Pavlovs_dog starting as she means to go on...

pavlovs_dog

NYE celebrations

1. I've just re-set my signature ready for the 2012 MFW challenge. Let the fun commence!
2. Our mortgage balance is now officially in the £126s, meaning we've cleared £5k off the mortgage in our first year.

:dance::dance:

In other news, I've put my first figures into my shiny new spreadsheet -

A) £126,985.62 as our opening figure for the mortgage (if i'm feeling really anal I may phone up tomorrow for an even more update figure )

I've added a grocery section as looking over recent CC bills a horrific amount of money is going in the pockets of Mr A, Mr T etc.. I got some bargain whoopsies yesterday in Asda so the cost of those is going down as the opening sum on my grocery challenge. I can literally *just* shut the freezer, but we have a lot of odds and ends to use up as well as things that will let us make proper meals. As food costs are rising I've increased our weekly spend to £45, giving a yearly budget of £2340 to equal or beat for all food and cleaning stuff.

c) going to pootle around the web and collect my opening balances for all survey sites.


Wishing you all a healthy and prosperous new year. Hope all your plans come to fruition, whatever they may be.

aliasojo

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

Wishing you all a healthy and prosperous new year. Hope all your plans come to fruition, whatever they may be.

Right back at you. x

pavlovs_dog

just had a text to phone my CC provider (you give them a special code word which they use in all their texts so you know it's genuinely them). It was the fraud team who had registered unusual activity on the card. It had been registered fraudulently with 2 websites, although no money had been taken. Both cards on the account cancelled and reissued. Fair play to Tesco finance, superb service :T

Will run antivirus today in case it's something computer based.

pavlovs_dog

took advantage of the livingsocial £10 for a £20 HMV voucher last week. Have just cashed it out to buy a birthday present for my brother in readiness for March. Cashback via quidco too

today i must chain myself to my desk and do as much of the school stuff I promised myself I would do but haven't so much as looked at yet! If you see me on here too frequently today, please tell me off!

originalmiscellany

Well get to it! I am in a similar position to you, where the heart is willing but the motivation says "no thanks".
It's been like that for the past week and a half. Oh dear. Have a great year PD.

pavlovs_dog

small top up shop in Morrisons to get us through the week. :eek: at the price of their fruit. Even Tesco offers better value for money, and that's saying something! £7.01 spent, mostly on fruit for lunches as I seem to eat a lot more of it during term time. I'm on a mission to run down the freezer and cupboards using up stuff that has been there since forever, so the menu plan for the week looks a little like this

mon: turkey curry (turkey left from NY day dinner, pataks curry sauces 70odd pence a jar in home bargains at the mo, basmati rice inherited from my mum's kitchen clearout, and bhajis that had been in the freezer since forever)
tues: turkey casserole (more turkey leftovers, veg from a whoopsie casserole pack 25p) (in SC as I type)
weds: veggie burger type things, savoury rice, corn on cob - all cupboard/freezer staples
thurs: pesto pasta with ham - ham and pesto need to be used up this week
fri: Garlic chicken lattice, chips and veg - again all from the mystical frozen depths of my freezer.

Saturday will be shopping day so food is to be decided at a later date. I quite fancy the whoopsied rack of ribs I bought a few weeks back.

Sunday's lunch will either provide tumble down meals for next week, or I take time on Sunday to cook something in advance for next week. Probably sausage based. We have a LOT of sausages in the freezer. And the less said about how much cooked, portioned up turkey in my freezer, the better!

*Jellie*

I'm also on a mission with the groceries- trying to do a store cupboard month. Interesting that the fruit was expensive in Morrisons- mum shops there as it is cheapest. I guess I need to start trying moneysupermarket and then decide which to use depending on what we're buying.

pavlovs_dog

my favourite shops in terms of value for money and shopping experience are asda and aldi. Nearest aldi is a 20 min drive, asda is about the same. (we have tesco, morrisons, waitrose and lidl in my town). For the time and petrol it takes to get to asda/aldi it makes more sense to shop locally, unless I can plan shopping to coincide with us being out and about in the vicinity of asda/aldi anyway.

morrisons is poor for bargain priced whoopsies and fruit/veg is never as competitive as the other supermarkets. Apples were a prime example, £1 for 4 decent sized ones or £1.50 plus for a bag of 6/7 which were hardly bigger than fun sized.

*Jellie*

So weird- I think exactly the same. Prefer Aldi and Asda but they're too far away. Morrisons, Tesco, Iceland and Sainsbury more local!

newgirly

Hi PD, i went to mr t extra yesterday and could not believe how expensive it is, some items up by 50% from a couple of months ago and trying to buy some carrots - they were floating in liquid :eek: I have been spoilt by shopping in mr s and aldi I think.

It does make the organic veg box more appealing though, may have to start that in feb. Good luck eating the contents of the freezer.:D