Trying to make my dreams a reality!!

mortgage_girl

Mmmmmm sounds lush - can I come round to yours for tea please?
Happy to join you on your grocery budget challenge - just need to work out my target and we can be thrifty buddies! :rotfl:

Enjoy your MSE meals - beats McD's anyday!

MGx

littlegreenpeas

Please can I come to tea with mortgage_girl ? your food sounds wonderful and super yummy.


LGP x

icontinuetodream

mortgage_girl wrote: »

Mmmmmm sounds lush - can I come round to yours for tea please?
Happy to join you on your grocery budget challenge - just need to work out my target and we can be thrifty buddies! :rotfl:

Enjoy your MSE meals - beats McD's anyday!

MGx

littlegreenpeas wrote: »

Please can I come to tea with mortgage_girl ? your food sounds wonderful and super yummy.


LGP x

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: You are both very welcome!!

So, without further ado........Happy new year!!! :beer:

I had a busy day yesterday....cleaned the house from top to bottom and then started to look at the budgets!!:eek: Think I will be okay but will need to sit down for a while to recover!!;)

So far, since solstice, only two trips to the shops for me by family members (I have decided that getting them to get me specific items is the way to go!!) and both times for milk :jI think that it's the longest time I have been away from the shops in donkeys!! Unfortunately though, the spending will have to resume next week for things like loo roll (totally forgot that we need to re-stock on this, but will use money from bulk purchase pot as it is cheaper when you buy two packs at a time and we will get enough to last until April.....I think twelve packs will cost something around £24 ), coffee and some butter - these are on the allowed list though so no problem!!

We had bacon in the fridge, so decided to have some with hm vegan 'scotch' pancakes (which are dirt cheap as no eggs or milk involved) and maple syrup for brunch (didn't get out of my pit till gone 11am!!).....lost the plot a bit on how much batter to make for the pancakes though so now have 8 packs of 6 pancakes ready cooked and in the freezer for future breakfasts!! Nom nom!!

Last day of the holidays for dh its been really lovely having him here for the past week and it is going to seem strange to be back on my own again....in some ways though, I am pleased that I will have the time tomorrow to work out some meal plans for the next few weeks.....;)

dh and I have decided that we have to make some changes with ourselves this year...part of that is just getting a bit fitter and less slobby and some of it is about our health...we are both in our forties and have a relatively sedentary lifestyle...Since I stopped being vegan in August, the family have been extremely keen on eating as much corpse as possible and this isn't healthy on my arteries or my pocket!!

So, with this in mind, I have decided to get totally organised and we are going to increase our exercise and also split our weekly meals on a 4:3 meat:vegan basis

Food is going to be organised as follows: Sunday will be a meat day (kids love a roast or something similar), Monday vegan, Tuesday meat leftovers, Wednesday vegan, Thursday and Friday meat and Saturday vegan and our week will include at least one day of soup and bread, a pasta day, a rice day, a grain day, a potato day, a pastry day and a raw day....I think that this will make things a lot easier to plan!!


Mortgage wise, I tried to check the balance today but nothing available at the moment so will get figures tomorrow...I am going to sort out my bank account in the morning too and then I will have a better idea of what I can do OP wise this month...


Anyhoo...better get off now and drink some more new year wine.....hope you all had a good one!!!:D

icontinuetodream

First mortgage payment of 2014!!:j £650 towards my target so happy with that!

I am cooking toad in the hole tonight to use up some of the remaining veg in the fridge (potatoes, sprouts, carrots and a swede), a packet of the cocktail sausages I have in the freezer and a packet of batter mix I have in the cupboard....another meal purely from what is in the house already!!;) I think that dh is getting the hang of this as we are out of English mustard and he has said that he will use the other types rather than ask for another one!!:T Success!! :rotfl:

I haven't done the meal plans as I intended to today....I have had a bit of a 'everyone is back at work and I need a me day' day so have done little to nothing!! Literally, I have emptied and sorted the dishwasher, done one load of laundry and swished & swiped the bathroom.....that is the entirety of my day!! Never mind, I will sort them tomorrow and worry about it then! Sometimes the need to have personal time overwhelms everything else......

Right, off to update sig....think dh is getting milk on his way home tonight so will update grocery sig later.....;)

mortgage_girl

Glad that dh is getting the hang of it. Hope you've enjoyed your 'me' day - don't feel bad about it, it's good to have some time to recharge the batteries and plot world domination...err I mean mortgage freedom!

MGx

icontinuetodream

mortgage_girl wrote: »

Glad that dh is getting the hang of it. Hope you've enjoyed your 'me' day - don't feel bad about it, it's good to have some time to recharge the batteries and plot world domination...err I mean mortgage freedom!

MGx

I think world domination is about right!!

So, £100 for 100 days MG.....like the idea of that!!! Between us we should have space in our kitchens by the spring!! :rotfl:

I am making pasta tonight and probably another focaccia as we have dd and her bf here and he eats like a horse!! I have some bacon and a ready made hm sauce in the freezer so I will get those out and use them up.... the only problem with that is that I don't have any salad leaves (or any salad stuff for that matter!!) so will have to have to throw together something...I think that I have some elderflower balsamic in the cupboard so may chuck together some grated carrot and chopped satsumas and dress them with that....salad crisis averted!!

