Go For It - My 2010 Diary of Need!

ceebeeby

Week 3 (w/c 18/01/10) Meal Planning

To keep the OS Boards lovely and tidy, I'm going to keep my weekly plan in here instead as it's all part of keeping my spending to an absolute minimum.

With all your help, I've managed to survive weeks 1 & 2, total grocery spend for month so far is £14.22!

I've also included my planned shopping list, which will help me achieve the planned meals. Basically everything on the shopping list will be used up during the week, so ignore any of those ingredients for suggestions for next weeks menu.

Thanks so much again for everyones support

Planned Shop for 17th January


Cat Food £2.17
Whoopsie Bread £1.00
Fruit £2.00
Squash £0.25
Eggs £1.00
Steak £3.00
Chicken £3.00
Mushrooms £0.70
2 packets soup £0.56
Cheese spread £0.39
Sandwich paste £0.40
Ham £0.50
Curry Sauce £0.06
Milk £1.50
_____
£16.47

What's left in the store AFTER all plans have been made (i.e. to start w/c 25/01 with)!

Freezer
6 'best' lincolnshire sausages
Irish fruit loaf
pancakes / pkt pitta
Loads of ice-lollies!
2 Birds Eye Chicken Steaks
Full pkt veggie mince
1 pkt fish pie sauce
2 microwave meals (spag bol / prawn curry)
1 portion left over Turkey Curry and Rice
Frozen Lemon Chicken Sauce
Huge lump of cheese
1/2 bag of frozen strawberries

Fridge
4l milk - 1l watered down to skimmed
Jam / Lemon Curd
Beer!
Lots of Marg / Butter / Trex


Cupboards
2 pkts Pasta Shapes
Dried Spagetti - large packet ½ pkt left
2 x pkt savoury rice
1 tin meatballs
1 tin tomatos
1 tin chick peas
4 tins rice pudding
4 tins sliced peaches
1 pkt value pre-ready pasta
2 pkts pre-ready rice
9 pkts value noodles (kids favourite stuff!)
1 small jar dolmio pasta sauce
Low Amount cereal (weetabix, bran flakes, rice crispies, porridge)
Tea / Coffee / Hot Chocolate
All sorts of home baking stuff incl. 2 jars mincemeat
Herbs /spices / gravy / stock cubes / Ketchups (every flavour) (lots)
chilli sauce
1 pkt stuffing
4 pkts instant custard
Biscuits / chocolate / Xmas Pud / Boxed Chocolates
1 pkt chicken soup
2 pkts instant cheese sauce
Drinking squash

Meal Plan So Far

Mon 18th Jan – Birthday
Breakfast Cereal / Pancakes
Lunch Sandwiches
Dinner Steak, mushrooms, potato wedges, egg
Home-made cake

Tuesday 19th Jan
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Sandwiches
Dinner Pasta and Cheese Sauce with bacon veggy bits and garlic baguettes

Wednesday 20th Jan
Breakfast Toast
Lunch Tortilla Wraps
Dinner Sweet and Sour Turkey and Rice

Thursday 21st Jan
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Sandwiches
Dinner Soup and chunky bread

Friday 22nd Jan
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Sandwiches
Dinner Pork Bolognaise Pasta

Saturday 23rd Jan
Breakfast Porridge / Toast
Lunch Noodles
Dinner Roast Chicken, Potato and freezer veg

Sunday 24th Jan
Breakfast Porridge / Toast
Lunch Chicken Curry and Rice with Naan Bread
Dinner Chicken Soup with veg.

sparky0107

Hiya ceebeeby,
Just read your diary, well done so far, just thought I'd pass on a tomato sauce recipe to you, it makes a large pan full, and it freezes, will be checking in on your diary.

Good luck

Tomato Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

· 3 large onions
· Olive oil
· 6 tins of crushed tomatoes or 4 bottles of passata
· 6 cloves of garlic
· 2/3 tablespoons of Italian herbs
· 2 bay leaves crushed
· 2 teaspoons of salt
· Pepper to own taste
· 3 small tins of tomato puree
· 2/3 teaspoons of sugar
· 2 large glasses of red wine

Method

Peel & chop the onions, peel & crush the garlic. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, add the Italian herbs & crushed bay leaves, add the onions & garlic and stir, add salt, pepper & sugar to pan, keep stirring until the onions go soft and clear.

Add the tomatoes or passata and bring to the boil, lower the heat & add the tomato puree, also add 1 glass of wine, check for seasoning, adjust to your own taste. Simmer for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Take the second glass of wine, sit in front of the TV and drink the wine! Enjoy.

This is the perfect base for any Italian dish, and works well with Beef. Chicken, Turkey mince or any white fish.

The sauce will freeze perfectly, that's why you make such a big pan full.

