Shortie's DFW Diary

Shortie

... so my mind is starting to focus quite well on this at the moment (hence just updating my SOA) and it's kicking some thoughts into place...

What do I want to achive next month? Well, after forgetting I hadn't paid last night's hotel in advance months ago, that expense on top of being in my overdraft already, means I'll start the month around £300 in the red So, next month's focus will be on focusiing on my spending, and not going straight back into the red. If I have any left by the end of this 'pay month' (the rate I've been going, doubtful) I candecide what to do with it then I guess?

Other thoughts: I forgot I have a money manager section on my online banking (where you can tag in and outgoings as a certain thing, such as food, travel, entertainment, etc..). This should be a good visual tool for me to use but I need to make sure I tag transactions properly! Next month I'll start up that habit too

Shortie

Challenges to suss for now (lets start with a couple and build from there!)

Grocery Challenge
NSD

Shortie

Last little update here from me for today (I'll quieten back down during the week and also as I settle down into a routine of thoughts, promise :rotfl:)

So, I've signed myself up for the December Grocery challenge. I've stuck to the £250 budget this time as Christmas is also this month, and I realised looking at my online banking earlier that I'm buying things in Mr T outside of the allocated £250 budget :eek: So, this month's Grocery Challenge for me is to stick to the blooming budget!

I've finished my Mr T online order (it should really help stop us with the impulse buying, plus save us the 40 min round trip to our 'local') which is a lot of bits for 2 weeks food (I'm sure we will need a a top up or two, but I can maybe get these odd bits in the Mr T near my work). Due to be delivered on Tuesday (pay day) and it includes 2 meat things - a fair amount of steam mince which is half price ans a bargain, and 1 free range chicken. Since getting my ex-batts my conscience is twanged about the cheaper chickens you can buy, so this time I decided to pay a bit more, get a better-treated chicken and just make it s-t-r-e-t-c-h further, lol

If the chicken can just get us 2 weeks of meals (not meals every day, lol - that would be one thin strip of chicken per meal :rotfl: ) - 4 seperate meals over the two weeks, plus the initial roast, and a batch of hm chicken and sweetcorn soup (mmmmm) then I'll be happy

And, seeing as I've been focussing so much on cutting costs, I'm going to pop some left over pasta into a food box to warm up at work tomorrow. I'll also take a value strawberry yoghurt and an apple for breakfast. I have a feeling I'm being optimistic that I won't be starving by 10.30 with an apple and a yoghurt (yes, I am a hog usually - something I need/want to start cutting down) so to reduce the risk of hitting the vending machine tomorrow I might take an emergency pack of Belvita breakfast biscuits just in case. I bought those for the team last weekend as we were told the hotel wouldn't provide breakfast as early as we needed it (we had to be back in work for 7.30am) but the hotel did put food on in the end (just pastries, fruit and hot drinks, but still handy) so the box remains unopened for now.

When I have a better flow in the house (hopefully next week) I think I'll start making some twinks and see if I can make them into a breakfast-type biscuit somehow to make them into an uber cheap, filling breakfast option

elantan

Are u intending on 4 meals, one roast and soup from one chicken? Is it a human sized chicken ?

I say this probably cause a chicken wouldn't last that long for us, if we get a full meal from one chicken we think we've done good lol

elantan

And I wonder why my shopping bill is so huge rofl

Shortie

Lol Eltantan, the size of the bird I have bought is in the weight range of around 2 of the smaller 2 for £7 birds and we can get a roast and 2 meals out of one of those. I'd be my blooming luck I'd get the smallest of birds sent to me though for my money

On the idea it should be closer to 2 of the smaller birds we buy, this is the plan (I should add here that my youngest doesn't really eat meat if it's a 'lump' as opposed to cooked into a dinner, and I don't eat much meat, so roast-wise it's mainly OH and my 9yo eating the chicken..):

- An initial roast dinner
Then strip down the carcus and portion the meat into bags for the freezer. A bag then gets stretched into the following types of meals along with a fair amount of veg:
- Pasta bake
- Chicken curry
- Tortillas
- Enchilladas

I'm *hoping* to get 4 'meal bags' out of this chicken, but watch my face as I take in my over and find it's the smallest one in the weight range options and it's a tiddler :rotfl::eek: Mind you, if that DOES happen, I'll save buying them for when I'm passing a Mr T and choose my own weight of bird..

