Mrs Toast's Journey to DFD

TimeforTea_4

Afternoon Mrs Toast,

Firstly amazing news about the baba.... Congratulations!!!!
I have little glass pots for saving at home, you can buy them at IKEA, very reasonable.

Where did you find the food challange? anychance you can post an example of your food plan please. We spend at least 100 a week for the four of us, i am sure i could reduce this but need a few ideas?

xx

lurvlyloz

WOWZER! congratulations on baby and how exciting to look at your ban balance. such a great feeling and wi'm sure will help so much with littleun on the way

i'm so pleased for you x

Mrs_Toast

TimeforTea wrote: »

Afternoon Mrs Toast,

Firstly amazing news about the baba.... Congratulations!!!!
I have little glass pots for saving at home, you can buy them at IKEA, very reasonable.

Where did you find the food challange? anychance you can post an example of your food plan please. We spend at least 100 a week for the four of us, i am sure i could reduce this but need a few ideas?

xx

Hi Time for Tea. The monthly grocery challenge is in the oldstyle moneysaving section. At the start of every thread they have pages of recipes which are cheap but lovely and very helpful. Here is my meal plan for this week.

Breakfasts are cereal and yogurt/fruit during the week and pancakes and bacon buttys at the weekend.

Lunches are sandwiches, fruit, yogurt, toast, soup, home made pasties.

Dinners are

Sausages, mash and gravy
Leftovers
Sweet and sour chicken and rice
Cottage pie and steamed veg
Leftover night
Spaghetti carbonara
Potato bake and steamed veg.

These are all homemade and gluten free when possible. I buy gluten free sausages and pasta etc. I will keep doing this if this is giving people ideas. Next week I will also put the prices down and where I plan to get things from. Tesco is easier at the moment as I can price it up online & use the scan & save scanners to keep on top of my spends round the shop. DS loves doing this as well so it keeps him happy while saving me money

Mrs_Toast

Haven't posted in a few days. Trying to get everything sorted for getting back into a routine. I had to go back into the bank again the other day as they still hadn't closed my savings accounts and I couldn't get to the money. Apparently the call centre were waiting for the bank to close them and the branch thought the call centre were doing it. As there was cash in the accounts the branch had to do it so all sorted now.

Another bit of good news. I have managed to book the Daily Mail holiday for £15 per person per holiday for Easter. We normally go to Scotland for the Easter weekend as DH and FIL go to the Scottish Field Archery Champs and MIL and us normally potter. Well, I managed to book the week before at a caravan site not too far from where we will be later in the week for £52.80 :T. I used money already saved for the Easter holiday so no extra expense either :jManaged to get it for £10 each as chose the standard caravan rather than the luxury. The only difference appears to be modern decor which I'm not bothered with for 4 nights.

I need to get some pots so I can organise my savings as they are now in one account so I don't know what's for what. I'm also hoping this week can go quickly as I have an early scan on Monday. Had to basically cry down the phone at the nurse to get it though so hoping everything will be okay.

Mrs_Toast

Haven't been on in a while. Am now 17 weeks pregnant so all is well thank god:j. On the budgeting side have managed the following

Saved £370 for Easter holiday so far as well as £70 for activities for DS (child benefit)
Managed 2 payments to the tax man so that debt is now at £1926
Stuck to grocery budget since xmas


That seems to be it really which isn't great. Oh, DH did rearrange Sky for me. Basically told them the Talk Talk deal and got them to reduce our bill to the same which is £31.50. Had to get rid of documentaries, HD and kids which are wants not needs. So proud of DH for that.

Hopefully gonna keep track of NSDs and keep focused on stocking up for holiday. Will update sig now

Mrs_Toast

Having a NSD today which I haven't had in a while :rotfl:

I was having a look round MSE yesterday and found that I can transfer my overdraft debt onto an MBNA 0% interest credit card. It should save me about £40 a month on interest and fees and should hopefully pay it off quicker.

Overdraft is currently at approximately £953, need to check this. If I pay £40 a month it would take me 23 months to pay it off so need to figure out how much I can afford to pay off. Would love to pay this one off before baby comes in August.

We are having a family day out tomorrow into Manchester to the Manchester Museum & MOSI as it's Science & Engineering Week and DS loves all that stuff. Trying to work out if its cheaper to drive in or take the train and get the free bus round the city. We are taking our own lunch though so no other spending other than parking/train tickets.

Mrs_Toast

Had a lovely day at the Manchester Museum yesterday. I managed to find a car park round the corner from it which only cost £2 for the whole day. Took a picnic with us so saved money on lunch. Did my food shopping yesterday so that's all done for the week.

Meal plan is as follows:

Breakfasts are cereal and fruit
Lunches are sandwiches, fruit and yogurt
Dinners are

Carrot & parsnip bake with potatoes and veg
Cottage pie and steamed veg.
MIL's homemade chilli and naan bread.
Sweet and sour turkey and rice
Fish pie, potatoes and veg.
Spaghetti Carbonara
Leftovers

That should do us until Friday and then need to write a meal plan and list for while we are away :j

Plans are today are to make parsnip and apple soup and pear crumble for pudding tonight. Bit of tidying up needed to but not too bad. Would like to stay in my pjs all day as I have a rotten cold but not possible with DS. Think I'll get the playdough out for him in a bit before we do baking.

Hoping to get DS to apply for that credit card I mentioned last post tonight. Would love to get it sorted this week so when we come back from holiday I can properly concentrate on clearing debts and saving for emergencies.

Mrs_Toast

£1552 - Barclaycard - £130x12months
£953.77 - MBNA - £80x12months

New MBNA CC all sorted and I have requested the money transfer from my overdraft account so that should be all sorted soon. I have worked out that if I pay £130 a month to B/Card and £80 to the MBNA card a month it'll be paid off in 12 months. £210 a month should be manageable I think as well as the £50 to the tax man.

So, I've achived my first goal. All my debt is interest free :jHopefully we can pay these 2 cards mostly off in 12 months and then work on the tax bill the following year. I'm hoping that we are entitled to child tax credits once our second child arrives as that will help us out with any extras and debt repayment when needed. I'm so happy it's sorted now and can just concentrate on repaying our debt.

beanielou

Looking good
A year isent long at all.

Mrs_Toast

Thanks for the message Beanielou. Was wondering if I had any lurkers at all lol.

I've decided I'm going to list some positive things I have done/going to do each day to become debt free/OS even if it's just a NSD or putting laundry out to dry.

*NSD2 yesterday for me anyway. I shouldn't give the joint account card to DH
*Put mince in slow cooker this morning for dinner tonight. It'll save me time later.
*Look round charity shops for some more trousers for DS.
*Make sandwiches etc for lunch instead of going to the bakers after playgroup with DSis.
*Try and find the cheapest place to buy food recycling bin bags from.
*Check with DH later to see if he has received an email from MBNA about our new credit card

Also going to meet mum in town this afternoon as it'll be the last chance before Easter as we go away on Monday :j