The MSE diet - in all senses of the word

fabfuture

Just checked through all May grocery receipts. Spent £102 out of expected budget of £130, so have changed to £100 budget for this month. Should be entirely possible with very careful shopping and the freezer is just about full, so need to eat out of that! Groceries included industrial quantities of tea and coffee on special, which will last at least six weeks plus a lot of household items. Only tricky thing will be eating fewer cheaper carbs as I'm on calorie controlled diet at the mo and that generally means lean meats & fresh fruit & vege as a basis. Thank goodness for frozen vege, prawns etc. Buying items at the local market on Saturday was not great - went to a stall where 'they' choose the fruit rather than the buyer - not doing that again. So pleased that there is progress on the spending - or saving - front. The oil tanker of debt is just taking a long time to start to turn around.

Flylady_Flower

fabfuture wrote: »

She has effectively cancelled the work. She had paid a deposit, but we didn't have a contract in place, so I now won't get that money.

Paying a deposit and then cancelling does not give permission for the person to get the money back - a deposit is just that, a deposit and if you cancel you loose it - Please do not pay it back, contract or not!

fabfuture wrote: »

Hah! Does cheese freeze? Have a big block of cheddar in the fridge and only 'need' a small amount.

Yes, although it is better to grate it first as it goes all crumbly when you defrost it.

Doing well so far FF - keep up the good work! :T:T:T

fabfuture

Ta for the FF encouragement. I certainly wouldn't be paying back the deposit - I'm just disappointed at not getting the balance. And my fault, for not either getting a contract earlier or finding out earlier for my cashflow. Ta for cheese grating suggestion - will do.

Just back from four days away with family. Don't know if I put on weight - imagine I did, as it certainly wasn't a calorie-controlled few days, nor did I pig out completely and had one alcoholic drink.

Spent a bit on lunches out and few groceries - think about £35. Now will buckle down and concentrate on getting money in this week: ebay, chasing invoices and client work. No big expected spends this week. Have 1500 calorie-diet planned for tomorrow and need to get carrots, lentils, 2 leeks & skimmed milk for that. Guess some other food for later in the week (although this will also give me another lunch or dinner's soup). Want to eat things out of the freezer as well this week - perhaps salmon and cauliflower & broccoli at least one night.

fabfuture

Double-checked when next client payment is due and I thought it was June 10 (Wednesday), but it's not until the 25th. Should also have other payments before that time - waiting on cheque and possibly credit card payment, but means I have to pretty much stay home for the coming week. *Sigh*

On the up side, ate well today. Porridge with raisins & banana, yellow lentil & vegetable soup (using broccoli from the freezer - starting to run out of room in there), tinned tomatoes, grated carrot and spring onions. Delicious, with a couple of crispbreads. Then quorn spag bol for dinner, with an apple and fizzy water with lemon juice. Also had a punnet of strawberries, so five a day have most definitely been eaten today and easily stayed inside 1500 calories. Also still feel fairly full and have drunk reasonable amount of water - about a litre. Could be more, but forgot to drink this morning. Mixed day.

Latest setback has prompted me to think of cancelling my holiday next month. I can't essentially afford it. I've paid a deposit, but think there are others on the waiting list, so may be able to get that returned. Balance is due next week & don't know how to pay it at the moment. Not what I want, but am also tired of feeling really broke.

fabfuture

Business is feeling very slow - few client inquiries and a definite need to do some rainmaking. Stayed within calorie limit and planned tomorrow's menu. Have also planned meals until Sunday from cupboard, fridge or freezer and bought two limes today - the only extra thing I needed.

Listed six items on ebay tonight. I had photographed the items & some others and done listing details and weighed items & worked out postage. It took me ages tonight to get the hang of ebay again - and none of the additional picture links worked, so have just resorted to uploading to Picasa and putting a manual cut & paste link into the text of the ad. If someone is interested in the item, they can use the link.

Hoping these will give me a bit of pin money for early next week (five day listing, ending on Sunday night).

Tomorrow, must spend the day rainmaking and getting in money where I can.

fabfuture

Business still slow, but at least a small cheque came in. Am chasing another the same size, but accounts department don't seem to want to answer phone - someone hung up on me in one call & the others always go through to voicemail.

Have managed to lose some weight, though, and spending small amounts on food. My fridge is looking empty, as are the cupboards. Strangely, I'm quite excited about that - a bit of a clear-out. Also should mean I don't waste any food, although haven't in the past couple of weeks.

fabfuture

Checked bank account today and my house insurance cheque has bounced. The cheque didn't take me further than the £250 reserve that Barclays puts on the end of your overdraft, so I don't know why that has happened. It's really made me cross. I put a cheque in yesterday, which will bring it up, but not quite enough to clear the cheque and keep within the my regular overdraft limit.

In good news, I had got in touch with the client who is due to pay on the 25th (originally, I somehow thought it was June 10) about a number of things and it seems they could be paying early. I so hope they do. Another client also is due to call me today and buy some products - and that's another £240 or so worth or possibly more. They may buy on a credit card, in which case I won't see the money until next week, but it will be money in. Cash just seems to be going out very quickly and only a little is coming back in.

Checked my six Ebay items and there are bids on three of the six items and a question on one of the others. The auctions close on Sunday, so quite pleased about that. Not a huge amount of cash, but will be good to get the items out from my life, since they are just cluttering it up at the moment and into the home of someone where they will be appreciated - as well as the spare cash.

fabfuture

Hoorah! Checked weight and am half a kilo down on when I started. It's not the progress I planned, but it is progress.





Really pleased with staying within my calorie count today. I didn't yesterday - still was about 500 below the number of calories I'm meant to burn just living, so I won't have put on weight, but not the 1000 or so deficit I have been aiming for every day.

A second invoice payment has come in - from the accounts department which wouldn't answer its phone, so that went in the bank today and has been credited and another client paid via credit card about lunchtime, so that should appear in my account by the middle of next week.

Went shopping today - most for fresh salads & vege and some basics like crispbreads and milk. Spent £14.05, which I don't think I could have reduced, apart from 50p on mint for potato salad, which had been on my list. I'm also going to put the mint plant in a pot to join the thyme and basil on the balcony and see if it could do me the summer.

I've just checked my net worth and I'm pretty much the same as I was when I started this a month ago ... which is rubbish. On the positive side, I'd probably be in completely dire straights if I hadn't taken things in hand, but it still means I have hardly progressed - but have caught up on client work. Today's payments aren't included in that, but they just about cancel out the bounced insurance payment which needs to be made.

penguin83

Well done on your weight loss FF and good news on getting the invoice paid.

Hope the ebay items go for a good price, I have loads to ebay but I am feeling far too lazy at the minute to list them - must make more effort!

Well done on coming in under your grocery budget as well for May x x x

Flylady_Flower

Don't be too down FF - well done on keeping up on here with your progress - every achievement, however small, is still an achievement, and you will only fail when you fail to get back up again after being knocked down.

I think you're going great and once you're over this dip in work things will pick up and you will be in a good position to move forward with it. Well done on the weight loss too - way to go!