My 12 day mini skintness challenge..

immoral_angeluk · 28 April 2015 at 9:43AM

Good morning!

Day 2.

So far today I've fed the chickens and cleaned out the coop. Unfortunately all the feed has now gone (as they're getting healthier and it's getting warmer they're eating more, which is great considering the poor condition they were in when they came to us, the poor things. Never, EVER buy eggs from battery hens. It's just pure cruelty.

I've also made my packed lunch ready for college. My original plan to get the train now looks like it's going to be scuppered seeing as I need to get chicken feed, but thankfully this is only a slight detour out of my way to college. I also have to pick up my prescription from a place just outside of town so driving it is...

Other than that, no plans to do or spend anything else today so the predicted spend is:

Petrol based on 20p a mile (17 miles according to mapmyride) = £3.40
Parking £3.80
Feed £10
= £17.20

I have £19 budget over the 2 days seeing as I didn't spend anything yesterday so £17.20 = £1.80 leftover.

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

immoral_angeluk · 28 April 2015 at 3:47PM

Ok, so today hasn't exactly gone to plan. Ended up meeting an old friend and also getting a call to say some parts I had to order for the car as part of the repairs have arrived, which means a 26 mile round trip to go and collect them. Poo. That means I've had to put petrol it, but that at least means I've been able to reset the trip clock.

So today I'll have spent:

£10 petrol
£10.27 chicken feed (Got small pellets instead of crumble and the chooks have taken to it fine! Hurrah!)
£1.30 parking

Happily had my packed lunch of a peanut butter and jam sandwich, choc mini roll, biscuits and an apple.

Total spend so far over 2 days, £21.57. Tomorrow is DEFINITELY going to have to be a no spend day to make up for having to put petrol in today.

Tonight's dinner is the burgers. Realised also that I can make egg friend rice so going to look into that for another meal later this week.

Karonher · 28 April 2015 at 8:41PM

Just a quick one that jumps out at me before I dash to school,that is a firm fave in my house...pasta salad. Cook pasta, and run under cold water so it's cold. Chop some cucumber, tomato, pepper, and sweetcorn if we have any, put into a big bowl with the cold pasta and mix with a squirt of mayo.

I use 1000 Island Dressing instead of Mayo. I know that is no good at the moment as the OP does not have that in but could be one for the future

in_need_of_direction · 28 April 2015 at 9:18PM

For me, there's nothing to beat mashed potato with a tin of tuna or some pieces of bacon thru it and topped with cheese. Supplement with frozen veg.

FatVonD · 29 April 2015 at 12:15AM

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Foodie inventory done. I've worked out at least a couple of meals out of this lot so far.

Kitchen/pantry
4 jacket potatoes
1/2 loaf bread
6 apples
2 bananas
2 pears
19 eggs (plus 3/4 a day)
3 bagels
1/2 box of the kids' cereal
6 'fun size' boxes of cereal
1/4 box weight watchers (WW) cereal
Gravy/sauces/herbs plus a few herbs in the garden
Currants
3 chocolate mini rolls
2 mini boxes of raisins
3/4 malt loaf
caster/demerera sugar
plain/self raising flower
60g long grain rice
4 'mug shots'
1 full bag pasta
golden syrup
peanut butter
1 tin chopped tomatoes
2 tins of tuna

Cats/chickens
5 days of Dry cat food
6 days of tinned cat meat
2 weeks worth of cat litter
3-4 weeks worth of sunflower seeds (chooks)
1 week worth of chicken grit
5 days worth of mealworms (used for training/treats)
2-3 days worth of main chicken feed (though in fairness the whole bag has lasted about 8-9 weeks!)
3-4 weeks worth of straw bedding

Fridge
Strawberry jam
Mayonnaise
Mint sauce
Crusha/chocolate milk
Bertolli spread
Tube of tomato puree
2 salad tomatoes
2 bell peppers
1 cucumber
3/4 bag of carrots
Tonight's pudding

Freezer
yorkshire puddings
1 serving of frozen peas
pack of WW sausages
12 bread rolls
2 loaves of WW bread
1 giant yorkshire
1 garlic bread
2 meals worth of frozen mixed veg
1 WW tortilla
8 burgers

So I can do:
Jacket potatoes with tuna and preprepared pudding
Sausages, yorkshires and veg/toad in the hole
Burgers with tomato/cucumber
Pasta with tinned chopped tomatoes, pepper/tomato puree/herbs/garlic bread

Not sure what else yet though. My youngest also hates eggs, which makes things awkward!

I will need to buy milk (ran out today) which is £1 each, chicken feed £10 (from a local farm shop and is cheaper than online) and dry cat food £1 a bag/box. Need to have a think about what else I can get to make up some cheap meals!

You should try posting this over on the old style board, they will stretch this lot to its limits for you!

Off the top of my head though (if you've not already eaten them) you could take the skin off 4 of the sausages and mash them into a box of Tesco value stuffing mix to go further ( you don't have to have it with a roast, obviously, you could make into balls or use as a sandwich filling.

