SF's road to mortgage freedom!

slowlyfading

AlexLK wrote: »

The weather has been miserable here too. Do you manage to eat for the whole week on £46?

Yep, all meals for two adults and a 1 year old included

AlexLK

Do you manage this purely by planning ahead? We need to cut down on the food spends at c. £500 not counting eating out according to the spreadsheet :eek:. Yes, really we have a spreadsheet.

Currently we eat three meals per day: breakfast is usually something like fruit salad with Greek yoghurt and honey, poached egg and smoked salmon on an English muffin or toast and marmalade if really lazy. Lunch is difficult because usually my wife is at work and son at school, so something is made for son (cous cous, salad, pasta salad, etc.), wife sometimes takes lunch but often doesn't and I sometimes have same as son, sometimes not. Dinner is usually something like fish, sauce, new potatoes and seasonal veg, a similar thing with meat or a salad followed by a pudding course of some kind. We do sometimes have silly things like oyster appetizers / an expensive bottle of wine but that's not everyday, generally I think we eat very simply but it does seem to cost a lot of money compared to other families on here.

slowlyfading

Planning ahead is very much the key for our meals. We generally manage to stick around the £50 for everything, week in week out. Breakfast is normally a yogurt and banana on the mornings I'm at work, or cereal and a cuppa on the mornings I'm at home. I'll take either leftovers for lunch (I make extra sometimes) or have some soup or salad. DH takes sandwiches/crisps/chocolate/snacks to work with him for during the day. Our meals for the evenings this week look like this:
today - SC lemon and garlic chicken with rice and asparagus
Monday - sausage and fried onion baguettes (using up freezer stuff here)
Tuesday - at in-laws
Wednesday - leek and potato soup with granary bread
Thursday - king prawn and courgette curry with rice and homemade naan
Friday - spaghetti puttanesca

Nothing too fancy in this household, but we eat well

slowlyfading

September 4th, 2016.

Today seems to have been really busy, even though that wasn't the plan! I have spent a lot of time in the kitchen today making DS various food stuffs for the freezer. I made him 4 portions of chicken curry, 6 portions of ratatouille and some squares of Spanish omelette. He's had a bit of the omelette for lunch and a portion of chicken curry for his tea and both went down well, so I'm pleased with that

Also had some visitors today, which DS was pleased about. He's such a sociable little boy he's going to go to a local play group for the first time tomorrow which I'm sure he'll love. I think he's getting to the stage where he wants/needs to socialise with other children his age, so this is just to see how he gets on.

Tomorrow the mayhem starts as all the kids are back at school. I'm as ready as I'll ever be; I want to get an early night and I'm having leftovers for lunch so that's all sorted.

It's been a NSD here today - we've not been anywhere.

Happy Sunday

AlexLK

Your meals always sound delicious. The lemon and garlic chicken sounds particularly nice.

My son didn't know any other children his age until he was almost 3. Looking back I think it's probably a good idea for young pre-school aged children to meet other children their own age.

slowlyfading

September 5th, 2016.

I feel kind of "meh" today as I have been to slimming world tonight expecting a loss as I've been really good all week, and I maintained. Now, I know that that's better than a gain, but I still haven't managed to reach the stone lost target yet, so will continue to plod along.

First day back with all the kids at school and it was fine. Busy, as I teach all day plus we have briefing before school and a two hour meeting after school. Needless to say, I'm very tired this evening! Soon, the new timetables will be routine and the days will fly by.

Today is another NSD for me; the fourth of the month so far which I'm pleased about. I took leftover lemon garlic chicken with vegetables for lunch, and will do the same tomorrow. I didn't even succumb to the hifi bars at slimming world! I feel really in the "zone" when it comes to spending, I want September to be a good month.

Right, I'm off to bed! Happy Monday

slowlyfading

September 6th, 2016.

Gosh, I'm so tired today. DS thought it would be fun to wake up at 5:30am this morning so it's been a loooong day. Work was fine today, busy again but then I suppose that's the norm now with my timetable like it is. At least it always goes quickly

I took leftovers for lunch again (the same lemon garlic chicken with veg) and had a yogurt for afters. We've been to the in laws for tea and had a fish stew and I had one slice of bread so I'm feeling very :A about the food I've eaten today. Even turned down a brownie for pudding :eek: which is so unlike me. I will reach my next mini goal!

NSD 5 of the month for me; nothing to spend on today. Tomorrow will be the same I hope, as I'm just at work and nothing to tempt me. I do think that I am in a good place in terms of determination about our finances; I want to end the year more positively than the start, and obviously not being on maternity pay is helping us to do that.

I found out today that I am short listed for the People's Choice award at the UK Money Bloggers awards, so thank you to everyone who voted! I am now short listed for two, as I am also up for the Best Frugal & Thrift blog as well! :j :j I shall be going to the awards on Saturday in London, so keep your fingers crossed for me I'm not really expecting to win either, but it's nice to be nominated and I'm looking forward to Saturday, even if I'm a bit worried I won't find the venue by myself do not know London at all.

I'm going to go and cut DH's hair now - saves us a tenner each time I do it! Nothing too technical about it, but it all helps. It was his idea too, I would never have volunteered but it's not difficult really.

Happy Tuesday

AlexLK

What do you do with the leftovers? Do you eat them cold or warm them up?

Where Y7 smart?! The Headmaster at the school I did music assembly at today reckoned the children there were, I'm afraid I disagreed. :rotfl: Despite Music being prioritised, it seemed not that many were interested. Can't say the small group activities went particularly well either. For some reason the pupils don't seem to like me very much for about a term or so; Head of Music thinks I "take some getting used to". :rotfl: Not sure what that's meant to mean, to be honest.

Well done re. NSD and being shortlisted. That's quite amazing.

:eek: Re. cutting your husband's hair. Does he cut yours?

beanielou

Great news on the shortlist :j

Karmacat

SF, have a brilliant time at the awards - check the route beforehand on the transport planners, and give yourself plenty of time, you'll be absolutely fine.

Great idea to do DH's haircuts, it really adds up. If your hair's long, either you or DH could cut it too, every so often I used to chop my own :eek:

Alex - you come over as quite logical, quite detached, and I suspect it may take teenagers a while to see what a good heart you have :kisses3:

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