Diary of a spendy cow

Ali-OK

Yay for Friday!

Figures looking healthy there Moomin - very well done all round :T

Plenty to feel good about - and looking good too with your hair done I expect.

Give the food budget a good talking to and make it fall in line with the others :rotfl:

I'm being very MSE and reading/posting from our hotel room down south and have accrued my 250 points AdPoints for this week whilst here too. No going out on the town for us!

Enjoy your wedding tomorrow.

beanielou

Enjoy the wedding

mooomin

A spend today of £6.57 at the supermarket which came from the food budget and bought pizza (bad Mooomin) and some essentials like bread and fruit. I spent the last of my weekly spend challenge money getting tickets for the 3D Doctor Who screening at my local cinema

Next week I need to work on meal planning more effectively and on keeping to my diet as well as my budget. I want to lose a decent amount of weight again by Christmas but I'm finding it hard to do that when it's cold and I want to eat cake

mooomin

Good morning

A week in to my return to MSE and I'm already seeing some changes:

• Kept to my £20 budget for frittering. Very surprised/impressed with myself
• I've rediscovered Nectar Adpoints, which is boring as sin but I've earned over 200 Nectar points this week which is excellent.
• I've reduced my outstanding credit card balance to under £100.
• I'm concentrating on getting Christmas presents which are a little more personal but still thrifty. I'm looking for ideas to reduce costs though

I could definitely do better on meal planning and budgeting my food money, but I'm thinking that baby steps are better than no steps at all. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

I've reset my budget for next week at £20. Today I'll be spending money on fuel and on food for the journey up, but I'm looking to keep the spending small.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Lurker1972

oooo local cinema for Dr Who, now theres an idea....

this may sound a stupid question, but how do you make your soup? I've tried a number of different ones, but they always taste blah & the latest attempt was so bad it was binned:mad:

Its something I am keen to conquer as bought soup contain scary amounts of sugar.....oh crikey I am sounding like a proper grown up....

any tips will be gratefully received

beanielou

I am over my target too
Happy cinema

mooomin

Lurker1972 wrote: »

this may sound a stupid question, but how do you make your soup? I've tried a number of different ones, but they always taste blah & the latest attempt was so bad it was binned:mad:

any tips will be gratefully received

Here's my Moo's Minestrone recipe:

You will need:

• Couple of leeks
• An onion
• A carrot
• Some celery
• Two veg stock cubes
• Pasta - I use 60g of whole wheat pasta as it works for my diet plan
• Garlic powder
• tin of tomatoes

Cut up the veg. I chop most of it but dice the carrot in to wee cubes. Fry it off for a couple of minutes until the onion is translucent. Put a wee shoogle of garlic powder in it. The more the merrier in my opinion, but to taste is fine.

Add a tin of tomatoes and about a litre of stock made we boiling water and the stock cubes. Simmer for a while, normally till the carrots aren't crunchy. Break the pasta in to wee strips, I normally use spaghetti, and cook for a few minutes till they're done.

And there you go, that's how I do that soup. It's a scoosh to make and works out at about eight servings. You can add whatever veg you have, this is just how I do it. Let me know how you get on

mooomin

I've spent just over £30 this morning filling the car with fuel, and another £5 at Fat Club on their branded chocolate bars. I know I can snack more cheaply but for convenience they can't be beaten.

I've listed 13 items on eBay and paid the extra six pence a time to schedule the listings for later tonight. It's free listing this weekend and I figured I may as well strike while the urge is there as I hate listing eBay stuff. It bores the bejesus out of me

lilmissmup

Are you doing swagbucks still?

I haven't bothered for the last year..... but I am now panicking about christmas as I have no money and no vouchers to buy pressies apart from some tesco and nectar points.....

I am wondering if its worth it these days?

Ali-OK

mooomin wrote: »

Good morning

A week in to my return to MSE and I'm already seeing some changes:

• Kept to my £20 budget for frittering. Very surprised/impressed with myself
• I've rediscovered Nectar Adpoints, which is boring as sin but I've earned over 200 Nectar points this week which is excellent.
• I've reduced my outstanding credit card balance to under £100.
• I'm concentrating on getting Christmas presents which are a little more personal but still thrifty. I'm looking for ideas to reduce costs though

I could definitely do better on meal planning and budgeting my food money, but I'm thinking that baby steps are better than no steps at all. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

I've reset my budget for next week at £20. Today I'll be spending money on fuel and on food for the journey up, but I'm looking to keep the spending small.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Those Adpoints quickly add up - I'm earning more points per week doing that than I ever did on the weekly food shop!

I've found meal planning is a 'what works for you' thing. I have a couple of rules - meals with perishable foods early in the shopping week to avoid waste and always have a can of beans in store for that night where too tired to cook so beans on toast is our back up meal.

Ooh CC down from 3 to 2 figures, well done :T I'm going to try getting my CC1 down from 4 figures to 3 this month (upping payment somehow to £480).

Hope the wedding was good and you're not nursing a hangover