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[BigSkies2022]

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NSD for me today yay!!.
Need milk and bread tomorrow but otherwise am doing ok 😊
Hope your DDad is improving @BigSkies2022 bless you all 💐
Awful news about the car @Imperfectpollyso sorry 😞 it's just so expensive to get the head gasket done worse luck 🙄
That is such a lovely thing to do with the DC enjoy @ChipshopPickledEgg 🦆🦆
Aw bless you @SockHop💐 l am so sorry to hear that about your poor DDad passing away so young and of course it makes you anxious. You are doing exactly the right thing in looking after yourself , it's money well spent .
Great meal plan @pistachiosanscream😁
Hope everyone is having a good bank holiday 😊

@BigSkies2022 I’m so sorry to hear about your dad. It sounds like you’ve done everything you can to support him, and I’m glad things are looking up now.

@ImperfectpollyI really hope getting the car sorted isn’t too pricey. Last year I had to fix my engine for £3.5k, so I’m really hoping yours is much easier on the wallet!

It’s been a busy few days here. My car insurance is due soon, so I checked the early quote (July) and confirmed my tax (due in December). I have enough saved to cover both, so I’m reducing my monthly savings by £35. Once summer holidays start, my petrol costs will go down too.

Spending this week: £100 for DD, who wanted her birthday money early, she’s not keen on finding prom shoes, Ic ended up buying a pair for £18. Also spent £20 on supplements and conditioner, and paid £70 off my credit card. And bought some earrings because its been a stressful weekend and I'm counting it as self care.

@pistachiosanscream eould you be kind enough to share your sweet potato Dahl recipe please? I’ve got a bit of a glut of them in the fridge!

NSD here for me today. DS spent £30 on his savings on an Obi Wan Kenobi outfit. Expensive but he’s 12 and I love that he still wants to “play” so let him spend it. I think these days are numbered so enjoying it while I can.

A delicious dinner from Bored of Lunch today - pulled beef tacos. New family favourite there.

Had a lazy afternoon of a snooze and now about to have a long bath while the kids watch the new Clarksons farm.

@psuedocream3 that sounds like a sensible spend on prom shoes. Someone was telling me at church the other day how their daughter wants a £700 👗 😳

Hope others have had a good bank holiday. I do read all of the other comments and want to reply but forget who is who and I’m on my phone so can’t scroll back to see!

I got back from my cruise yesterday evening and have spent today washing/drying and putting holiday ‘stuff’ away. Also managed to cut the grass before it rained - my garden border that I planted last year is coming on beautifully and I am so proud of it!! Spent a few days weeding it and putting bark down before going away so hopefully that will pay dividends.

I was going to go shopping today but frankly I CBA and I realised that now I’m not working, I can go another day!! The freedom 🤣

I was going to buy a takeaway tonight as a ‘last day of hols’/BH treat then I pulled myself together and got a bolognaise sauce and garlic bread out of the freezer and I’ve had a lovely dinner. Have menu planned for this week (beef enchilada rice, chicken egg fried rice, sticky soy and honey turkey mince and noodles (stolen from another poster up thread) and chicken curry). Hopefully won’t cost too much as I already have most ingredients.

Today was going to be a NSD after my about turn on dinner but I’ve now ordered some cleaning brushes and shoe covers from my eBay balance.

And like @WhitegreeNcandle I too read all the comments and want to respond but it’s so tricky on a phone to scroll back for names. Thinking of all of you who’ve had difficult times in the last few days 💐

Quick post to provide a link to the sweet potato dhal I use. We had it tonight, it’s bloody delicious and so healthy.

https://www.bosh.tv/recipes/roast-sweet-potato-dahl

Hope everyone had a nice bank holiday weekend and sorry to those it was eventful for.

@Imperfectpolly sorry to hear about the car woes. It can be so frustrating to feel a set back like that when we are all trying so hard! My friends dad thought her car was gonna be £4k to fix when her clutch went, turned out to be £400! So I hope the bill is not as high as feared.

@BigSkies2022 hope your DF had a settled night and your DM is okay. You did well by them

That's money well spent @SockHop

I've spent the last two mornings with Dsis trying to talk sense into my 90+ year old DM and DB that she needs proper care while living in a 3 bedroom house. Had a fall last weekend but still says she doesn't need carers. Probably a bit outing to go into details but it's an ongoing saga.

Today:
Boots £48 monthly toiletries, saved £19 on offers and 300 points on card.
Lidl £74.31
Vinted £0 pair of Fatface Jeans using profits.

Had a LSD here. Just £1 on a stamp.
That recipe looks delicious. Will have to add that to next week's plan!
Managed to get a 0% credit card at long last and it's wipe 3 months off now I'm not paying interest. Yay

DBrother on parenting tag-team today: visited prospective care home, checked on DF, called on DM. I will be on hand tomorrow when the care home manager comes to assess DF in hospital, then to DM's to get his bag, then (probably) taking DF to the home and getting him settled.

