Anyone got a nice spaghetti and meatballs recipe?

MSHAWX

Hi
I've just had an offer I couldn't refuse from Mr T £10.00 off my next order if I spend £50.00 B4 the 24th of this month. OK I know I'm over budget for this month but I've spent the £50.00 on staples like bread, (freeze) milk, (freeze) coffee, cat food, washing up liquid, firelighters etc and by using their offers and www.mysupermarket.com I've managed to get £84.68 worth of goods down to £53.47 including delivery at some horrible hour tonight 9pm - 11pm - it was the cheapest time. I shall try so hard next month, must read Mrs Mc posting on planning for March, she is so inspirational

WelshWoofer

I think I'm gettinmg a bit obsessed by this whole thing.
Last night I sat down and sorted out the meal plan from now until the end of the month and found that I need to buy the grand total of a tin of peas and some breakfast/cereal bars! I have about £17.80 left of my budget so barring any unforeseen circumstances I shoud com ein well under budget!:T

Then, inspired by this, I went through the first 3 weeks of March (up to Easter) and worked out what I need to buy as I'm working away or visiting relatives for chunks of it and devised a meal plan and shopping list that may only come to about £40 (but I am notoriously rubbish at estimating shopping costs!).

I'm not sure about how the end of March will go yet but I've got plenty of time to work that out!

I might even go bonkers and set my March budget at £80 rather than £100 but that may be a bit ambitious! Think I'll get the £100 out in cash, see how it goes and then pay the remainder off a card.

Is this behaviour normal?
Am I spiralling out of control!!!:rotfl:

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there rachelmk

Not sure if your behaviour is "normal"..but i posted a couple of posts before you ....and im doing the same thing right now ..working out the meal plan for March and planning on paring the budget back as far as possible too..so its nice to know im in good company :rotfl:

WelshWoofer

Thank god I'm not alone!
When I think about how I used to spend at least £70 a week:eek: in Tescos and think that was normal!
No wonder I was permanently skint!

Jacks_xxx

Justamum wrote: »

We had a couple of real characters when I was younger. One was a rescue cat from the Cats Protection League. Before she was re-homed with us she had been looked after by an old lady who only fed her on corned beef. So she would only eat corned beef when we got her. It took us ages to get her to eat anything else. She would never eat any tinned cat food, only the dry. She did love bacon rind but you had to throw it in the bin first and she would flick it out with her paw on to the floor before she would eat it. She also loved chicken giblets, and when my parents ran a hotel my mum would cook a few chickens at a time. The cat would gorge herself until she couldn't move!

Another cat we had understood the word "fish"! Every time anyone said it she would trot off to her food bowl expecting to find some there. Once on a children's cartoon the word was mentioned and off she went!

LOL that's lovely I don't care what anyone says, cats have personalities of their own! There's loads of things my cat Mulder would turn his nose up at if I put them down for him - but he'll beg as if his life depends on it to get some off of my plate.

The worst thing he does is drink my tea if I leave it unattended. I'll come back from answering the dorr or something and I've only got half a cup left! :eek:

I'm always saying to Hubby "aww look at the cat's cute expression!" and he always shrugs and says "It just looks like a cat." (Philistine! )

I'm not sure Mulder understands any actual words but he knows his name. Once I was in the kitchen with the window open telling my mum on the phone about what the vet had said and what Mulder had done etc and my daughter nudged me and pointed at the cat who was asleep on the lawn. Every time I said his name he lefted his head and looked at me quizzically for a few seconds... and then having established that I was talking about him, not to him he put his head back on his paws and closed his eyes. It was really funny! :rotfl:

He probably justdidn't want to miss a potential prawn feeding situation!

Look at me banging on and on about my cat! I am a proud cat-mummy.

Love Jacks xxx

pigpen

Hhhmmm... 8 days left on my challenge.. and.. of my £600 monthly allowance I have.. £261.52 left over!!!!!!

I don't think I've forgotten to add anything.

That is for 10 of us.. 2 cats a bunny and half term!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jacks_xxx

tattycath wrote: »

Hi all. well the plan is that we are getting married this year (I will be 40 early next year and have never been married so I want to get married before I'm 40) we haven't even set a date yet, so it will end up being a mad rush very OS style wedding.(donations of anything useful for our wedding gratefully received!!! lol) Our mortgage is high so we are trying to save to make extra payments to lower it as quick as possible. We need some DIY doing on the house (we've been quoted £1500 and that doesn't include the new kitchen I would like)Eldest DD has another couple of residential trips coming up in a few months (that will be a total of about £400) and I have never been on a proper holiday, so as you can see we have alot to save for too!!

