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[BigSkies2022]

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Afternoon everyone 😊
Morrisons £14 to tide us through until the Big shop tomorrow.
Took Mum to the cafe for a latte and a Welsh cake , which she thoroughly enjoyed £10 she looked like an Angel there and she behaved herself no swearing today 😂😇

Your mum looks like butter wouldn't melt @MaryGreenhill, and very glamorous!

Yum to pink lemonade @PeenaM

Migraines are grim, I suffer too. Huge sympathy to all who also struggle.

So the £35 I had to last all week has gotten us to payday tomorrow, bar a tenner, which I've withdrawn from my Vinted balance. I've some more stuff to stick on there this weekend. It'll only be a few quid but it all helps.

I have also bought two pairs of new glasses. I've worn contact lenses forever but I'm wearing my lenses less and less glasses (a cheap pair) more and more so I've bitten the bullet and bought some really nice ones to transition full time to. £590. Ouch. That said, I pay £42 a month for my lenses (specific type), so I'm going to offset a years subscription to the glasses as I've cancelled and that leaves around £100, which will come out of savings.

Tomorrow is a day out at Harlow Carr, which may be spendy. And an online supermarket delivery. Hopefully that's it for the weekend other than a drink at the sports club.

Your mum looks like she had a fab time @MaryGreenhill

I spent £27.73 in Lidl. £14 over my grocery / non grocery / social spends for the month. Bearing in mind it was around £200 - 300 more in the last 6 months, thats getting better.

DD usually has an activity tonight which is £20 but she didn't want to go so I'll use the money for coffee with a friend tomorrow.

This week has been stressful with my DM having a fall, she is concussed with a broken toe. Not an easy sibling situation but my Dsis who I'm close to is on her way home this weekend so we will sort it out in the best interests of my DM!

Looks like a lovely day out @MaryGreenhill.

todays spending was €5 in the shop as the milk was off. Then €10 in a foot file as I can’t get a pedicure done at the beauticians until my hammy nail grows out.

Your mum looks wonderful in Green!

NSD and first bit of batch cooking for June house guests done and frozen. Ironed until I couldn't bear to do more.

DS has finished and submitted all his projects! On the train home now, and off to Milan with lovely GF at horrible o'clock tomorrow morning. Luckily flying from City airport.

I am so delighted and relieved for him that it is over and he can have a good break from waking up thinking, "Oh god, I have to work on my projects today, all day."

Urgh a number of things happened in the past three days which leaves me with £40 til WEDNESDAY. Sigh. Luckily don't need food, just going to have a quiet weekend in. My nephews are coming to stay Sat and we'd usually take them out, but it'll be board games and freezer food instead.

Hate this feeling, used to run out of money all the time and just stick it on a credit card. Now I've paid them off (with the loan so not off off but you know what I mean) I will never touch them again

I'm so pleased for you @penniesbutton I think many of us were worried the consolidation loan may backfire, as or does some people, you've kept strong and focused.

Realistically £40 until Wednesday is great, chill at home, meal.plan, you've got this. Proud of you.

No spend week so far. I already know I'm spending too much on earrings later this week (last invmycstack to be fair) and buying vitamins and hair conditioner. Realistically it's fine because it is focused costs not random purchases, but I need to actually do some Mindset Mentor exercises and have a plan, skin clinic will be about a year and takes half my disposable income currently (I'm hoping less!) And daughters prom and 16th is taking a hit on the rest. By August I should be more focused.

Some wonderful news, I'm going to have a grandchild by marriage! As we get older, it's so wonderful to be celebrating positives as the inevitable negatives loom.

I hope everyone has had a lovely week so far.

Ah great news on the grandchild pseudo. Proms are expensive aren’t they. Dd loved it though

dmam look so happy Mary

great news on getting though the month need and enjoy Harlow Carr. I’ve never been and it’s not that far from us so report back.

well done for not adding to the CC pennies. today is a new day.

it’s a great feeling when the projects are done. Dd did hers last week for Y12. Now researching post 18

food spends mostly here. Though the dog is looking like a vets trip. He’s pulling at his hair.

LSD yesterday, just had to pick up some bread.

DH spent €40 on takeaway for dinner as we were out late.

I'd love to get into batch cooking for situations like that but I've never tried it before. Is there meals I could batch cook, freeze and then cook directly from frozen on days like this where we get unexpectedly caught out? We don't have a microwave to defrost.

Edited to add - we got a quote yesterday for some carpentry work around the house. It is going to cost us €1200. Dh tends to do a lot around the house himself but this is something he can't manage and is a must to have done before youngest DCs birthday in a couple of weeks.

@Imperfectpolly ive cooked lasagne and shepherds pie from frozen or nearly frozen. The problem might be time as it takes longer to cook. you also need to have it on a lowish temperature - 170ish so it cooks through without burning the top.

