Natty's Kicking her Mortgage in the Pants Diary

nattypants

Oh my goodness - yet more fabulous (and kind!) responses. Thank you.

Spending Diary Monday
Today my spends were as follows;

Money in purse - £22.06
It was almost a NSD, however we have a lottery syndicate and today was 'pay in' day unfortunately:( So........
Money in purse now - £13.06

I have also gone through my cupboards, fridge, and freezer and have collated the items into 'dried', 'sauces and spices', 'tins', 'freezer', 'dairy' and 'frozen'. Oh yes, and I have a vegetable patch so have included in my 'fruit and veg' section.
I think this is the first time EVER I will be able to go grocery shopping without adopting my usual 'blind scatter-gun' approach:o

From tomorrow, I will create 'advance days' meal-plans (I didn't arrive home until 8pm this evening, as I am involved with interviews over the next few days so have been trying to play catch-up with everything else! hence no planned meal this evening, however I did eat out of the freezer:) Living the dream folks!!!

Thank you SS for joining in and sharing your app, I'm really pleased that you have been interested in my ramblings, although my diary to date has been one long broken Eb*ay promise!!

As ever HDK, choc_chick, AJ, ammonite, lulabelle and Heffi1 - thank you for taking the time to read and provide valuable comment:T

I will try to make sure that the next entry isn't just me rabbiting on about my purse money! Zzzzzzzzzzzz

NP:D

HelenDaveKids

Just done my asda only, just clipped past the hundred mark but I have a plan!

made a list of ideas for my meal plans, and realise that mince meat can make a lot of different things. Going to have a go tomorrow (day off) as my first venture (i appreciate this is going to be poor but anyone whos sampled my cooking will know that I cant cook!) so thinking;
Spag Bog
Lasagne
Shep Pie
Meat Pie
Savoury Mince
Will have a go, then maybe move on to chicken, depending on success!

nattypants

Hi HDK

I am a veggie (although I do miss mince and tatties!) and as my stock take threw up veggie mince in the freezer, I may very well join you in your mince-a-thon

NP:D

nattypants

nattypants wrote: »

I have also gone through my cupboards, fridge, and freezer and have collated the items into 'dried', 'sauces and spices', 'tins', 'freezer', 'dairy' and 'frozen'.

NP:D

Mmmm......spot the deliberate mistake anyone? I very much doubt I need both a 'freezer' and 'frozen' section;) however I did miss out 'beverages' (tea / coffee /juice).

Otherwise, I will be absolutely using my list when I go shopping as a prime example of my previous shopping habits are; multiple boxes of eggs, multiple packs of cheese, multiple bottles of ketchup......and so on. I also had to chuck salad, melon, peppers, grapefruit and vege-burgers, so effectively £5-£6 of potential mortgage O/P.
Speaking of which, although I have made an O/P of £25 for October so far, I may hold off for the remainder of the month (or at least the next 2 weeks of planned *cash only* shopping). Debit card remains firmly out of my purse.

NP:D

ammonite

lulubelle - I think £100 including all that stuff for 4 people is really not bad at all. Mine is £20 groceries spend for 2 people...if I included cleaning stuff etc. it would be more

SomersetSaver - thanks for the tip about the app It sounds useful!

Good luck HelenDaveKids and nattypants!

As for batch cooking I tend to just do it as and when I have time, usually a Saturday afternoon. So one week I will make a big batch of Chilli and a batch of bolognaise, the week after I might do chicken dishes in various sauces another week I'll do beef stew, sliced beef etc. It eventually all adds up and my freezer is jam packed again with lovely home made meals. I only do it because I'm too lazy to cook (and clean up <--thats the worst!) when I come in after work each night.

Oh the other thing I do is try and work out a "long-range" meal plan. OH is often out one or two nights a week with various sporting debacles so he never wants a full meal when he comes in, just a sandwich or something on toast so I try to plan for that. Also if I know we are out with friends or away for a weekend I try to factor that in. I tend to do the long-range plan when the freezer is on it's bare bones though, it isn't really needed if it is full.

lulabelle1

Thanks Ammonite - I'm starting to feel like a bit of a failure when I see people posting that they have only spent in the region of £30 or £40 to feed a family for a week but I guess that maybe these people aren't including all of the other things that one would usually buy in the supermarket.

On a positive note, I'm using some left over Beef and ale stew to make a homemade pie for dinner tonight.

HelenDaveKids

Fraid to say I spend at least £100 a week but in my defence there are 5 of us, and so this also includes 20 packs up (4 each a week), plus a few bottles of wine for friday and saturday (yes I know:o) and have 3 very greedy cats ) also I live in village, so I can't just nip for extra milk as the nearest supermarker (coop) is really expensive. I do shop frugally, I go to farmfoods about once a month, flip between aldi and asda, Home bargains again about once a month and don't tend to nip to shops other than weekly as they are too far away. I use a lot of SP products and watch the offers as I go round, for example lunch biscuits I buy whats a good price that day. I never take money to work with me, unless know that I need to (someones collection etc) and OH is the same. I allow the kids one school meal a week each and OH has half day once a week. I tend to work a mix of long and short shifts so on my longs I have my tea at home later.

lulabelle1

Good point Helen - I'm starting to feel better - my spend includes pack ups too.... DH has even started taking his morning coffee in with him in a thermos so he doesn't buy one at work mid morning!

nattypants

What a week - thank goodness it's FINALLY FRIDAY! In one respect I have incurred no spends out with food shopping (which should easily last through the weekend...although I don't have any chocolate in the house whaaaaaaahaaaaa:( ) however I did receive the gutting news that I went over my mileage on gas-guzzler car so I owe £207:(:(:(:(:(:(

This means that I won't be able to mortgage O/P at all for the remainder of October UNLESS I manage to pull my finger out and actually do Eb*y.......mmmmmmm

I am so looking forward to catching up with diaries this evening as v tired and glad just to be able to chill, and take stock.

PS. Spends for week £52.23 (this did also include toiletries though). I have £50 CASH to see me through to end of next weekend so will be spending c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y;)

NP:D

nattypants

I meant to add that last month N*tw*st advised that I owed £110,782.81 on mortgage, however my annual statement came through yesterday and I appear to owe £111,006.17??

AND on further inspection, my O/Ps are nowhere to be seen on the statement despite previously checking that they were arriving okay!

NP:D