Today, however, DH and I did a lovely big walk on the South Downs, I spent £11 on picnic stuff (which I finished for dinner tonight) and then £40 on not very much at all for a pub lunch. Lovely to be out and about, and now that I have stretched out my sore feet and hips, am settling down to watch two dystopian dramas tonight - The Last of Us and The Handmaid's Tale. Cheery!

Lovely to hear about everyone's weekends and great work on budgeting, health commitments and - very important - food!

@WhitegreeNcandle pretty sure this is the one. I don’t make sweet potato dhal

i do make a sweet potato, baby potato, red pepper and chorizo salad. Basically cut the potatoes and sweet potatoes into smallish chunks and cook. Then tip the, snd all the rest of the ingredients into a frying pan on medium heat and add smoked paprika. About a tablespoon.

Welcome back from your cruise chimicanga. How was it?

Thanks all for the well wishes for the car. Yesterday it appeared fine, but the engine is definitely on the way out so will have to go to the garage sooner rather than later. The first quote we got was €5,000.

Yesterday I bought DS birthday presents and some last bits for his party but I had money put aside for these. His birthday is mid June so I am happy with how organised I am for this.

Wfh again today. It's a very wet morning here. Hopefully a NSD.

Haven’t been on for a few days as have been away for the weekend to North Wales! Was a spend few days, but all on food!! All in all probably spent about £200, that comes out of the joint account that we both put money into, so it’s not everyday money as such. Came home a day early as the forecast was rubbish!

Sorry to hear about your dad @BigSkies2022 I hope the visit from the care home manager goes well.

@Imperfectpolly hopefully the car fix will be less than expected 🤞🏻

Todays spends £115.32 on sainsburys shop this morning. That will take us up to Sunday.
£26.40 on a family swim for this afternoon. DH decided to still take the day off, despite coming home early from wales. So will be nice to all go together. Eldest dd loves swimming, but can sometimes get worked up when it’s finished, so good to have dh there to help deal with it.

Meal plan this week …
• pasta bake
• Chinese takeaway for dh bday
• homemade pizza - ww recipe, they are delish!
• oven baked paprika glazed chicken
• bbq on Saturday

Payday on Friday!! I now have £25.28 to last me 🫣 not a lot at all. But I hopefully won’t have to buy anything now until Sundays weekly shop! Although poss meeting up with a friend & her girls on Friday, either at mine or hers so one of us will need to get lunch bits. I’m slightly panicky at having so little in my bank account, I have money in others I can move over if needed, but I’m just going to go with it & see what happens!

I haven’t saved as much as I’d hoped this month, with a few bdays to pay for & bought things I probably didn’t need … so next month needs to be better. Pay slip may be less this month as I’ve had a whole day off work that was unpaid & a couple early finishes that I’m not sure if I’ve been paid for or not!

@Imperfectpolly in all honesty the awful start to the cruise spoilt it for me. I’d planned for it to be a quiet one with time to decompress but ended up worn out and ill half way through!! However, now I’m back it feels like the start of my planned time off work, and I’m looking forward to working my way through my list of things I want to do!

Ahhh I’m sorry Chimi that it wasn't the relaxing break you'd hoped for. I felt very stressed just reading about your trip start, so I can't imagine how stressful it was for you.

Big I've just started watching The Handmaid's Tale, my goodness is it bleak/tough viewing at times but I am hooked.

NSDs for the rest of the week please! Payday Friday! Have £79 in my bank account, a fridge full of shopping, and no plans other than work.

I forgot ydays spends ….

Boots - £48.54 on night time pull ups for pants. Because dd is dry in the day we don’t get pants provided just for night time. She’s nearly 15, we’re under urology now as the community team couldn’t prescribe any higher doses of meds. Hoping urology will be able to help with bedtime wetting!!

£36.42 on more protein/weight loss powder!

£26.65 on a new razor for dh’s bday tomorrow. He kept saying how he needed to look into getting a new one. So have got him a Gillette one that was originally about £45! Have got him some shaving foam to go with it & the kids will make him a cake when he’s at work.

Meal plan I’ve posted above should say Chinese ‘fakeaway’ not takeaway!!

Yesterdays spends. €40 on amazon for dehumidifier tablets and hanging dehumidifiers. then €20 on a new travel backpack that meets ryanairs travel bag dimension. the one i bought 2 years ago is too big!

Ddad will be discharged to care home tomorrow. DB and I will take him, have lunch there with him, and get him settled. Dmum has organised clothes for him, and a sponge bag, and is generally very relieved that he is going to be taken good care of for a couple of weeks and everyone can catch their breath.

