Diary of a spendy cow

mooomin

A whopping £2.02 spent from the food budget today. I realised I was out of crumpets, so had toast for breakfast. Didn't want a sandwich for lunch so ended up taking WW soup with me, which is the most uninspiring stuff, so decided it's Winter Soup Season again. In August. Ah, Scottish weather :rotfl:

This means that the plan for the 9 hours I'm trapped in the house tomorrow waiting for the new washing machine is:

• Make a mahoosive pot of minestrone soup for lunches next week. It should do 6-8 portions.
• Clean the fridge
• Clean the cooker
• Use my new washing machine to start clearing the backlog
• Put away the mountain of clothes in the spare room that should be in drawers in my bedroom.
• Check the inventory of stuff I have in the cupboards/freezer and do a rough meal plan and shopping list. I want this weekend's shop to be a really big top-up for the month.

That's not a bad wee list and if I get most of it done I'll be pretty happy.

rising_from_the_ashes

• Make a mahoosive pot of minestrone soup for lunches next week. It should do 6-8 portions..

Could you share your recipe for this please Moo

It's my favourite soup but I've tried to make it loads of times & it's never a patch on the bought stuff so I must be going wrong somewhere!

mooomin

With the caveat that I'm definitely not Italian, here's what I do

Ingredients:

Onion
Carrots
Celery
Leeks
Wholemeal pasta (this is because I do WW, other pasta will do fine!)
Two veggie stock cubes in a good amount of water
Tin of tomatoes
Garlic powder

Chop up the onions, leeks and celery and sweat them in a little oil for a few minutes with a good shoogle of garlic.

Chop the carrots quite small and add them along with the veggie stock. Add the tinned tomatoes and bring to the boil then simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Add the pasta (I use 60g of wholemeal spaghetti) and keep on simmering until the pasta is cooked.

Eat!

I season as I go and it usually tastes just fine I think there are sexier ways to make it, and you can add whatever veg you fancy, but this is my basic version. Sometimes I add beans or some meat to it, it really depends what I have in the house.

rising_from_the_ashes

Thanks Moo - shall def give that a try very soon (was thinking the other day that my salad wasn't really 'cutting it' now it's getting colder!)

mooomin

mooomin wrote: »

• [STRIKE]Make a mahoosive pot of minestrone soup for lunches next week. It should do 6-8 portions.
• Clean the fridge [/STRIKE]
• Clean the cooker
• Use my new washing machine to start clearing the backlog
• [STRIKE]Put away the mountain of clothes in the spare room that should be in drawers in my bedroom.[/STRIKE]
• Check the inventory of stuff I have in the cupboards/freezer and do a rough meal plan and shopping list. I want this weekend's shop to be a really big top-up for the month.

I've not done all of it, but I'm getting there - you should see how shiny the fridge is :rotfl:

Pippilongstocking

Sexier soups indeed.

It sounded pretty sexy to me.

I did 7 loads washing yesterday, how about you.

Immnot a fan of Augusts weather thus far, I'd like an Indian summer please.

mooomin

It's pretty hot here Pippi! I did one load yesterday before the new machine arrived and two this morning. I could probably do with another two loads being done in order to get the basket emptied, but don't think that'll be today The forecast is good for tomorrow, so I should manage to get two loads done before work tomorrow.

rising_from_the_ashes

Pippilongstocking wrote: »

Immnot a fan of Augusts weather thus far, I'd like an Indian summer please.

Me too - I've not had my summer hols yet!

mooomin wrote: »

The forecast is good for tomorrow, so I should manage to get two loads done before work tomorrow.

Thanks Moo - should hopefully get my towels done then!

mooomin

Morning folks

The second of the washing loads is in the new shiny machine and the day looks like it'll be another lovely sunny one :j

I went in to town last night to watch the end of festival fireworks, which was really good fun. It didn't rain until the end either :rotfl: I did a good amount of walking around town yesterday, over eight miles in total, so felt very virtuous, not to mention exhausted, by the time I got home.

It's the first of the month, so there's budgeting afoot.

Food budget: £153.76 (I went and did a big shop yesterday and some of this month's money was used)

Personal spending money: £143.38

Fuel: £50.91

Entertainment: £42

The personal spends category is very generous, mainly due to making a bit of cash last month and leaving it to roll over. I'll be happy if I spend less, of course! Fuel is an interesting one, as £50 is more than enough for a month pootling around the town, but if we go anywhere else it goes sky-high. I'm not really sure how to budget for that - all thoughts welcome!

Entertainment isn't too bad, but this month I have a wedding and possibly a birthday event as well. I should get away with spending less than a tenner on the wedding as it's on a bus route and I plan to alternate soft drinks with the fun kind

Nectar balance is 8662 points / £43.31 so I'm on target for my planned £50 by Christmas.

Happy Mondays to all

tomtombeanie

mooomin wrote: »

Fuel is an interesting one, as £50 is more than enough for a month pootling around the town, but if we go anywhere else it goes sky-high. I'm not really sure how to budget for that - all thoughts welcome!

Morning! Would it work for you to budget something each month to go in a separate fuel account so that when you go further afield, the money is ready and waiting? I do this with spends that don't happen every month - like the boys going to scout camp, for example. If you budgeted £60 per month for normal use, then another £40 or whatever to go in a separate place until you need it, you could say £100 per month on your spreadsheet.