach clean. It was lovely and sunny. Afterwards we went for a paddle as it was surprisingly warm for September.

What I found that making extra mash and then freezing it in those little ice cube weaning trays is great for adding to stuff with DD's meals. Annabel Karmel does a great cottage pie that is quick and easy to batch cook and freeze in portions (I just do the mince bit and add a potato portion at the time of eating). Can you give your DS some of your leftovers from the night before (like pasta bake) or freeze the extra spag bol/chilli etc if/when you cook that. Pesto tuna pasta with peppers is my emergency meal!

DH decided to fix the floorboard on the landing this weekend, I know it need led doing and I'm glad he took the initiative to sort it himself but it was £30 on wood and tools that we could have done without.

My meal plan for the week is:

Monday- chicken curry (left over chicken and potatoes from today's roast)
Tuesday- baked potato and beans
Wed- kedgeree (well of sorts, I have a bit of smoked river cobbler that I'm gonna put with curried rice and boiled eggs)
Thurs- baked potato, refried beans and chorizo
Friday- chicken Kiev, mash and veg (kiev frozen from the coop reduced shelf last week).

It feels like we have no leeway this month at all and it's not even October yet.