We have got down to our last spoonful of coffee so dh is going to the shops on the way home to get some.....not sure about this as he went to shop yesterday for the loo roll, didn't buy as many as I asked for and hasn't handed me a receipt or the remaining cash so I can't update my spread sheet yet....the fact that this is bothering me is very concerning!!! I need to get out more...:rotfl:

Planning on a quiet weekend....dh needs to recover from the shock of being back at work for the past couple of days and I really need (at the very least) to start on my menu plans!!:eek:

Happy Friday everyone!!:D

mortgage_girl

icontinuetodream wrote: »

I think world domination is about right!!

So, £100 for 100 days MG.....like the idea of that!!! Between us we should have space in our kitchens by the spring!! :rotfl:

Sounds good to me - lets dominate the world and our kitchens! :rotfl:

icontinuetodream wrote: »

I am making pasta tonight and probably another focaccia as we have dd and her bf here and he eats like a horse!! I have some bacon and a ready made hm sauce in the freezer so I will get those out and use them up....

Sounds delicious - I think it's about time you started sharing your recipes instead of having us all drooling!

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

MGx

icontinuetodream

mortgage_girl wrote: »

Sounds delicious - I think it's about time you started sharing your recipes instead of having us all drooling!

It's difficult for me to share recipes unfortunately, I am such a 'throw it in and see what happens' cook, its almost impossible to remember...I will post what I have cooked and the basic method but as far as quantities are concerned...who knows!!?!!

It's been a busy few days and we have just scrapped around food wise due to this....however, today I have sat down with my inventory and come up with 50 main meals that will only require the following shopping list:

Potatoes, celery, onions, carrots, peas, cabbage, sweet potatoes, salad, sweetcorn, lemons, parmesan, butter and cream.....

That's it, meal wise, other than general veg and fruit (whatever happens to be cheap that week at ald* or the local farm shops will probably suffice!!). I have everything else in to cover the 50 meals other than what is written above....I expect that I will get a large sack of spuds, hopefully a sack of onions too and the rest will come from the farm shops so hopefully not too expensive!!

I have sent dh to the shops with a list for the next few days...just some salad leaves, cucumber, onions and milk so lets see what he comes back with!!;)

I am doing a whole roast chicken tonight which we will have with salad and hm wedges, I will strip the chicken and make either a curry with rice or a stir fry tomorrow depending on how much is left....

I am really pleased that the menu plans are done, I have put off doing them for ages and I have no idea why!!! I am not allocating meals to days...I will just put up the list and see what people want the day before, that way hopefully nothing will get wasted, there really is no point with my lot deciding on what we are having any earlier than that....

Anyhoo....battery about to die so will post now and continue to talk p** later!!!:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

icontinuetodream

I've been off the boards and in chaos for the past couple of weeks!! Fortunately, nothing major, just rl getting in the way!!;)

Due to a few unplanned expenses, I have not done as well as I would have liked financially, but I have been sticking to my £15 in 15 weeks challenge and am pretty proud of myself for doing so! I need to spend the time this week to check my stocklists though as I haven't been crossing things off due to a lack of time (and because I forgot!!:o) I also need to check the general finance pots too as I have totally lost track of what I am doing with those!!

I have been feeling a bit stressed about the lack of a job recently - despite being able to manage without one as long as I stick to the frugal lifestyle, it had really started to bother me that I am making such tiny inroads into the mortgage now and also that I am not financially contributing to the household.

DS is unemployed again too (although he has paid his rent up to the end of march bless him!;)) and it looks like DD is about to join us on the job line too!!:( Obviously, she only returned home at the end of November last year and the increase in costs was pretty much negated by the rent she paid, but obviously, if she isn't working, that won't be continuing.....

Adding to the expense is her bf spending at least two nights here a week now and he eats like a horse, plus the additional washing, showers etc......all in all, much larger expenses to be accommodated and dramatically less income into the household makes for a very uncomfortable ICTD!!!;)

I can't continue like this, but also know that I have walked away from my old type of well paid work for a reason.....I got to Tuesday of this week and decided that I want to do something which feels genuinely worthwhile.....so, with that in mind, I applied for a job which is completely out of my comfort zone and incredibly badly paid (about half my previous salary!!:eek:) but will give me a huge sense of satisfaction if I can cope with it!! Anyhoo, had the interview yesterday and have been offered the job!!:T I will be starting in the next few weeks and, although apprehensive, I am looking forward to it

DH is a bit stunned, it's really not the type of job that he ever envisaged me doing (and he hates the hours I will be working)but he knows that I want this year to be the year that I do things that challenge me mentally....I am extremely fortunate that he is so supportive of absolutely everything I do, regardless of how bizarre it may be!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

On the 'doing things that challenge me' front, I also decided that it was about time that I faced my enormous phobia of the dentist.....got very brave and went this week for the first time in 20 years!!:o No great surprises....I have to have a large amount of work done.....paid for it all up front but will probably be charged a chair rental fee considering how often I will be there over the next few months!!;) I feel much better for doing it though...the anxiety I felt while I was waiting for the appointment to come round literally wiped me out for a few days I couldn't sleep or think, felt constantly sick and just generally awful.....pathetic really, but it was twenty years of complete avoidance that I was dealing with!!!;) Weirdly, now that the initial visit is over, I have absolutely no worries about going for the treatment at all!! Bizarre, but true!!:cool:

All in all, life is still excellent....I am feeling much better about our financial position, I am facing my fears and I am getting on top of everything in the house too.....

Hope all is well with you and enjoy your weekend!!:D

Peonie

Congratulations on the new job and I'm sorry to hear your DH and DD lost theirs too. To take the pressure off you could you have a word with DD about her and the bf staying vat his more often?