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[BigSkies2022]

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Thats pleasing about the paint @BigSkies2022

Im having quite a spendy day today. Mainly because I paid my TV licence for the year which is £179. I had to reset up the account as it was in DHs name. I was planning on paying monthly by dd, but for the first 6 months with a new a punt they charge you double - and that really annoyed me so I did the whole lot in one go. So £179 spent but £90 saved in the long run…

Other purchases have been £15 for some name label stickers for my mother in law who has just moved into a care home and needs all her clothes and possessions named, £8 on icecream for DD and her friends who are coming round after school (they’ll be enough left over for a while too) and £11 on iCloud subscription which came out by direct debit.

Total spend £210.

Anyway I’m liking seeing it all come out of my different pots. It’s roughly half way between paydays and I’d say I’m doing well.

Morning all, back on the health wagon this week. Yesterday waitrose for some dinner shopping, used a £10 john lewis voucher, DH paid the other £14.

Working from home today, made a healthy smoothie for breakfast and worked out o the indoor bike for a while.

Meal plan for this week -
Monday - Soy garlic honey glazed salmon, with wheatberries, lentils and green vegetable mix, with garlic lemon spinach.
Tuesday - Escovich Sea Bass,roasted vegetables and new potatoes
Wednesday - Plant based burger and salad (cheat day)
Thursday - Chicken, ginger broccoli stir fry with brown rice
Friday - Lemon butter salmon, asparagus and new potatoes
Unsure about the weekend yet.

No spends planned today but I do need to buy more vitamins and supplements this week.

Evening.

Your menu plan sounds amazing @psuedocream3! As does yours @pistachiosanscream

Nice little return of funds there @SockHop

I am experimenting either 2 online supermarket deliveries per week, inspired by another thread on MN, rather than 1 large delivery and a super-market in person visit, where I may be tempted to spend more. I will report back whether this is an efficient use of funds, it certainly is a good use of time!

Spends
£34 today at the garden centre with DH. Tomato plants, pumpkin plants, chilli plants, an attachment and sprayer for our garden hose (ours broke) and a packet of sunflower seeds! That should be total spending on the garden for a while, as all our garden pots are filled and hanging baskets planted.
£30 Amazon on bulk buy of coffee and teabags.
£7 on extra soft drinks at the local shop due to weather.

I've got enough left in the spending pot to cover DH's extra dental bill of £127 which I'm really pleased about, as this was not budgeted for and I thought it needed to come from savings,

Tax returns have been completed and I'm hoping HMRC owe us!

Salmon with Zatar and spicy roasted vegetable cous cous for tea

Sorry about typos, this was a rush post in truth,

Evening all!!
A LSD but was hoping for a NSD. But I spent £3.50 on an outdoor activity for DD, she loved it and we took own drinks. £7.59 in Tesco on yellow sticker sandwiches for tomorrow lunch as Tesco didn't stretch until I go to Lidl on Thursday. I have zero food in!
Then school told me all children need sun hats so tried to find in Tesco but had no luck so £8.90 on Amazon.
I took my cue from @pistachiosanscream and built food menu for next week from what I had in cupboards (why haven't I done this before?!)
Thursday - picky tea (always is here on Thursday) so hummus, olives, quiche etc.
Friday - Mediterranean veg orzo
Saturday - think we are out so OH will pay
Sunday - curry with naan and poppadoms
Monday - salmon with lentils
Tuesday - celery soup.
Wednesday - stew that's already made and in freezer

Absolutely loving the menu plans from everyone, they sound delicious and give me so many lovely ideas

good catch on the tv license feee @SockHop but it does sound like a widow tax that you can't take over your DHs account.

I was off this morning in an empty house which is bliss. So i got to go through the freezers. I've done a good job on using up my batch cooked items. So now i need to restock these. I probably grocery shop a bit differently to most people as i don't buy a weeks groceries for the week ahead. instead i stock my freezers and pantry, batch cook and base my meals out of that.

I'd actually find it hard to buy a weeks groceries for just the week ahead as i'm so used to this type of cooking.

I also like to keep a good stock of food on hand as a type of savings. Even if im broke i could ride out a couple of months of very low spending if necessary on groceries and we'd still eat well. So i wouldn't advocate eating everything in the cupboards unless you're moving and can't take the food.

I am on holidays at the end of the month so i do need to eat down my fridge now as i like to have it empty bar condiments when i leave. So i will focus on buying only the things i need for batch cooking and the meals we will need for the next 2 weeks. Its one of the downsides of cooking this way. I have such a stock of fresh food on hand that i do need to really plan to use it when im going to be away in the future.

I like to have the following in the freezer

Chilli made with beef, peppers, corn and black beans.
italian meatballs
asian pork meatballs
hoisin pork with aubergine (aubergine chopped small bulks out the pork)
Taco beef with sweetcorn.
lasagne or bolognaise to make one

LSD: £8.63 Lidl £4.05 co-op.

Taking my lunch to work for the 3rd day in a row. WFH Thursday so that will be lunch at home.

Ooh report back on that need. I spend so much time in Lidl that I never quite got the hang of online shopping. Do an occasional delivery from Asda, find I am shocked at how much it costs for so little, so clearly not finding the bargains! Hopefully getting a tablet for Christmas as I find it hard on my phone.

Ah poop £15 on petrol as light came on so grabbed on the way home from yoga. Ah well. I was hoping to string that out for another week to pay day but hey ho!

Takeaway yesterday so €40 spent 😐. We were back too late to cook last night - it was already past the kids bedtime so needed something fast.

Hopefully just the planned childminder cost today.