I've also prepped pasta sauce in advance that just needs heating up in a pot and pasts cooks very quickly.

Other options are to preprep meals that can be cooked in one pot like these https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-prepare-your-own-frozen-stirfry-dinners-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-193932

One thing i do have in the freezer is leftover roast dinners. So i pop the meat, veg and potatoes into a tinfoil tray, cover with tinfoil and can then pop in the oven to cook. Usually takes about 40 minutes. Meat thermometer is your friend here if you are worried about heathing thoroughly. I actually do this with Christmas leftovers and its very handy to have a meal you can pull from the freezer.

In your case are you trying to account for days when you are unexpectedly late? If thats the case i'd just keep some quick cook frozen stuff on hand. Pizza, Breaded chicken, wedges. Frozen veg heats up very quickly

Its payday for me. Usually it would be on the 25th but the bank pays early because thats on Sunday.

We are in the black in the joint account though closer inspection shows a bigger picture.

Groceries we were over by €100, Budget of €500 and spent almost €600 and this wasn't a big stock up month. however we did host a party and provided treats for a communion and picked up some bits for that too. So the small things really do add up. This does also include some gardening costs too

Household and clothes spending we were over by €75, spending €306 rather than the €230 budgeted. Mix of gardening costs, holiday buying and regular things that had to be got.

To balance that we were €100 under in the eating out and takeaway budget and €175 under in the petrol budget and our cleaners didn't come this month so that was €70 saved.

We also were able to pay for some holiday costs out of the joint, insurance and transfers. So all we need for holidays is spending money. We have breakfast included in our hotel.

Looking forward, i don't think we will be able to manage quite so low a petrol spend even with being on holidays. Groceries should be lower but i am due a stock up as i have used most of my meat stockpile and could do with doing a BBQ stock up.

We are also on holidays for 8 nights so who knows how much we will spend there! Other years its been around €1000 for food and activities but we are going to a different location this year and i'm not sure what the prices will be like.

This was also my first month where my AVCs came out so i'm down €170 so i don't have that to add to my Stove replacement fund.

Tesco £93
Asda £20
Should see us through till Tuesday.
I noticed Tesco have put their prices up on a few things l normally get 🙄 .
Home now, all put away thankfully 😊

Thanks for the ideas pistachio, I'll have a good think about this over the weekend.
Yes, it's primarily when something comes up unexpectedly and we don't get home until 8pm and need something fast because it's a school night and DC have to go to bed. It probably happens once a week and we end up getting takeaway which is unhealthy and overpriced.

I had a bit of a win this morning. I filed my tax return and due to medical expenses I am due a €220 refund. So this is already going to buy the jerseys and shorts for DC that I have been looking at for the last few days. This had been sitting in my shopping basket all week at €200 with me feeling too guilty to actually hit 'pay now'.

@psuedocream3 that's lovely baby news!
@BigSkies2022 great that DS has reached that goal.
Good frugal win on the tax return @Imperfectpolly

Happy Bank Holiday weekend to all! Even though it's going to rain, we perhaps need it for the land!

Today was a bit spendier:
£7.50 for soup and a hot chocolate with a friend. Then £3 for 2 diet Cokes in the cafe garden. We sat in the sun and chattered.
£14.30 at Starbucks - took DD after a doctor's appointment before she went back to school.

Made a lovely lasagne with leftover bolognaise this morning and before I headed out asked DH to lift it out of the oven when the timer bleeped or it would continue to cook in warm oven until crisp. He didn't. Crispy lasagne for dinner as I didn't want to make anything else or get takeaway! It wasn't too bad to be fair. Eating out tomorrow and then I'll make a menu for next week.

Been a spendy week away at Center Parcs. But had a lovely break with family and Grandkids.
Came back to £60 fine from when DH took his son to the airport and didn't know there was a new system in place when you drop passengers off.You have to pay online within 24 hours or you are fined £60 if paid within 14 days or £100 after that!! Jeez!! 😤

Congratulations @psuedocream3 wonderful news 👶

AHH thank you ,@needastrongoneagain
@Mochi1fudge, @pistachiosanscream,
@ChipshopPickledEgg,
@lifelongfrugaleer
For the lovely comments re my DMum . I am ever so proud of her, l like her to look nice, it's important to me because l can't do a lot for her in the home care wise but l CAN keep her looking nice .🤗

£48 spent on skincare. Amazon Prime free month about to expire, so this was a cost-efficient way of getting stuff delivered to the door. This leaves me with a budget of around £120 guilt free spends for the remaining month. I have in mind taking DS and DH to the Edvard Munch exhibition at the NPG, followed by pasta at the Mercato Metropolitano.

£24 on groceries, £110 left in joint account for family expenses until 31 May, next top-up.

