Shortie's DFW Diary

Shortie

Jam can take a while to get to setting point but I always justify it with the sheer volume of jars I end up with, lol

I do agree on the pressie from entirely, which is why I bake - small, tasty and cheap. It's a difficult one though (especially being new to the school) as you don't want to be seen as a Scrooge and not give something. I also feel sorry for the teachers having to deal with all the pressies they get...

The raw ingredients last night cost I recon £1.50 max so cost wise I am cool with that

Shortie

lurvlyloz wrote: »

I MAKE THE CHILLI JAM FROM GOOD FOOD AND I LOVE IT. LOVE MAKING JAM AND CHUTNEYS BUT HAVENT BEEN ABLE TO THIS YEAR DUE TO TIME AND MONEY

ooops sorry for shouting.

your hampers sound delish! x

I found a Nigella recipe thst I'm going to try out

Shortie

Goodness knows why I'm wondering how much money I will have left by the end of my pay month as it's still 4 weeks away, but I am!

I'm sitting wondering if I can limit my spending to a little over £100 until pay day.... This doesn't need to cover most basics (ie I have a petrol budget aside already, shopping money aside, money aside already for my tax disc etc) and with that in mine £100 sounds easily feasible - biggest bug bear is if it will cover my planned petrol spendings as I seem to be shooting over my budget at the moment

However, even though I seem to be finally getting on track with my account / overdraft now and I'm being much more aware of my money, I seem to be really *bugged* all of a sudden (stressed isn't the right word but I can't think of the right one) about money and I can't seem to settle or even really have faith that I can keep good with money I seem to be on a bit of a downer about myself for some reason, sigh...

I think I might nip onto my online banking quickly, recheck my finances and move the 'extra debt payments' money out of my main account for now. It will give me the seperation of this money so I can easily see what I have left for the month while having it on 'standby' for a while longer in case I've made some gross mis-calculation somewhere

I'm pooped - I should just go to bed and do this tomorrow, but I won't settle while I'm like this and moving the money aside might help settle my head a bit

Shortie

Okay, money moved aside and also spotted my next 'Extension Loan' payment has gone out so sig updated for that one and another 1% gone - it's quite rewarding to see that change! I felt inspired to move £200 of the £400 I moved out over to my Extension Loan (it's through the same bank) but I can't see a way to do this online oddly, so I will see if they are on the phone tomorrow (it does say online 7 days a week) as that would be really cool to see that drop!

I am however now left with £94 to last me until 20th Jan. Hhmmm... I pretty much know I will overspend on petrol this month. We refilled my car today and I have £20 of my monthly budget left now, and I also have a feeling Mr Shortie is going to want to go to Wales for New Year. My car is the only one on the road at the moment so my petrol allowance is being absolutely blown out of the water

I can use some of the money out of other pots (such as entertainment or clothes) but I'd like to not do that if possible. But I'd REALLY like to be able to pay extra off my debts this month. I think I'll keep hold of the other £200 until the end of the month though. If I can not touch the remaining £200, I'll be adding to that £300 from the rental income to that and making a £500 payment to my Dad, which I'd really like to be able to do..

Fingers, toes and eyes crossed that I can make this happen. I'll need to have ultimate will power to do this (which I don't think I have :rotfl::eek:) with the only thing I can't really scrimp on being the petrol and only reduce the journeys we do at best there.

Shortie

My goodness me, I can't switch off tonight - I'm going to suffer tomorrow and I have a busy one preparing for the inlaws coming over on Monday whoops

I finally managed to track down the price of a weekly ticket for me for work. I'm off next week so I wanted to check the difference in price for me for 1 month season ticket vs 3x weekly travel cards and I will save £90 by buying weekly travel cards next month - that's a £90 more buffer to help me to next payday, few! I will now have around £180 to last me till next payday - which feels a bit better again

I don't want to be in my overdraft next month - I think I started this month £100 down at payday - keeping out of this will help keep more money spare for next month!

Anyway enough waffle, I really should go to bed. Sleep may still escape me, but at least if I go to bed I'm making an attempt :rotfl:

Shortie

Hello, hope a good Christmas was had by all! Okay, I'm getting a tad frustrated/blue at the mo but that's because we've had/still have family staying since before Christmas (hence I've not been online but I've given in and decided to be a bit rude and sit on the laptop tonight, whoops!

The Grocery Budget is going wrong after having to feed so many people but we'll just have to try and keep as low as possible now. I'm sure we'll overspend, but no reason to do so madly is there?