Re the split of shopping to two deliveries, I did two half shops this week. I went to lidl on Saturday for food for sat to Monday and spent €70. Then got a Tesco delivery Monday evening for shopping for tue to Fri. This came to €50. €120 in total - Considerably less than my in store Tesco shop for the last few weeks which was over my €150 budget every time!

There are so many things like that @pistachiosanscream. Widow tax is a good description! I did get a small rebate from the TV license from our old account, but I only discovered was possible it by accident and you have to do all the leg work to get it. My local council have been the worst so far. I’ve had to report the death to them 5 times and I’m not even finished yet. Thames water have had the most transparent process in my experience.

I am at a point now where I’m getting a few small pockets of money in - after months of paying out and chasing. I discovered I could get a small amount from DHs union towards funeral costs the other day. It’s only a few hundred, but it all adds up. I’ll get an emergency fund/safety net pot of savings out of it.

Do people pay for supermarket deliveries through a yearly subscription or just each time?

Have a lovely day everyone.

I'd actually probably say we do half shops already, we would of in the past been in the shops most days but now we at least do a few meals at a time. Do desperately need to get better at this stuff though.

Had a few spends past few days but unavoidable and low spending and I'm ok with it. Sometimes you just have to put some money into convenience when your ill.

Oh and I have a Tesco off peak subscription for £4.99 I pay for monthly. It's fantastic value as I also shop for a relative with it.

NSD for me yay!

£32 in Sainsbury's. My banking 'insights' function tells me that I have spent £158 so far this month on groceries (food shop plus cleaning products and basic toiletries). So I am within the budget, and have a bit more to play with between now and the end of the month. Yess! However, I will have to be less tight-fisted from next week as I will need to start buying extra food, and the week after that, start turning it into meals for our June house guests. So I am sure the extra headroom will soon get eaten up!

Painted side return, and tarted up window sills, looking much nicer. Now I want to cuprinol the fence, scrub up the pots and plant them with geraniums. Trying to distract myself from the lovely linen tops I've seen online....

Today’s spend was £1.10 on a bag of rocket from Tesco. Managed to avoid buying a bag of jelly tots too :-)

Yum @sockhop. Tesco do a lovely peppery rocket. It's lovely in an egg mayo sandwich.

Spent way too much today with nothing to show for it.
€2 in Tesco this morning on a spinach and ricotta pastry - would not recommend.
€3.60 on a double espresso
€10 On a roll and paracetamol at lunch time.
€7 this evening on takeaway tea and a cereal bar when I took DS to training.

My monthly disposable income is getting very low now. 9 days to pay day so I will have to be a lot better.

£1.40 on a chocolate bar from m&S on way home from work.
Looking at budget it's getting very tight and I have 5 days to go before pay day so Lidl tomorrow will be sticking to the list with no deviations.

Oh dear, early start today. Have managed to spend £94 on four items in the Skims sale. Is this a frugal fail or win? Hmm....jury's out. On the one hand, I need new underwear, these get very good reviews and the discounts were good. I'm using Pay in 3 so can afford the monthly repayments no problem. On the other, I can certainly get underwear for less from M&S, but they can't accept online orders now, and am I going to make a trip into town just for undies...

Managed not to panic buy a dress last night with a sudden influx of fashion anxiety over DS' graduation ceremony. I do have suitable items already (but may need new shoes). Also, DS has not finished yet, so no point in jinxing it!

PT session today and weigh-in.

Hello.

back from London. Sick leave officially finished yesterday and I’m back to work on Monday. Slowly and gently easing myself back in.

credit card has a balance of £3450. Mostly due to flights and hotel costs while in London. Have submitted my “expenses” to insurance and they have approved just have to wait for payment.

i was in Manchester at the weekend seeing Bryan adams so did a bit of shopping but annoyingly most of it went back as it didn’t fit.

im after a pair of brown loafers for work. Seen some on dune so may grab these after may payday.

I need to start keeping up properly.

£75 in Lidl for the weekly shop. £6 for play group and £7.55 on a toy for DD off eBay.
On the plus side I got a free shower screen delivered when I was doing up bathroom that I didn't need and I've sold it on eBay for £150 today. So that will go into savings. Probably should put it on credit card but savings needs a boost.
So glad it's Friday tomorrow.
So very happy for you @ememem84 welcome home. I bet Bryan Adams was amazing!
Hears amazing reviews on skims @BigSkies2022 , let me know what you think.

NSD today thankfully 😊
Went to see OFAH the musical and didn't eat out or even buy a drink we took drinks with us .
Tickets were bought 17 months ago so paid for them yonks ago .
Would recommend it to anyone very good .

DH saw Brian in Newcastle. Loved it
welcome back em and glad things are going well

price per wear big. Well they last longer than M&S?

lits of spends as DS is going DodE and cos his expedition was cancelled last minute last year we had all the gear. Which is now too small sigh
£97 Aldi. Sainsbury’s fresh is rubbish atm so trying Aldi again. Had to ring up 3 times to get refunded

Thanks @Frugal25 it feels amazing to be going back to work.

this weekend is a busy one.

ds is off to beavers camp so I need to get his stuff sorted out tomorrow. Then I’m helping them with breakfast on Sunday morning. Need to be there for 730….!

then we’re going to see the replica of Columbus’ ship the Santa Maria which is docking in harbour here this weekend.

Em welcome back and good luck for work return- are you going back to the new/promoted role?

I will report back on my new pants! Thank you for the interest. I must admit that my very comfortable M&S pants were not holding up under normal wear, so perhaps an upgrade was in order!

NSD other than weekly fuel and DD activity which comes from a different budget 😁

Good to see your update em and good luck with the work return.

Sorry for short post - just keeping up.