Batch cooking and freezing is the only way I can rescue food for future planning. "leftovers' isn't really a concept in my household - people eat to bulging capacity, and if DS is in the house, anything left in the refrigerator from the night before is snaffled at lunchtime the following day.

'Saucy' things, like ragu, chilli, curries, dahls, can all be defrosted and heated slowly on the hob. If you need to cook pasta/rice/heat flatbreads to accompany, you can do that simultaneously. If you're in at 8, you can have something nice on the table by 8.30.

Chicken/veal/lamb escalopes - do extra when you're cooking from scratch, wrap each one individually for the freezer, reheat inside the foil. Provided it's hot all the way through, you'll be fine.

Make a jar of salad dressing and keep it in the fridge to chuck over veg/instant salads. Grated Parmesan thrown on top boosts flavour.

Spent £539 vicariously on DParents' behalf - new curtains from Brittania Rose, never ordered from them before, fingers crossed.

Boo to the airport parking fine @Rainbow1901 similar happened to me with a new system on a toll road. Pleased to hear Center Parcs was a success.

@MaryGreenhill lovely photo of your mam.

@psuedocream3 thank you so much, I really appreciate it! And congrats on the new grandchild, the more people to love in our lives the better.

As luck would have it, I got a £200 unexpected refund this morning from the dentist! When I had all that horrible emergency work a few weeks ago I was all woozy and out of it afterwards and when they said my insurance only covered part of it, I just paid the rest. Questioned it with Bupa as my app said they covered all emergency costs and I got a refund hassle free. So that's a nice boost for the weekend!

ALSO everyone.... I passed my training today! Can you believe I've been back at work for 3 months now? Feels like forever ago I was anxiously waiting for a start date and wondering if I'd cope. I can now drop down to part time which is such a relief as I'm shattered.

Morning.

Brilliant new @PenniesButton, well done on passing the training. What part time hours will you be working? Good news re the refund too.

Those parking fines are SO frustrating @Rainbow1901.

@pistachiosanscream that's budgeting for you - well done! I switch money between 'pots' if needed. This month, I know my dog pot will need extra putting in as they have a groom due and a bulk buy of their food (this is rare in one month), so our holiday pot, which is nearly at the balance I need to pay to buy by August already won't get added to this month. It's good planning to review, well done!

Can the dog have antihistamine @lifelongfrugaleer?

So Harlow Carr was lovely. It was very busy to park, but didn't feel too packed in the gardens. It would be lovely for folk with young children as they've done a lot of things to interest them, and it's pretty accessible and easy for older folk or folk with disabilities, wheelchairs are available too. DH just doesn't really like going out anymore and being 'seen', so I think he'd have preferred to stay at home in truth. We had lunch at Betty's, which was lovely, but £££. I'd go again but definitely not eat at Betty's, this was just a treat for us all.

Spends
£150 Ocado
£70 lunch at Harlow Carr. We eat out so rarely I'm not used to the costs of this type of thing anymore.
£40 hair cut and colour (village prices!).

Don't think we've go anything else 'big' to spend on now for the weekend.

Need to menu plan, so I'll post that later.

Your mum is beautiful @MaryGreenhill
Congratulations @PenniesButton !!!
Ahhh a lovely baby, congratulations @psuedocream3
I've been running my cupboards down of stuff that isn't very helpful at mealtimes. And I'm planning to restock full of things that I can batch cook with and throw a healthy dinner together with. I've started cooking soups and stews and bread and freezing half, coz my family are the same, leftovers get eaten if I cook and leave it out there. So I divide it up before people dig in, it goes in the freezer for another meal.
I need to now batch cook sauces and pizza bases too.
I was naughty. In two ways. I had a gorgeous silver vintage ring with a rose bud on it and wore it a lot but it reminded me of an ex who bought me roses which made me sad, so I threw it away. I regretted it immediately and have been trying to find another as, despite the reminder, it was a gorgeous ring. Found one on eBay for £30. Unplanned spend and I don't need it, but it's made me happy to have the ring back to wear.
Out with a friend for lunch today, I'm hoping to keep it cheap though and my budget is £20 which I hope to not spend all of. Apart from that, I don't have other spends today.
Happy long weekend everyone! Loving the rain, hopefully it fills my water butts up again.

Oh, forgot to add that I got my dividends through this month. £249 which has gone into savings.
I can't wait to have pots like this @needastrongoneagain , such a great idea and working towards this :)

Great news on the dentist refund
also hurrah passing training
I think the ring was a justified spend. You are better than your ex anyway
pleased HC went well but bettys is ££££
I struggle with batch cooking always have. But we have leftovers in the freezer for tub teas

i owe DB for a fire pit £60 as he custom made me one. That’s all spend today