6 months road tax bought today (budgetted for) and the only other 'known' cost until payday now is my travel card. After that's gone (provided my travel card hasn't gone up) I should have £85-odd left above my buffer. Fingers crossed I can get my exhaust to next pay month when I get my overtime pay (from a weekend working away) - I knew it was on it's last legs from my MOT but I can hear it going now - it's sounding even more throaty than it usually does (she's got a sports exhaust on her so already a bit throaty)

Christmas was at ours this year which was costly. I was miffed too that Mr Shortie's borther, SIL and daughter came to stay with us overnight and two full days and brought with them their own wine (only) and a packet of snack biscuits that they took the remainder of back with them. But it's okay, they had lots of food and warm drinks with us, plus lots of snacks etc. I sound such a grump I know but I did think it really cheeky. Oddly if they turned up with nowt I possibly wouldn't have thought twice about it, but to turn up with only their own drink, and take back the uneated biccies they brought with them spoke bigger volumes to me

We're at a friend's for New Year - that should be a cheap night - just petrol, drinks and I've offered to take food with us, so will take a HM bolognaise or similar with us if she wants food taken. Otherwise I'll take snacky bits for everyone anyway even if she says no to main food

This Christmas has felt sooooo long. And as bad as this seems, felt so much harder as I can no longer drink as I've been having a really horrible itchy reaction to alcohol since October and have now given up trying to suss out what / when I can or can't drink

Shortie

Morning all

The first bit of the holidays with just the 4 of us (for a while) today which is lovely. I'm pooped as I've been sleeping badly but it's still lovely - the boys are amusing themselves for a bit (makes a change to bickering, lol) and Mr Shortie is still in bed.

Plans for today (I say plans as I know what we're like) are to put the battery back on Mr Shortie's car and cross our fingers that it's not as dead as a Dodo, start clearing/cleaning the Greenhouse so we can disinfect and start sowing seeds in there soon (goodness knows what treasures we'll find as we have only been in this house 2 months and we were left a complete treasure trove of plants, seeds, pots etc I also want to get on top of the washing if possible

My folks are popping over at around 4 today as they are taking to boys back to theirs for the night for a sleep over and someone's due to come over to pick up our old fish tank, which will bring us in £80 for the 'get the fireplace working fund'. They've had a few non starters to pick it up so not holding my breath they'll be here today, but they are family and I know they genuinely want it so I'm happy to hold onto it until they can get here (I'd like the hallway back though, lol)

OOohh and I'm a little but embarrassed to say I'm excited that I'm about to get my new tiddly pocket diary out and I'm going to start filling it in with birthdays, Jan's target NSD on the first (to be done every month) and will be filled in with any spends to help me keep a track of things in the New Year


Have a good day all

Shortie

Here to rambling away again! Saw the New Year in with friends of ours, stayed over for the night and we all slept in until minutes to midday :eek::D

Treated the boys to a McDs today as we're very rarely anywhere near one these days, and my youngest was dripping big fat sploshy tears when we left our friend's house as our two get on really well with their two and we don't see them lots.

Other than that I ordered some lighting from Argos which should be in store by next Monday - a new light for the three bedrooms, and two new wall lights for the livingroom. They're either the original old floral light fittings (not our style) or missing/broken in the move (whoops). So, the new lights will help freshen the rooms up nicely and come to just under £50 which is perfect as we have a gift card to use up that we were given 2 Christmas's ago

Shortie

I don't usually like making these, as I believe I'm setting myself up for a fall. I tend to think more about 'things I'd like to achieve'

So, my non official New Years Resolutions for 2013 are:

- to lose some, if not all of the weight I've regained in 2012. I've never been skinny but between 2010-2011 I managed to lose a nice amount of weight and I was happy with how I looked for the first time in over 10 years. I was then made redundant and though I was lucky and found a job really quicky, I'd been at the last place since I'd left Uni and suddenly I was totally lacking confidence in my abilities, and had a shock to find that friends you make in work are mostly actually just aquaintences that don't want to know you when you've gone. I really struggled last year and it shows in the weight gain. I really want to lose it again

- debt bust. Mine is a long haul before I can even think about my mortgage (actually, most likely clearing it down to get a new one for building works on the house) so this isn't a case if 'clear my debt by the end of 2013' however I will be making overpayments this year which I've never done before in order to clear them quicker. I'm sure i won't always overpay by the max but even if I overpay by something most months, I will still be in a better position by the end of 2013 than if I hadn't overpaid anything so that will still be a positive thing.. :cool:

Shortie

Well, what's the point of if you don't waffle stuff to yourself in it eh? :rotfl:

I can't find a weekly Menu Planning thread so will commit it here to refer back to if needed We have Mr Shortie's parent back over to stay from late on Thursday night so Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be feeding them too. Here goes:

Wednesday: Pasta bake
Thursday: Spaghetti bolnaise
Friday: Enhilladas
Saturday: Phesant curry
Sunday: Lasagne


Beginning thoughts already for next week:
Frozen leftover chinese, adding a reduced crispy duck
Roast gammon (sliced leftovers from Christmas dinner and frozen in gravy)
HM pizza (pizza dough in the freezer already as well as toppings in the pantry and freezer)
Pasta bake - plenty of meat in the freezer to choose from for this