10 months in and 90 left to go ... the reality is starting to kick in :)

elantan

Tonight's dinner was Thai mince, it was lovely, have got enough saved over for the freezer so that's a bonus

Managed a walk tonight without the compression socks, it was sore and I couldn't walk far, but I did it so that's good, I may however need to rethink my plans for starting running again next week,

In financial news sugar shuffle has been done and no more Tilly tidies left to do , have checked the gas and electricity consumption they have both dropped very very slightly, nothing worth writting home about but going in the right direction, the house temp with the heating on seems to hover at around 17degrees although we have hit 18 but I think it was a milder night, I'm not putting the heating on till after 2pm but I kid you not I can see my breath in the air during the day

And that's about it for today, mr el is making the pizza base for tomorrow and I am just gonna iron his clothes before having a bath

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi El, I understand exactly what you mean about the price of food. I'm sick of the quantities getting smaller (tins etc) and the price going up.

Good luck with your menu plan.

Tilly x

elantan

Thanks Tilly ... It is frustrating and the sizes are deff shrinking

Mr el has just announced his weight loss isn't rapid enough for his liking so he is going on a carb restriction starting from next week, glad I bought all that pasta .... Ho hum

NorthernLas

Any chance you could food combine? i.e. pasta and carbs one day and protein the next. It may help to use up your mountain of pasta.

I also pad out mince dishes with red lentils (they merge in very well and thicken the gravy) to make them go further.

The food combining could help Mr El's weight loss goals, tho' in my experience eating just what you want is a better way. The proviso being eating when you are hungry and stopping when you have had enough (er, the tricky one!)

elantan

We will have to use the pasta etc up NL, I think I may introduce mr el to the concept of carb cycling, that should hopefully help ... It's just very typical though, I'm trying to save money so see things we eat cheaper ... Purchase them then mr el decides he's going on a diet lol

Tonight dinner was home made pizza, tomorrow we are going out for our anniversary lunch, it's not our anniversary till next weekend but mr el doesn't want to risk his new eating regime and with the restaurant having already been decided it makes more sense to go out this Saturday, we don't really bother with birthdays or anniversaries anyway tbh ... But an excuse to go out for food is an excuse to go out for food

Nearly didn't make my sugar shuffle tonight, I even went into the shop to buy my sweets for work and would have bought them as well if they were on special, but they weren't so I walked out and came straight to work before I could change my mind, I'm really craving some sweets to be honest, but I think that could be because I'm night shift and currently not having any coffee so my brain is looking for sugar

However I didn't buy any so have sugar shuffled my money over

chevalier

Do you have any insulation in your house? Sounds freezing! Could you get a grant to get it done?
brrrr
chev

elantan

Hi chev , hope the weather is better your way

We have loft insulation and we have the under the house insulated but we can't get cavity wall insulation due to the type of build sadly, I think there are panels I can buy but they start at nearly £80 each for decent ones ... And I would need lots and lots of them

taxi73

Well done on not giving in to sugar
Enjoy your meal tonight too...it's always nice to get out and let someone else do the cooking for a change

beanielou

You are a better woman than me with the no sugar.

elantan

it was really hard not buying the sugar, i did however eat plenty yesterday the last of the xmas chocolates have been finished so thats less sweet things in the house, although tbh i didnt even know we still had some chocolates mr el had hid them

we went out for our lunch yesterday, it wasnt that great and i dont think we will be going back to the same restuarant, but it was out for a few hours which i was needing

woke up today sneezing and snuffling so i think i have a cold or knowing my luck flu coming on, if this is the case i am taking the week off of work, in other jobs i wouldve managed but it isnt fair on the individuals i work with if i go in ill, if i do land up phoning in sick i will loose 53.5 hours wages for this week ( it's my long week and i have the first of this months overtime as well) i need to do a minimum of 30 hours overtime a month to get by so that would put me up to having to find 70 hours through out the month, thats kinda tight tbh and i dont think achievable as i dont want to make myself even worse, i'm really hoping that these sniffles leave me soon as i dont want to take the time off

today i am going to work out the menu planning for february and get some shopping done will get some stuff in just incase i am off for the week,

no Tilly tidies to do today sadly,

i'm starting to feel worn down sometimes by the whole paying everything off scenario, yes i know we are doing good, yes i know we are bettering our lives for us and yes i know that the future will be much better, but sometimes when i think of the time that we have left to go just less than 6 and a half years i think ohhhh this seems to be for ever, i think about the 4 years it took us to pay off the sofa's and that seemed to go on forever and i think ohhh the 6 plus years that we have still to go with this challenge is just a spot in the distance

i imagine this must be how some of the mfw's must feel sometimes, i read their diaries often and they try and get their morrtgages down to a manageable 10 years or so and they do great they really do, but i am sure sometimes they must feel very fed up with the length of time it is going to take them.

it's a patience thing i suppose, i have been used to living in an instant gratification world for so long, so to have to have patience to get something is a new experience for me, its unkown territory so to speak and i have to navigate my way around it, i have to find the way that suits us

i think this is one of the reasons the Tilly tidies and sugar shuffles have been so helpful, but once the flurry of getting used to them has gone i am left sitting here thinking what else can i do to speed this up ?

yes i can ebay things, but there is the long standing arguement about that, there is the whole hassle involved with that and tbh i dont think we have an awful lot left to sell, i have looked at amazon again to sell the few books that i am willing to part with but the money that are they selling for is negligable and wouldn't make it worth the trouble and i would rather ( for the small pennies i would get) keep the books as they could still be of some use for me