Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

themadvix

Oh, hope you get that money back!

CathT

Fingers crossed for the refund! 

newgirly

Oops, don’t know what I’ve been doing the last few days, well apart from a bit more shopping 😬
Best friend escorted me to Costco on her card today, bought too much really but I haven’t been since last year and probably won’t go again soon. Got myself their lovely slippers and an advent calendar, other than that I was pretty sensible. Also got dd her refund from the Albert hall today which was a relief.

Now the really exciting news of the year is we have a new Lidl opened 🥳 it’s in the retail park by the big shopping centre I use and is easy and free to park outside. I have no excuse at all now for shopping anywhere else! I’ve downloaded the app already as you get free money apparently when shopping regularly. It’s cheaper than Aldi I think 🤔 but more importantly it’s a much nicer shop and location to other branches near us. 

In the spirit of trying to not go crazy buying stuff (as I have been a bit!) I’m going to set a total grocery spending budget until the end of the year of £1000 from tomorrow. It’s not much less than our usual supposed food budget anyway really, it’s normally £500 for food and petrol which is about £60 odd. This works out at £12.82 per day 😱 I’m not including the Xmas food order of meat and desserts for Xmas day but everything else is from the budget. 

Will need to plan and shop waaaay better than I have been recently! 

South_coast

Yay for Lidl 😍🥳!

themadvix

All sounding good NG. Glad DD got her refund!

Bargainhunter30

The new Lidls are amazing. More space inside and a great range of products. My only gripe is if you go at the end of the day, some products are sold out and they dont always restock. Particularly fruit and veg. Enjoy x

CathT

Great news about the refund for dd. The new l1dl should definitely help with the food spend challenge. I'm still yet to make any challenges over here! 

newgirly

Thanks everyone 🙂
I might pop to Lidl first thing if I wake up early! I feel like it should be quiet as its in a retail park not in town, we shall see. So far I’ve spent zero of the £1000 budget, might attempt a meal plan tonight as well. 

Xmas is pretty well organised, I even got dd and I matching cardi’s  last week. Everything will be at home I suppose so I’m making it as silly and back to basics as I can. Next on the list is finding or buying second hand microphones for a bit of Xbox Beatles/queen karaoke for Xmas day. Need to replenish the Prosecco I bought too as we have had a lot of “borrowing” of bottles lately 😆 I see Tesco is doing 25% off again, so might get 6 more and hide them. 

Here’s the beauty’s I’ve bought, very Xmas with the kranks 😬:

newgirly

First successful proper shop at Lidl today, I went ten mins after opening and there was hardly anyone in there, it’s further than two other Lidl’s but they are in towns rather than a retail park so busier (plus ones a bit rough! Snobby but true 😆) I meal planned and took a list, we have some meat in the freezer still so I only needed fish and chicken thighs but it came to under £73 😱 I bought loads so am very pleased 😁

Also went for a walk with best friend and got an outdoors coffee, such a shame we are back here again. As some others have said on their diaries I think some of us are feeling all this a bit more lately. I’ve been feeling a bit panicky, and worrying about my health for no real reason again, strangely I’m not that worried about COVID which doesn’t make sense! Again I paid for an online gp appointment (£19) via boots, and was told it’s probably nothing to worry about but ask a dr or dentist to check it next time I visit to make sure, except that won’t be for ages now. All this comes with a lot of guilt as so many people are really ill.

Anyway, on a brighter note dh brought home loads of work to keep me busy at the weekend, keeping active is probably a good idea. 

Financial news today - that makes it sound exciting 😆 is I spent £192 on Geraldine’s car insurance fully comp with protected ncd and hopefully a bit of cashback, around £30 cheaper than last year. Plus I donated £5 to a local lady who is doing a fabulous daily skeleton display in her front lawn in aid the local hospice, today they were ironing and she’d made a full size cardboard washing machine 😬

themadvix

I can’t stand Halloween (sorry!), but the skeleton display sounds excellent! Skeletons ironing! 😂