Also... Defrost a few of your burgers, make breadcrumbs from about 4 slices of bread, Grate an onion and one of your bell peppers and squidgy the whole lot together with a crushed clove of garlic, an egg and some cumin then shape into meatballs and fry, they will go twice as far.

MrsSave · 29 April 2015 at 9:47AM

This is definitely a doable budget.

Can you do your supermarket shop in the evening or a Sunday? I very rarely buy full price meat now, always look for yellow sticker goods and freeze. I mix this in with the 3 for £10 as discount still comes off. Even at first discount the £4 items come down to £2.60. Then take 66p off for the multi buy, which makes £1.94 each, 3 items £5.82 instead of £10. If you catch them further discounted, even better.

Pasta and rice I always buy value. Same with most tinned goods. Bread and cakes you can get yellow stickered as well. Apples are currently 69p in Tesco, as are a few other fruit/veg bits. Do you need any more animal feed etc? I'd personally buy that now so I know what I'm left with. Do you have to pay for parking, or is there somewhere else to park that is free but slightly further to walk.

Work out how much petrol you will need over the next week and a half and, again, I'd personally pop it in the car now. By doing this it'd show me clearly how much was left for food, and I bet you can amaze yourself and have some money left over at the end.

immoral_angeluk · 29 April 2015 at 5:24PM

Hurrah! No spend day. Had therapy today but OH and I combined it with lunch which is always nice. He's lucky enough to work from home and manage his own time so we get to have lunch dates

After we got home I went and planted my Pak choi and beetroot up at the allotment as well as giving everything a check seeing as it's been frosty. Thankfully everything still looks fine and we've had no casualties!

We're having sausages, frozen mixed veg yorkshire puddings and gravy today for dinner. Going to go to Tesco tomorrow and get some of the cheap fruit and veg seeing as it's on offer. I was going to go to our local market today but even our market wouldn't be able to beat 69p for fruit.

The chickens are really happy with their pellet food (It's a smaller type suited to bantam chickens who are the smallest breed) and I've mixed together the remaining mixed grit and sunflower seeds so that it hopefully lasts a bit longer. OH also bought them some mealworms today (He totally spoils them..) so they're happy.

The trip clock on the car is currently showing about 30 miles driven (which is odd considering google said our journey yesterday alone should have been 26 miles... *shrugs*) and I've used about a third of what I put in so it's looking like I should get about 100 or so miles for my tenner. Will see what it says later in the week though.

I have had some good news today, in that a refund I was due for some webhosting that was wrongly taken has been paid. That means I should be getting something like £70 back at some point in the next week (I hope, it's an american company so all depends on the bank processing times and the exchange rate. It was somewhere around $140 anyway.

Hope it hurries up! That will pay for a decent amount of food for us!

in_need_of_direction · 29 April 2015 at 7:47PM

Why not stick with your challenge and kick start the emergency fund with the refund.

immoral_angeluk · 30 April 2015 at 6:22PM

What started off as being an awful, awful black dog actually turned into a ok day with some good news.

OH took me out for lunch to get me up and out of bed, and we had a really nice pub lunch.

Managed to get some on offer fruit snacky bits from Tesco. Got 2 bags of apples, a big bunch of bananas, satsumas, parsnips, salad tomatoes, potatoes, biscuits and cereal bars for £8.01. There was something else I got with that but I've forgotten now.

This afternoon I called up my credit card companies which is really good for me, as I generally avoid talking to anyone when I'm bad. I cancelled two of them, and my third I've left opened but reduced the limit to £500, as apparently I've had it open and 'perfectly run' for 10 years and it's the same company as who I bank with. Seeing as we're hoping to get a mortgage in the next 12ish months, they said keeping it open but clear would look better as it shows a good history especially as it's linked to my current account. They also reduced it to 0% interest in purchases for a year if I did need to use it (Not that I do, it's already been cut up and binned). They also chased up a PPI refund I was due from late last year. Apparently they sent me a cheque in November but seeing as it's gone walkies they're going to cancel it and issue the payment via BACS. That means I should get £107 in my account in about 2 weeks :T Not that it helps me now, but that's still really good news.

Haven't had my web hosting refund yet, but I'm keeping an eye out for it and my fingers crossed.

Tonight's dinner I was very impressed with. :T
I had about 70g of long grain rice left, so I learned how to make egg fried rice. I used 3 eggs laid today by our chickens, spring onions from our back garden, the pepper and last bit of the frozen peas I had left over plus a bit of soy sauce and olive oil. It was gorgeous and made the perfect amount for the 3 of us on it's own.

Hurrah!

Tomorrow is a big day for bills, so I'm not looking forward to seeing the bank account in the morning. :eek: I've only got £150 in there as it is...

asparagus1968 · 30 April 2015 at 6:57PM

Glad you chased that black dog away

so pleased that you have some money coming in, especially as it was rightfully yours anyway!
We had fried rice tonight too- but with bacon lardons, peas and sweetcorn, soy sauce and sweet chilli sauce, yum.
keep up the good work, like hearing how you are doing.

My 12 day mini skintness challenge..

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