Hiya hon! :wave:
Congratulations on your impending nuptuals! :beer: I got married in a Monsoon dress and pretty flipflops, and carried a bunch of big daisies that I'd tied myself. We called everybody on Tuesday to tell them to book Friday afternoon off work cos we were getting married! We had a meal afterwards on the terrace of a riverside bar/restaurant and the whole thing cost about £500. It was really informal and spontaneous and I loved it.

I'm going to be 40 in 2009 as well - and really desperate to be debt free by then. Hubby is 50 in 2009 and he would like to celebrate by going on a nice holiday to somewhere warm he says (bless him) so I shall need to save up for that. :eek:

We've been throwing our G.C. savings at our debts. We used to spend £600 a month on supermarket shopping so most months since I've been doing this I've had an extra £250 - £300 spare for debt repayments

We have a few hundred left on a CC and then we need to throw everything we've got at a largish secured debt that we signed up for when we were desperate. :rolleyes:

Then after that we'll start over-paying on our mortgage!

I'm doing fantastically well budget wise this month, but it's rough. I I couldn't do it like this every month. We're basically living on rice and veggies / rice and beans / veggie pasta with meat based meals only one or two nights a week.

Left overs get taken to work the next day for lunch and breakfast is all you can eat porridge. Snacks have been fruit, toast, HM flapjack and Twinks Hobnobs - and there's been no booze, chocolate or treats.

I've emptied the cupboards almost completely in an effort to spend as little as possible, the only things I still have a small stash of are rice and teabags.

It'll be good to know how low I can go, spending wise but it'll be nice to be able to relax a little next month and introduce a bit more variety into our diets.

Happy G.C.-ing everybody!

Love Jacks xxx:D

bails

So many great things going on here, what an inspiration you all are!:T
MFFM, what a fantastic achievement! To you and anyone else on the path to being debt-free, you have my utmost admiration. I absolutely love how this site and the collective spirit gives us all the support to believe we can get through it - anything is possible!
Freezing soup (or anything else) - I use plastic tubs (marg, old takeaway cartons - from a previous life!, plastic milk cartons etc). They stack really well and mean I can reduce my waste.
One of my cats comes when you whistle or call him - he thinks he's a dog I swear!:D They both insist on drinking out of any glass with water in it, wherever you try to put it that's out of their way. Zacc even started drinking the bath water while I was in it the other day :eek: Crazy cats, and I love 'em!
MrsMc, you are indeed my hero! Whenever I read your posts I think, yeah, I can do that too! So I'm going to see how low I can get my GC for March, whilst still having a varied and interesting diet.
As for what we do with our GC savings Rosieben- well, when we actually have any I'll let you know!:rotfl:It's really important to me to flag up any savings I make, so I can see that I am getting somewhere, even if I still spend the same amount of money. Hmm, that was clear wasn't it?!:rolleyes: What I mean is that I now get a lot more for my money. Everything I save e.g. on BOGOFS, reduced items, freebies I would normally buy I put into my ISA, and as you can see from my sig. it realy does add up!
Have a great day everyone!

rosieben

Pigpen! Way to go!! :T and Mortgagefreeforme, you’ve done brilliantly well :T

Tattycath, congrats on your planned wedding - I hope you’ll tell us when the date is set so we can all send virtual confetti?

and anyone else who hasn’t seen any spare cash yet - it will happen one day, don't give up! :j

Having savings to pay off debts more quickly or for house or holidays funds makes the GC worthwhile even without any potential benefits of a better diet

Frugaldom

Just a quick note about freezing etc:

I have loads of pots made out of halved 2 litre milk cartons - I put the plastic bags inside those (you can turn the edges over the outside of the carton for filling) and then tied off with the excess air removed. You can then put rows of tubs in the freezer and pile them up if need be. My funnel is a milk carton top half, my flour & sugar scoops are milk cartons cut diagonally to include the handles. They also serve as measuring jugs, as they are marked off in pints - glam kitchen utensils, or what? I need more ideas for empty milk cartons, although with the powdered milk scenario, I'll be down to one carton a week from now on :T