Minky's stop messin about diary!

MinkyBoo

Having had small shopping splurge I've totted up our debts again. The total stands at £4,505.25 not much progress. I feel like we re going backwards at the moment just from taking our eye off the ball. I think it's time me and OH sat down and had a proper talk about our cash budget. We put a set amount away every week to cover all our direct debits and then draw cash out weekly. I want to look at the cash expenses first.

1. Food £50
We do seem to keep within this most weeks, although I do feel we buy a lot of rubbish eg crisps, choc bars and choc buscuits. More planning should help here and cooking from scratch allong with a bit of home baking.

2. My weekly spends £20
3. OH weekly spends £20
These are what we need to talk about, where are we sepending this money and what on?

4. Clothing £10
My plan is to stop this but only once we have bought DS new uniform, PE kit and school shoes. I'll be going to asda for the uniform but I have no choice but to buy the PE kit from school and I'm not spending more than £30 on new school shoes. Once this is all bought the £10 a week will go to debt.

5. Eating out/Entertainment £10
This normally gets spent on take away pizza on a Saturday. It would be a lot cheaper to have yummy back up frozen pizzas like dr oetker ones (expensive but cheaper than take away) which could come out of the food budget. So I plan for this to go straight to debt too.

6. Birthdays and Christmas £20
I know this is high but we have another 11 birthdays coming up this year and 32 gifts to buy at Christmas not including DS and OH. With 24ish weeks to xmas that would give us £500 for birthdays and xmas. We don't spend more than £10 on anyone except DS so I plan to start shopping and looking out for bargains now and get everything even cheaper. Then when the year is over we need to talk to some people about not exchanging gifts.

Minky x

MinkyBoo

All the money I've put to one side for each of these is going to be banked to pay off the debt so we're starting afresh with the clothes, birthdays and xmas funds.

This is the birthdays list:
Best Friend
Neice - smellys from Boots sale
Dad
Step Mum - smellys from the boots sale
OH's Cousin - smellys from the boots sale
OH's Auntie - smellys from the boots sale
OH
OH's Cousin - smellys from the boots sale
OH's Cousin
OH's Cousins Son - Handmade gift
God Daughter - Handmade gift

And that list is why we need to talk about not buying some people gifts.

The stuff in purple I've already bought or bought the materials for, I have no clue what to get for my Dad but for OH I thought I'd find some nice socks, boxers and malteasers he doesn't ask for much. OH's cousin's birthday is quite close to christmas so I thought we could find him some beer on a multibuy offer, give him one create and then OH can have the other for over xmas. So thats nearly all the birthdays sorted I just need to plan for xmas. I was thinking of making something for my best friends birthday but I'm not sure what yet. Thinking hat is on!

Minky x

MinkyBoo

I've just done a meal plan for the week:

Mon - Chicken korma from the freezer
Tue - Chicken stroganof
Wed - Chicken stew with dumplings
Thurs - Cottage pie
Fri - Macaroni cheese with bacon
Sat - PIzza homemade or frozen

Some snacks I'm going to make:
Marshmallow crunch - this is really yummy
Choc chip granola bars - I've not made this before but it has yummy ingredients
Easy cinamon rolls - another new one to try out

The food is all in a funny order we'll be eating a lot of chicken several nights running, but I have some sour cream to use up and I want to use up a frozen chicken carcas (there's a lot of chicken left on it) for the chicken stew and then make up a soup I can take for lunch at work.

MinkyBoo

I've chopped up the debit card for the account that has the overdraft on it, which was a little scary but it will stop me using it for a tenner here and there. Child benefit went in today which was £20.30 and last night I did my shopping, although there are still bits left to pick up, I used my luncheon vouchers of £9 so I've nabbed £10 of the shopping money to go towards the debt. £10 was left in mt cash budget for birthdays and christmas etc so that's off to the debt as well ready to start afresh when OH gets paid on friday. I'll knock the extra £20 off my signature when I've put it in the bank. I didn't get chance to talk to OH about the cash busget last night we were shattered after doing the weekly shop.

pixiechick99

Hi there,
Just found your diary so thought I'd drop in to let you know I'm reading!
You do sound really organised and on top of things - I'm afraid my organisation has gone to pot a bit recently, must keep on her and get some oomph back:D
How do you make chicken stroganoff? I do meal plan and we seem to eat the same meals all the time, so need new recipes (easy ones) that my girls will like - they're 13 and 11.
Well done with the pressie organisation - you have loads to buy for don't you?!:eek: Luckily I don't have tons, not a big family and don't buy for ex's family from the girls, he can do that;) I have a fab supply of Body Shop goodies under the bed, lots of Xmas stuff bought - they have great bargains in the sale.

