Onwards to freedom!

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thanks for posting all 🙂

KC - I think if you can afford it, and it will improve your life, then it would be mad not to 🙂 It's all about striking a happy balance isn't it?

julicorn - So far this month I've only managed to spend £10 of fun money… But there's plenty of month left to correct that 😆 I'm sure we'll fairly consistently go over in the spring/summer and under in autumn/winter. I'm loving the house hunting on your diary by the way, quite the eye opener!

savingholmes - Thanks, again it's all about balance isn't it? We've never been short on joy, and can have the best of times spending very little money, but giving myself permission and a little push to try to spend a little more freely on fun stuff is making a difference. It's interesting to note that so far no amount of the fun budget has gone on "stuff", more so activities, or eating. This feels right for us. I've been trying to catch up on your new diary the past few weeks, a few pages a day - it moves so fast I'll never catch up 😂 I'm on page 64 of 95 today, no doubt it'll be 72 of 103 by tomorrow 😂

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We've eaten like kings the past couple of days. The intention had been to treat ourselves to something nice, but it ended up being surprisingly and unintentionally budget friendly. I figure I may as well share on here, as I don't have much else to say at the moment 😂 Having it written down means I can remind myself to make it again too.

I'm not a very scientific chef, the quantities here are in grams and millilitres, but I'm more of a "splash of this and a dash of that" kind of cook. I also make substitutions if necessary, and do things to taste not to recipe, but this is a reasonable estimate of what went in the pot...

250g cooking bacon

700g diced beef

250ml merlot

500ml chicken stock

100ml tomato ketchup

25ml barbecue sauce

30ml dark soy sauce

50g plain flour

7.5g garlic puree

1g dried rosemary

5 medium (500g?) carrots

500g baby potatoes

250g closed cup mushrooms

200g brown onion

I've priced that up at £8.77 for the amounts used (all aldi, except for the bacon from tesco). Most of the bits and bobs are store cupboard items we always have in. I've allowed £6 for a 75cl bottle of wine, the one we used was received as a gift, no idea on price. I'm not a wine guy, but I don't think you need the good stuff for cooking anyway.

1. Discard any overly large chunks of bacon fat. Cut the bacon into small 1-2cm pieces and cook in a frying pan. When done, put the meat in the slow cooker, leave the juice in the pan.

2. Salt and pepper the beef, then brown all over in the pan. When done, put the meat in the slow cooker, leave the juice in the pan. Add rosemary to slow cooker and stir.

3. Add wine to pan and simmer/reduce. Add chicken stock, sauces, flour, garlic, then whisk until luxuriously thick. At this point the sauce tasted amazing - would have made an excellent steak sauce 😋 Pour sauce into slow cooker.

4. Add roughly chopped carrots (peeled), thinly sliced baby potatoes (unpeeled), roughly chopped mushrooms, and diced onions to slow cooker. Cook on high for 6 hours, giving it a good stir at some point if possible.

This made a pretty huge portion. Just over half served us (2 adults, 2 small children) generously, with mashed potato and peas on the side.

The remainder was encased in pastry in a large dish, baked, and served with broccoli-cheese (a whole head of broccoli, chopped, including peeled and sliced stalk, and baked alongside the pie in a thick milk+butter+flour+cheese+garlic sauce). This served us all the next day.

I don't think we'll be winning any healthy eating awards, especially on the second day, but boy did we enjoy these meals 😋 As a bonus, OH doesn't drink, so I had a large glass of red with both meals too to finish off the opened bottle 😁

All the extras (the remainder of the bottle of wine - should we have paid for it, mash, peas, pastry, cheese sauce ingredients) sees a grand total price well under £15. This fed a family of four two very generous dinners. We'd struggle to get a single fast food lunch for the four of us for that price!

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Just remembered some financial news…

£50 PB win in Feb, if it keeps on creeping up by £25 each month Ill be happy, but it's going to be a long road to £1M 😂 

I've been very disciplined and not checked S&S or pension balances since 1st Jan. Next check should be on 1st Apr, I think that will be the longest I've gone without taking a peek. I wonder if I'll manage it 🤔

Finally, we're thinking of making some slightly larger home improvements this year. Nothing massive, and likely to be in the four figure range all told. I guess there might be the opportunity for some kind of savings target here. Not quite sure how yet, maybe shuffling monthly boring budget remainders to a savings account, or maybe extra earnings. We'll see. It's early days yet, we need to work out exactly what we want doing first, then split into DIY and professional jobs, and cost it all up. I think there's probably only one, maybe two, jobs that can't be DIYed, so we might just do a small cheap job or two ourselves each month to start the ball rolling, and to give us a chance to save a little (I don't want to touch S&S or PBs or loans for this stuff).

savingholmes

Glad you are making time for joy. Meals sound great. Glad you are investing in your home. What have you got planned?

On my diary ... There is the odd synopsis in there now and some people just jump to present day and start there. .. Good luck!!

edinburgher

Food sounds epic 😋 If you have a M0rrison's near you, beef shin can often be had cheaper than "lean diced beef" (TM) and it is incredibly unctuous after long cooki

Karmacat

Definitely epic!  And I remember how much better meat tasted once I got a slow cooker, and really went to town on "long cooking"  

SuperSecretSquirrel

Hi SH, I've seen a couple of "catch up" posts along the way 😀 I'll keep reading though, it would feel like cheating jumping to the end 🤣

As for the house plans, it's mainly a lot of little jobs that we just need to work our own way through (replace some curtain poles + electric sockets + light switches, paint a couple of ceilings, sand and paint some window sills + skirting boards + door frames + doors + maybe radiators, box out boiler pipework, paint the walls in two rooms, remove old deck, patch up paths, re-render a small garden wall, paint fences, improve drainage, fix gate...), then there's the stuff we won't do ourselves - maybe a little plastering, some new carpets, maybe a new front door, and then there's the proper weatherproofing of the garage which may or may not be DIYable (I think I'll give it a try and see how it goes). We've pretty much got downstairs exactly how we want it having redecorated it all recently, but we need to spend some time and money on the bedrooms and gardens now. We could also do with decluttering the garage a little, and maybe going through all the clothes and toys a little ruthlessly again. So there's a few jobs that will cost a chunk of change and we'll need someone in to carry out the work, but most of it is going to be a case of carving out some time for DIY and decluttering, and just pinching a few pounds from the monthly "boring stuff" budget for a small amount of materials here and there. None of the work is urgent, it's just all stuff we'd like to get done over the next year or so to get the house all how we'd like it.

Thanks Ed, we do have a Mr M locally, I'll keep my eyes peeled when I next visit... I usually just make a beeline for the donuts then checkout as soon as possible 😅

savingholmes

Good mix of plans there. They will  all add up and make a big difference I'm sure.

SuperSecretSquirrel

Quick monthly update...

At the end of February I had £104.54 left of the "monthly boring stuff" allowance, £58.09 left of the "monthly fun stuff" allowance, and £72.00 was spent from the "annual lumpy spends" sinking fund.

So far this year that's a total of £206.44 "boring stuff" underspend, £75.89 "fun stuff" underspend, and £259.02 "lumpy spends" taken from the sinking fund (£400 paid in).

£50 won on PBs this month. Not the 50k or more I was hoping for, but I'm still happy to have won something

I've still not checked S&S or pension balances since 1st Jan. The gloomy news makes it easier not to look... Next check-in is due 1st April.

Home improvements have been limited to decluttering so far. Doesn't cost a penny, and makes quite a big difference. There's plenty left to do... I struggle to understand how! We did a massive declutter a couple of years ago, and we don't really buy a lot, but somehow we have mountains of stuff to get rid of again. Maybe we weren't as ruthless as we should have been back in 2020!

I feel like I've been spending far too much time reading the news the past week or so. It's starting to feel a bit like it did in the early days of the pandemic. I remember making a conscious decision to limit my screen/news time back when things were getting really bad in Italy, before it really hit us full force in the UK. I think I might need to do the same with what's going on now in Ukraine - read just enough to keep myself informed, but no more than necessary. Maybe I should go back to only having mobile devices downstairs, and no checking the news when the children are around, etc.

In cheerier news, I've finally managed to catch up on SH's diary

Karmacat

SuperSecretSquirrel said:

Quick monthly update...

I feel like I've been spending far too much time reading the news the past week or so. It's starting to feel a bit like it did in the early days of the pandemic. I remember making a conscious decision to limit my screen/news time back when things were getting really bad in Italy, before it really hit us full force in the UK.

I feel exactly the same, and I've been doing exactly the same too.  I'm writing to my MP, wrote on fb to the paralympic committee, and made a donation.  Letting myself feel bad doesn't help, the other stuff does/might.

edinburgher

While I think @SuperSecretSquirrel is right to limit screentime if it is having a negative impact on his mental health or worry levels, I feel different about the war in Ukraine than I did/do about Covid. Covid was always global and impersonal and I felt more able to tune it out because of this. As the war in Ukraine is local and feels "personal" (Scots always support the underdog), I feel almost obligated to bear witness.

South_coast

I watch a 30 min news bulletin every day, and nothing more. That's been my news strategy for over 10 years now, and it really works for me. I feel appraised and informed, but not overwhelmed