The 'I can't think of a good name at the moment' Diary

Betty_Crumble

Week 6 of 2013

Petrol £19.99/£20
Food £31.66/£30
Holiday £0.00/£135
House move £0.00
Car maintenance £21.00
Electricity bill £10.00

I did an additional shop for meat for the freezer that came to £37.17, every now and then I have to do this as a top up shop and its normally for meat when the freezer is empty.

Holiday fund has been pilfered to go towards the deposit of £150, I have another £135 to pay for the apartment and will get £50 (security deposit) back when I leave. Still have flights to book and pay for.

I get paid on Friday so will see a little increase in my pots :-)

Betty_Crumble

Week 7 of 2013

Petrol £0/£20 need to put some in today
Food £-/£30 not going to go shopping this week, just top up a few bits in the week
Holiday £0.00/£135
House move £0.00
Car maintenance £41.00
Electricity bill £50.00

lizalloareds

Just stumbled here from another thread, you are doing great.
I am trying to reduce my grocery budget without much success so far, can you post your meal plans hoping that with inspiration I will be able to do monthly meal plans, off to subscribe:)

Betty_Crumble

lizalloareds thanks for posting, sorry for the ignorance. I will do a post tomorrow on meal planning if your still about lol, it is the one consistant in my life and I dont think I could go back to not knowing what was for dinner.

Right so its week 36 tomorrow (oh the shame) and I will try again to be a good diary poster.

My car is paid for, holiday all done and dusted and my debt is on the final furlong but I will still be sticking to my budgets. I haven't started an emergency fund yet so will have to do that.
Tomorrow I need to cancel my broadband as I have switched to Virgin. Also I am going to change my mobile tariff as there is one with an extra 1gb of data for the same price I'm paying now.
Oh and I've paid off my Barclays, I had some money left from holiday spends, quite a bit tbh, so I topped it up and paid off the cc yay.Current acc looks a bit shoddy now lol but it doesn't impact on anything. I think why I haven't set up and emergency fund before is because I do have a decent buffer in the bank anyway but now it's defo something I'm going to do. I use this https://www.balanceforecastingapp.me/index.php to forecast my accounts and it works really well and has enabled me to see what impact any spending has. I am going to update that tomorrow too.

Betty_Crumble

Mobile tariff changed, 1gb extra data for 75p less lol.
Broadband cancelled.

Ok so menu planning, first of all is inventorizing (?) haha. I pull the freezer out and write down everything in it. Meats, pies etc come under 'mains' and veggies, potato products, yorkies etc under 'sides'. Then I go through the cupboards and add tins of beans, peas and the like to the 'sides' I then list all my sauces and packet mixes. I do the same with the fridge.
I then sit down with one of these


I write down each meal that i can make starting with any fresh stuff that needs using first and scrub off each item on my list as I allocate it to a dinner. I do this for as many days as I don't run out of a 'main', if I run out of 'sides' I add what is needed to my shopping list for that particular week (no point in buying broccoli in week 1's shopping if I'm not having it til week 3).
If I can carry stuff over to the next dinner/lunch then I do, for example; on Sunday we had lasagne and I make my own cheese sauce, I made extra and today we have vegetable mornay with faggots and yorky puds. Tomorrow is Hunter's Chicken, jkt pots and sweetcorn, some of the chicken and sweetcorn will get carried over to Thursdays quiche and pasta bake.
When I go shopping I always buy any reduced meat and 'mains' so that when my menu plans run out I have my next lot to start planning again.

I hope that makes sense and helps someone :-)

Betty_Crumble

Emergency fund set up with £50 and will do that every payday. I have also put £50 into a Christmas fund as I have just started picking up a few bits. I'm normally done with Christmas around about now but I put other things first this year so this will give me a head start.

Totally random but I'm watching diners, drive-in's and dives and my tummy is rumbling.

I have been through my room and daughter's room like a dose of salts and I'm cutting my losses, was determined not to have any eBay piles I just want rid, so the charity shop will be getting 4 bin bags full of very decent stuff tomorrow. Feels good, I only want to have things I use in the house instead of things I may use.

My goal for the future is to totally stop buying anything unless it is necessary. Wish me luck.

Keeping_Positive

Just skim read your diary and you have done really well. Mmmm at the batch cooking pics. Ill subscibe and come back later ( going back to bed been up with sore neck since 5 and painkillers now working).

Betty_Crumble

Keeping_Positive wrote: »

Just skim read your diary and you have done really well. Mmmm at the batch cooking pics. Ill subscibe and come back later ( going back to bed been up with sore neck since 5 and painkillers now working).

Thanks, see you soon .

Have just reserved a few bits in Argos for Christmas and will take the money from the £50. I am also going to go back to the formula I used before, that is declaring my weekly food, petrol spends etc. Will sort that in a bit.

Betty_Crumble

This is going to be a loooong post, with pics yay.

I've been food shopping today and so glad I did, all the bbq meats were reduced. I've portioned it all up and for the first time ever I've wrote how much they were on the freezer bags. I've pulled the freezer contents out and made a list, just need to sit and do my menu plans now.

I spent £47.31 with £17 of this spent on the bbq meat I wouldn't normally have.
I got; (per portion = 3 meals)
2 x bbq ribs and sweet chilli wings £5.00 £1.25 per portion
2 x chinese ribs £1.00 per portion
2 x bbq drumsticks £1 pp
2 x chicken tikka strips £2.50 (will take out whatever is needed for wraps etc)
8 x bacon £4.50 63p pp
1 x sweet chilli chicken skewers £1










I love reduced items





makes a cuppa tea 1p each and lovely coffee 3p each











This was dinner today



Hunters chicken were reduced to £1.25, I got 3 and the 3 for 2 kicked in. I split into 2 x 3 fillets and froze.
1 x chicken £1.25
2 x sachets hickory sauce (£1 for 12 app foods) 16p
Potatoes in herb butter 60p
Veg 15p
Corn on the cob 48p
(the roasties i just used up from freezer as there were a few left)
Total £2.64 \ 88p per person

I think I'm going to put my inventory and menu plans up when I've sorted them out.

Betty_Crumble

I also got these from the £1 shop

BARGAIN!