Also try it as Bolognaise, spooned onto garlic bread slices, topped with mozzarella cheese & sprinkled with herbs, a tasty mini pizza snack.

ceebeeby

Oooh, that looks delicious! Thank you!!!

sparky0107

ceebeeby wrote: »

Oooh, that looks delicious! Thank you!!!

You're more than welcome x

ceebeeby

Day 15
Money Spent - zero
Extra Money Earnt - zero
Money Saved - zero
Hours / Days since last cigarette - 2 weeks & 1 day
Number of sweets / cakes etc. -8 Ferrero Rocher - I'm a greedy, weak person!
week weigh in: -1lb = 1 / 35lb.
Hardest Thing So Far - still the eating
HL Score: 2/10

Never logged on yesterday as was working days and having a sad night which involved lying in bed, reading and eating chocolate. I need to change my life-style.

Saturday is going to be a major flying day I hope as the house is filthy.

Have promised my Gran some help with moving furniture, so will need to go there at some stage.

Catalogue bill arrived, and although I've paid this month already, it says due by the 30th Jan - I don't get paid till 29th so suspect it won't get to bank in time ... am I a month behind, and if so, how on earth am I gonna catch up as it's over £200?

ceebeeby

Day 16 - Saturday
Money Spent - zero
Extra Money Earnt - zero
Money Saved - zero
Hours / Days since last cigarette - 2 weeks & 2 days
Number of sweets / cakes etc. -Not so bad
week weigh in: -1lb = 1 / 35lb.
Hardest Thing So Far - still the eating
HL Score: 7/10

No log-ons over the week-end.

Saturday was spent flying all day long - from 08:00 until 22:00! Didn't finish the whole house, but got a good whack done. Declaring an NSD for Saturday!

ceebeeby

Day 17 - Sunday
Money Spent - £23.90
Extra Money Earnt - zero
Money Saved - zero
Hours / Days since last cigarette - 2 weeks & 3 days
Number of sweets / cakes etc. - Worse than yesterday!
week weigh in: -1lb = 1 / 35lb.
Hardest Thing So Far - still the eating
HL Score: 8/10

No log-ons over the week-end.

Sunday morning carried on flying.

In the afternoon had to move Grans furniture, go and do grocery shopping and DH's birthday present shopping. Finally managed to put the mop down at about 7 ish, just in time to wave good-bye to the week-end.

Don't know how long I'm going to manage to keep this up, all the cleaning is killing me!!

ceebeeby

Day 18 - Monday
Money Spent - £42.47
Extra Money Earnt - zero
Money Saved - zero
Hours / Days since last cigarette - 2 weeks & 4 days
Number of sweets / cakes etc. - birthday cake
week weigh in: -1lb = 1 / 35lb.
Hardest Thing So Far - Counting up HL
HL Score: 9/10
Flying Stars (**NEW**): Almost 1 plus some extras!

Lots more flying tonight.

Think I've sorted a good deal for some brakes.

DH birthday, managed to make it okay with some whoopsie steak, egg, chips and mushrooms - all out of grocery budget.

Now desperately need to work out Februarys budget to keep me right going forwards. Have started doing the outline in Post 1, but will keep it up going forwards.

Am going to give the sneaky pennies pesto a go over the weekend - need to blag a free food processor somehow - did I mention i've been offered a freebie bread maker?

I've set up a new flying stars section in my sig to see if I can keep this house tidy and me off my lazy bottom!

Nottoobadyet

Wow, CeeBeeby, your posts are so organized! Im impressed, if you are half as organized in your real life you'll have no problem with all your challenges.

ceebeeby

Day 19 - Tuesday
Money Spent - zero
Extra Money Earnt - £30 - 2 x sales from flying clear-out
Money Saved - zero
Hours / Days since last cigarette - 19 days
Number of sweets / cakes etc. - zero
week weigh in: -1lb = 1 / 35lb.
Hardest Thing So Far - tracking spends
HL Score: 9/10
Flying Stars (**NEW**): Still only almost 1 ...

Have just worked out Feb's finances properly for page 1, and it looks a lot better than this time last month! Thank goodness! Perhaps now I can start paying off some of this dratted debt!

I made £30 today from a couple of things that were sold as a result of last weeks clear-out. As per the family agreement though, these sales are for holiday treats only, so are going straight into the pot we have at home for this (it's a Terramundi, so can't be raided!!!).

Tomorrows 'big task' is to meal plan for next week - have got a whopping £18 left, so will be able to get some treats! I upped next months allowance by £40 so that I could bulk buy in some necessitites such as soap powders, loo rolls, flour, butter etc. Also, the pets have been given their own budget, seeing as though they ate most of ours this month.

Am on lates tonight, so probably minimal flying only ... but will catch up tomorrow.