I'll let you know if it's a decent sized one tomorrow night when the order turns up

Oh, and then there's the chicken and sweetcorn soup from the carcus - Mmmmmmmmmm

rising_from_the_ashes

elantan wrote: »

Are u intending on 4 meals, one roast and soup from one chicken? Is it a human sized chicken ?

I say this probably cause a chicken wouldn't last that long for us, if we get a full meal from one chicken we think we've done good lol

Feeding how many people Elantan?

Shortie wrote: »

- An initial roast dinner
Then strip down the carcus and portion the meat into bags for the freezer. A bag then gets stretched into the following types of meals along with a fair amount of veg:
- Pasta bake
- Chicken curry
- Tortillas
- Enchilladas

I can usually get around 8 meals & 4 servings of soup from an average sized chicken depending on what it's used for

Roast x 2
Strip carcass & make stock
Risotto x 2 - using 1/2 stock & chicken and bulking out with veg such as leeks, mushrooms, peas etc
Curry x 4 - using chicken & bulking out with veg such as mushrooms, onions etc
Soup x 4 - using 1/2 stock, lentils, veg etc

HTH

Shortie

So a mini ramble from me about today..

Tomorrow is payday so I've just spent my lunchbreak budgetting and updating my SOA. I've created a new sheet on my budgeting workbook and checked if any tweaks are needed. Unfortunately there are this month.. My mortgage payment is higher this month to the tune of £120 as it's my first payment, and I have an overdraft of £280. So, to keep my out of my buffer until next payday, it means I have something like £208 spare.

That's not a bad figure - I'm not in the minus numbers before I've started right? But I was really hoping to start paying a bit extra off this month.

So, my focus for this month is to not go into my buffer. Sounds easy but I have 2 work lunches to go to (and if I don't go, the networking side never happens, but I will endevour to pick as cheap as poss off the menu). Oh, and the quote for the solid fuel burner has shot from an estimate of £1k to £1,450 :eek::eek: Mr Shortie is going to call them back to ask them to let us know why such a high percentage change between estimated and final quote (£100 I might have expected...!) and if there is anyway to reduce to costs. If not, we might need to recosider that one really quickly for this year..!


Oh, and on the food front, my apple was nasty (really floury, I like crisp hard apples) and the Belvita biscuits and yoghurt left me hungry by 11.30, whoops. I've just munched my lunch and fingers crossed that will see me to home time. I have a spare muslie bar in my drawer if not though. I really need to kick this vending machine habit so an aiming for a NSD today to force myself out of the habit..

Shortie

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

I can usually get around 8 meals & 4 servings of soup from an average sized chicken depending on what it's used for

Roast x 2
Strip carcass & make stock
Risotto x 2 - using 1/2 stock & chicken and bulking out with veg such as leeks, mushrooms, peas etc
Curry x 4 - using chicken & bulking out with veg such as mushrooms, onions etc
Soup x 4 - using 1/2 stock, lentils, veg etc

HTH

I take it you've come across rubber chicken on the OS Board too then :rotfl:

Shortie

So I didn't manage a NSD, I'm annoyed at myself... It was 65p on a bag of crisps, far better than the usual daily spends but still..


I also found out this afternoon that my boss forgot to mark me as back in work since a day off sick I had on 9th October. I only found it out as I wasn't being marked as having done some compulsory training on a particular report that had excluded me for being off sick! He finally remembered to change the HR system this morning to show me as being off for only one day apparently, but I get paid tomorrow and heck knows if my pay is now reduced as it thinks I've been off sick for 6 weeks! :mad::mad: