Our attempt at being MF!!

CathT

daydreamz wrote: »

Happy Friday! Your wine reminded me that my Mum brought round a bottle of Prosecco she had left over from Christmas/New Years, she doesn't drink it, so I have a treat

The extension is going well, we are finally getting our house sorted, quotes in on Monday for the upstairs bathroom, hoping its not going to cost too much... DH was like "we just need someone to stick the pipes in and we can do the rest " no...

Hope you have a restful weekend! :beer: (they really should do a wine glass one of those!)

Hope the Prosecco went down well. I've not had any since the bubbles didn't agree with me NYE 2015!
My DH doesn't do any DIY (apart from basics) so although it means we have to pay out, we get a professional finish and avoid mishaps.

Food spends updated and we are still under £200 for the month. We need bread but will remain under budget as end of the month tomorrow :j

Roofers are here which means a huge leap in the extension progress. It will also be nice when the scaffolding is taken down and I don't see builders standing there when I go into the bathroom! :rotfl:

DH is taking the car for an MOT and service after work so fingers crossed no problems are found! Off for a catch up with a friend this afternoon so just time for some reading before I go. It would be lovely to have days off in the week every week!

AlexLK

Progress on the extension sounds good and really not sure how you manage to have a food budget so low. What kind of things do you eat in a typical week? Mine is about £550-600 for the month. :eek:

Doing things yourself doesn't necessarily mean a rubbish finish. A lot of tradesmen are apes and seem to have a low threshold for preparation which often leads to a better finish. By working on things yourself you can do and redo until you get things exactly as you want them.

Hope the MOT went OK.

CathT

Hi Alex, too should be finished today so will contact builders to see what they are doing the knockthrough. It finally feels like he build is nearing completion!

Re: food spends. We mostly eat chicken (we use a roast chicken wisely) or will have a homemade veg curry. We have if we want desserts or children will have bananas and custard. We make homemade soup, batch cook and stretch portions. We use @ldi mostly and take advantage of the fruit offers. The children have at least 3 portions of fruit a day each. We sometimes buy the c0_0p deal for a cheap and easy meal. We don't include wine or cleaning products in the spend, it is literally just food.

Dh tends to skip lunch due to working hours and I take soup/salad/sandwich. The children have sandwiches for school 3-4 days a week and these spends are included in budget. Our spends are particularly low at the moment though, not entirely sure why!

Car passed its MOT and nothing dodgy found on the service so that was £129 well spent! Also paid for swimming lessons yesterday so we are nearing the end of our budget and payday is in 20 days!

AlexLK

The knockthrough won't be much fun.

Can you tell me honestly if you think I eat extravagantly based on the next few days meals that I've planned? I am also not counting wine / other items that are not food (even the wine I buy for cooking I'm not counting though I perhaps should). Everything I eat is prepared from scratch - no expensive pre-made sauces etc. but it does seem like I spend a lot of money on food. Actually meal plan now so can at least say what I do eat. :rotfl: I think we eat a fairly well balanced diet and enough fruit and veg. Don't really batch cook much - cottage pie and some sauces. My son eats the same as I do for lunch but takes to school.

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Fruit salad: grapefruit, red grapes, banana, orange, apple.
Lunch: Roasted vegetable cous cous with carrots and humous.
Dinner: Cod with potatoes, broccoli, samphire and peas in parsley sauce.

Thursday:
Breakfast: Fruit salad (as Weds.)
Lunch: Pasta salad in tomato and red pepper sauce with sliced chicken and olives.
Dinner: Pork loin with stir-fried vegetables in a chilli and ginger sauce.

Friday:
Breakfast: Smoked trout and poached egg on English muffin.
Lunch: Dressed crab salad.
Dinner: Chicken in a pomegranate and wine sauce with cous cous.

Glad to hear the MOT went well.

Moneyfordreams

As always, great going on your food shopping. Ours has reduced to around £120 per month now there are just the two of us at home. ( well apart from visiting offspring helping themselves). When we had one income, with teenagers i'd have change from lidl from £40 per week including beer and wine.

Alex :eek::eek::eek:

CathT

Those meals sound great Alex. We tend to repeat meals which I think saves us money but I enjoy what we eat so don't mind.

They're great spends MFD. It must be so much easier just shopping for the two of you.

Day off today which I'm glad about as I've been feeling tearful and reactive for the last couple of days. Today I intend to nurture myself!

We have unfortunately had another set back with the build, the roofers don't work if it's raining or if rain is forecast yet it stayed dry! They are due back early next week so we are another week behind schedule now. Hugely frustrating but at least there's no workmen here on my day off! Last night I wanted to give in to cake and wine but am on a 30 day health and wellness plan so stayed strong!

January spends totals

Food. £210.95
Petrol £184.52

That's £100 under budget!!

QB_Wolf

Is your extension two storey or one storey? We're just looking into getting ours done, but may have to reign the plans in a little.

CathT

Ours is 2 storey. We are extending the utility room and creating a downstairs shower room and then a 4th bedroom upstairs. it will be worth it and hopefully progress we once the main build is finished. We are just being delayed by the roofers and prior to that it was the scaffolders. It runs more smoothly when the work is being done inside!

What are you planning to do?

QB_Wolf

CathT wrote: »

Ours is 2 storey. We are extending the utility room and creating a downstairs shower room and then a 4th bedroom upstairs. it will be worth it and hopefully progress we once the main build is finished. We are just being delayed by the roofers and prior to that it was the scaffolders. It runs more smoothly when the work is being done inside!

What are you planning to do?

We were going to straighten out the existing extension, part of it runs at a funny angle to the original house, so it's all parallel, knock down an out house and extend out with a single story dining room. Then build up with a 4th bedroom, with en suite and dressing room, but the architect quotes and builder quotes are wildly different, so reigning it in. The upstairs will be smaller and not bother with the dining room bit, the downstairs of the house is plenty big enough anyway, and we could do the dining room in say 10 years.

We're just had the house re-wired, in the middle of having new central heating, only upstairs is on-line at the mo', nearly finished with having the back of the garage converted into a utility. All of the walls need re-plastering though as well.

CathT

It's hard knowing what to do for the best isn't it. I was also mindful of keeping the house in proportion and it not being 'bottom heavy'. Having said that we do have a room downstairs (made from front part of original playroom) but we will use it as a study or it could even be classed as a 5th bedroom. The build we have done was actually based on our 3rd set of plans from the architects but was definitely the best option for us. Good luck with your plans, will follow your progress.