A pound stretching maternity

MrsSave · 26 August 2016 at 10:44PM

Today was a good day

I ordered wine! One website had an offer code for a little while for £30 off when you spend £30 or more on wine. I have 12 bottles on the way for the pricely sum of £10. I just hope it is honoured, as it will be fab for our Christmas stash.

With that and the felt set, today has cost me £12.50 instead of something like £70. :j

Dh brought me home a new perfume too. Well, when I say a new perfume he'd been given a tester card from somewhere so brought that home for me. It's the thought that counts :rotfl:

I've exchanged our Clubcard vouchers for cinema tickets tonight, so me and Dh are having a date night soon. We've already got £30 of food vouchers waiting to be used so I'll go for a meal followed by a film and it won't cost much!

Made the chilli for dinner and there was plenty left over so will have some for lunch tomorrow as well. Ended up having it in a wholemeal pitta with a salad. I don't think the pitta counts as a healthy b but to be honest it's close enough so I'm counting it as one!

I had my whooping cough jab. Arm aches now!! Anti d jab will be the next one, followed soon after by the flu jab! All within the next 6 weeks, as well as a blood test! Lovely!!

MrsSave · 27 August 2016 at 7:16AM

No news from the wine order overnight, so I'm really hoping it's honoured! It's due to be delivered by Wednesday

My Tesco credit card statement should be ready today, so I'll check that next and pay it off. I'm aiming to have it at under £900 next month.

We haven't got much planned today so will probably keep it pretty quiet as we're out for most of the day tomorrow. May find somewhere nice to go for a walk this afternoon. There's plenty of chilli left over so will be having that for lunch.

MrsSave · 27 August 2016 at 7:47AM

Tesco card was £1346.99 :eek: That's far too much but did include things we did on our holiday at the beginning of August. I've just paid it off in full (I love being able to do that each month!).

MrsSave · 27 August 2016 at 10:32PM

A few spends today.

Popped into wilko and spent around £22, will dig the receipt out tomorrow and update YNAB. That was spent on four Christmas presents, 3 tester pots, a kite and sweets for Dh and me (pick n mix half price). The tester pots are for our bedroom. We've had the same paper up since we moved in, and I really dislike it. I mention it from time to time but have never pushed for it to be changed. Then in wilko today, Dh told me to pick some tester pots! :j

The Christmas presents were a police car with accessories for £1 for ds's stocking, a 1000 piece jigsaw for my jigsaw mad mother in law for £5, a Christmas jigsaw for ds (£2) and a make believe breakfast set for £2.50 which will be for one of the children we buy for. I'm going to sit down tomorrow to update the Christmas gift list so I know for sure who else we have to buy for. We also picked up the felt set today.

We then had a slice of cake and a drink each in the Debenhams cafe (slimming work doesn't count at the weekend!!), which came out of the cash in my purse so won't affect YNAB.

Afterwards we popped to Tesco for yoghurts and biscuits and spent £2.34. We have a £5 budget per week for mid week top ups so that will come from there. The biscuits are slimming world friendly at 5 syns each.

We had steak for dinner tonight (once ds was asleep) which I bought during the weekly shop so it was within our food budget. It was tasty to think it was a cheaper one.

Tomorrow we will be spending even more money, though it is planned. We are going out for lunch with friends. I have £35 budgeted for it.

MrsSave · 28 August 2016 at 9:32AM

I live in a quiet little area, but last night was anything but. Was woken a couple of times by some random machinery noises, and one of my neighbours arriving home after a night out (I'm guessing around 2:30ish). It's very rarely noisy here!

Ds woke at just gone 7 this morning, so dh got him up and I sorted through the bits we bought yesterday, updated my Christmas/birthday file and then made a note on my phone of who I've got left to buy for and how much we're budgeting for each person. All gifts bought yesterday have been put away and YNBA has been updated. I've budgeted £170 for the gifts left to buy (not including dh) and that money is all in the account ready.

We're off out for lunch today, which we've budgeted £35 for. As well as that I want to sort our meal plan for next week and get working on our shopping list. I won't be shopping until Thursday but no harm in being organised!!

