Our attempt at being MF!!

21katy

Staying in is the new going out in my opinion.
Your evening plans sounds ideal to me. Save £40 quid, get to stay in the warmth. If its anything like my area you get to see/hear fireworks from the comfort of your own home anyway ha.

Good luck with the walking this week, hope weather is ok for you. Fingers crossed it will be. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday evening

CathT

Definitely Katy, we do get to see them through the window but think we've been a bit spoiled by seeing displays at CP last two years and nothing really compares!

Quick check of cc (as had forgotten where I was up to with spends) and current account reveals we have £79 to last 13 days. Whilst I love a challenge this will not be easy! This budget is for fuel, food and we have a night out this weekend. We can take wine (I'm not drinking anyway) but need to get a gift.

May have to be inventive with use of the cars and meal planning!

CathT

Trying my best to keep spends low! Out of the last 3 days have used the car once for the commute (because it was pouring with rain) and £2.20 spent on coffees.

DH fully aware of challenge until payday and says he on board with it and he thinks we can do it.

Bought dd the mall0ry t0wers set this week off bookface which was £7 and from cash in my purse. She is very slowly finding reading more enjoyable which is progress. Have added this to our christmas present stash. I need to look into the Mr S double up as I've made a note in my diary of the dates and I'm sure it's running now. Also have £8 of t3sco vouchers I will probably use to buy a present.

Have an empty house for an hour so need to decide whether to clean or read!

michelle09

I loved the Mallory Towers books. Hope she gets into them as well.

CathT

Productive day today which is always good. Have made a vegetarian chilli for a fraction of what I paid for a ready meal recently. It has literally cost pennies to make and very tasty too. Have an annoying headache that is on its 3rd lot of painkillers so hoping this last lot work.

50p made on y0ugov today, £1.10 on carparking and £55 on fuel and shopping. We have slightly exceeded our £79 budget with a week to go! I may have to transfer some of the £700 I sent to the bathroom fund this month (a little ambitious maybe?) We have two more paydays before the bathroom will need to be paid for and have more than enough in there already.

michelle09

Good that you had a productive day, but frustrating on the headache. Can you have a quiet weekend to try and clear it?

CathT

Headache finally cleared thank you Michelle, everyone has their thing where they suffer and headaches are mine. I guess it could be worse.

Very lazy day today, have hit my 15k steps but haven't left the house which suits me. DH popped out for a top up shop and I sorted the house and washing. Still half a load to dry and another to wash and that's before football tomorrow! We're having the heating on for an hour in the morning and an hour or so in the evening but it's too easy to get into the habit of having it on more which I'm trying to avoid. If the children are warm (which they always are as don't stop) then I don' put if on if I'm cold! Had a letter from BG saying they want to replace our meters to fancy new ones that submit the readings. Just hope it's easy to do as our electric meter isn't particularly accessible!

Had a few apples that had gone soft so stewed them to save waste. They can be used for a quick pudding as we always have custard and we have foraged blackberries in the freezer. I've had leftover rissoto for lunch, some of my batch cooked veggie chilli for dinner and DH has been baking, the cakes smelt divine but I made do with some high protein yoghurt! Advertised our broken tv for free collection on bookface yesterday and that's now collected and out of the way. We had a car seat to give away to BIL but it's thw wrong type for them so will advertise that for free sometime tomorrow. Also got some quality walking boots on 3bay yesterday for £20 and already have £3 in paypal I'd forgotten about. I need them for next weekend so hoping seller posts promptly. Will feedback why if plans go ahead!

We're steaming through the HP films and are now on Order of the Phoenix. We don't have the last two films but expect 8ky will have the HP channel again soon. I did mention to dd that she could ask Santa for them but she reminded me I'd said I wanted to watch all of them before Christmas. She often gets me on a technicality! Am sure Santa could still bring cheap second hand dvd's! Am trying to keep an eye on Christmas activities that we will all enjoy without spending ridiculous amounts of money. We try and give the children experiences but unfortunately you don't get much for free at this time of year.

Relaxing evening ahead, no wine again which I think is about 5 weeks for me. Not much point when I can barely stay awake until 10pm! I've got my own non alcoholic fizz in a wine glass so that's good enough for me. Hopefully I can do another 4 weeks of no wine so that I can get to my fitness goal.

atypicalblonde

Well done you on the not drinking and the 15k steps! I aim for 10k each day, managed around 13k some days but not many!

We adore Harry Potter in this house too. Could literally watch it on a loop, and when Sky have the HP movie channel on I'm in heaven!

Have a good day xx

CathT

That sounds like a plan ATB

Another busy week which has flown and has made me wonder if my time management skills are poor at the moment. I really don't seem to have time to do lots of tasks that I used to. I need to address this somehow.

Have used cc a few times and not tracked all the spends so need to check tomorrow and transfer funds across on payday. I'm still hoping my payrise is actually noticeable in my pay.

Food spends remain low which was helped by batch cooking vegetarian chilli. I just need passata to make another huge batch which I'll get tomorrow. It literally works out at pennies per portion. Will pop to mr S tomorrow for double up and hoping I've enough points to get a cd, xb0x game and pyjamas! If not I'll pop to Mr T for cd as have £8.50 in vouchers for there. My m*s monthly top ups have ended which is disappointing.

Dh was going to spend £8 on pudsey items but he then had an idea of children decorating clothing to wear to school tomorrow, out came the sharpies tonight and they love their creations. I've won a facial type treatment in a fb draw so looking forward to that tomorrow too. I am hoping it will be a well timed pamper.

CathT

Have tried to be as productive as possible today but fatigue has set in. I've rally struggled the last two days so hoping it lifts. Mr S wasn't particularly successful as a wanted item was out of stock but I did get dd some boots and socks and pyjamas for ds. Pyjamas were reduced from £14 to £7 for two pairs and the lot only cost me £4 as used double up points. I'd popped in just before this too to use a 500 points voucher so points were at 80,000. Fingers crossed said item is back in stock over the next few days.

Managed to re-arrange some furniture, well I cleaned and got it as far as the doorway to the snug and came back from a relaxing facial (a freebie I won on fb) to find dh had moved it to where it needed to go. We bought a perfect cuddle chair off fb this week for £50 and it is just right for our family area. The main job for the weekend is to sort out the children's toys as they are scattered around the house and we have an ikea cube storage unit in the snug with some empty baskets we can make use of. Hopefully then that room will be usable although we don't really need it.

100 points on y0ugov today so that's climbing steadily. Payday for us both next week so will be able to balance cc spends and save some more money too.