Back home now and about to spend a peaceful hour or so pottering in the kitchen making a big pot of chilli, some of which will be tonight's dinner, some for the freezer and the houseguests of June. DS home from Milan tonight, looking forward to catching up with him.

Very cross about the ending of series 2 of the The Last of Us, Pennies - I kind of wish I hadn't started THT now, because there are series which seem to last years and get you nowhere. This current one (6? 7?) is apparently the last, and I'm still waiting for plot threads to be tied up. I should know better, but I can't seem to stop myself. I must remind myself that I can never get these hours back, but at least I can do workouts in front of this stuff, doesn't require concentration!

I'm so glad your DDad is getting better @BigSkies2022 and going to the care home for respite . I am sure it will do everyone the world of good bless you all 💐
That's such a pity your cruise wasn't as enjoyable as you needed . Good that you are looking forward to sorting out things though 😊
Morrisons £17 for me milk bread and stuff for my Mum .
That should see us through till Friday then a big shop in Aldi's l expect 😁
Raining here all night and all day but Dh very happy for the garden.

We ended up with a chip shop for tea no pickled eggs ;-) £5.40 as I went basic!
£1.75 on fruit for lunch.

Spent £66 in Tesco on shopping, including a £4 off voucher but I did stock up on laundry stuff, buy a birthday card and an unplanned bottle of wine. £20 on petrol. Not planning any spends for tomorrow but I am planning on a gym visit for the first time in months!!

£12.75 in Lidl today to ensure I get my 10% off on Thursday.
Had a plumber round to fix a few things the last plumber got wrong. He is yet to send over the quote. I'm a bit nervous about it!
So glad your DD is going to be looked after @BigSkies2022 , will be so much better for you all knowing he is in the best place.

morning all.

half term here. I'm still wfh in the mornings but am on mum duties in afternoon. have iPad kids at present - which i'm not entirely happy about but we got to do what we got to do.

spends today £47 for 3 kids to go to trampoline park. (one is a school friend of ds' and his mum will pay me for his fee). sadly whilst there are a gazillion amazing outdoor things to do here in Jersey, when it rains....there's not much. so trampoline park it is.

ds wanted to go visit the castle, which i was happy to do as have membership and it is a nice time. but mostly outside. and right on the coast. and its a bit windy today.

took them to the zoo yesterday afternoon to see the dinosaurs - we have membership for this. had pics taken with a triceratops and a velociraptor which tried to bite my butt. the kids thought this was hilarious.

spends yesterday £12 coffee and drinks and snacks at zoo cafe and £10 zoo shop

NSD for me yesterday. My first in a long time.

Today should be just planned spends of paying the childminder and going back to slimming world.

Good morning.

Yesterday was a NSD and I did a supermarket top up on Monday which was £42.

Payday is Friday. I need to buy some makeup and also I’ve arranged to meet my cousin for dinner on Thursday night. I have enough budgeted for both these. Whilst I’m looking forward to payday, I’m also really pleased that I’m not stacking up purchases that need to be made as soon as I get paid. This is definitely what I was doing before and it led to me being very trigger happy with the online purchase in the first few days after payday.

I was really good at writing down every purchase at the start of the month, but this I’ve week I’ve slacked a bit. I need to improve on this next month as it definitely made me feel more in control.

I cooked a chicken in the slow cooker yesterday- and I now have a big bowl of shredded chicken as well as a jug of stock. Im not exactly sure what to do with it all though! Any suggestions? I guess the options are to freeze portions of chicken meat as it is to add to meals in the future - or to make up meals now and freeze them. Would you make up whole meals like lentil chicken and chicken with couscous and freeze the whole lot - or just make up the protein/veg/sauce bit and make the carb bit at a later date when serving?

I don't eat meat @SockHop so I'm probably not the best person to reply so you're welcome to skip over mine and read others. But I'd probably do both. Freeze portions of meat to add to things later and freeze whole meals (excluding the carbs) :)
Feeling a little disheartened today tbh. I had added my dividend money to my savings. They were looking really good (considering I had none two months ago) and the bill for the plumber came in at three times higher than I expected this morning. So I've used the money I had put aside for it and taken back out the savings again. I guess I'm lucky to have the savings. In January this year I would have had to borrow the money or put on my credit card. I guess where I'm so new to the fugral game I'm putting money into savings and then using it for things that come in as I haven't built them up yet. Im sure this will change once I've done it for a little while longer and have more behind me and less debt to pay off. Just a little "meh" about it. Thankful I had the money though

Ah @Frugal25 that does sound disheartening but as you say, at least you had the money put aside for it so well done for that.

Would it make sense to get another quote if it’s come in much higher than you expected?

But on the bright side, at least the repairs will be done. I have some repairs I need to get organised around the house and I must admit, it’s playing on my mind.