MrsSave · 29 August 2016 at 8:00AM

Yesterday's spends:

Lunch: budgeted £35, spent £30 :j

Popped into a big, new, shiny B&M store (a lot nicer than our local one) and spent £11.97. All on Christmas gifts. I have a few children with £5 budgets, I spent £3.99 each on 2 of them, I also bought George Pig slippers for ds's stocking for £3.99. All I need for ds's stocking now is a piece of fruit and some chocolate coins.

I bought a smellies set with a floral eau de toilette and body lotion from M&S reduced from £12.50 to £6. It will be for Dh's grandmother. She loves her sprays and things so figured a nice M&S set would suit her.

Did also pop quickly into Co-op for ice creams, but they came from cash in purse so not touched YNAB for them.

All spends have been updated on YNAB.

I found some information about 'dump bags' yesterday. It's where you pop all the ingredients for a slow cooker meal (prepped) into a zip lock freezer bag, and then freeze them. You take them out the day before you want to use them to defrost and then chuck them in the slow cooker in the morning. No chopping to do on the day, it's all prepped ahead of time. I thought I'd try this, especially with baby number 2 due in 3 months, it means we will be eating well with minimum effort once baby is here if all the work is done beforehand. I currently have a voucher for 350 extra points on my next home delivery (which converts to £14 if I use it for eating out) so may order a shop of meat and veg, etc to prep some dump bags.

I have found some recipes, will make a list of what ingredients I need to make a few bags and put in an order for this week at some point as it's my last week off before heading back to work.

I haven't got a timer on my slow cooker, so have thought about buying a timer you can plug into the socket. They have them at £3 in Wilko so may order today, as if I'm out all day 10-11 hours can be too long for food in the slow cooker.

MrsSave · 29 August 2016 at 10:20PM

Bank holidays are expensive

(or I make them expensive anyway!!).

Popped to the shops for a walk around this morning whilst Dh took ds to his swimming lesson (already been paid for). Took £10 out in cash, and then spent most of it! I picked up the timer for £3 and popped into the Card Factory to stock up on cards needed for September and a few spares from their 7 for £1 range. Spent £5.34 there.

I the met up with Dh and ds. We had lunch out which wasn't planned, but nice! Spent just under £17 on lunch for us. I then spotted a toy I had my eye on anyway for my niece for Christmas reduced from £18 to £10. I had budgeted £15 for her, so nicely under budget! I also picked up one more gift (50p under budget) and some yoghurts/ice lollies for ds. £19 spent there.

By the time we got home I was shattered and fell asleep

I was supposed to be making a curry from scratch, but ended up buying a jar of curry sauce instead. It could've been worse - we could have ended up eating a takeaway! I will admit to buying some microwave rice :eek: poppadums and caffeine free Coke as well.

I need to tot these spends up properly tomorrow and update YNAB. I also need to make sure that I draw a nice big line under the weekend spends and pull our belts in a little. I want 2 nsds this week. Tomorrow and Thursday definitely won't be ones, will try for the other days.

MrsSave · 30 August 2016 at 6:43AM

Today's plan...

Take DS to his swimming lesson, Done
Eat lunch at home, Done
Food shop home delivery (used extra points voucher), Done
Take DS to have his school trousers shortened, Done
Prep 10 dump meals, Done
Dinner from stores,
Wash swimming kit, Done
Check banking and YNAB, Done
Check Tesco credit card, Done
Update YNAB with yesterday's spends properly (I've put guesses in), Done
Transfer money to credit card account, Done

I've applied for an M&S credit card this morning through this site. If you spend on it (minimum spend of 1p) they'll send you a £25 voucher for food/wine by the middle/end of November. That'll be lovely just before Christmas.

My iPad is taking forever to charge up. :eek: I'll be gutted if it's on it's way out, though it is 4 years old and I guess they won't last for ever. Fingers crossed it's just having a little tantrum and will be back to full working order soon!!

MrsSave · 30 August 2016 at 7:00AM

Oooooh, I've just checked on the 12 bottles of wine for £10 I ordered. It has changed from 'order created' to 'waiting for despatch'. That's surely a good sign. The delivery date was by tomorrow so fingers crossed :j

kerron7 · 30 August 2016 at 5:48PM

Been reading your diary over the past week and just wanted to say hi!

Wish I was as organised as you with Christmas presents, I've brought a few things but really need to make a proper start.

Hope your wine makes an appearance tomorrow

A pound stretching maternity

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free