Anyway, keep at it, I'll pootle off to subscribe now:)

pixiechick99

MinkyBoo wrote: »

I've chopped up the debit card for the account that has the overdraft on it, which was a little scary but it will stop me using it for a tenner here and there. Child benefit went in today which was £20.30 and last night I did my shopping, although there are still bits left to pick up, I used my luncheon vouchers of £9 so I've nabbed £10 of the shopping money to go towards the debt. £10 was left in mt cash budget for birthdays and christmas etc so that's off to the debt as well ready to start afresh when OH gets paid on friday. I'll knock the extra £20 off my signature when I've put it in the bank. I didn't get chance to talk to OH about the cash busget last night we were shattered after doing the weekly shop.

and meant to say - well done on chopping up the debit card:beer:

MinkyBoo

Thanks for popping in Milly, I have to admit that I've been reading your diary for a while now, I'm trying not to be quite so shy these days.

I try to meal plan most weeks then I know what to buy when I'm shopping and there's less thinking to do when I get home from work. I confess that this week is probably the first time I'm actually sticking to it for quite a while. Theres always nights when I can't be bothered and that's what frozen nuggets and chips were invented for. My DS does complain if we have anything too often but he seems to complain about everything at the moment unfortunately I think it's called being a teenager.

Chicken stroganof is just chicken breasts sliced thinly sliced then cooked in a little oil, then I remove the chicken and cook a finely chopped onion in oil and then when they're nearly done add halved mushrooms for a minute or two then bung the chicken back in and add a little chicken stock and cook through. You don't want to add too much chicken stock though, or the sauce will be too runny. When it's cooked through I put in about half small tub of soured cream and just let it heat through and have in ontop of rice yum.

£15 has made it into the bank today, I said earlier it would be £20 but I met up with a friend at lunch and bought sandwiches for us both as she's going through a really hard time at the moment and it seemed appropriate. The good news is I went into the body shop where they have body butters reduced from £12 to £5 and even though I picked one up and carried it round the shop I changed my mind and put it back. :A

Minky x

MinkyBoo

I stuck to the meal plan last night and got the chicken out of the freezer so should be ready for later today. I made marshmallow crunch which was amazing and should keep us all going for a while. I've brought in a home made lunch to work.
No change at the bank when I checked this morning, everything has stayed the same overnight which is good news, I'm hoping for a NSD.
I'm feeling organised, I wonder if I could go as far as to put a few things on ebay later, without finding something on there I want to buy!

Minky x

MinkyBoo

It's been a busy day and I've not got anything on ebay, I have managed to make tea though. The chicken I took out of the freezer I thought was one where we'd had the breat for sunday dinner and then just frozen but this was a whole one, so there's a lot more chicken than I thought. Oh well looks like we'll be eating chicken all week.

I did have a look at the sale stuff on the bodyshop website, I'm so glad I didn't buy anything in the shop yesterday cos it was a lot cheaper online. I've spend £33 and got 6 christmas pressies which I feel quite pleased about as I normally spend about £10 on each. I got free postage and I went through quidco and £2.64 has tracked already, not quite the NSD I was after but still I think I did well.

Minky x

pixiechick99

I put one item on ebay yesterday!!:rotfl: Have a mobile to list, a very nice Samsung Jet that I can't be doing with, so must get round to it. I find it very hard to get motivated to list stuff, but once I get going I can't stop:D

Well done on all the Body Shop bargains...I had more arrive this week - gifts for 4 people of raspberry smellies, yummy...and cost me £18, fab;) They do have great sales and some good glitches at times, I keep a look out on the Grabbit board.

I have a whole day ahead of me so mustn't waste it just pootling about on here - I have uni work to do...and ebay things to list!
Have a good day:)